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Opposites Quotes

“..(T)here are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.”

ThinkingMenNeedsBelieveMayTwoReasonHandsGovernmentOpinionDemocracyWiseShareAdviceDeserveOppositesFellowsDemocratDoctrineFallenWickedTrustedIrresponsibleCommonwealthTwo Opposites
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“Being an artist and being a teacher are two conflicting things. When I paint, my work manifests the unexpected... In teaching it's just the opposite. I must account for every line, shape and colour and I am forced to give an explanation of the inexplicable and account for the variety of styles the students present.”

GivingTwoArtistLinesTeacherTeachingStyleStudentsShapesOppositesAccountsPaintVarietyExplanationColourUnexpectedBeing An ArtistInexplicableBeing A Teacher
Author:Pierre Alechinsky
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“The self-esteem of western women is founded on physical being (body mass index, youth, beauty). This creates a tricky emphasis on image, but the internalized locus of self-worth saves lives. Western men are very different. In externalizing the source of their self-esteem, they surrender all emotional independence. (Conquest requires two parties, after all.) A man cannot feel like a man without a partner, corporation, team. Manhood is a game played on the terrain of opposites. It thus follows that male sense of self disintegrates when the Other is absent.”

MenFeelsTwoDifferentSelfBodyGamesPartyTeamSelf EsteemYouthEmotionalSourceMassOppositesIndependenceWesternMalesPartnersSurrenderSelf WorthEsteemCorporationsManhoodEmphasisConquestAbsentTrickySense Of SelfTerrainSave A Life
Book:The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide
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“In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement - the number restriction (two and only two) - is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.”

PeopleIfsYearsFirstsTwoChoicesIndividualNumbersRightsGayYears AgoOppositesPrejudiceUnionsGenderTraditionalDefinedDenialLogicalRequirementsEssaysArbitraryGay MarriageRestrictionGay RightsExclusionPolygamyAutonomousTraditional MarriageIndividual Choice
Author:Charles Krauthammer
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“I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day.”

ThinkingMeanTwoHomeAbleNextImpossibleOppositesTwo ThingsNonsensePullingUnlimitedNext DayLooking ForwardConfrontingCambridgeGeneralities
Book:The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The private years, 1884-1914
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“The Mutakallemim... apply the term non-existence only to absolute non-existence, and not to absence of properties. A property and the absence of that property are considered by them as two opposites, they treat, e.g. , blindness and sight, death and life, in the same way as heat and cold. Therefore they say, without any qualification, non-existence does not require any agent, an agent is required when something is produced.”

WayDoeTwoTermExistenceColdOppositesTreatsSightAbsolutesPropertyAbsenceAgentsHeatLife And DeathBlindnessQualificationsNon ExistenceTwo OppositesHeat And Cold
Book:Guide for the perplexed
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“He who thinks he can have flesh and bones without being subject to any external influence, or any accidents of matter, unconsciously wishes to reconcile two opposites, viz., to be at the same time subject and not subject to change. If man were never subject to change there could be no generation; there would be one single being, but no individuals forming a species.”

IfsThinkingMenTwoMatterWould BeIndividualWishGenerationsInfluenceSubjectsOppositesSpeciesBonesAccidentsFleshReconcileTwo OppositesExternal Influences
Book:The Guide for the Perplexed
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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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“Some god or Weltgeist has been making a movie out of us for the past six thousand years, and now we have turned a corner on the movie set of reality and have discovered the boards propping up the two-dimensional monuments of human history. The movement of humanism has reached its limit, and now at that limit it is breaking apart into the opposites of mechanism and mysticism and moving along the circumference of a vast new sphere of posthuman thought.”

YearsHumansHas BeensTwoRealityPastMovingMovementThousandLimitsSixOppositesHarmonyHumanismCornersBoardsMysticismSpheresMechanismThousand YearsHuman HistoryMonumentHuman ThoughtMovie SetsBreaking Apart
Book:Passages about Earth: An Exploration of the New Planetary Culture
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“Men are constantly attracted and deluded by two opposite charms: the charm of competence which is engendered by mathematics and everything akin to mathematics, and the charm of humble awe, which is engendered by meditation on the human soul and its experiences. Philosophy is characterized by the gentle, if firm, refusal to succumb to either charm.”

IfsMenHumansTwoSoulPhilosophyMeditationOppositesMathematicsHumbleFirmGentleCharmAweCompetenceHuman SoulRefusalDeludedTwo Opposites
Book:An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays
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“I am like all other atheists only in that I do not believe there are any gods. Beyond that, I may differ dramatically in my values and beliefs from any other atheist. On both sides of the political spectrum, one can find the neo-conservative Objectivists and the ultra-liberal Communists, both of whom hate each other. These two factions take up nearly opposite sets of values, yet both are comprised of unabashed atheists.”

BelieveMayTwoPoliticalValuesHateBeliefSidesAtheismOppositesAtheistConservativeCommunistBoth SidesSpectrumFactionsUltrasPolitical Spectrum
Author:Richard Carrier
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“There is a brotherliness about a drinking person, which is coldly lacking in the straight and narrow enemies of drink; the difference between the two is more marked than nationality or belief: it is an opposite species altogether. It is against the unwritten laws of congeniality for them to mix. For me, a man who does not drink is distinctly indecent.”

MenPersonsDoeTwoLawBeliefDifferencesEnemyDrinkOppositesDrinkingSpeciesLackingNationalityUnwrittenCongeniality
Author:Caitlin Thomas
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“What I would argue is that real spirituality is the ability to keep encountering two opposite thoughts at the same time and still maintain some kind of morality and perspective in the world. It is not the elimination of one side of the equation or the elimination of what you don't like; it is the investigation of everything.”

WorldKindStillsTwoRealSpiritualitySidesAbilityPerspectiveMoralityOppositesArguingInvestigationEquationsEliminationTwo Opposites
Author:Eve Ensler
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“My friend Kathy is the only person who'll be halfway honest with me. 'Did you ever see a cowboy film, where someone has been caught by the Indians and tied between two wild stallions, each pulling in opposite directions?' she asked.I nodded mutely.'That's a bit what giving birth is like.”

GivingPersonsHas BeensTwoFilmBitsHonestBirthMy FriendsOppositesCaughtTiedPullingCowboyHalfwayGiving BirthStallions
Book:Under the Duvet: Shoes, Reviews, Having the Blues, Builders, Babies, Families and Other Calamities
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“If I have to reduce all of the laws of war into a single sentence, it is this. You divide the world into two, combatants and noncombatants. You can attack deliberately combatants, but not deliberately noncombatants. Israel acts that way. It attacks combatants and accidentally kills noncombatants. But in the case of the terrorists, it's the exact opposite. They deliberately attack combatants - noncombatants, civilians, deliberately.”

IfsWorldWayTwoWarLawCasesOppositesIsraelSentencesTerroristDividesCiviliansSingle Sentence
Author:Benjamin Netanyahu
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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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“Faith always presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intellectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of the critical faculties. It sometimes comprised more than this, but it always included this. It was the opposite of doubt and of the spirit of doubt. What irreverent men called credulity, reverent men called faith; and although one word was more respectful than the other, yet the two words were with most men strictly synonymous.”

MenMindTwoIdeasSometimesSpiritDoubtAtheismConditionsIntellectualOppositesCriticalPositive AtheismFacultyOne WordRespectfulAbnormalCredulitySuspensionSubversionIrreverent
Book:History of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in Europe
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“The show with Buckley and Vidal was happening live. There was no editing. There was no delay. So they were aghast. How America reacted is sort of the most interesting thing because as these debates progressed, the ratings were going up. So people began to program these sort of point-counterpoint setups, where two people with opposite sides would come on.”

PeopleTwoShowsAmericaSidesInterestingHappeningsProgramOppositesDebateEditingDelayMost InterestingInteresting ThingsRatingSetupsAghast
Author:Morgan Neville
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“The mystery of the evening-star brilliant in silence and distance between the downward-surging plunge of the sun and the vast, hollow seething of inpouring night. The magnificence of the watchful morning-star, that watches between the night and the day, the gleaming clue to the two opposites.”

TwoNightStarsSilenceWatchesMorningSunMysteryOppositesDistanceBrilliantEveningCosmosClueHollowPlungeMagnificenceSeethingTwo Opposites
Book:Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
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“The lion shall never lie down with the lamb. The lion eternally shall devour the lamb, the lamb eternally shall be devoured. Man knows the great consummation in the flesh, the sensual ecstasy, and that is eternal. Also the spiritual ecstasy of unanimity, that is eternal. But the two are separate and never to be confused.”

KnowsMenTwoSpiritualLyingEternalOppositesFleshSensualitySensualConfusedEcstasyLionsLambsNever LieUnanimity
Book:Twilight in Italy and Other Essays
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“When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? My Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.”

WorldGivingMindBelievePersonsHas BeensTwoI BelieveOpinionParticularOppositesI Believe InCreditInstanceDividedWitchWitchcraftPaganismTwo OppositesWiccan
Book:The de Coverley papers
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“Sold my soul to Satan. I've been dancing with the devil. So when you get to hell you can say you know me. I'm easily attracted by the dark side. Devil keep following. For that fortune, some sold their soul to Satan. Was on track for the first two years, then i let the Devil steer. Now i got to mask my tears, but allow me to re-introduce myself, my name is Cole: Born sinner, opposite of a winner. But the Devil run the T.V. so the demons in him, I'm in trouble did a deal with the Devil but now I'm pleading with him like give me my soul. I ain't ever letting go but the devil don't play fair.”

KnowsGivingYearsFirstsTwoSoulPlayRunningNamesSidesBornDarkDealsHellTroubleTearsLetting GoDevilFairsOppositesGive MeDancingFortuneTrackFollowingMy SoulWinnerSatanDemonMaskSinnerTwo YearsIntroducingKnow MeDark SideSteersPleadingDeals With The DevilDancing With The Devil
Author:J. Cole
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“A legal or religious ceremony by which two persons of the opposite sex solemnly agree to harass and spy on each other... until death do them join.”

PersonsTwoSexReligiousOppositesAgreeSpyCeremonyHusband And WifeFunny MarriageMarriage HumorFunny WeddingHusband WifeMarriage CeremonyFunny Husband And Wife
Book:Selected writings of Elbert Hubbard: his mintage of wisdom, coined from a life of love, laughter and work
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“With any television series - and it's something that is taken for granted with movies because you have the whole arc within two hours - you establish who the character is and it's a two-dimensional version, or if you're lucky, a two and a half-dimensional character. Once you establish that, you can move forward and break all the rules. Once the audience has accepted who the person is, then you can do the exact opposite. What makes it funny and interesting is doing the opposite.”

IfsPersonsTwoCharacterMovingCan DoInterestingHalfBreakAudienceTelevisionLuckyOppositesSeriesAcceptedVersionsMoving Forward
Author:Rashida Jones
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“Free will is something that people struggle with so much, but it's very simple to me. Carl Jung said at the same moment you're a protagonist in your own life making choices, you also are the spear carrier, or the extra, in a much larger drama. You've got to live with these two opposite ideas at the same time.”

PeopleSaidTwoIdeasMomentsChoicesSimpleStruggleDramaOppositesExtrasFree WillSpearsProtagonistsCarrierMaking ChoicesJungTwo Opposites
Author:Wayne Dyer
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