Contrary Quotes - Page 4

• Our confidence in Christ does not make us lazy, negligent, or careless, but on the contrary it awakens us, urges us on, and makes us active in living righteous lives and doing good. There is no self-confidence to compare with this.

  Huldrych Zwingli

  Inspirational Life, Self Confidence, Lazy

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• Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Boredom, Trying, Infinity

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• On the contrary, it might even be a projection of what the truth is of the Bush Administration's complacency and ineptitude on the terrorism in its first 9 months in office.

  Sidney Blumenthal

  Office, Ineptitude, Might

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• If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wisdom, Honesty, Liars

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• I have learned to be less confident in the conclusions of human reason, and give more credit to the honesty of contrary opinions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Honesty, Giving, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.342

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• Contrary to what many of you may imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks - chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Writing, Careers, Letters

  Fran Lebowitz (2011). “The Fran Lebowitz Reader”, p.161, Vintage

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• Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.

  Sol Stein

  Writing, Views, Speech

  Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.110, St. Martin's Press

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• The cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. ...People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare... On the contrary, in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no grapes, and where wine consequently is dear and a rarity, drunkenness is a common vice.

  Adam Smith

  Country, Wine, People

  Adam Smith (2007). “The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: With an introduction by Jonathan B. Wight, University of Richmond”, p.439, Harriman House Limited

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• No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.

  Samuel Johnson

  Doctrine, Censorship, Members

  "The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals".

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• Our "life education" has not necessarily taught us a satisfying way to live. We suffer from a vague sense that there must be something more, some deeper meaning. We must return to kindergarten and start to learn a way of life that is contrary to the way we approached things before-a way of life based on trust of our own inner truth. We can rediscover the child-like innocence and wisdom that knows that anything is possible.

  Shakti Gawain

  Education, Children, Taught Us

  Shakti Gawain (2010). “Reflections in the Light: Daily Thoughts and Affirmations”, p.4, New World Library

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• The punishment of murder by death is contrary to reason, and to the order and happiness of society, and contrary to divine revelation.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Order, Punishment, Divine Revelation

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• I regard the death penalty as a savage and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of society. I reject the notion that the death penalty has any essential deterrent effect on potential offenders. I am convinced that the contrary is true - that savagery begets only savagery.

  Andrei Sakharov

  Foundation, Essentials, Savages

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• If you expect perfection from people your whole life is a series of disappointments, grumblings and complaints. If, on the contrary, you pitch your expectations low, taking folks as the inefficient creatures which they are, you are frequently surprised by having them perform better than you had hoped.

  Bruce Barton

  Inspirational, Disappointment, Perfection

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• Democracy is necessarily despotism, as it establishes an executive power contrary to the general will; all being able to decide against one whose opinion may differ, the will of all is therefore not that of all: which is contradictory and opposite to liberty.

  Immanuel Kant

  Opposites, Liberty, Democracy

  Immanuel Kant (1932). “Perpetual peace”

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• Intolerance, discourtesy and harshness..... are taboo in all good society and are surely contrary to the spirit of democracy.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Democracy, Spirit, Intolerance

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• The companies only developed if the state did not intervene in the French fashion. If on the contrary a certain degree of economic freedom was the rule, capitalism moved in firmly and adapted itself to all administrative quirks and difficulties

  Fernand Braudel

  Fashion, Degrees, Economics

  Fernand Braudel (1982). “Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century: The wheels of commerce”, p.446, Univ of California Press

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• No centralized government, no matter how big, how smart or how powerful, can effectively and efficiently control much of society in a beneficial way. On the contrary, big governments are inherently inefficient and harmful.

  Charles Koch

  Powerful, Smart, Government

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• What must never be lost sight of is that a public functionary, in his capacity as functionary, produces absolutely nothing; that, on the contrary, he exists only on the products of the industrious class; and that he can consume nothing that has not been taken from the producers.

  Charles Dunoyer

  Philosophy, Taken, Class

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• Our global economy is out of control and performing contrary to basic principles of market economics.

  David Korten

  Principles, Economics, Economy

  "A Better Future with Globalization?". Interview with Alexander M. Dake, www.paraview.com. 2002.

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• To believe in Jesus is to accept what he says, even when it runs contrary to what others are saying. It means rejecting the lure of sin, however attractive it may be, in order to set out on the difficult path of the Gospel virtues.

  Pope John Paul II

  Running, Jesus, Believe

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• At present, intelligent people do not have their children vaccinated, nor does the law now compel them to. The result is not, as the Jennerians prophesied, the extermination of the human race by smallpox; on the contrary more people are now killed by vaccination than by smallpox.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Children, Intelligent, Race

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• Machiavelli is the complete contrary of a machiavellian, since he describes the tricks of power and gives the whole show away. The seducer and the politician, who live in the dialectic and have a feeling and instinct for it, try their best to keep it hidden.

  Maurice Merleau-Ponty

  Giving, Feelings, Trying

  Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1988). “In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays”, p.59, Northwestern University Press

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• All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of menб that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Passion, Men, Law

  "Tractatus Politicus (TP)". Political paper by Baruch Spinoza, 1677.

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• It might sound contrary to the wisdom of the world to suggest that one who is burdened with sorrow should give thanks to God. But those who set aside the bottle of bitterness and lift instead the goblet of gratitude can find a purifying drink of healing, peace, and understanding.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Gratitude, Healing, Giving

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• For there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is oppression that creates sex and not the contrary.

  Monique Wittig

  Sex, Oppression, Oppressed

  Monique Wittig (1992). “The Straight Mind: And Other Essays”, Beacon Press (MA)

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