Best Contrary Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“Contrary to what you may assume, I am not a pessimist but an indifferentist- that is, I don't make the mistake of thinking that the... cosmos... gives a damn one way or the the other about the especial wants and ultimate welfare of mosquitoes, rats, lice, dogs, men, horses, pterodactyls, trees, fungi, dodos, or other forms of biological energy.”

Thinking Men Way Want Giving May Form Energy Mistake Tree Dog Ultimate Horse Assuming Contrary One Way Welfare Damn Cosmos Rats Pessimist Mosquitoes Fungi Lice

Author:H. P. Lovecraft

“Contrary to the romantic way in which our history is/has been portrayed, politicians are NOT 'men of good conscience.' In the real world, it takes a psychopath to want to rule over other human beings. Unless you want to define the word 'service' in the context of what a bull does to a cow, in no way are the efforts of politicians in this regard any kind of 'service'.”

Men World Way Want Humans Kind Doe Has Beens Real Political Human Beings Effort Politician Conscience Regard Contrary Real World Cows Bulls Psychopath

Author:Edward Britton

“At that time, the academic orientation was rather technical contrary to that of the university, where art theory is very important. The teachers were renowned artists and among the best of that time.”

Art Important Artist Teacher Theory University Contrary Academic Orientation Best Teacher Renowned

Author:Ralph Allen

“No sin is committed merely because a thought enters the mind, provided it is not made welcome. Perhaps we may use the figure that the thought first passes into an anteroom, where it stands before the mind acting as a judge. No matter how sordid or evil, it has not touched the personality with its infamy nor in any way laid guilt upon the soul unless and until the mind acting as judge admits it with a welcome. If the mind decides against it and dismisses it, the personality is not only unsullied but is, on the contrary, by this act of rejection stimulated and strengthened in moral power.”

Ifs Way Mind Firsts May Made Soul Matter Use Evil Sin Acting Moral Figures Judging Personality Guilt Committed Contrary Welcome Rejection Touched Infamy Power Of Thought

Author:Norman Vincent Peale

“You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily.”

Source: All the Dave Barry you could ever want: four classic books in one from America's foremost humorist

“No, I haven't failed thousands of times. On the contrary, I have successfully eliminated thousands of ideas that do not work!”

Inspirational Ideas Havens Contrary

Author:Thomas A. Edison

“Elegance and comfort are not incompatible, and whoever maintains the contrary simply doesn't know what he's talking about”

Knows Talking Fashion Comfort Comfortable Shoes Contrary Elegance Maintaining Compatible Fashion Designer

Book:Salvatore Ferragamo, the art of the shoe, 1927-1960

Source: Salvatore Ferragamo, the art of the shoe, 1927-1960

“When the conception of internal form is governed by edge, color appears to remain on or above the surface. I think, on the contrary, of color as being seen in and throughout, not solely on, the surface.”

Thinking Form Color Edges Surface Contrary Internals Conception

Author:Jules Olitski

“We tried some experiments in mind reading which were not very successful. Think mind reading contrary to common sense, wise provision of the Bon Dieu that we cannot read each others minds, twould stop civilization and everybody would take to the woods. In fifty or hundred thousand centuries when mankind have become perfect by evolution then perhaps this sense could be developed with safety to the state.”

“Despite rumors to the contrary, a mime is actually a very satisfying thing to waste.”

Waste Contrary Despite Satisfying Rumor Mime

Author:Lev L. Spiro

“Contrary to the royal and uptight image of polo, I want to bring it to a younger generation. This is a great sport that can have a larger audience and appeal to more people. Sportsmanship is lacking in many other sports that I don't want to name.”

People Want Names Sports Audience Generations Contrary Appeals Lacking Royal Younger Generation Sportsmanship Great Sports Uptight Polo

Author:Randeep Hooda

“Reality deals in specifics under the guise of generalities. Literature does the contrary.”

Doe Reality Literature Deals Contrary Guise Generalities Specifics

Book:A Reader on Reading

Source: A Reader on Reading

“Advanced technology does not always promise a more intelligent civilization. On the contrary, the more the common people rely on technology to do their thinking and solving for them, the less practice there is left for their own brains.”

People Thinking Doe Left Common Brain Practice Technology Promise Civilization Intelligent Contrary Rely Advanced Technology

Book:Killosophy

Source: Killosophy

“The skeptic says that the believer has lost his own mind under God. On the contrary, it is the people who follow God who are most like his children, who willingly and consciously walk in his will; but those who oppose him oppose him vainly and at their own expense, and, figuratively, seem to be more like his tools. They don't diminish his glory, but instead he still manages to use them in ways of unconsciously carrying out his will.”

People Way Mind Children Stills Use Seems Lost Walks Glory Tools Contrary Believer Manage Expenses Diminish Skeptic

Book:Killosophy

Source: Killosophy

“It is the philosophers, theologians, and evangelists who are said to be filled with pride and bigotry due to the strong convictions that they represent. On the contrary, teachings can be either taken or dismissed; whereas voting is the only thing the average person can do to force everyone to live how they would prefer. A simple vote is among the largest yet most acceptable forms of bigotry, and that is because people play the card only when they feel that in doing so it conveniences themselves.”

Source: Killosophy

“When a man has a gift in speaking the truth, brute aggression is no longer his security blanket for approval. He, on the contrary, spends most of his energy trying to tone it down because his very nature is already offensive enough.”

Men Trying Enough Energy Security Contrary Tone Approval Aggression Offensive Brutes Blanket Speak The Truth

Book:Killosophy

Source: Killosophy

“Not even the vicissitudes of fortune are contrary to nature or to the providential ordering of the universe. It all flows from the gods, who determine what is needed for the welfare of the whole universe, of which you are a part.”

Whole Universe Needed Flow Fortune Determine Contrary Welfare Vicissitudes

Book:The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations

Source: The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations

“I firmly believe that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and self-seeking and every thing that is contrary to God's law, the Holy Ghost will come and fill every corner of our hearts; but if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and self-seeking and pleasure and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God; and I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him when he is full already with something else.”

Source: Secret Power

“He who knows how to wait for what he desires does not feel very desperate if he fails in obtaining it; and he, on the contrary, who is very impatient in procuring a certain thing, takes so much pains about it, that, even when he is successful, he does not think himself sufficiently rewarded.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Feels Doe Pain Desire Certain Waiting Know How Successful Failing Contrary Desperate Impatient Obtaining

Author:Jean de la Bruyere

“We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.”

Thinking May Order Succeed Contrary Surviving

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset

“Superstition is related to this life, religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, religion to virtue; it is by the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious; it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these desires that we become religious.”

Desire Next Religious Virtue Sacrifice Contrary This Life Related Superstitions Superstitious Fatality Vivacity Earthly Desires

Author:Madame de Stael

“Just because we cannot see clearly the end of the road, that is no reason for not setting out on the essential journey. On the contrary, great change dominates the world, and unless we move with change we will become its victims.”

World Ends Reason Moving Journey Essentials Victim Contrary Setting Settings No Reason Great Change End Of The Road

Book:America the Beautiful

Source: America the Beautiful

“However we may flatter ourselves to the contrary, our friends think no higher of us than the world do. They see us through the jaundiced or distrustful eyes of others. They may know better, but their feelings are governed by popular prejudice. Nay, they are more shy of us (when under a cloud) than even strangers; for we involve them in a common disgrace, or compel them to embroil themselves in continual quarrels and disputes in our defense.”

Thinking Knows World May Feelings Eye Common Higher Prejudice Clouds Stranger Defense Contrary Shy Disputes Quarrels Disgrace

Book:Liber Amoris and Related Writings

Source: Liber Amoris and Related Writings

“Contrary to vulgar legend the lives of great ballerinas are not entirely given up to a few minutes of graceful movement every night followed by champagne drunk out of their toeshoes till dawn, in the company of financiers ... no, most of their time is spent in filthy rehearsal halls, inhaling dust, or else in class, daily, year in year out, practicing, practicing even after they are already prima ballerinas.”

Years Night Given Company Class Minutes Movement Contrary Drunk Dust Dawn Halls Legends Ballet Every Night Vulgar Rehearsal Given Up Champagne Filthy Ballerina Financiers

Book:Death in the Fifth Position

Source: Death in the Fifth Position

“Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare them for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.”

Ifs Men Would Be Parent Race Watches Power Fate Childhood Minutes Objects Authority Absolutes Contrary Oppression Secure Perpetual Immense Manhood Gratification

Book:Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America

“But human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value.”

Humans Stories Values Fall Human Beings Our Lives Despair Evidence Patterns Contrary Setting Settings Depressing Chaotic

Book:A Short History Of Myth

Source: A Short History Of Myth

“La ve rite , comme la lumie' re, aveugle. Le mensonge, au contraire, est un beau cre puscule qui met chaque objet en valeur. Truth, like light, blinds. A lie, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight which shows the value of each object.”

Shows Light Beautiful Lying Values Objects Mets Contrary Twilight Rite

Author:Albert Camus

“Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.”

Ifs Men Humans Doe Human Nature Negative Oneself Contrary Self Worth Contemporary Permanent Analysis Greek Rebellion Rebel Suspicion

Author:Albert Camus

“All civilized people see the day beginning at dawn or a little after or a long time after or whatever time their work begins; this they lengthen according to their work, during what they call 'all day long'; and end it when they close their eyes. It is they who say the days are long. On the contrary, the days are round.”

People Littles Long Ends Eye Work Long Time Rounds Contrary Dawn Civilized

Author:Jean Giono

“This is to be observed of the Bishop of London, that, though apparently of a spirit somewhat austere, there is in his idiosyncrasy a strange fund of enthusiasm, a quality which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Prime Minister of England. The Bishop of London sympathies with everything that is earnest; but what is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.”

Spirit Quality Strange Ought England Errors London Contrary Enthusiasm Ministers Fund Prime Possessed Prime Minister Earnest Bishops Idiosyncrasies Canterbury

Author:Benjamin Disraeli

“In any case, if you ever leave me with a handsome man, do not tell me that you trust me because, let me warn you: that is not what will prevent me from deceiving you, if I want to. On the contrary.”

Ifs Men Want Cases Let Me Contrary Deceiving Handsome Leaving Me Trust Me Handsome Men

Author:Jean-Paul Sartre

“Karl Marx did not call for an opposition to the forces of history. On the contrary he accepted all of them, the drive of technology, the revolutionizing effects of democratic striving, even the vagaries of capitalism, as being indeed the carriers of a brighter future.”

Force Technology Effects Capitalism Democratic Strive Contrary Accepted Opposition Brighter Carrier Brighter Future

Author:Robert Heilbroner

“I am not fully informed of the practices at Harvard, but there is one from which we shall certainly vary, although it has been copied, I believe, by nearly every college and academy in the United States. That is, the holding the students all to one prescribed course of reading, and disallowing exclusive application to those branches only which are to qualify them for the particular vocations to which they are destined. We shall, on the contrary, allow them uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall choose to attend, and require elementary qualification only, and sufficient age.”

Source: Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts

“For men know not what the nature of the soul is; whether it is engendered with us, or whether, on the contrary, it is infused into us at our birth, whether it perishes with us, dissolved by death, or whether it haunts the gloomy shades and vast pools of Orcus.”

Knows Men Soul Birth Contrary Shade Pool Gloomy

Book:Lucretius On the Nature of Things

Source: Lucretius On the Nature of Things

“Religion assures us that our afflictions shall have an end; she comforts us, she dries our tears, she promises us another life. On the contrary, in the abominable worship of atheism, human woes are the incense, death is the priest, a coffin the altar, and annihilation the Deity.”

Humans Ends Atheism Tears Comfort Promise Worship Contrary Priests Affliction Woe Deities Altars Coffins Annihilation Another Life Incense

Author:François-René de Chateaubriand

“In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. ... Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege: one part of the people rule over the rest: there is a part whose fair and equal share of influence in the representation is withheld from them, contrary to all just government, but, above all, contrary to the principle of democracy, which professes equality as its very root and foundation.”

People Government Would Be Principles Democracy Share Influence Equal Fairs Roots Foundation Privilege Contrary Inequality Representation Sections

Author:John Stuart Mill

“I have no patience with this dreadful idea that whatever you have in you has to come out, that you can't suppress true talent. People can be destroyed; they can be bent, distorted, and completely crippled. In spite of all the poetry, all the philosophy to the contrary, we are not really masters of our fate.”

People Ideas Philosophy Fate Talent Masters Contrary Destroyed Spite Bent Crippled No Patience I Have No Patience

Author:Katherine Anne Porter

“What we each fall in love with individually is, I believe, our moral, mental, and physical complement. Not our like, not our counterpart; quite the contrary; within healthy limits, our unlike and our opposite.”

Love Believe Fall I Believe Moral Healthy Limits Opposites Falling In Love Contrary Complement Counterparts

Book:Falling in Love

Source: Falling in Love

“No matter what the legislature may say, a man has the right to make his speech, print his handbill, compose his newspaper, and deliver his sermon without asking anyone's permission. The contrary suggestion is abhorrent to our traditions.”

Men May Matter Speech Tradition Asking No Matter What Contrary Newspapers Print Permission Suggestions Sermons Legislature Abhorrent

Author:William O. Douglas

“To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.”

Prove Miracle Contrary Absurdity

Author:Denis Diderot

“The object of a dialogical-liberterian action is not to 'dislodge' the oppressed from a mythological reality in order to 'bind' them to another reality. On the contrary, the object of dialogical action is to make it possible for the oppressed, by perceiving their adhesion, to opt to transform an unjust reality." "In order for the oppressed to unite they must first cut the umbilical cord of magic and myth which binds them to the world of oppression; the unity which links them to each other must be of a different nature.”

World Firsts Different Reality Action Order Cutting Magic Objects Unity Myth Contrary Oppression Links Oppressed Unjust Cords Umbilical Cord

Author:Paulo Freire

“If all were equalized by death, as the medieval idea constantly emphasized, was it not possible that inequalities on earth were contrary to the will of God?”

Ifs Ideas Earth Contrary Gods Will Inequality Medieval

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“Every work of art (unless it is a psuedo-intellectualist work, a work already comprised in some ideology that it merely illustrates, as with Brecht) is outside ideology, is not reducible to ideology. Ideology circumscribes without penetrating it. The absence of ideology in a work does not mean an absence of ideas; on the contrary it fertilizes them.”

Mean Doe Art Ideas Absence Contrary Ideology Works Of Art Brecht

Author:Eugene Ionesco

“When a Forsyte was engaged, married, or born, the Forsytes were present; when a Forsyte diedbut no Forsyte had as yet died; they did not die; death being contrary to their principles, they took precautions against it, the instinctive precautions of highly vitalised persons who resent encroachments on their property.”

Persons Dies Born Principles Married Died Property Contrary Engaged Resent Precaution Encroachment

Author:John Galsworthy

“Knowing that all things contrary to God's laws are transient, let us avoid despair and radiate hope for a warless world.”

World Law Knowing Despair All Things Contrary Transient

Book:Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words

Source: Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words

“When I see a cheerful young man shrieking about how full of life he is, banging on a drum, and blowing on a tin trumpet, and speaking of his good spirits, it depresses me, since naturally it gives the contrary impression. It can't be real. It ought to be but it isn't. If the noisy person meant what he said, he wouldn't say it.”

Ifs Men Giving Persons Said Real Young Spirit Ought Contrary Impression Young Man Being Real Depressing Cheerful Trumpets Noisy Tin Banging

Book:Love at Second Sight

Source: Love at Second Sight

“I am learning that mature faith, which encompasses both simple faith and fidelity, works the opposite of paranoia. It reassembles all the events of life around trust in a loving God. When good things happen, I accept them as gifts from God, worthy of thanksgiving. When bad things happen, I do not take them as necessarily sent by God -- I see evidence in the Bible to the contrary -- and I find in them no reason to divorce God. Rather, I trust that God can use even those bad things for my benefit.”

Source: Reaching for the Invisible God Study Guide

“My message is that the counterclaim - which is that if wages go up, employment will go down - is a scam. It's a con job. It's an intimidation tactic. There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that it's true. On the contrary, where you find high wages you usually find low unemployment.”

Ifs Jobs Messages Lows Evidence Contrary Employment Unemployment Wages Tactics Intimidation Scams

Author:Nick Hanauer

“Regardless of the importance of known evidence to the contrary, the arts are generally regarded as being so much entertaining fluff, a commodity that isn't a priority in the traditional program of learning. This is unacceptable in a so-called 'enlightened' society.”

Art Known Evidence Program Importance Contrary Priorities Traditional Enlightened Entertaining Commodity Fluff Enlightened Society

Author:Ken Danby

“For me there is no gap between my painting and my so-called 'decorative' work. I never considered the 'minor arts' to be artistically frustrating; on the contrary, it was an extension of my art.”

Art Artist Painting Contrary Gaps Minors Extensions Frustrating

Author:Sonia Delaunay

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