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Contrary Quotes

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Contrary Quotes

“Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides... I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.”

GivingYoungThreeLostRecordsFourFrontsYouthWindFoolColdApproachConstantAssumingCloudsIllContraryFeaturesFixedMapsTidesAdulthoodGlimpseFogNeglectedJoyousVoyagesIneffableIsleAtlasLatitude
Author:David Mitchell
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“Contrary to popular belief and hope, people don't usually come running when they hear a scream. That's not how humans work. Humans look at other humans and say, 'Did you hear a scream?' because the first scream might have been you screaming inside your head, or a horse backfiring.”

PeopleFirstsHumansLooksHas BeensMightRunningBeliefHorseTerrorContraryScreamMight Have BeenContrary To Popular Belief
Book:Unseen Academicals: (Discworld Novel 37)
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“They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.”

ShouldPersonsOrderOpinionVictoryContraryDisputesAvoided
Book:Giordano Bruno; his life and thought: With annotated translation of his work, On the infinite universe and worlds
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“There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back...”

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Author:Robert A. Heinlein
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“Such excessive preoccupation with his faults is not a truly spiritual activity but, on the contrary, a highly egoistic one.The recognition of his own faults should make a man humbler, when it is beneficial, not prouder, which the thought that he ought to have been above these faults makes him.”

MenShouldHas BeensSpiritualOughtActivityFaultsContraryRecognitionBeneficialPreoccupation
Book:The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: Practices for the Quest; Relax and Retreat
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“It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry.”

IfsThinkingBelieveMeanWould BeForceI BelieveMistakeEducationSeeingDutyHealthyAidsContraryGravesHungryEnjoymentBeastPreyCoercionWhipsHomeschooling
Book:A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein
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“Jo's face was a study next day, for the secret rather weighed upon her, and she found it hard not to look mysterious and important. Meg observed it, but did not troubled herself to make inquiries, for she had learned that the best way to manage Jo was by the law of contraries, so she felt sure of being told everything if she did not ask.”

IfsWayLooksImportantHardFacesLawNextAsksFoundFeltSecretStudyContraryBest WayManageMysteriousNext DayInquiryMeg
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott (Illustrated)
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“He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, 'till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompts to higher pursuits; and, instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavors to raise himself had produced just the contrary result.”

FirstsWinningAnimalResultsPathHigherShameRaisesContraryPursuitEnjoymentLabourRoughEndeavorApprovalScornPromptsGuarding
Author:Emily Bronte
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“Listen carefully to me. Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is absolutely no power in intention...There is no difference in the person who intends to do things differently and the one who never thinks about it in the first place. Have you ever considered how often we judge ourselves by out intentions while we judge others by their actions? Yet intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.”

ThinkingLifeFirstsPersonsActionBeliefDifferencesJudgingIntentionContraryDespiteInsultNoticer
Author:Andy Andrews
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“Prayer or not, I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to find that one special person. That person to spend Christmas with or grow old with or just to take a nice silly walk in Central Park with. Somebody who wouldn't judge another for the prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn't be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations.”

WantBelievePersonsRunningTurnsLanguageGrowsPrayerWalksNiceSpecialJudgingEvidenceSentencesContrarySillyDespiteParksJudgedInclinationSnobberyCentral ParkEtymologyPrepositions
Book:Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
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“Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.”

IfsMenWorldShouldFightingBeliefDestinyPathWrittenSittingEvidenceMen And WomenTasksOptimismBlindContraryDespiteSettlingSomething BetterRemakesSidelinesRoadblockBlind Optimism
Author:Barack Obama
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“The motive that impels modern reason to know must be described as the desire to conquer and dominate. For the Greek philosophers and the Fathers of the church, knowing meant something different: it meant knowing in wonder. By knowing or perceiving one participates in the life of the other. Here knowing does not transform the counterpart into the property of the knower; the knower does not appropriate what he knows. On the contrary, he is transformed through sympathy, becoming a participant in what he perceives.”

KnowsDoeDifferentReasonDesireFatherChurchWonderKnowingModernBecomingPropertyPhilosopherContraryConquerPerceiveGreekMotiveAppropriateTransformedParticipantsCounterpartsGreek Philosopher
Author:Jürgen Moltmann
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“Just being alive is such a gift, but nobody ever told you to be thankful to existence. On the contrary, everyone was grumpy, complaining. Naturally, if everything surrounding your life from the very beginning goes on pointing out to you that you are not what you should be, goes on giving you great ideals that you have to follow and you have to become, your isness is never praised. What is praised is your future - if you can become someone respectable, powerful, rich, intellectual, in some way famous, not just a nobody.”

IfsWayGivingShouldSpiritualPowerfulExistenceRichAliveGoes OnIntellectualIdealsContraryComplainingJust BeingPointingYour FutureBeing ThankfulRespectableGrumpy
Author:Rajneesh
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“In this world, perfection is an illusion. Reagrdless of all those who utter the contrary, this is the reality. Obviously mediocre fools will forever lust for perfection and seek it out. However, what meaning is there in perfection? None. Not a bit. ...After perfection there exists nothing higher. Not even room for creation which means there is no room for wisdom or talent either. Understand? To scientists like ourselves, perfection is despair. - Kurotsuchi Mayuri (Bleach 306)”

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Author:Tite Kubo
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“I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.”

WantGirlMissingSweetPassionateContrarySillyLazyLoyalAdjectivesNounsBlossomingMiaStellaPlacidSaving Francesca
Book:Saving Francesca
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“The fact is that the beautiful, humanly speaking, is merely form considered in its simplest aspect, in its most perfect symmetry, in its most entire harmony with our make-up. Thus the ensemble that it offers us is always complete, but restricted like ourselves. What we call the ugly, on the contrary, is a detail of a great whole which eludes us, and which is in harmony, not with man but with all creation. That is why it constantly presents itself to us in new but incomplete aspects.”

MenWholeFactsBeautifulFormPerfectCreationOffersAspectHarmonyDetailsUglyContraryMakeupSimplestIncompleteSymmetryEnsembleCompletenessEludeElude Us
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)
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“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world.”

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Book:Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
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“The sun is not ridiculous, quite the contrary. On everything I like, on the rust of the construction girders, on the rotten boards of the fence, a miserly, uncertain light falls, like the look you give, after a sleepless night, on decisions made with enthusiasm the day before, on pages you have written in one spurt without crossing out a word.”

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Book:Nausea
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