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Contrary Quotes

“I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe - what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery. To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in thetreatent, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing.”

KnowsBelieveHumansLongImportantFacesFormChoicesBeliefImagineEvidenceBraveryStrongerImportant ThingsShiningSakeContraryCuresThis LifeCharacteristicsBelieve In YourselfMortalityArticlesRemedyCatastropheHopelessnessValiant
Author:Lance Armstrong
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“It occurred to me, then, how nearly real life resembles the first rehearsal of a play. We are all of us stumbling through it, doing our best to say the proper lines and make the proper moves, but not quite comfortable yet in the parts we've been given. Still, like players who trust that -despite all evidence to the contrary- the whole mess will make sense eventually, we keep on going, hoping that somehow things will work out for the best.”

FirstsStillsRealPlayWholeMovingGivenLinesPlayerComfortableEvidenceWork OutContraryReal LifeDespiteMessMake SenseRehearsalStumblingThings Will Work Out
Book:Shakespeare's Spy
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“Let me tell you, though: being the smartest boy in the world wasn’t easy. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. On the contrary, it was a huge burden. First, there was the task of keeping my brain perfectly protected. My cerebral cortex was a national treasure, a masterpiece of the Sistine Chapel of brains. This was not something that could be treated frivolously. If I could have locked it in a safe, I would have. Instead, I became obsessed with brain damage.”

IfsWorldWantFirstsAsksEasyBrainBoysHugeSafeTasksLet MeBurdenContraryTreasureTreatedObsessedDamageIf I CouldLockedProtectedMasterpieceCerebralChapelNational TreasureSistine Chapel
Book:The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
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“The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.”

StatesChristianHumanityCoursesTruth IsTenEvidenceContraryCommandmentsForbiddenGloomTen CommandmentsLiberality
Author:Gilbert K. Chesterton
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“The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception... If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, One poet would be enough... But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.”

PeopleIfsWorldNeedsEnoughWholeWould BeDiesMillionsObjectsPoetGoes OnPerceptionAbsolutesCuriosityContraryLife And DeathNew ThingsNot AloneOld ThingsUnisonPerception Of Others
Author:Wallace Stevens
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“If you do not take the distinction between good and bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is a part of God. But, of course, if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some of the things we see in it are contrary to His will.”

IfsThinkingWorldBelieveCoursesEasyThis WorldContraryDistinctionGood And Bad
Book:The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics
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“When people say they do not care what others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves. Generally they mean only that they will do as they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.”

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Author:W. Somerset Maugham
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“The Idols of Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the sense as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.”

MenMindHumansWellsUniverseIndividualUnderstandingRaceHuman NaturePerceptionMirrorsFoundationContraryRaysIdolsReceivingTribesAssertionMingling
Book:New Atlantis and The Great Instauration
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“After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.”

IfsLoveRealStatesHappinessNightLove IsWorryAnxietyAskingConstantContraryRight ThingEcstasyReal LoveAgonyBattlefieldsDoing The Right ThingWhat Is HappinessSleepless NightsHappiness LoveWitch Of Portobello
Author:Paulo Coelho
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“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

KnowsWorldHas BeensWould BeEffortOur LivesBe GoodContraryAssumptionLive ByEnvironmentalismEcoGreen LivingSustainable Living
Author:Wendell Berry
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“As I understand it, I am being paid only for my work in arranging the words; my property is that arrangement. The thoughts in this book, on the contrary, are not mine. They came freely to me, and I give them freely away. I have no "intellectual property," and I think that all claimants to such property are theives.”

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Book:Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays
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“Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion? Don't they all have the same meaning? So what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in both cases, they are significant of what I have been and what I am? Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”

IfsMenDoeHas BeensSometimesMatterStoriesLightBeautifulLyingCasesObjectsEasierContrarySignificantConclusionTelling The TruthLiarsTwilightFalsehoodDoes It MatterDon't LieTrue Or FalseI Don't Lie
Author:Albert Camus
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“It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainly out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.”

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Author:William P. Young
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“Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent... But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it...You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief... But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely.You know what pain is. You know what love is. "All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.”

KnowsWayNeedsMeanMomentsAblePainLove IsGriefEmotionContraryAllowingThrowingPenetrateDetachment
Author:Mitch Albom
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“These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking.... Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his mind.”

PeopleThinkingMindBelievePersonsIdeasFeelingsSeemsPassionPerfectMaterialsClothesDelightContrarySymbolsSatisfyingSuperiorityEleganceCultivatingAristocraticDandyDandyism
Author:Charles Baudelaire
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“About dreams. It is usually taken for granted that you dream of something that has made a particularly strong impression on you during the day, but it seems to me it´s just the contrary. Often it´s something you paid no attention to at the time -- a vague thought that you didn´t bother to think out to the end, words spoken without feeling and which passed unnoticed -- these are the things that return at night, clothed in flesh and blood, and they become the subjects of dreams, as if to make up for having been ignored during waking hours.”

IfsThinkingLifeMadeEndsFeelingsDreamSeemsNightStrongHoursAttentionTakenBloodSubjectsReturnPaidContraryFleshImpressionGrantedBotherWakingIgnoredVagueUnnoticedTaken For GrantedFlesh And Blood
Author:Boris Pasternak
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“A girl who would fall in love so easily or want a man to love her so easily would probably get over it just as quickly, very little the worse for wear. On the contrary, a girl who would take love seriously would probably be a good while finding herself in love and would require something beyond mere friendly attentions from a man before she would think of him in that light.”

ThinkingMenWantLittlesLightFallGirlAttentionFindingsMereFalling In LoveContraryFriendlyOver ItGet Over
Book:My dear Mr. M.: letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M. Montgomery
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“Love is rather impotent and pitiful: My father must have told me a million times how much he loved me, but that emotion - assuming it was even real - hardly had the strength to counter the many other acts of wrong he committed against me. Contrary to romance novels and the love-conquers-all mentality that even those of us who grow up in an era of divorce are - in response to some atavistic instinct - still raised to believe, love is always a product and a victim of circumstances. It is fragile and small.”

BelieveStillsRealRomanceFatherGrowsLove IsEmotionMillionsNovelGrowing UpProductsCircumstancesVictimAssumingInstinctResponseRaisedCommittedDivorceContraryConquerErasFragileMentalityRomance NovelPitifulBelieve In LoveLove Conquers AllVictims Of Circumstance
Author:Elizabeth Wurtzel
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“Remember also that it is not knowledge but the yearning for knowledge that makes for a complete, accomplished man. Such a man does not stand still but perseveres in the face of adversity, nor does he remain untouched by the pain cause by absence. On the contrary, he recognizes himself in each cry, uttered or repressed, in the smallest rift, in the most pressing need.”

MenNeedsDoeStillsPainRememberFacesCausesCryAdversityAbsenceContraryAccomplishedYearningSmallestPersevereRepressedFacing AdversityRift
Author:Elie Wiesel
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“Man is not by any means of fixed and enduring form (this, in spite of suspicions to the contrary on the part of their wise men, was the ideal of the ancients). He is nothing else than the narrow and perilous bridge between nature and spirit. His innermost destiny drives him on to the spirit and to God. His innermost longing draws him back to nature, the mother. Between the two forces his life hangs tremulous and irresolute.”

MenMeanTwoFormSpiritMotherForceDestinyWiseDrawsIdealsLongingEndureContraryBridgesFixedSpiteSuspicionSteppenwolf
Book:Steppenwolf
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“Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man.”

MenKindDoeStillsEnvironmentParticularProductsSurvivalSpeciesEnvironmentalContraryGuaranteesFragileEnvironmentalismEquilibriumEarth Day
Book:The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“We tend to think human knowledge as progressive; because we know more and more, our parents and grandparents are back numbers. But a contrary theory is possible - that we simply recognize different things at different times and in different ways.”

ThinkingKnowsWayHumansDifferentParentNumbersTheoryContraryDifferent WaysDifferent ThingsProgressiveGrandparentDifferent TimesHuman KnowledgeParents And Grandparents
Book:The Cornish Trilogy
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