Janus Faced Quotes & Sayings

Young ladies take their notions of our sex from the novels written by their own, and compared with the monstrosities that masquerade for men in the pages of that nightmare literature, Phytagoras' plucked bird and Frankenstein's demon were fair average specimens of humanity.
In these so-called books, the chief lover, or Greek god, as he is admiringly referred to -by the way, they do not say which "Greek god" it is that the gentleman bears such a striking likeness to; it might be hump-backed Vulcan, or double-faced Janus, or even driveling Silenus. He resembles the whole family of them, however, in being a blackguard, and perhaps this is what is meant. — Jerome K. Jerome

I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna and half Cassandra, warning of the future and perhaps living too much in the past-a combination of both. — Ray Bradbury

If I'd found out that Norman Mailer liked me, I'd have killed myself. I think he was too hung up. I'm glad Kurt Vonnegut didn't like me either. He had problems, terrible problems. He couldn't see the world the way I see it. I suppose I'm too much Pollyanna, he was too much Cassandra. Actually I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna and half Cassandra, warning of the future and perhaps living too much in the past - a combination of both. But I don't think I'm too over optimistic. — Ray Bradbury

A friend is Janus-faced: he looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and the harbinger of a greater friend. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Repentance is a one-faced Janus, ever looking to the past. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Entropy is Janus-faced. Its upside surprises are redemptive and favorable to freedom. It is freedom of choice. But the carrier itself requires constant vigilance against entropic noise. Order is not spontaneous, but it is a necessary condition for all the surprises of freedom and opportunity. — George Gilder

No man is an island- he is a holon. A Janus-faced entity who, looking inward, sees himself as a self-contained unique whole, looking outward as a dependent part. His self-assertive tendency is the dynamic manifestation of his unique wholeness, his autonomy and independence as a holon. Its equally universal antagonist, the integrative tendency, expresses his dependence on the larger whole to which he belongs: his 'part-ness.'. — Arthur Koestler

The Terror was over but its effects were as long-lasting as they were momentous. The experience divided the population so sharply that every subsequent political crisis was influenced profoundly. Right across Europe, the horrors of this terrible year made even mildly progressive reform more difficult and made the political and social establishment both more secure and more conservative. So the Revolution's political legacy was Janus-faced: on the one side benign libertarian ideology, on the other malignant state terrorism. It would be difficult to say which has proved the more influential. — Timothy C.W. Blanning