Opposites Quotes - Page 25

• Linda seemed to recognize loneliness. Possibly she could see it sitting opposite her, sipping lager and trying not to lose its temper. It was an illness, loneliness-it made you weak, gullible, feebleminded.

  Nick Hornby

  Loneliness, Trying, Sitting

  Nick Hornby (2009). “Juliet, Naked”, p.157, Penguin UK

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• That was perfect. It was just the opposite from what I said yesterday.

  Eugene Ormandy

  Funny, Yesterday, Perfect

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• Of one thing I am sure. Complaining is self-perpetuating and counterproductive. Whenever I express my complaints in the hope of evoking pity and receiving the satisfaction I so much desire, the result is always the opposite of what I tried to get. A complainer is hard to live with, and very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person. The tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: further rejection.

  Henri Nouwen

  Self, People, Rejection

  Henri J.M. Nouwen (2016). “The Return of the Prodigal Son Anniversary Edition: A Special Two-in-One Volume, including Home Tonight”, p.80, Convergent Books

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• I have odd thumbs that are extremely flexible. I can bend them quite far down the back side of my hand, basically the opposite side you'd even try to attempt bending your thumb. Because of that, I'm a very good thumb wrestler.

  Laura Mennell

  Hands, Trying, Bending

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• Liberals tend to be much more concerned about business and corporations as the oppressors. They look to government as the solution. On the Right it's the opposite. They see business as good, as what generates wealth in society, and they see government as the oppressor, which makes it hard for especially small businesspeople.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Government, Corporations, Looks

  "Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt". "Tavis Smiley", www.pbs.org. May 7, 2012.

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• Some economists became obsessed with market efficiency and others with market failure. Generally held to be members of opposite schools-freshwater and saltwater, Chicago and Cambridge, liberal and conservative, Austrian and Keynesian-both sides share an essential economic vision. They see their discipline as successful insofar as it eliminates surprise-insofar, that is, as the inexorable workings of the machine override the initiatives of the human actors.

  George Gilder

  School, Successful, Discipline

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• [C]lass consciousness is not one of our national diseases; we suffer, indeed, from its opposite-the delusion that class barriers are not real. That delusion reveals itself in many forms, some of them as beautiful as a glass eye. One is the Liberal doctrine that a prairie demagogue promoted to the United States Senate will instantly show all the sagacity of a Metternich ... another is the doctrine that a moronrun through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will cease thereby to be a moron.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Real, Eye

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• I think if you live in London, it's such a cosmopolitan city, nobody even notices different-race relationships. I assumed it would be even more liberal in the States, and it's totally the opposite.

  Alex Kingston

  Thinking, Race, Cities

  "Intensive care". Interview with Barbara Ellen, www.theguardian.com. July 7, 2002.

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• Receiving and giving are opposite energies that are inextricably linked together in the natural flow of life, like inhaling and exhaling. If one aspect of that cycle doesn't function, the entire cycle ceases to function and the life force cannot move freely. If you can't inhale, you will soon have nothing to exhale, and before long, your body will be unable to continue living.

  Shakti Gawain

  Moving, Long, Giving

  Shakti Gawain (2011). “Creating True Prosperity”, p.62, New World Library

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• Morality has been conceived up to the present in a very narrow spirit, as obedience to a law, as inner struggle between opposite laws. As for me, I declare that when I do good I obey no one, I fight no battle and win no victory. The cultivated person has only to follow the delicious incline of his or her inner impulses. Be beautiful and then do at each moment whatever your heart may inspire you to do. This is the whole of morality.

  Ernest Renan

  Beautiful, Struggle, Heart

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• Life is full of painful events, and people who have lost their way and hurt others. Our pain is not lessened when we respond with hatred. In fact, the opposite occurs: When we hate people who hurt us, we come to resemble what we hate, or worse, and then we suffer all the more. What is evil is our response. We have choices, and love is the most powerful eliminator of all.

  Bernie Siegel

  Hurt, Powerful, Pain

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• Nature wants us to enjoy life to the full and die without giving it a second thought; Christianity wants the opposite.

  Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

  Giving, Enjoy Life, Religion

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• Guess what, I'm the opposite of a role model!

  Natalia Kills

  Role Models, Roles, Models

  "Natalia Kills: Pop's Axe-Wielding Heroine". Interview with Colleen Nika, www.elle.com. May 27, 2011.

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• Gnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

  George Santayana

  Wise, Balance, Occasions

  George Santayana (1936). “The works of George Santayana”

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• Submission does not mean being weak or passive. It leads to neither fatalism nor capitulation. Just the opposite. True power resides in submission. A power that comes from within. Those who submit to the divine essence of life will live in unperturbed tranquility and peace even when the whole wide world goes through turbulence after turbulence.

  Elif Safak

  Mean, Essence, True Power

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• The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Philosophy, Drinking

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.119, Simon and Schuster

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• The Procrastinator has the opposite problem. He can’t selectively focus his attention and might endure frequent accusations about his laziness. In truth, he’s so distracted by stimuli that he can’t figure out where or how to get started. Sounds, smells, sights and the random wanderings of his thoughts continually vie for his attention.

  Kate Kelly

  Sight, Smell, Focus

  Kate Kelly, Peggy Ramundo (2006). “You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

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• Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the art of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the

  Virginia Woolf

  Art, Lying, Creativity

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.627, Wordsworth Editions

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• Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is very opposite of what it is above.

  Virginia Woolf

  Sex, Clothes, Males

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Orlando: A Biography”, p.207, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We all indulge in the strange, pleasant process called thinking, but when it comes to saying, even to someone opposite, what we think, then how little we are able to convey! The phantom is through the mind and out of the window before we can lay salt on

  Virginia Woolf

  Thinking, Indulge In, Mind

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.2279, Delphi Classics

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• To escape the error of salvation by works we have fallen into the opposite error of salvation without obedience.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Errors, Obedience, Salvation

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• Opposites are cures for opposites.

  Hippocrates

  Cures

  Breaths I

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• Photography is a holding together of opposites: Light and dark, beautiful and ugly, sublime and banal, concious and unconcious. I am still struck by the power of photography to strip away the bark of the mind and reveal the visceral workings underneath.

  Jack Welpott

  Beautiful, Photography, Dark

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• Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.

  Tacitus

  Integrity, Honor, Enemy

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• Let us face at the outset how many Christians are not victorious, but defeated. Defeated by circumstances, defeated by other peoples? natures and wrong-doings, defeated by the down-drag of the flesh, defeated by loss, by pain, by suffering, by worry. Instead of saying with confidence, ?This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith?, they have to say in honesty, ?This is the defeat that has been caused by the world, even our self-centeredness.? That is the opposite of faith. Unbelief is not the opposite of faith; self-centeredness is ? being centered in self rather than in God.

  Sam Shoemaker

  Faith, Christian, Honesty

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