Quotes & Sayings About Exact Opposites

The reason I know what we are to each other is because we fight freely and almost constantly, about even the smallest thing. In fact, once we didn't speak for an entire week because he didn't like the way I loaded his dishwasher ... I can't decide if we're exact opposites, or somehow exactly the same except for minor cosmetic differences. I do know that all of his friends hate me and all of my friends hate him. We drive each other crazy in ways that nobody else can even touch. We never bore each other. And we both realize what a rare thing this is. — Augusten Burroughs

Among the important realizations I had in my own days in the practice room was that if any one route to any one phrase didn't work after days of trying, then the exact opposite route should at least be explored, as well as every alternative in between, as counterintuitive as that often seemed. — Renee Fleming

Saddam Hussein is being treated the exact opposite of the way his regime treated those he imprisoned and tortured simply for expressing their opinions. And so I reject that. — Scott McClellan

Here's a foolproof method for keeping America safe. Always do the exact 180-degree opposite of whatever [Jimmy] Carter says, as quickly as possible. — Ann Coulter

It's an astonishing skill that people can read, and read well. Very few people can read well. For instance, I have to be very careful with irony, saying something while meaning the exact opposite. — Kurt Vonnegut

I have the exact opposite problem of every writer I've ever met: Every writer I've ever met writes things that are too long, and they have to edit them down. — Fran Lebowitz

You like lies?" Shallan asked. "Good lies," Pattern said. "That lie. Good lie." "What makes a lie good?" Shallan asked, taking careful notes, recording Pattern's exact words. "True lies." "Pattern, those two are opposites." "Hmmmm . . . Light makes shadow. Truth makes lies. Hmmmm. — Brandon Sanderson

The most inspiring drummer for me is Stewart Copeland from The Police. The Police are the first band I can remember really liking, and Copeland is a guy who was playing in sort of a rock band, or a rock-pop band, but he didn't want to do the traditional kind of rock drumbeat. He was doing all these kind of reggae rhythms, and the reggae style is almost an exact opposite of the rock mold of drumming. — Panda Bear

Being an artist and having a following can be a very scary thing because idolization makes you question your inner role in the universe. A lot of people get caught up in this idea of, "Wow! This world does revolve around me," and it most certainly does not. It's the exact opposite; these people don't exist for you, you exist for them. — Halsey

They have rejected that power and sought to convince women of the exact opposite, that they are powerless. — Frederick Lenz

We have always tried to concentrate on the long term, and to place bets on technology we believe will have a significant impact over time. It's hard to imagine now, but when we started Google most people thought search was a solved problem and that there was no money to be made apart from some banner advertising. We felt the exact opposite: that search quality was very poor, and that awesome user experiences would clearly make money. — Larry Page

I'll have a sentence in my head that's kind of beautiful and interesting, but I'm not sure why or where it's coming from. So it's kind of funny, because when people point out patterns or themes, it's the exact opposite of my film school experience. — Don Hertzfeldt

When you look at what has happened over the last few decades the natural fluctuations point in the opposite direction of what has actually occurred. When they run the models and plug in the man-made pollution, the correspondence is exact. Beyond that, the scale of natural fluctuations has now been far exceeded by the impact of man-made global warming. — Al Gore

One second you're having the time of your life in front of all these people, and then you come backstage to the exact opposite - there's only lukewarm carrots back there. — Babatunde Adebimpe

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. — Benjamin Netanyahu

The inventor and the research man are confused because they both examine results of physical or chemical operations. But they are exact opposites, mirror images of one another. The research man does something and does not care [exactly] what it is that happens, he measures whatever it is. The inventor wants something to happen, but does not care how it happens or what it is that happens if it is not what he wants. — Reginald Fessenden

With any television series 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. — Rashida Jones

If you want to prevent abortions, you make sure everyone has health care, a high school education and birth control. Not the exact opposite. — Chris Rock

You should show some respect for what other people see and feel, even though it be the exact opposite of what you see and feel. — Luigi Pirandello

Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward. Most people do the exact opposite: They only take action when they expect a reward, and they don't enjoy the action. And that's the reason why they don't do their best. — Miguel Angel Ruiz

I don't want to not enjoy where I am at this very moment. So, every time I plan something the exact opposite happens. I hope that I'm always satisfied and content like I am right at this very moment. — Sandra Bullock

It occurs to me how close happiness and sadness are. So closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a thread-like divide that in the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites ... how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate ... Of how love and war stand upon the very same foundations. How, in my darkest moments, my most fearful times, when faced, became my bravest. When feeling at your weakest you end up showing more strength, when at your lowest are suddenly lifted above higher than you've ever been. They all border one another, the opposites, and how we can be altered. Despair can be altered by one simple smile offered by a stranger; confidence can become fear by the arrival of one uneasy presence. ... How similar emotions are. — Cecelia Ahern

I don't like the fact that people are supposed to think horror movies have a way things should go. I always try to do the exact opposite of what people expect and want. — Rob Zombie

Most writers write too much. I have the exact opposite problem. I feel I could write almost anything in a paragraph. I have a natural ability to condense, and so I often think, "Are you kidding me? Five thousand words? How am I gonna make 5,000 words out of that?" — Fran Lebowitz

There is no quality that we respond to in another that we lack. It might be hidden behind some bad behavior or an old, outdated shadow belief that says we are the exact opposite of what we are seeing in the other person. But I promise you that if you are attracted to a quality in someone else, no matter how great, it also exists inside of you. — Debbie Ford

Look at government programs for the past fifty years. Every single one - except warfare - achieved the exact opposite of its announced goal. — Peter Drucker

When I was 15, what I wanted in a boyfriend was just that confidence and swagger. I wanted someone who knew what he was doing, because I was just faking it. What I want for my daughter is the exact opposite. — Ayelet Waldman

Early in my career, a critic said that I needed to "explain" the irony in my work, suggesting that I needed to add text next to the images to help people understand what I was trying to say. At first I was dismayed that I wasn't making work with a clear enough message. That's when I realized that that was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do - that I wasn't responsible for a misinterpretation of my work, that there should be some ambiguity to it. They either got it, or they didn't. — Cindy Sherman

Water and petrol both come from the earth, and though they seem to be alike and even the same, they are in nature and purpose exact opposites, for the one extinguishes fire and the other adds fuel to it. So also the world and its treasures, the heart and its thirst for God are alike His creation. Now the result of the attempt to satisfy the heart with the wealth and pride and honours of this world is the same as if one tried to put out a fire with petrol, for the heart can only find ease and satisfaction in Him who created both it and the longing desire of which it is conscious. — Sadhu Sundar Singh

It is perplexing to see the flexibility of the so-called 'exact sciences' which by cast-iron laws of logic and by the infallible help of mathematics can lead to conclusions which are diametrically opposite to one another. — Vasco Ronchi

Law practice is the exact opposite of sex:even when it's good, it's bad. — Mortimer Zuckerman

I have tried to show as clearly as possible that the very characteristics and weaknesses of temperament with which we were born ... can be transformed into their exact opposites and can therefore produce in us the loveliest of all qualities. — Hannah Hurnard

My accomplishments do not live up to my tennis game. Most people have to work really hard and win some big matches, and then they get money and popularity. For me it has been the reverse of everybody else. The exact opposite. — Andre Agassi

After following the crowd for a while, I'd then go 180 degrees in the exact opposite direction. It always worked for me. — Elliott Erwitt

The character we exhibit in the latter half of our life need not necessarily be, though it often is, our original character, developed further, dried up, exaggerated, or diminished. It can be its exact opposite, like a suit worn inside out. — Marcel Proust

Raeanne
Mirror, Mirror

When I look into a
mirror,
it is her face I see.
Her right is my left, double
moles, dimple and all.
My right is her left,
unblemished.

We are exact
opposites,
Kaeleigh and me.
Mirror image identical
twins. One egg, one sperm
one zygote, divided,
sharing one complete
set of genetic markers.

On the outside we are

the same. But not
inside. I think
she is the egg, so
much like our mother
it makes me want to scream.
Cold.
Controlled.

That makes me the sperm
I guess. I take completely
after our father.
All Daddy, that's me.
Codependent.
Cowardly.

Good, bad. Left, right.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne.
One egg, one sperm.
One being, split in two.

And how many
souls? — Ellen Hopkins

If something you did causes failure, shouldn't the exact opposite of what you did bring success? — Jessica Brody

I have at times tried to imagine the despair which leads to suicide, attempted to conjure up the slew and slop of darkness in which only death appears as a pinprick of light: in other words, the exact opposite of the normal condition of life. — Julian Barnes

How can the world in all its chaos come up with so many coincidences, so many similarities and exact opposites? — Amy Tan

Indeed, nearly all attempts to exterminate a doctrine and its organizational expression, by force without spiritual foundation, are doomed to failure, and not seldom end with the exact opposite of the desired result ... — Adolf Hitler

If ever there was an area in which to do the exact opposite of that which government and the media urge you to do, that area is the purchasing of gold. — Robert Ringer

To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the prerogative of mindlessness, but the exact opposite: It is the reward of self-esteem. — Nathaniel Branden

If you don't know a light bulb is a three-way light bulb, it messes with your head. You reach to turn it off, and it just gets brighter! That's the exact opposite of what I wanted you to do! So you turn the switch again, and it gets brighter once more! I will break you, light bulb! — Mitch Hedberg

Well people love to go dirty and stuff like that. It's funny, because even really dirty things can kind of inspire, but all things inspire really dirty improv and monologues. So then really dirty things can inspire the exact opposite. It's kind of a crapshoot. — Amy Poehler

For love ... has two faces; one white, the other black; two bodies; one smooth, the other hairy. It has two hands, two feet, two tails, two, indeed, of every member and each one is the exact opposite of the other. Yet, so strictly are they joined together — Virginia Woolf

Growing up, me and my brother, we were kind of exact opposites. We were completely yin and yang. He was more rough and tumble, and I just wanted to play with my girlfriends. — Candis Cayne

Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite. — David Ogilvy

A deep truth is a truth so deep that not only is it true but it's exact opposite is also true. — Niels Bohr

It is a part of the function of "law" to give recognition to ideas representing the exact opposite of established conduct. Most of the complications arise from the necessity of pretending to do one thing, while actually doing another. — Thurman Arnold

Many investors make the mistake of buying high and selling low while the exact opposite is the right strategy to outperform over the long term. — John Paulson

Whatever the majority of people is doing, under any given circumstances, if you do the exact opposite, you will probably never make another mistake as long as you live. — Earl Nightingale

Drugs are about dulling perception, about addiction and about behavioral repetition ... What *psychedelics* are about is pattern- dissolving experiences of an extraordinarily high or different awareness. They are the exact opposite of drugs. They promote questioning , they promote consciousness, they promote value examinations, they promote the reconstruction of behavioral patterns. — Terence McKenna

Yeah, like Bizarro Superman, Superman's exact opposite, who lives in the backwards Bizarro world. Up is down, down is up, he says hello when he leaves, goodbye when he arrives. — Jerry Seinfeld

It is ironic that those who seek to blend and destroy individual racial identities are the biggest enemies of diversity, while simultaneously claiming to support diversity. The end result of that form of diversity is the exact opposite of their stated goal: the destruction of individual identities and ultimately, the destruction of diversity. — Arthur Kemp

Her theme was happiness: what it was; what it was not; where we might find it, where not; and how, if found, it must be guarded. Never must we confound it with pleasure. Nor think sorrow its exact opposite. — Mary Lavin