Life Duality Quotes & Sayings

My whole life was duality: Here's my life at home, here's my life on the road. — James Hetfield

In order to eat, you have to be hungry. In order to learn, you have to be ignorant. Ignorance is a condition of learning. Pain is a condition of health. Passion is a condition of thought. Death is a condition of life. — Robert Anton Wilson

At the level of second attention, however, this cycle is irrelevant. One doesn't need to repeal the law of karma at all. Despite all the activity on the surface of life, a speck of awareness inside is not touched. The instant they wake up in the morning, a saint and a sinner are in the same place. They both feel themselves to be alive and aware. This place stands outside reward and punishment. It knows no duality; therefore in stage four your challenge is to find this place, hold on to it, and live there. When you have accomplished this task, duality is gone. You are free from all bondage of good or bad actions. In Christian terms, your soul is redeemed and returned to innocence. — Deepak Chopra

There is a duality to South Africa, as in all of life itself, that is evident, and as stark as the inequality among its citizens — Diane Brown

I'm just so tired of life being something that happens to me. That's not how it's supposed to work. I'm supposed to make my own life. — Joshua Edward Smith

When one is working out a problem ... life becomes duality. One's ego transacts the ordinary routine of things, as if the mind had an upper and lower story and the regular performance of the day's duties moved and motivated on the upper floor, while down below the all-absorbing problem toils silently, forcefully, toward its solution. — Alice Foote MacDougall

In life you find pleasure. In life you find pain. Pain and pleasure is an example of the duality in life. Enjoy them both, they are part of the ride. The key is to not turn the pain into something else - regret. — J.R. Rim

We all feel that the opposite of our own highest principle must be purely destructive, deadly, and evil. We refuse to endow it with any positive life-force; hence we avoid and fear it. — C. G. Jung

I think that light and shadow have exactly the same duality that exists between life and death. — Manuel Alvarez Bravo

The primordial model of the family is to be sought in God himself, in the Trinitarian mystery of his life. The divine "We" is the eternal pattern of the human "we", especially of that "we" formed by the man and the woman created in the divine image and likeness ... Man is created "from the very beginning" as male and female: the life of all humanity - whether of small communities or of society as a whole - is marked by this primordial duality. — Pope John Paul II

(The real brahmin is the one who ... has crossed beyond duality ... knows no this shore, other shore, or both ... (is) settled in mind ... without inflowing thoughts ... is without attachment ... endures undisturbed criticism, ill-treatment and bonds, (and is) strong in patience ... (is) without anger, devout, upright, free from craving, disciplined and in his last body ... has experienced the end of his suffering here in this life, who has set down the burden, freed! — Gautama Buddha

Existentialist literature provides a more satisfactory account of the persistence of feminine narcissism. Simone de Beauvoir makes use of the existentialist conception of 'situation' in order to account for the persistence of narcissism in the feminine personality. A woman's situation, i.e., those meanings derived from the total context in which she comes to maturity, disposes her to apprehend her body not as the instrument of her transcendence, but as 'an object destined for another.'

Knowing that she is to be subjected to the cold appraisal of the male connoisseur and that her life prospects may depend on how she is seen, a woman learns to appraise herself first. The sexual objectification of women produces a duality in feminine consciousness. The gaze of the Other is internalized so that I myself become at once seer and seen, appraiser and the thing appraised. — Sandra Lee Bartky

The Lotus opens. Movement from earth, through water, from fire to air. Out and in beyond life and death now, beyond inner and outer, sense and non-sense, meaning and futility, male and female, being and non-being, Light and darkness, void and full. Beyond all duality, or non-duality, beyond and beyond. Disincarnation. I breathe again. — R.D. Laing

He who begets something which is alive must dive down into the primeval depths in which the forces of life dwell. And when he rises to the surface, there is a gleam of madness in his eyes because in those depths lives cheek by jowl with life. The primal mystery is itself mad - the matrix of the duality and the unity of disunity. — Walter F. Otto

As you begin to look deeply into the mystery of your own evolution, in place of good and evil you will find only stories, finished or unfinished. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

There's always an antagonistic personality in any group, simply because life isn't meant to be simple. Our thoughts can be clear, we may know what we want, but life will always show us the duality, simply because that's how things are meant to be. Before a three, there's a two. Before the change, there is the choice. it's just what it is. And yet, the antagonist is often the one we love the most, because that's how his temptation can lead us astray. — Robin Sacredfire

Day and night will not cease. Yet, you need not continue viewing them as opposites. There is no longer a need to think that night has the same power as day. There is just the power of light, with variations of intensity and interruption. Once the full scope of understanding is attained, duality fades away. Higher intelligence is manifested through integrated perceptions of wholeness which restore your recognition of the one spirit. The sons of God are those who do not explain life or manage it with dualistic concepts. The sons of God are those who seek to perceive wholeness in all things. — Glenda Green

I embrace my shadow self. Shadows give depth and dimension to my life. I believe in embracing my duality, in learning to let darkness and light, peacefully co-exist, as illumination. — Jaeda DeWalt

How do I stay positive with all the crap going on this world? That's an excellent question. The duality of life is part of the holy ride, not every day is supposed to be sunshine and double rainbows. Soul fulfillment is a point of appreciation for rising above the crap with compassion and love. Can we accept life totally and completely or will we continue to see our differences as a reason to separate ourselves from each other? — Sadiqua Hamdan

If we are like God, we can only be God. Is that what you mean?"

"Oh, I think it is more than that. A robin is like a hawk, but it is also different. The Goddess Mother created us as reflections of herself. God to me is the Great Mother. God to me is the Old One. But it does not really matter; God is God. Life force is life force. God is the creator, the Great Spirit that permeates all of us. Once you truly understand that, Catherine, you realize that we are all part of one another, that we are in agreement on this wonderful, green earth, and that we live in a state of duality, a state of separateness that is not real. We are separated by an agreement called space and time. — Lynn V. Andrews

It's weird, I was such a survivor and so wanted to be a part of life while I was trying to snuff out the life that was inside of me. I had this duality of trying to kill myself with drugs, then eating really good food and exercising and going swimming and trying to be a part of life. I was always going back and forth on some level. — Anthony Kiedis

As long as the mind and ego control the direction of creating, there will always be problems in the outer world, for the ego thinks only of itself and lives in duality. But when the heart is in control, everything comes back to balance, for the heart feels and knows only the oneness of life. — Drunvalo Melchizedek

I believe the duality of life is fertile soil. — Ken Grace

Aristotle raped reason. He implanted in the dominant schools of philosophy the attractive belief that there can be discrete separation between mind and body. This led quite naturally to corollary delusions such as the one that power can be understood without applying it, or that joy is totally removable from unhappiness, that peace can exist in the total absence of war, or that life can be understood without death.
- ERASMUS, Corrin Notes — Brian Herbert

To be sure, just because the darkness and the light are equally sacred does not mean we benefit by becoming complacent about the darkness we may meet in ourselves. Ultimately, if we are to cleanse the mirror of perception and purify ourselves, then we must bring light into the darkness. That's always been the path of consciousness and the movement of illumination. This coexistence of darkness and light indeed creates a dance in which the clarity of light is invited to lead, but it does not create a hierarchy. — Tehya Sky

The direction of life is from duality to unity. — Deepak Chopra

I've never been free in my whole life. Inside I've always chased myself. I've become intolerable to myself. I live in a lacerating duality. I'm seemingly free, but I'm a prisoner inside of me. — Clarice Lispector

Unfortunately, the main problem of the world isn't on money, as it might seem at first sight, but on the mind of those that either use it, create it, maintain it, capitalize on it, or simply, ignore it. What use would science have if people didn't have problems needing a solution? What use would art have if people didn't have a need to escape their reality? What use would reading have if there was no desire to aspire to? What use would dreams have if life was perfect? And so, I'm not saying that money is necessary. but that our mind is what makes it valuable. And once you understand this, you actually master it. The solution lays on the fundamental laws of duality. The more you disregard money, the more it becomes a fundamental part of your world. Those that love it, however, don't even need to touch it or worry about it. And how convenient that we tend to ask questions about the things we refuse to learn about. — Robin Sacredfire

Om is the presence which steals away. It steals away the ordinary mundane existence of strife, struggle and duality; it steals away anxiety, aggression, fear, grief and sorrow; it steals away the debris of anger, hatred, confusion and ignorance, to fill us with the nectar of joy, immortality and life eternal. — Banani Ray

All games have morals; and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb, a snake is waiting just around the corner; and for every snake, a ladder will compensate. But it's more than that; no mere carrot-and-stick affair; because implicit in the game is the unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down, good against evil; the solid rationality of ladders balances the occult sinuosities of the serpent; in the opposition of staircase and cobra we can see, metaphorically, all conceivable oppositions, Alpha against Omega, father against mother; here is the war of Mary and Musa, and the polarities of knees and nose ... but I found, very early in my life, that the game lacked one crucial dimension, that of ambiguity - because, as events are about to show, it is also possible to slither down a ladder and climb to triumph on the venom of a snake ... — Salman Rushdie

I believe that their is a duality to the purpose of our life, and it is LOVE and CREATION. To LOVE the life we have - authentically and unconditionally, while we CREATE the best life we can imagine - actively and persistently. This is what L.I.F.E. (Living Inspired & Fulfilled Everyday) is about! — Hal Elrod

All being, it seemed, was built on opposites, on division. Man or woman, vagabond or citizen, lover or thinker - no breath could both be in and out, none could be man and wife, free and yet orderly, knowing the urge of life and the joy of intellect. Always the one paid for the other, though each was equally precious and essential. — Hermann Hesse

A Miracle is nothing more, than the removal of an Illusion. — Vivian Amis

You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem? — Byron Katie

Religion is the secret of life. It teaches us to love, to serve, to forgive, to endure, and to interact with our brothers and sisters with empathy and compassion. Advaita (non-duality) is a purely subjective experience. But in daily life it may be expressed as love and compassion. This is the great lesson taught by the great saints and sages of India, the exponents of Sanatana Dharma. — Mata Amritanandamayi

The Secret of Enlightenment is not in Perfection but in Completeness. Everything that is below the Abyss carries the imperfection within.
After the Infinite establishes Divine Order, the Life of Duality as we know it on Earth begins. It is Yin and Yang in its Manifestation, and only through the two meeting, marrying, merging, they both reach God.' Ama Alchemy of Love by Nuit Quote — Natasa Nuit Pantovic

Polarity exists so that we may discover the truth beyond this world of duality, which is the ultimate purpose of life. — Dashama Konah Gordon

When everything looks the same on the outside, yet everything has changed on the inside, we break. We break in half.
This is the duality of loss. — Christina Rasmussen

For the vision of a novelist is both complex and specialised; complex, because behind his characters and apart from them must stand something stable to which he relates them; specialised because since he is a single person with one sensibility the aspects of life in which he can believe with conviction are strictly limited — Virginia Woolf

Life is light and consciousness. Beyond this world and other worlds, beyond time and space and dimension, beyond what we call duality, is God — Frederick Lenz

We, all who live, have A life that is lived And another life that is thought, And the only life we have It's the one that is divided In right or wrong. — Fernando Pessoa

It is one of my decided opinions that married people ought to have no one, be the tie ever so close and dear, living permanently with them, to break the sacred duality - no, let me say the unity of their home. — Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Every act has both good and evil results. Every act in life yields pairs of opposites in its results. The best we can do is lean toward the light, toward the harmonious relationships that come from compassion with suffering, from understanding the other person. — Joseph Campbell

It was shameless how life made fun of one; it was a joke, a cause for weeping! Either one lived and let one's senses play, drank full at the primitive mother's breast - which brought great bliss but was no protection against death; then one lived like a mushroom in the forest, colorful today and rotten tomorrow. Or else one put up a defense, imprisoned oneself for work and tried to build a monument to the fleeting passage of life - then one renounced life, was nothing but a tool; one enlisted in the service of that which endured, but one dried up in the process and lost one's freedom, scope, lust for life...
Ach, life made sense only if one achieved both, only if it was not split by this brittle alternative! To create, without sacrificing one's senses for it. To live, without renouncing the mobility of creating. Was that impossible? — Hermann Hesse

But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can't you just be yourself? When you have a relationship with yourself, you have split yourself into two: "I" and "myself," subject and object. That mind-created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of all problems and conflict in your life. In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself - "you" and "yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. — Eckhart Tolle

All things that seem good and evil are the opposite ends of one line, and it is difficult to say where evil ends and good begins, for these are comparative terms. A lesser good would seem evil when compared with a greater good, and the lesser evil in comparison with the greater evil would appear good. If there were no evil, good would not have been valued. Without injustice, justice would not have been appreciated. Therefore the whole of life's joy is expressed in duality. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

The language for attaining Liberation [moksha] is beyond duality. The language for worldly life is with duality. — Dada Bhagwan

Confused by thoughts, we experience duality in life. Unencumbered by ideas, the enlightened see the one Reality. — Huineng

The cords of passion and desire weave a binding net around you. Worldly confrontation makes you stiff and inflexible. The trap of duality is tenacious. Bound, rigid, and trapped, you cannot experience liberation. — Laozi

There is a duality to darkness known only to those who've been infected by its touch. Everyone knows the shadows: shallow, comfortable, mostly harmless places where one might nest for a night. But the depths of living pitch only visit the aristocracy of madmen and women who've unwittingly pledged fealty to the curse. For some, it outright ruins minds like a hound to fresh meat; for others, it wanes into the deepest parts of its less caustic sibling and waits for the time to strike, returning periodically through life like an incurable disease. — Darrell Drake

Truth has no duality. — Debasish Mridha

In Tenochtitlan, Tezcoco and other cities there were groups of wise men known as tlamatinime. These scholars carried on the study of the ancient religious thinking of the Toltecs, which Tlacaelel had transformed into a mystical exaltation of war. Despite the popularity of the cult of the war-god, Huitzilopochtli, the tlamatinime preserved the old belief in a single supreme god, who was known under a variety of names. Sometimes he was called Tloque-Nahuaque, "Lord of the Close Vicinity," sometimes Ipalnemohuani, "Giver of Life," sometimes Moyocoyatzin, "He who Creates Himself." He also had two aspects, one masculine and one feminine. Thus he was also invoked as Ometeotl, "God of Duality," or given the double names Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl, "Lord and Lady of Duality," Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, "Lord and Lady of the Region of Death," and others. — Miguel Leon-Portilla

Your greatest attribute, that which allows you to accomplish most in life and the most treasured aspect of your being will often be the source of your greatest suffering. — Chris Matakas

When you awaken, you know that everything that occurs at the level of mind is illusory in nature and so you no longer believe in it as the truth of life. It is sometimes happy and sometimes sad, because it is a world of duality. You relax and accept the dual nature of the world of the mind and the world of experience within time. This will create balance within duality which will open the doorway to Oneness. — Leonard Jacobson

Just as we have two eyes and two feet, duality is part of life. — Carlos Santana

Every man is sensitive. Some cover it up with brutality, others with cowardice and vanity, but a small few wear it bravely like armor — Solange Nicole

The movie Mr. Nobody examines the core belief that we can find happiness if we make the right choices in life. We can't; it's impossible. But the belief that we have real choices that can bring us what we want is cherished by the ego because it keeps us locked into a never-ending quest of looking for happiness where it can't be found. Mr. Nobody demonstrates that all the choices of this world are made because we have forgotten God and therefore believe in an illusory world of duality. None of our choices are real because they are a choice between the images of this made-up world; that is, a choice between illusions. They are nothing more than hypotheticals, which serve as meaningless distractions. — David Hoffmeister