Opposing Quotes

• To take arms against a sea of troubles.

  William Shakespeare

  Death, Sea, Speech

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. 56

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• It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

  Albert Einstein

  Courage, Moving, Simple

  "Small is Beautiful". The Radical Humanist, Vol. 37, No. 5, (p. 22), August 1973.

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• The man who fears war and squats opposing
  My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
  But is fit only to rot in womanish peace

  Ezra Pound

  Fear, War, Men

  Ezra Pound, Richard Sieburth (2010). “New Selected Poems and Translations”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

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• The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

  Alex Kozinski

  Mistake, Gun, Rights

  "Ninth Circuit Confirms a 2nd Amendment Right to Carry" by Michael James Barton, www.nationalreview.com. February 14, 2014.

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• It’s in our interest to take care of others. Self-centrednes s is opposed to basic human nature. In our own interest as human beings we need to pay attention to our inner values. Sometimes people think compassion is only of help to others, while we get no benefit. This is a mistake. When you concern yourself with others, you naturally develop a sense of self-confidence . To help others takes courage and inner strength.

  Dalai Lama

  Wise, Confidence, Spiritual

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• Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.

  J. Sidlow Baxter

  Faith, Christian, Prayer

  "The Tremendous Power of Prayer". Book by Bob Kelly and Charlie Jones, p. 46, 2000.

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• China is not a superpower, nor will she ever seek to be one... If one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialist, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it.

  Deng Xiaoping

  Change, Bullying, Power

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• I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.

  John Diefenbaker

  Country, Freedom, Believe

  John George Diefenbaker (1982). “The Wit & Wisdom of John Diefenbaker”, Hurtig Trade

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• The artist usually sets out -- or used to -- to point a moral and adorn a tale. The tale, however, points the other way, as a rule. Two blankly opposing morals, the artist's and the tale's. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper functions of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Artist, Two, Way

  Studies in Classic American Literature (1923) ch. 1

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• Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong... It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.

  Emma Watson

  Strong, Men, Sensitive Man

  "Emma Watson: Gender equality is your issue too". UN Speech on the HeForShe campaign, New York, www.unwomen.org. September 20, 2014.

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• So be gentle with yourself; show yourself the same kindness and patience you might show a young child - the child you once were. If you won’t be your own friend, who will be? If, when playing an opponent, you are also opposing yourself, you will be outnumbered.

  Dan Millman

  Children, Kindness, Opponents

  Dan Millman (2010). “Body Mind Mastery: Training for Sport and Life”, p.49, New World Library

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• An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Artist, Two, Viewpoints

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• I give nightly praise to my Maker that I never cast a ballot to bring that lazy, disreputable, ill-tempered beast into what was once my home. I'm glad that I had the courage to go on record as opposing that illegitimate, shameless flea-bag that now shares my bed and board. You abstainer, you!

  Frank B. Gilbreth Jr.

  Home, Giving, Lazy

  FRANK B. GILBRETH JR. (1948). “CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN”

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• While there is no one who hasn't an evil bone in their body, there is also no one who is totally evil to the core. the fact that someone harbors opposing emotions simply makes them human.

  Masaru Emoto

  Evil, Body, Facts

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• Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral - that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings. This explains why Christians like yourself expend more "moral" energy opposing abortion than fighting genocide. It explains why you are more concerned about human embryos than about the lifesaving promise of stem-cell research. And it explains why you can preach against condom use in sub-Saharan Africa while millions die from AIDS there each year. (25)

  Sam Harris

  Christian, Fighting, Condom Use

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• It is only on the battlefield of ideas that the best ones can be recognized and ultimately prevail. Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts. Those who know they are right have no reason to stifle debate because they realize that all opposing arguments will ultimately be overcome by fact.

  Glenn Beck

  Ideas, Silence, Facts

  Glenn Beck (2009). “Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Ouf-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

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• So the Midwest nourishes us [...] and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees outside the windows, and the terrible Midwest summers, and the terrible Midwest winters [...]. And so we leave it sorrowfully, having grown strong and restless by opposing with all our will and mind and muscle its simple, loving, single will for us: that we stay, that we stay and find a place among its familiar possibilities. Mother knew we would go; she encouraged us.

  Annie Dillard

  Summer, Mother, Running

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• Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Love, Sympathy, Valentines Day

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2001). “On the Constitution of the Church and State”, p.348, Classic Books Company

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• To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too.

  Stephen Fry

  Mean, Opposites, Adults

  Stephen Fry's BAFTA annual television lecture, www.theguardian.com. June 16, 2010.

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• Do you think when two representatives holding diametrically opposing views get together and shake hands, the contradictions between our systems will simply melt away? What kind of a daydream is that?

  Nikita Khrushchev

  Thinking, Views, Hands

  "Khrushchev Remembers; the Last Testament, Volume 2". Book by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, Strobe Talbott (Little, Brown), p. 415, 1974.

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• If [climate change ] became a serious proposal in the United States, there would be a huge propaganda onslaught by the business community, the energy corporations and many others, to try to frighten the population into opposing it - claiming that if they have it, all sorts of terrible things will happen, like you won't be able to heat your home, or whatever the story is.

  Noam Chomsky

  Home, Community, Trying

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• It now becomes clear why the Bush Administration has been vigorously opposing congressional hearings. The Bush Administration has been engaged in a conspiracy of silence.

  Cynthia McKinney

  Silence, Hearing, Administration

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• I don't personally believe that villains exist. Villains are just a way of saying that somebody has an opposing conviction.

  Ryan Reynolds

  Believe, Way, Villain

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• There is an invisible strength within us; when it recognizes two opposing objects of desire, it grows stronger.

  Rumi

  Two, Desire, Stronger

  Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Maulana), Jelaluddin Rumi, Kabir Helminski, Andrew Harvey (2005). “The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlâna Jalâluddin Rumi”, p.4, Shambhala Publications

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• One must dig deeply into opposing points of view in order to know whether your own position remains defensible. Iron sharpens iron.

  Francis Collins

  Views, Order, Iron

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