I try to take people one at a time, with all the contradictions and compromises that most of us live with.
quote by Garry Trudeau

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Anybody who accepts mediocrity - in school, on the job, in life - is a person who compromises, and when the leader compromises, the whole organization compromises.
quote by Charles Knight

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I think people have to choose between living with contradictions or painting themselves into a corner. I have a lot of contradictions.
quote by Michelle Shocked

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Looking For Love
We're vulnerable
We're sensitive
And we're complicated people, too
So many people rolled into one
We contain so much
So much creativity
So much energy
So many contradictions
So much confusion
So much clarity
So many moments of faith and fear
So many different characters live within us
All looking for love
song performed by by Janet Jackson

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Write The Contradictions Of My Heart
I WRITE THE CONTRADICTIONS OF MY HEART
I write the contradictions of my heart
I give them to you freely-
But you have your own contradictions
And where are they in relation to mine?
We share what we are
But also do not-
I write for you
And you are silent for me-
And I thank you guiltily
for the blessing of your listening.
poem by Shalom Freedman

Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Life
MID A HOARD OF PARADOXES INDEED,
ENTWINED IN A SERIES OF CONTRADICTIONS,
BE CAREFUL TO TAKE UTMOST HEED.
AVOID ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT AFFLICTIONS.
NEVER NURTURE IMAGES OF SIMPLICITY’S LIE.
DON’T BATTLE CONTRADICTIONS THAT ARE REAL.
ESPOUSE THE CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND WHY
OR ACCEPT THEM ON FAITH AND WITH ZEAL.
PEOPLE AREN’T ALL GOOD NOR ARE THEY ALL BAD;
AS THE SUN THAT GIVES LIFE AND TAKES IT AWAY.
DON’T LET PARADOXES OR CONTRADITIONS BE SAD.
THEN HAPPINESS WILL RULE YOUR DAY.
BUT IF YOU DRINK FROM THE CUP OF SIMPLICITY,
REFUSING TO ACCEPT LIFE’S CONTRADICTIONS,
MOST SURELY YOU’LL BE ANGRY, SAD AND LONLEY,
PARADOXICALLY ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT AFFLICTIONS.
poem by Gregory Huyette

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I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
quote by Michel de Montaigne

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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(Choices Poem) Circumstances Unending
If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay
To let the one you love go for the better
Or the happiness of poverty in suffering
Like a mother choosing for a child
you must make the decision out of true love.
Forever the greater good.
The eagle looks upon us all with his eyes.
Only if I could see it that way.
If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay
When you do such a thing their is no going back
Chasing after something you threw away.
All in a attempt to be the better man.
The homeless playing a game of kick the can.
Nobody ever wins.
It is to pass time as it will always do.
If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay
Regret and bitter
Feelings that will never sit well with you
Your determined to overcome, and it not be prolonged
She is gone.
Forever a bad choice.
That you wouldn't want to change.
If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay
The portrait of your face betrays the feeling inside.
The things you try to bury and hide.
At one time you were happy.
At one time you smiling and so full of spirit.
But now you fall into a very empty depression.
If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay
No one will come and pick you up.
If you fall it will be you last one.
Like a soldier you still march as if you were still on call.
Duty and service is all you've ever known.
And now a world sits before you.
And still your all alone.
If you had to choose what would you do
Circumstances unending
A victim of life
A victim of death
A victim of compromises
A heart in pain either way.
To make your world a little more okay
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts

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I Cannot Escape My Own Contradictions
I CANNOT ESCAPE MY OWN CONTRADICTIONS
I cannot escape my own contradictions-
Night and day feelings war in me
I do not know how and where I am
With all these pains and sorrows griefs and joys and ecstasies-
And too the mild small happy and unhappy perceptions-
I climb a mountain and fall down at the same time
Life puts me under the ground and skyhigh with
my dreams
In conflicting seconds-
Why am I so much of what I don’t know I am?
And how is this different from what we all are when we are true to our own minds and hearts
And all they are and are not?
poem by Shalom Freedman

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To The State...
the distance between two decisions
is heaven and earth
i am situated between these two extremes
i belong to that spot
where compromises are made
i am but
a compromise too
my nature speaks a lot about this and that
and this space in between
i live here
in this place where people wear two faces
we have four hands
and four feet
but we do not display them
we fear you.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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The Best Time
six p.m. is the best time
to find you, when you sit upon
a fallen tree
drifting upon the oceans
of your self-pity,
six p.m. is my best time too
to feed myself
with hope, when the rest of you
are inching steps
towards the
Dipolog cemetery
the people there are zombies
walking to and fro
like metallic pendulums with
their bob heads
unwavering for the possibilities
of life's
compromises
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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History moves in contradictions. The skeleton of historic existence, the economic structure of society, also develops in contradictions. Forms eternally follow forms. Everything has only a passing being. The dynamic force of life creates the new over and over again — such is the law inherent in reality.
quote by Nikolai Bukharin

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Live
Clear out your mind
Look to your past and see what you can find
Stole soul afraid
Of the prophets perfect picture falls away
Is this the life that we choose to live
Or is this the life that has been giving
Now is the time to see what my life should be
What is mine!?
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
It's a timeless rage
For many people praying to be saved
Truth is so strong
It needs lights to guide it so it can carry on
I've seen blood on my hands
Am I dead or is this where it begins
I feel the shame
For my friend who put a bullet in his brain!
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
song performed by by Zug Izland

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life Is Too Complex For A Single Poem
Life is too complex for a single poem-
In the course of a single day
How many moods and contradictions?
How many problems and worries at once?
How many little joys and perceptions
Of so varied kinds?
Yesterday for the first time I saw a grandchild smile-
I heard someone I was a carer for will probably soon die-
I danced at a wedding,
And felt again my failure in making money through the years-
So many contradictions
And yet when there is a life
And when a new baby smiles and grimaces,
How sad and beautiful how painful and rich
How defeating and hope-filled
Our life can be-
poem by Shalom Freedman

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Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.
quote by Audre Lorde

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A New And A Better World
A new and a better World I may not live to see
But the time is not far distant when all people will live free
Of oppressive regimes and terrorism and greed and poverty
For all of those poor victims of capitalism who live in penury.
A new and better World may be a century away
And I for one will not be around for to celebrate that day
And though one hundred years may seem far off in time not a lengthy span
Only the life time after all of one long lived woman or man.
We may not be that far away in time when ageing people will recall
We never thought we'd live to see the day of a fair go for all
When people are not discriminated against due to their religion or race
And in human society for poverty and oppression there isn't any place.
A new and a far better World for me will come too late
For time is ever ticking and the reaper for me wait
But the day is not that distant when people in wars or of hunger will not die
And a fair go is something that all people will enjoy.
poem by Francis Duggan

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There Are Too Many Contradictions In A Life
There Are Too Many Contradictions In A Life
There are too many contradictions in a life
to ever write that life down in perfect clarity.
All we can do is select moments of our experience
and make of our great pretensions little Poems.
The whole Truth is a different Poem
one too subtle for us to completely write.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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The same people live...the same people die
The same people live, the same people die,
the same people laugh, the same people cry,
as they push on through, life's open door,
the old and the young, the rich and the poor.
The same people love, the same people hate,
the skeptics of heaven, the mockers of fate,
some use the gun, some just don't choose,
the proud and the vain, they win and they lose.
Death takes them all, the end's all the same,
no one can help us, cause no one's to blame,
When the door shuts and the bright lights go dim,
We all follow the same path and we all go to Him.
The same people live, the same people die,
Some still find wealth, while others get by,
the weak and the strong, the slow and the fast,
alone on life's journey, they all stumble past.
It's been this way, since the beginning of time,
To live...it's a joy, to die...it's a crime,
and still, we question and still, we ask why?
The same people live...the same people die.
poem by David Lessard

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T4
between the divine law and
the laws of men
between the id and the superego
the wall and the other wall
between the floor and the
ceiling
between sin and forgiveness
between my flesh and my spirit
lies the secret of my sanity
and like civil law there shall always be compromises
plea bargaining, the golden mean of Aristotle
between right and wrong, there is something
that must make us alive
for the meantime that this journey is not over yet
between my left and right ear
we must listen so we can hear
between two words are the spaces
these are places of compromises
at the extremes of pure solidity
there lies this stupidity.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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My Mystery, My History
The tangling web of my life
keeps on weaving.
The incessant contradictions
are unbelieving.
The past a memory,
the future a reverie
Ah, but the present that's with me
is in itself a mystery.
I'm damned if I do. I'm damned if I don't.
I'm damned if I will.'I'm damned if I won't.
These contradictions
take their toll on me
and so at the end of every day
I lie in my bed silently,
glad that another day
has become the past
or what I do call my history.
poem by Edwina Reizer

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I've always been drawn to tormented people full of contradictions.
quote by Antonio Tabucchi

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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