Opposites Quotes - Page 12

• I'm intrigued by how ordinary behavior exists so close beside its opposite.

  Richard Ford

  Ordinary, Behavior, Intrigued

  Richard Ford (2013). “Canada”, p.84, A&C Black

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• There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

  C. S. Lewis

  Believe, Fall, Errors

  C. S. Lewis (2009). “The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil”, p.8, HarperCollins UK

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• The first point one has to get straight in discussions like this, is that ID is not the opposite of evolution. Rather, it is the opposite of Darwinism, which says life evolved by an utterly unguided, undirected mechanism. If god directed the process of evolution, or rigged the universe to produce complex life, then that is not Darwinism - it is intelligent design.

  Michael Behe

  Intelligent, Design, Firsts

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• A witty vicar once said that a good marriage is like a pair of scissors with the couple inseparable joined, often moving in opposite directions, yet always destroying anyone who comes between them. The trick is for the blades to learn to work smoothly together, so as not to cut each other.

  Mary Jo Putney

  Witty, Couple, Moving

  Kristin James, Mary Jo Putney, Julie Tetel (1994). “Promised Brides”

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• In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week.

  Douglas Coupland

  Sex, Drama, Thinking

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• Many pundits today are in the habit of misquoting Santayana's epigram, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Maybe some people have come to grief this way, but they are probably fewer than those who have fallen into the opposite error. One is apt to perish in politics from too much memory, Tocqueville wrote somewhere, with equal truth and greater insight.

  David Hackett Fischer

  Memories, Grief, Past

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• Music needs the juxtaposition of opposites to achieve its drama, so harshness and dissonance are simply part of the material a musician can use to create a musical work. All one thing is a bore - all dissonance, or all fatuous consonance. George Winston and Guns and Roses are two sides of the same worthless coin in my esthetic world.

  Chuck Israels

  Music, Drama, Gun

  "Chuck Israels: Evans, Education And Philosophy". Interview with Sean Dietrich, www.allaboutjazz.com. May 27, 2010.

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• I usually like to interact with people who don't speak until it's necessary but I was intimidated by Carl's physique. I didn't feel inferior so much as incompatible. Carl existed on a plane where success was measured by physical feats. He had a brain because his body needed it, rather than the opposite. I didn't understand such people. I didn't know what they wanted, or might do.

  Max Barry

  People, Brain, Body

  Max Barry (2011). “Machine Man”, p.71, Vintage

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• Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. You could go from love to hate. But you cannot, at the same time - toward the same object, the same person - want to harm and want to do good.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Hate, Ideas, Two

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• Some have an idea that the reason we in this country discard things so readily is because we have so much. The facts are exactly opposite-the reason we have so much is simply because we discard things so readily. We replace the old in return for something that will serve us better.

  Alfred P. Sloan

  Country, Ideas, Return

  News and Views magazine, p. 1, 1945.

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• Materialism, which gives priority to material needs and objects, is obviously the opposite of spirituality

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Giving, Priorities, Needs

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• As Aristotle wrote a long, long time ago, and I'm paraphrasing here, the goal is to avoid mediocrity by being prepared to try something and either failing miserably or triumphing grandly. Mediocrity is not about failing, and it's the opposite of doing. Mediocrity, in other words, is about not trying. The reason is achingly simple, and I know you've heard it a thousand times before: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

  Georges St-Pierre

  Simple, Long, Goal

  Georges St-Pierre (2013). “The Way of the Fight”, p.7, Harper Collins

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• Wonder has no opposite; it springs up already doubled in itself, compounded of dread and desire at once, attraction and recoil, producing a thrill, the shudder of pleasure and of fear.

  Marina Warner

  Spring, Desire, Thrill

  Marina Warner, Sophie Herxheimer, Gilbert Adair (1994). “Wonder Tales”, p.3, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.

  Curtis Jackson

  Believe, Simple, Reality

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• I'm not anti conceptual art. I don't think painting must be revived, exactly. Art reflects life, and our lives are full of algorithms, so a lot of people are going to want to make art that's like an algorithm. But my language is painting, and painting is the opposite of that. There's something primal about it. It's innate, the need to make marks. That's why, when you're a child, you scribble.

  Jenny Saville

  Art, Children, Thinking

  "Jenny Saville: 'I want to be a painter of modern life, and modern bodies'" by Rachel Cooke, www.theguardian.com. June 9, 2012.

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• Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry. [...] To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery.

  George Polya

  Attitude, Opportunity, Doe

  George Pólya (1945). “How to Solve it: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method”

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• Creativity is the opposite of TV

  Jerry Stahl

  Creativity, Tvs

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• When confronted with two courses of action I jot down on a piece of paper all the arguments in favor of each one, then on the opposite side I write the arguments against each one. Then by weighing the arguments pro and con and cancelling them out, one against the other, I take the course indicated by what remains.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Writing, Two, Decision

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• Ministers are tempted to join the ranks of those who consider it their primary task to keep other people busy … But our task is the opposite of distraction … how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.

  Henri Nouwen

  Voice, People, Silence

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, p.29, HarperCollins

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• Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

  Philip Yancey

  Grace, Holiness, Doorways

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• The opposite of hope is despair, and when we despair, it is because we feel there are no choices.

  Warren G. Bennis

  Choices, Despair, Feels

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• My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.

  Richard Rohr

  Religious, Mean, Dark

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• I was walking around trying to act cool, like I had no fear at all.
  But I was afraid, afraid that somebody would find out just how scared I was.
  Now I'm finally realizing that fear is the opposite of love.

  Stevie Ray Vaughan

  Trying, Scared, No Fear

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• Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.

  Joan Robinson

  India

  "Contrary India" by Amartya Sen, www.economist.com. November 18, 2005.

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• My soul is the bridge between spirit and body and, as such, is a uniter of opposites. Without soul at center, I would either transcend into spirit or become mired in matter.

  Marion Woodman

  Bridges, Soul, Body

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