Opposites Quotes - Page 24

• The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb. The opposite is more difficult.

  Kurt Tucholsky

  Play, Dumb, Advantage

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• Life defined only as the opposite of death is not life.

  Mahmoud Darwish

  Defined

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• The truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin.

  Gayle Forman

  Coins, Flip, Sides

  Gayle Forman (2013). “Just One Year”, p.168, Penguin

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• It was easy to be moral when that was the way you felt anyway. The hard bit about morality was making yourself feel the opposite of what you really felt.

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Way, Morality, Easy

  Alexander McCall Smith (2006). “The Right Attitude to Rain”, p.29, Anchor

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• There is no idea that does not carry in itself a possible refutation, no word that does not imply its opposite.

  Marcel Proust

  Ideas, Doe, Refutation

  Marcel Proust (2006). “Remembrance of Things Past”, p.941, Wordsworth Editions

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• The French will always do exactly the opposite on what the United States wants regardless of what happens, so we're never going to have a consistent policy.

  Howard Dean

  United States, Want, Consistent

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• I found myself losing interest in almost everything, I didn't want to do any of the things I had previously wanted to do and I didn't know why. Everything there was to do seemed like too much work. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment.

  Andrew Solomon

  Vitality, Want, Too Much

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• The highest peace is the peace between opposites.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Inspirational, Highest

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• One of the things psychologists used to say was that if you are depressed, anxious or angry, you couldn't be happy. Those were at opposite ends of a continuum. I believe that you can be suffering or have a mental illness and be happy - just not in the same moment that you're sad.

  Martin Seligman

  Believe, Suffering, Mental Illness

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• This book is called "Blue Nights" because at the time I began it I found my mind turning increasingly to illness, to the end of promise, the dwindling of the days,the inevitability of the fading, the dying of the brightness. Blue nights are the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but they are also its warning.

  Joan Didion

  Book, Night, Blue

  Joan Didion (2011). “Blue Nights”, p.4, Vintage

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• There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.

  Copyright: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Family Limited Partnership.

  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

  Fear, Hate, Two

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• For every action there’s a reaction. And also, for every action there’s an equal and opposite criticism.

  Jason Mraz

  Criticism, Action, Equal

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• Proverbs, and the wisdom literature in general, counter the idea that being spiritual means handing all decisions over to the leading of the Lord. The opposite is true. Proverbs reveals that God does not make all people’s decisions for them, but rather expects them to use his gift of reason to interpret the circumstances and events of life within the framework of revelation that he has given. Yet when they have exercised their responsibility in decision-making, they can look back and see that the sovereign God has guided.

  Graeme Goldsworthy

  Spiritual, Mean, Responsibility

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• It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight.

  Martin Van Creveld

  War, Mean, Fighting

  Martin Van Creveld (2009). “Transformation of War”, p.226, Simon and Schuster

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• Death has an opposite, but the opposite is not mere living. It is not courage or faith or human will. The opposite of death is love. How had I missed that? How does anyone miss that? Love is our only weapon. Only love can turn mere life into a miracle, and draw precious meaning from suffering and fear

  Nando Parrado

  Love Is, Miracle, Missing

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• It is a weird thing, because most people tend to get more conservative as they get older, but I find myself going the opposite way. I am sure that by the end I will be selling Marxist pamphlets on the Holloway Road.

  Rory Bremner

  People, Way, Conservative

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• Play doesn't have to be the opposite of work.

  Jill Vialet

  Play

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• Sometimes, when we are sad, we have to do the opposite of sad. Sometimes we have to sing.

  Daisy Whitney

  Sometimes

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• The opposite of nature is impossible.

  R. Buckminster Fuller

  Impossible

  Public lecture at Columbia University, Spring, 1965.

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• Real people conceive originality then think, write but never read of others' posts to copy to follow and the copycats follow exactly the opposite direction i.e. read of others' posts, write but never think and conceive originality.

  Anuj

  Real, Writing, Thinking

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• As Deborah Rhode describes, “When 1,100 Michigan elementary students were asked to describe what life would be like if they were the opposite sex, over 40 percent of the girls saw advantages to being male; they would have better jobs, higher incomes, and more respect. Ninety-five percent of the boys saw no advantage to being female, and a substantial number thought suicide would be preferable.”

  Deborah Rhode

  Girl, Suicide, Sex

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• True enough and opposites don't just attract they freaking catch fire and burn the entire city down.

  Jay Crownover

  Fire, Cities, Enough

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• We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed.... This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man's earthly pilgrimage.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Commitment, Practice, Democracy

  Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

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• In every other religion the indicative flows from the imperative. Which means, ‘because I do, therefore I am... because I do this, therefore I’m a child of God.’ But only in Christianity does the imperative flow from the indicative. ‘Because I am in Christ all these things, therefore I obey.’ Exactly the opposite.

  Timothy Keller

  Children, Mean, Doe

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• The tragedy of government welfare programs is not just wasted taxpayer money but wasted lives. The effects of welfare in encouraging the break-up of low-income families have been extensively documented. The primary way that those with low incomes can advance in the market economy is to get married, stay married, and work—but welfare programs have created incentives to do the opposite.

  Michael Tanner

  Government, Welfare Programs, Tragedy

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