Quotes & Sayings About Conflicting Ideas

What a dichotomy. What conflicting ideas that we love and embrace these women, and entrust them to raise our children and to feed us and to bathe us, but we keep something as silly as a bathroom separate. — Kathryn Stockett

Volition ... takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness. — William James

The words 'theory' and 'practice' are of Greek origin; they carry our thoughts back to the ancient philosophers by whom they were contrived, and by whom they were also contrasted and placed in opposition, as denoting two mutually conflicting and mutually inconsistent ideas ... [this fallacy] based on a double system of natural laws retarded for centuries the development of physical science, notably mechanics. — William John Macquorn Rankine

A lot of people don't give much thought to what they believe, and it's easy for them to hold what often are two conflicting ideas in their head at the same time. — Lee Strobel

To follow Jesus is to pay the cost of discipleship, and then to die to ourselves, to our own interests, our own agendas and reputations. It is to pick up our crosses and count the cost of losing all that contradicts his will and his way - including our reputations before the world, and our standing with the people and in the communities that we once held dear. It is to live before one audience, the audience of One, and therefore to die to all other conflicting opinions and assessments. There is no room here for such contemporary ideas as the looking-glass self, and no consideration here for trivial contemporary obsessions such as one's legacy. — Os Guinness

What is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones. — Carl Sagan

The views of intellectuals influence the politics of tomorrow ... What to the contemporary observer appears as the battle of conflicting interests has indeed often been described long before in a clash of ideas confined to narrow circles. — Friedrich Hayek

The more these artificial renaissances strive to keep intact the letter of the original doctrines, the more they distort the original meaning, for truth is forged in an evolution of changing and conflicting ideas. Thought is faithful to itself largely through being ready to contradict itself, while preserving, as inherent elements of truth, the memory of the processes by which it was reached. The task of critical reflection is not merely to understand the various facts in their historical development but also to see through the notion of fact itself, in its development and therefore in its relativity. — Max Horkheimer

Design: holding conflicting ideas in your head without difficulty — Danny Hillis

Sadly, because of our tribal brains, science carries a hefty cost. Treasured ideas that are loved by the community may be left behind, unable to compete with conflicting observations. Admired heroes may be found to have been mistaken. Years of hard work can amount to nothing thanks to a single observation, making a lifetime of effort seem like a waste of time. For our tribal brain, the philosopher's toolbox is full of double-edged knives, capable of cutting away our hopes with the myths. — Mike McRae

His life was dominating by conflicting ideas, as often happens in periods of transition. The turbulence of the times makes some people feel a need to bestir themselves, but in the opposite direction, backwards rather than forwards; — Italo Calvino

Among so many conflicting ideas and so many different perspectives, the honest man is confused and distressed and the skeptic becomes wicked ... Since one must take sides, one might as well choose the side that is victorious, the side which devastates, loots, and burns. Considering the alternative, it is better to eat than to be eaten. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Peace is a state of mind; it is the freedom from all desire to be secure. The mind-heart that seeks security must always be in the shadow of fear. Our desire is not only for material security, but much more for inner, psychological security, and it is this desire to be inwardly secure through virtue, through belief, through a nation, that creates limiting and so conflicting groups and ideas. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Confusion comes from trying to amalgamate several conflicting ideas. — Eero Saarinen

Narrative storytelling enables us to derive ideas from the disparate facts, incongruent motives, conflicting emotions, and other absurdities inherent in living dynamically. The narrative that we select to tell our life story acts as a lens that assigns value to our shape shifting experiences: it pulls humor from catastrophes; it places a patina of irony over our checkered history; it allows us to explore our pessimism; and it provides a platform from which vantage point we can optimistically view the future. — Kilroy J. Oldster

In great teams, conflict becomes productive. The free flow of conflicting ideas is critical for creative thinking, for discovering new solutions no one individual would have come to on his own. — Peter Senge

I wish feminism wasn't so scary to people. It should be an evolving concept. I think it's an umbrella term to embrace conflicting ideas. — Merritt Wever

Though my grandmother had picked up modern ideas in America, she still had some conflicting 19th-century Irish notions. She believed that daughters, educated though they may be, should continue to live at home until they were married. — Rosemary Mahoney

When Schulmann talked, he fired off conflicting ideas like a spread of bullets, then waited to see which ones went home and which came back at him. The sidekick's voice followed like a stretcher-party, softly collecting up the dead. ( ... ) Sound oil policy, sound economics, sound everything. Justice it isn't. (part I, chapter 1) — John Le Carre

So why are they fighting? Political differences, right?" 208 grilled me.
"I guess you could say that."
"So their ideas are in conflict?" continued 208.
"Yes. But then you could say that there are 1.2 million conflicting ideas in the world. Probably more."
"So then it's almost impossible to be friends with anyone?" That was 209.
"That's true," I said. "It's just about impossible to be friends."
This was my lifestyle in the 1970s. Prophesied by Dostoevsky, consolidated by yours truly. — Haruki Murakami

You might be unsure about the true nature of God (or the life force in the universe) even if you have well defined religious beliefs. I say this because you might have been taught two conflicting ideas about God. You might have been consciously told God was love, but at the same time been subconsciously taught He might condemn you if you aren't good enough. These two ideas don't mesh and they cause a great deal of confusion for most people. — Kimberly Giles

Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers. — John Owen

My problem is to bring together in a painting two seemingly conflicting, impossibly unmixable ideas. One is that the finished work shall evoke a sense of recognition, of the mysteriously familiar ... the other is that in order to do the first I must deeply know my subject ... — Keith Crown

In politics, religion and other areas of culture, people disagree on the worth of competing ideas. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that can determine in a robust way which ideas match the real world, and which ones can be ruled out. So conflicting ideologies persist indefinitely. — Nathan Myhrvold

If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions. — Francis Schaeffer