“A silly society is a youth-obsessed society: To the Chinese, who appreciate the value of experience, the greater the ratio in a team of grey 'hairs and no-hairs' to 'black hairs' the faster and better a task will be completed. The opposite assumption obtains in the youth-obsessed U.S.” ValuesBlackGreaterTeamYouthHairAppreciateTasksOppositesSillyChineseFasterObsessedAssumptionGreyRatiosBlack HairGrey Hair Author:Ilana Mercer
“It is deeply interesting to notice also where the citizens were put to work. Each was set to labor on the bit of all opposite his home... I do not say that men are not called to service in far distant places... But I do say that for the vast majority the task that God appoints is the task lying at the door. The nearest thing is God's thing. The nearest duty is God's duty. He who cannot find his service there is little likely to be useful anywhere.” MenLittlesHomeLyingBitsInterestingDoorsDutyCitizensLaborTasksOppositesMajority Author:George H Morrison
“Team members need to feel trusted and valued, and micromanaging communicates the opposite. Founders who are prone to manage every detail of their businesses will ultimately kill themselves as well as lose the support of team members. Learn to delegate key tasks and give credit.” NeedsGivingFeelsWellsLosesSupportTeamKeysMembersTasksOppositesDetailsCommunicateCreditManageTrustedFoundersDelegatesTeam MemberMicromanaging Author:Martin Zwilling
“Only when the kulak refused to deliver grain to the State did [Joseph] Stalin, under the pressure of the Left Opposition, accomplish a sharp turn. Being the empiricist that he is, he moved, to the opposite extreme, and set as a task for two or three years the collectivization of all the peasantry, the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, and the compression of the Five Year Plan into four years.” YearsTwoStatesTurnsThreeLeftClassFiveFourPlansTasksOppositesPressureMovedExtremesAccomplishFive YearsOppositionThree YearsFour YearsGrainCompressionFive Year Plans Author:Leon Trotsky
“For while we are enclosed in these confinements of the body, we perform as a kind of duty the heavy task of necessity; for the soul from heaven has been cast down from its dwelling on high and sunk, as it were, into the earth, a place just the opposite to godlike nature and eternity. But I believe that the immortal gods have sown souls in human bodies so there might exist beings to guard the world and after contemplating the order of heaven, might imitate it by their moderation and steadfastness in life.” WorldBelieveHumansKindHas BeensSoulBodyMightEarthOrderI BelieveHeavenDutyTasksOppositesEternityCastsHeavyImmortalContemplatingModerationHuman BodyDwellingConfinementGodlikeSteadfastness Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero
“The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.” LongArtEnoughArtistTasksLonelyOppositesOneselfHanging OutPrecise Author:David Rakoff
“I could see how easy it would be to fall into loving Bella. It would be exactly like falling: effortless. Not letting myself love her was the opposite of falling—it was pulling myself up a cliff-face, hand over hand, the task as grueling as if I had no more than mortal strength.” IfsHandsWould BeFacesFallEasyTasksOppositesMortalsPullingCliffsEffortless Author:Stephenie Meyer
“We have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences.” WayKindWarHumanityPeaceDifferencesTasksOppositesActiveCuresPassive Author:Mary Parker Follett
“Not the least of the problems in clarifying one's consciousness is developing the stoic determination to criticize one's own softness or sentimentality toward oneself. Ego, self-solicitous about its own tenderness, is the ultimate policeman over its own false consciousness, dementedly uprooting every healthy seedling of insight into the truth. As Kierkegaard remarked, most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, but the real trick and task of life is to learn to be just the very opposite.” PeopleLifeRealSelfProblemTruthLife IsConsciousnessHealthyEgoDeterminationTasksOppositesUltimateOneselfInsightTricksObjectivesDevelopingOver ItCriticizeTendernessSubjectivePolicemenObjectivitySentimentalitySoftnessStoicClarifyingSeedlingsUprooting Author:Kenny Smith
“I kinda have the opposite of ADD. I have a hyper-focused disorder, where if there's a given task in front of me I really concentrate on that.” IfsGivenFrontsTasksOppositesAddFocusedDisorderHyper Author:Jared Leto