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Opposites Quotes

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Opposites Quotes

“Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names … Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.”

MenWayMeanUseCertainNamesRedOppositesTradeFishesConservativeContraryTricksPityRadicalDestructiveCategoriesSwearSuperficialDeceivedListen To MeMisuseTaintedStingyDescribe Myself
Author:R. A. Lafferty
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“Futurism and Cubism are comparable in importance to the invention of perspective, for which they substituted a new concept of space. All subsequent movements were latent in them or brought about by them.. ..the two movements cannot be regarded as in opposition to each other, even though they started from opposite points; I maintain [an idea approved by Appolinaire and later by Matisse that they are two extremes of the same sign, tending to coincide at certain points which only the poetic instinct of the painter can discover: 'poetry' being the content and 'raison d'tre' of art.”

ArtTwoIdeasCertainSpaceMovementPerspectiveConceptsOppositesImportanceInstinctExtremesInventionPainterOppositionPoetry IsPoeticApprovedLatentCubismTwo ExtremesFuturismMatisseTots
Author:Gino Severini
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“I suppose as long as novels last, and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero; a wicked monster, his opposite; and a pretty girl, who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own.”

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Book:The four Georges. The English humorists. Roundabout papers
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“Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.”

MenWayPersonsMightCertainCrimeExamplePrayingOppositesMadnessMadInstanceObligedSupposing
Book:The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
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“I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. ... I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me... These are not, however, the days of miracles ... I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.”

IfsMenFactsMightCertainReligiousOpinionCasesStudyWiseAdviceDivineDutyOppositesMiracleConnectedPositive AtheismBeing WiseIrreverentDivine Will
Author:Abraham Lincoln
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“History is one long chain of reflections. Hegel also indicated certain rules that apply for this chain of reflections. Anyone studying history in depth will observe that a thought is usually proposed on the basis of other, previously proposed thoughts. But as soon as one thought is proposed, it will be contradicted by another. A tension arises between these two opposite ways of thinking. But the tension is resolved by the proposal of a third thought which accommodates the best of both points of view. Hegel calls this a dialectic process”

ThinkingWayLongTwoCertainProcessViewsStudyReflectionOppositesThirdsBasesDepthPoint Of ViewAriseChainsTensionProposalWay Of ThinkingAccommodateHegelDialecticsTwo OppositesStudying History
Author:Jostein Gaarder
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“I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in that belief, and perhaps in some respects both.”

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Book:Speeches & Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865 by Abraham Lincoln
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“But, in North Korea, it's just the opposite. There's one story. It's written by the Kim regime. And 23 million people are conscripted to be secondary characters. There, as a youth, your aptitude towards certain jobs is measured, and the rest of your life is dictated, whether you'll be a fisherman or a farmer or an opera singer.”

PeopleCharacterStoriesJobsLife IsCertainMillionsWrittenYouthOppositesSingersFarmersOperaRegimesKoreaRest Of Your LifeNorth KoreaFishermanKimAptitudeOpera SingersOpera Singing
Author:Adam Johnson
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“With a comedian, it's the opposite. You put that album out, and they've heard it. If they're coming out to see you, you'd better be doing new stuff. There's always a tiny part of the audience that want to hear certain bits of yours, or they've brought friends to see you, and they've told them about some of your bits. Then maybe you should do them.”

IfsWantShouldCertainStuffBitsAudienceHeardOppositesAlbumsTinyComedianComing OutNew Stuff
Author:Patton Oswalt
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“It doesn't take a brilliant mind to notice that adults are telling you what to do and then they do the opposite. I mean, I can't recall every stupid thing that adults were doing when I was six or seven. Some of it was the religious restrictions, where there were certain things that you were allowed to do and certain things that you weren't allowed to do, and I couldn't make sense of those things.”

MindMeanI CanCertainReligiousStupidSixAdultsOppositesSevenBrilliantMake SenseRecallsRestrictionStupid ThingsVery StupidBrilliant Minds
Author:Al Jaffee
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“Rhetoric is useful because the true and the just are naturally superior to their opposites, so that, if decisions are improperly made, they must owe their defeat to their own advocates; which is reprehensible. Further, in dealing with certain persons, even if we possessed the most accurate scientific knowledge, we should not find it easy to persuade them by the employment of such knowledge. For scientific discourse is concerned with instruction, but in the case of such persons instruction is impossible.”

IfsShouldPersonsMadeCertainEasyDecisionCasesImpossibleConcernedOppositesDefeatSuperiorsEmploymentInstructionPossessedAccurateRhetoricDiscourseScientific Knowledge
Book:Aristotle: the art of rhetoric
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“I understand the opposite side of the camera. I have a profound respect for that. I have worked with people who, when you hit that mark, are doing 50 percent of your work for you. So, you know, it's a balance. When you walk into a mark and you're lit a certain way or something's happening so often you don't know what's behind you... And that's what's so strange about being a movie actor.”

PeopleKnowsWayCertainActorsSidesWalksBehindsStrangeBalanceHappeningsPercentOppositesMarkCamerasProfoundLitBehind YouMovie Actors
Author:Jake Gyllenhaal
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“There's nothing like a deadline to get the old blood flowing. All the juices, really. It doesn't follow, if you think about it. You'd assume certain things ... certain activities ... would become unimportant. Certain betrayals would become unbearable. But they don't really. In fact, quite the opposite. Everything takes on a new light. The impossible becomes possible, desirable even. It's quite remarkable.”

IfsThinkingFactsLightCertainImpossibleBloodActivityOppositesAssumingBetrayalRemarkableDesirableJuiceUnbearableDeadlineUnimportantImpossible Becomes Possible
Author:Walter Wykes
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“There are things that make us choose, on certain days, on certain nights, the opposite of love, in all its variations. But I want to acknowledge that with love and hate it's not simply one or the other. It's at least two, three, four, five different emotions existing at once, side by side, a broad spectrum of things alive.”

WantTwoDifferentNightCertainHateThreeSidesEmotionFiveFourAliveOppositesAcknowledgeBroadsSpectrumVariationLove And HateDifferent Emotions
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
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“In my opinion, the continued popularity of these gross distortions of Iran in the U.S. seems to reveal more about certain aspects of America than about Iran. It seems that the popularity of these memoirs is largely due to the fact that, while claiming to do the opposite, they regularly reinforce the dominant representations of Iran in America by constructing an exotic, backward, and barbaric Iran principally based on U.S. archives.”

FactsSeemsAmericaCertainOpinionAspectOppositesDuesMemoirIranPopularityRepresentationDominantGrossExoticDistortionArchivesBarbaric
Author:Mohammad Marandi
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“Well the thing is that under the [Ronald] Reagan administration, excesses have occurred in terms of over regulating certain types of behavior, and excesses have occurred in the opposite direction, in de-regulating other types of behavior. As a matter of fact, if they continue to regulate the airlines, we might have safer skies, and if they slack off on the radio, we might have better radio. If they just use it as a threat, eventually there's going to be another test case like the one that the 7 dirty words ruling came out of, and basically, its extortion.”

IfsWellsMatterFactsUseMightCertainTermCasesSkyTypeBehaviorTestsOppositesThreatRadioAdministrationDirtyExcessRulingAirlineMatter Of FactDirty WordsExtortion
Author:Frank Zappa
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“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born - that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.”

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Author:Warren G. Bennis
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“People sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only amplifies the opinion prevalent at a certain time, to the point where it covers any other opinion.”

PeopleDifferentSometimesCertainOpinionImagineTvsOppositesRadioAccessNewspapersInfinityImagine ThatAmplifyDifferent OpinionsOthers Opinions
Author:Amin Maalouf
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“The tension of opposites: Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.”

KnowsWantShouldLife IsCertainHurtOne ThingMiddleBandOppositesSeriesBoundsGrantedTensionBack And ForthTuesdayRubberRubber BandsMorrieTuesdays With MorrieNever Take Anything For Granted
Author:Morrie Schwartz
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“If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?”

IfsWayBelieveEndsSometimesLyingCertainOrderFallEnergyQualityOppositesAnd LoveFalling In LoveBelovedPessimismCynicismSpectrumExaggerationHabitualCoupsLove Lies
Book:On Love: A Novel
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“Guide to the world of the dead. When you are certain that the body has left you, feel sad for the good you didn’t get to do; then stop feeling sad and begin your journey to the past. Feel happy for the evil you didn’t get to do, then stop feeling happy and realize that what propels you is chance, which when you were going in the opposite direction seemed to you like order, or necessity.”

WorldFeelsFeelingsBodyPastCertainOrderEvilLeftRealizingChanceJourneyOppositesGuidesFeeling HappyFeeling Sad
Author:Rodrigo Rey Rosa
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“We believe that we live in the 'age of information,' that there has been an information 'explosion,' an information 'revolution.' While in a certain narrow sense this is the case, in many important ways just the opposite is true. We also live at a moment of deep ignorance, when vital knowledge that humans have always possessed about who we are and where we live seems beyond our reach. An Unenlightenment. An age of missing information.”

WayBelieveHumansHas BeensImportantMomentsSeemsAgeCertainCasesMissingInformationIgnoranceRevolutionOppositesWho We ArePossessedExplosions
Book:The end of nature
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