I have been reading a book about paradoxes and oxymorons, "Oxymoronica," by Mardy Grothe, filled with wonderful quotations. There have been threads with two-word oxymorons, but none with full sentences with paradoxical or oxymoronic meanings.

Paradox: from ancient Greek, "para," = beyond, and "doxa,"= opinion
Oxymoron: also from ancient Greek, "oxus," sharp or pointed, and "oros" = dull or stupid

The author writes, "Paradox is a particularly powerful device to ensnare truth because it concisely illuminates the contradictions that are at the very heart of our lives. It engages our hearts and minds because, beyond its figurative employment, paradox has always been at the center of the human condition. 'Man's real life,' wrote Carl Jung, 'consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. If it were not so, existence would come to an end.' Paradox was a fact of life long before it became a literary device. Who among us has not experienced something ugly in everything beautiful, something true in everything false, something female in everything male, or, as King Claudius says in Shakespeare's Hamlet, 'mirth in funeral' and 'dirge in marriage?'"

A handful of quotations from the book:

Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad. –- Victor Hugo

Fewer things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. –- Mark Twain.

The greatest power available to man is not to use it. –- Meister Eckhart

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.-- Edgar Degas

You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap. –- Dolly Parton

I knew her before she was a virgin. –- Oscar Levant, about Doris Day

Paradoxes anyone?

Elmer