verbal paradox

A figure of speech in which a seemingly self-contradictory statement is nevertheless found to be true.

See also:

• Contradictory Premises
• Paradox
• Oxymoron

Examples and Observations:

• Cyril: But you don't mean to say that you seriously believe that Life imitates Art, that Life in fact is the mirror, and Art the reality?
  Vivian: Certainly I do. Paradox though it may seem--and paradoxes are always dangerous things--it is nonetheless true that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.
  (Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying." Intentions, 1891)



• "The object of verbal paradox, then, is persuasion, and its principle is the inadequacy of words to thoughts, unless they be very carefully chosen words."
  (Hugh Kenner, Paradox in Chesterton. Sheed, 1948)



• Lord Caversham: I don't know how you stand society. A lot of damned nobodies talking about nothing.
  Lord Arthur Goring: I love talking about nothing, Father. It's the only thing I know anything about.
  Lord Caversham: That is a paradox, sir. I hate paradoxes.
  (Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband, 1999)



• "There is nothing that fails like success."
  (G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905)



• "[W]hereas a world rises to fall, a spirit descends to ascend."
  (E. E. Cummings, I: Six Nonlectures. Harvard Univ. Press, 1953)



• "The old verbal paradox still holds tree, that blackberries are green when they are red."
  (Ezra Brainerd, "The Blackberries of New England." Rhodora, Feb. 1900)



• "Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want."
  (attributed to John Fowles)



• "Lovers indeed. We must keep up this show. Lovers in every deed, yet not in fact. There's a verbal paradox for you."
  (Robert Patrick, Play-by-Play, 1972)



• "Much is published, but little printed."
  (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854)



• "This statement is false."
  (Greek philosopher Eubulides, The Liar Paradox or pseudomenon)



• "Paradox itself is paradoxical; that is what makes it paradox. It cannot be reduced to 'lowest terms,' only deferred. But neither is it ever present before our eyes; is is always in a state of deferral. . . .
  
  "Paradox is the form taken within the world of representation by the conflict that representation was created to avoid."
  (Eric L. Gans, Signs of Paradox: Irony, Resentment, and Other Mimetic Structures. Stanford Univ. Press, 1997)