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Contrary Quotes

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Contrary Quotes

“We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and the have the perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose - even for transforming murderers into judges.”

ChildrenPhilosophyUsedPurposePerfectCrimeJudgingAdultsExcuseCriminalsContraryErasHelplessMurdererTransformingPerfect CrimePremeditation
Book:The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
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“A gesture cannot be regarded as the expression of an individual, as his creation (because no individual is capable of creating a fully original gesture, belonging to nobody else), nor can it even be regarded as that person's instrument; on the contrary, it is gestures that use us as their instruments, as their bearers and incarnations”

PersonsUseIndividualCreationExpressionCreatingCapableOriginalsInstrumentsIndividualityContraryBelongingGesturesIncarnation
Author:Milan Kundera
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“You want a piece of advice?" said Ripred. "Don't bother. I know what you'll say. The whole thing's stupid," said Gregor. "Quite the contrary. I was going to say that life is short. There are only a few good things in it, really. Don't pretend that one isn't happening." said Ripred.”

KnowsWantSaidWholeLife IsPiecesAdviceStupidHappeningsGood ThingsContraryBotherLife Is ShortRipred
Book:Gregor the Overlander Collection:
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“If one is but secure at the foundation, he will not be pained by departure from minor details or affairs that are contrary to expectation. But in the end, the details of a matter are important. The right and wrong of one's way of doing things are found in trivial matters.”

IfsWayImportantEndsMatterFoundExpectationsFoundationAffairDetailsContrarySecureMinorsDeparture
Book:Honor: Samurai Philosophy of Life - The Essential Samurai Collection; The Book of Five Rings, Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai, Bushido: The Soul of Japan.
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“Do not sit down and try to pump up repentance from the dry well of a corrupt nature. It is contrary to the laws of your mind to suppose that you can force your soul into that gracious state. Take your heart in prayer to Him who understands it and say, "Lord, cleanse it. Lord, renew it. Lord, work repentance in it." The more you try to produce penitent emotions in yourself, the more you will be disappointed. However, if you believingly think of Jesus dying for you, repentance will burst forth.”

IfsThinkingTryingMindWellsHeartSoulStatesLawJesusForcePrayerEmotionLordDyingProduceDown AndContraryYour SoulDryRepentanceDisappointedGraciousPumps
Author:Charles Spurgeon
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“In my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one. Just as the past Lingers in the present, all my writings after night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear it's stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works. Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of the madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?”

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Book:Night
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“You may be right. I think it was round about Christmas when I got my Welsh dragon tattoo.” At that, Tessa had to try very hard not to blush. “How did that happen?” Will made an airy gesture with his hand. “I was drunk…” “Nonsense. You were never really drunk.” “On the contrary—in order to learn how to pretend to be inebriated, once must become inebriated at least once, as a reference point. Six-Fingered Nigel had been at the mulled cider—“ “You can’t mean there’s truly a Six-Fingered Nigel?”

ThinkingTryingMayMeanMadeHardHandsHappensOrderSixRoundsContraryDrunkNonsenseDragonsGesturesTattooWelshAiryCider
Author:Cassandra Clare
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“To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful.”

PersonsRealityBeautifulEvilFinePleaseOptimismBlindAppearanceContraryRepeatsSpiteRadarPollyanna
Book:The Furious Longing of God
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“To look at life without words is not to lose the ability to form words- to think, remember, and plan. To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about. One who talked incessantly, without stopping to look and listen, would repeat himself ad nauseam. It is the same with thinking, which is really silent talking. It is not, by itself, open to the discovery of anything new, for its only novelties are simply arrangements of old words and ideas.”

ThinkingLooksIdeasRememberFormLosesAbilitySilenceTalkingPlansDiscoverySilentTongueContraryRepeatsSomething NewAdsArrangementsStoppingNoveltyIncessantly
Book:The Wisdom of Insecurity
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“That historians should give their own country a break, I grant you; but not so as to state things contrary to fact. For there are plenty of mistakes made by writers out of ignorance, and which any man finds it difficult to avoid. But if we knowingly write what is false, whether for the sake of our country or our friends or just to be pleasant, what difference is there between us and hack writers? Readers should be very attentive to and critical of historians, and they in turn should be constantly on their guard.”

IfsMenGivingShouldWritingMadeCountryStatesFactsTurnsDifficultFriendshipDifferencesMistakeBreakHistoryIgnoranceReaderDiversitySocial JusticeSakeCriticalContraryOur CountryPlentyPleasantGrantsHistorianHacks
Author:Polybius
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“I'm not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the road blocks that stand in our path. I'm not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”

KindLongFightingHopeTalkingPathEvidenceTasksOptimismBlindContraryDespiteReachingIdealismStubbornAlways BelieveSomething BetterNot TalkingSidelinesRoadblockShirkBlind Optimism
Author:Barack Obama
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“Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.”

StatesWholeEarthDesireCertainNaturalKnowledgeConditionsIgnoranceUltimateAbsolutesInfiniteFoundationExtremesContraryReachingCracksTowersIncapableAbyssInclinationGroundworkCertain Knowledge
Author:Blaise Pascal
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“If we conceive that anyone loves, desires, or hates anything which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall thereupon regard the thing in question with more steadfast love, etc. On the contrary, if we think that anyone shrinks from something that we love, we shall undergo vacillation of the soul.”

IfsThinkingLifeSoulDesireHateSelf LoveRegardContraryEtcOne LoveShrinksSteadfastVacillationSteadfast Love
Book:The Road to Inner Freedom: The Ethics
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“The feeling of patriotism - It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God . . . or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience.”

MenReasonFeelingsGovernmentActionInfluenceSonConscienceSlaveContraryCommitPatriotismPatriotImmoralFree ManScoundrelsConfessingFatherland
Book:I Cannot be Silent: Writings on Politics, Art and Religion by Leo Tolstoy
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“Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.”

BelieveDoeFeelingsHappensHappinessResultsBusinessEvolutionContraryFulfilledDifferentiation
Book:Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
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“Children demand that their heroes should be freckle less, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”

WorldShouldFirstsBelieveChildrenSeemsBeliefHeroDemandWorshipDiscoveryPassionateContraryRevolutionaryShockHeroismThreatenedRebelliousHabitualDownfallFrecklesBeing A Hero
Author:George Eliot
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“Holidays are in no sense an alternative to the congestion and bustle of the cities and work. Quite the contrary. People look to escape into an intensification of the conditions of ordinary life, into a deliberate aggravation of those conditions: further from nature, nearer to artifice, to abstraction, to total pollution, to well above average levels of stress, pressure, concentration and monotony - this is the ideal of popular entertainment. No one is interested in overcoming alienation; the point is to plunge into it to the point of ecstasy. That is what holidays are for.”

PeopleWellsLooksLevelsCitiesConditionsOrdinaryIdealsOvercomingStressPressureAverageEntertainmentContraryAlternativesHolidayConcentrationEcstasyVacationPollutionAbstractionDeliberateAlienationPlungeAggravationOrdinary LifeMonotonyArtificeBustleAbove AverageCongestionPopular Entertainment
Author:Jean Baudrillard
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“Nonviolence means an ocean of compassion. It means shedding from us every trace of ill will for others. It does not mean abjectness or timidity, or fleeing in fear. It means, on the contrary, firmness of mind and courage, a resolute spirit.”

MindMeanDoeSpiritCompassionOceanIllContraryNonviolenceTimidityResoluteFleeingFirmnessIll Will
Book:The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi: Civilization, Politics and Religion
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“I understood that you would take the Human Race in the concrete, have exploded the absurd notion of Pope's Essay on Man, [Erasmus] Darwin, and all the countless Believers-even (strange to say) among Xtians-of Man's having progressed from an Ouran Outang state-so contrary to all History, to all Religion, nay, to all Possibility-to have affirmed a Fall in some sense.”

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Book:Lectures 1818-1819 on the history of philosophy
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