Opposition Quotes - Page 13

• Pure Christianity, instead of being shaped by its environment, actually stands in sharp opposition to it.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Environment, Christianity, Pure

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• For a strong adversary (corps) the opposition of twenty-four squadrons and twelve guns ought not to have appeared very serious, but in war the psychological factors are often decisive. An adversary who feels inferior is in reality so.

  Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim

  Strong, Military, War

  Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (friherre) (1953). “The Memoirs of Marshal Mannerheim”

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• Each morning we sat reading our copy of the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times and ruminated on their prophecies of doom and quagmire. Then we looked up to see, on television, correspondents actually embedded with our troops, reporting quick advances, one- sided firefights, melting opposition and, finally, welcoming crowds.

  Dick Morris

  Morning, New York, Reading

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• Could there possibly have been an incumbent more easy to knock-off than George W. Bush? A real-life opposition party would have been insulted to be matched with a such an unworthy and frail rival. The Democrats, by contrast, got their lights punched out.

  Marc Cooper

  Real, Party, Light

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• No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Numbers, Government, Long

  Benjamin Disraeli (1870). “Collected Edition of the Novels and Tales”, p.65

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• In the second half of life the necessity is imposed of recognizing no longer the validity of our former ideals but of their contraries. Of perceiving the error in what was previously our conviction, of sensing the untruth in what was our truth, and of weighing the degree of opposition, and even of hostility, in what we took to be love.

  Carl Jung

  Errors, Age, Degrees

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• One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us and whereto our passions transport us. But those which by long habit are rooted in a strong and anchored in a powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies, which diverts us here and there.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Forgiveness, Strong, Powerful

  "Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation of the Essays, A Selection".

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• Even winter — the hardest season, the most implacable — dreams, as February creeps on, of the flame that will presently melt it away. Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself.

  Clive Barker

  Dream, Winter, Flames

  Clive Barker (1991). “The Hellbound Heart”, Voyager

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• The idealist's program of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Political, Reform, Negative

  Charles Horton Cooley (1909). “Two Major Works: Social Organization. Human Nature and the Social Order”, Glencoe, Ill., Free P

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• I believe that we must reach our brother, never toning down our fundamental oppositions, but meeting him when he asks to be met, with a reason for the faith that is in us, as well as with a loving sympathy for them as brothers.

  Dorothy Day

  Sympathy, Brother, Believe

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• The popular masses are like water, and the army is like a fish. How then can it be said that when there is water, a fish will have difficulty in preserving its existence? An army which fails to maintain good discipline gets into opposition with the popular masses, and thus by its own action dries up the water.

  Mao Zedong

  Military, Army, Discipline

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• Posterity will do justice to that unprincipled maniac Gladstone - extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy and superstition; and with one commanding characteristic - whether Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, whether preaching, praying, speechifying or scribbling - never a gentleman.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Justice, Hypocrisy, Envy

  c.1874 Letter.

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• It is the wall of separation between church and state . . . that is largely responsible for religion thriving in this country, as compared to those European countries in which church and state have been united, resulting in opposition to the church by those who disapprove of the government.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Country, Wall, Government

  Alan Dershowitz (2007). “Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence”, p.49, John Wiley & Sons

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• The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit.

  Ignatius of Loyola

  Running, Strong, Heart

  "Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola" by Ignatius of Loyola, (No. 325), 1548.

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• I am not predicting here that Obama will fail like Jimmy Carter. What I am predicting is the Republican Party is not extinct and will after a period of time become a strong opposition party.

  Ed Rollins

  Strong, Party, Republican

  "Commentary: Stop throwing dirt on GOP 'grave'" by Ed Rollins, www.cnn.com. May 14, 2009.

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• Parliament of the country is the repository of the sovereign will of the people, and its successful functioning is a joint responsibility of both the government and the Opposition.

  Pratibha Patil

  Country, Responsibility, Successful

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• As an instrument for practical action, law is responsive to the wisdom of its time, which may be wrong, but it carries forward, sometimes in opposition to this wisdom or passion, a memory of received values.

  Edward H. Levi

  Wisdom, Memories, Passion

  Edward H. Levi (2013). “Restoring Justice: The Speeches of Attorney General Edward H. Levi”, p.38, University of Chicago Press

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• Some politicians are aware of the Bill of Rights. It seems that the opposition party is far more likely to invoke it, to wave it in the air, this is what we saw from a lot of republicans during the Clinton Administration, and we are seeing the same from Democrats under Bush.

  James Bovard

  Party, Rights, Air

  Interview with Aaron Zelman, jpfo.org.

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• I think the Sixties in some ways is a barrier to young people today. They think of it, you know, what we're doing is not that. But it's partly the myth of the Sixties. It always felt embattled and small. It always, almost always, was a small group of people relative to the opposition around.

  Bernardine Dohrn

  Thinking, People, Groups

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• I am a realist as well as an idealist, and I think that it is incumbent upon those of us in opposition to try to work within what are always arduous circumstances to stretch the limits of the possible.

  Todd Gitlin

  Thinking, Trying, Limits

  "How to be radical?". The OpenDemocracy Interview, www.opendemocracy.net. April 5, 2011.

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• The old adage that you shouldn't change a winning team doesn't apply in modern international football because managers have to study the opposition and pick players who exploit their weaknesses.

  Glenn Hoddle

  Football, Team, Winning

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• Part of what's unique about climate change, though, is the nature of some of the opposition to action. It's pretty rare that you'll encounter somebody who says the problem you're trying to solve simply doesn't exist. When President Kennedy set us on a course for the moon, there were a number of people who made a serious case that it wouldn't be worth it; it was going to be too expensive, it was going to be too hard, it would take too long. But nobody ignored the science. I don't remember anybody saying that the moon wasn't there or that it was made of cheese.

  Barack Obama

  Unique, Moon, Numbers

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• At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction.

  Margaret Mahy

  Book, Thinking, Two

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• The perfect Semite (Jews are not Semites but are Khazars, descended from Japheth) is positive and impassioned. The two elements exercise a reciprocal influence, each moderating what is too excessive and therefore unlikely to live in the other, creating a being apart who easily arrives at domination, for nothing can stop such a man...It is the eternal opposition of Shylock and Jessica. It is the illogical and monstrous mixture of the rarest qualities with the most abject defects, mixture of irresistible force and of irremediable weakness.

  Kadmi Cohen

  Exercise, Men, Two

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• There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which are causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct...a nasty Orientalism which had insidiously affected every channel of expression...The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source [Judaism] is something to be reckoned with...Our opposition is only in ideas, false ideas, which are sapping the moral stamina of the people.

  Henry Ford

  Country, Expression, Ideas

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