Opposing Quotes & Sayings

Nervousness is caused by wanting two opposing things at the same time, one consciously and the other subconsciously. The battle is resolved when you make the subconscious desire conscious. On the other hand, if you know what you are, there will be no conflicts. You can do that through seeking. It is not necessary to understand the negative. It is far better to be positive. Be Your Self. — Lester Levenson

It is true that the speculator may happen to go astray in his estimate of future prices. What is usually overlooked in considering this possibility is that under the given conditions it is far beyond the capacities of most people to foresee the future any more correctly. If this were not so, the opposing group of buyers or sellers would have got the upper hand in the market. The fact that the opinion accepted by the market has later proved to be false is lamented by nobody with more genuine sorrow than by the speculators who held it. They do not err of malice prepense; after all, their object is to make profits, not losses. — Ludwig Von Mises

To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. — Mahatma Gandhi

Toleration of people who differ in convictions and habits requires a residual awareness of the complexity of truth and the possibility of opposing view having some light on one or the other facet of a many-sided truth. — Reinhold Niebuhr

I think painting has that unique potential to project opposing viewpoints. — Joe Bradley

An apparently good way to get more information about religious group would be through the media. In actual fact, it's probably the worst. Why? Because what makes hot news stories are things like controversy, opposing views, harm, blood, sex, big names, big money, scandal, ect. — Stan Koehler

In strongly opposing the world of play to that of reality, and in stressing that play is essentially a side activity, the interference is drawn that any contamination by ordinary life runs the risk of corrupting and destroying its very nature. — Roger Caillois

Bush reiterated his stand to conservatives opposing his decision on stem cell research. He said today he believes life begins at conception and ends at execution. — Jay Leno

With sturdy shoulders, space stands opposing all its weight to nothingness. Where space is, there is being. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The difference between a debater and a polemicist is that unlike debaters, who try to seek a common ground, a polemicist intends to establish the truth of a controversial point of view while refuting the opposing point of view - there is no room for compromise. — Henrik O. Lunde

It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces. — William H. Seward

Sound is the vocabulary of nature ... noises are as well articulated as the words in a dictionary ... Opposing the world of sound is the world of music. — Pierre Schaeffer

FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex. — Ambrose Bierce

Know what you want to achieve prior to starting to negotiate. It's the golden rule but the one most people fail to heed. Without a plan, you allow the opposing party to define your goals instead of the other way around. — Ivanka Trump

Most advice on child-rearing is sought in the hope that it will confirm our prior convictions. If the parent had wished to proceedin a certain way but was made insecure by opposing opinions of neighbors, friends, or relatives, then it gives him great comfort to find his ideas seconded by an expert. — Bruno Bettelheim

The ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each. — Roger Martin

This fanaticism is what feeds terrorism. And this is precisely why Muslims must play an active role in opposing hate sermons and incitement to terrorism and extremism in their mosques. — Otto Schily

Human rights' are a fine thing, but how can we make ourselves sure that our rights do not expand at the expense of the rights of others. A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity. If we do not wish to be ruled by a coercive authority, then each of us must rein himself in ... A stable society is achieved not by balancing opposing forces but by conscious self-limitation: by the principle that we are always duty-bound to defer to the sense of moral justice. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

This, of course, has no chance of passing. But then Tuesday night'€s State of the Union address could be the first one in history deliberately designed solely to generate a Pavlovian rage response in members of the opposing party. — John Podhoretz

I was kind of feeling a spiritual need all those years. My wife Geraldine and I went to an Episcopalian Church for a while. Oh, it just seemed very political to me that a guy so liberal was talking about opposing the war in Vietnam and I didn't want to hear that when I went to church. I wanted something spiritual. — Robert Novak

Synergy does not mean giving up what we want. It means joining to co-create so each is able to receive ever more of what attracts us through joining rather than opposing. — Barbara Marx Hubbard

Two opposing gospels are fighting one another for the soul of our nation and, increasingly, the world: the gospel of consumption and the gospel of peace. — Leonard Sweet

The Spirit of man is like a kite, which rises by means of those very forces which seem to oppose its rise; the tie that joins it to the earth, the opposing winds of temptation, and the weight of earth-born affections which it carries with it into the sky. — Coventry Patmore

What is also strange to me is that public libraries have always been in the forefront of opposing censorship. — Matthew Lesko

Now, ignorance is one thing, ignorance can be cured. But many of the Republican leaders opposing this research know better. — Ron Reagan

How many of us have conflicts with someone else- and how many of us pray for that person? We have individuals with whom we are competitive, or whom we dislike or have a quarrel with; but very few of us have true enemies in the martial sense. And yet if Lincoln could pray fervently- and contemporary reports indicate he did- for the people who were opposing him, how much more can we do for someone we just find a little irritating? — John Wooden

Kids want acceptance from their peers, but in two different, opposing ways: They want to be like everyone else and they want to be different from everyone else. So the question is: How do you reconcile these opposing longings? — E.L. Konigsburg

We grow up opposing our parents only to become like them enough to oppose our children who behave as we once did - a reminder of how dreadful we were toward those now vindicated grandparents. And you thought God had no sense of humor. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Vertical and horizontal lines are the expression of two opposing forces; they exist everywhere and dominate everything; their reciprocal action constitutes 'life'. I recognized that the equilibrium of any particular aspect of nature rests on the equivalence of its opposites. — Piet Mondrian

since they deal with matters that are the centre of conflict of opposing social groups where the effectiveness of an argument is often contingent upon oversimplification. — Sidin Vadukut

If you ever think you might want a career in politics, Inspector, think again. It's merely a continuous and mostly vain attempt to keep several groups of people with opposing needs and agendas happy, and knowing in your heart of hearts that you cannot, and being lambasted for you hard work in the bargain. — Jasper Fforde

And even now I wonder if creation is both too beautiful and too horrible for a handful of perceptive souls, and if the realisation of this opposing duality can offer them few options but to take leave of their own accord. — Mitch Cullin

It amounts to a diseased attitude - a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. — Isaac Asimov

Smith. [Turning eagerly to the Doctor.] But this is rather splendid. The Duke's given £50 to the new public-house.
Hastings. The Duke is very liberal.
[Collects papers.
Doctor. [Examining his cheque.] Very. But this is rather curious. He has also given £50 to the league for opposing the new public-house.
Hastings. The Duke is very liberal-minded. — G.K. Chesterton

The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy. — David Hume

The opposing tendencies of concentration and spread are of little consequence in the liberal model of political economy. — Robert Gilpin

Today, he showed the world why he is considered the best batsman around. Some of the shots he played were simply amazing. Earlier, opposing teams used to feel that Sachin's dismissal meant they could win the game. Today, I feel that the Indian players, too, feel this way. — Wasim Akram

Here is one more book that depicts the struggle of a human creature, under those opposing influences of Good and Evil, — Wilkie Collins

The key to handling conflict is to make sure people understand it's okay to have an opposing view. — Eunice Parisi-Carew

From opposing unfair trade deals to fighting for a fair financial system, Hillary Clinton has shown she puts working families first. She knows as president that her first job will be creating jobs for the middle class. I am proud to endorse her today because I know she will keep Ohio moving forward. — Sherrod Brown

What some men don't understand is that by opposing policies to reduce violence, promote equal pay and universal healthcare and voting to limit access to contraception and legal abortion, they are relegating women to another century, a time when men ruled exclusively and women were considered property and had to be guided by a firm masculine hand. — Madeleine M. Kunin

In the present epoch of struggle between two worlds the two opposing and antagonistic trends penetrating the foundations of nearly all branches of biology are particularly sharply defined. — Trofim Lysenko

When a war is waged by two opposing groups of robbers for the sake of deciding who shall have a freer hand to oppress more people, then the question of the origin of the war is of no real economic or political significance. — Vladimir Lenin

those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS CAeSAR, of whom Bacon observes, that 'in his book of Apothegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an oracle.' Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following pages to the candour of the Publick. — Anonymous

One could think of a person who seems to have two opposing and contradictory sides to his personality; but it turns out that in the end the two sides are complementary. The same happens with an artist's work: deep down, what appear as contradictory sides are merely different registers, different aspects of the reality that the artist inhabits — Manuel Alvarez Bravo

A tapered diamond or bur will impart an inclination of 2 to 3 degrees to any surface it cuts if the shank of the instrument is held parallel to the intended path of insertion of the preparation. Two opposing surfaces, each with a 3-degree inclination, would give the preparation a 6-degree taper. — Herbert T. Shillingburg Jr.

Something must be done when you find an opposing set of desires of this kind well to the fore in your category of strong desires. You must set in operation a process of competition, from which one must emerge a victor and the other set be defeated. — Robert Collier

I'm happiest when I feel that several almost opposing sensations are present at the same time. — David Salle

Madam Speaker, I have spent more than half my life as a member of the Resources Committee. In that time I have supported numerous wilderness designations. In fact, I cannot recall ever opposing a wilderness bill. — Nick Rahall

One of the commonest weaknesses of human intelligence is the wish to reconcile opposing principles and to purchase harmony at the expensive of logic. — Alexis De Tocqueville

The climax is the place where the opposing forces in your story finally clash. This is true whether those opposing forces are two armies or two values inside a character's soul. — Nancy Kress

In any problem where an opposing force exists and cannot be regulated, one must foresee and provide for alternative courses. Adaptability is the law which governs survival in war as in life ... To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it; the best chance of overcoming such obstruction is to have a plan that can be easily varied to fit the circumstances met. — B.H. Liddell Hart

Politics becomes even more of a magnet for self-aggrandizing sociopaths and liars than it already tends to be by nature, and men with no meaningful political power or authority waste their time and energy trying to convince complete strangers to convert to their way of thinking, even when those strangers have different group identities, different religious beliefs, and completely incompatible or opposing ideas about what is good or "best in life. — Jack Donovan

I don't believe we need to sympathize with opposing views; I do believe we need to develop the capacity to acknowledge and empathize with conflicting opinions that are as passionately defended as our own. — Chris Rhyss Edwards

There are two apparently opposing forces that govern our lives. No, not good and evil. Love and fear.
That's right: the opposite of love is not hate, but fear — John C. Parkin

The federal government is a machine designed to increase its control over the lives of average Americans. It is constantly probing here, pushing there, and generally increasing its control. Without a philosophically sound, constitutionally based political party opposing that process, it is going to continue to do so with impunity. — Ed Crane

Star Wars was a total piece of shit that had spawned billions of dollars in merchandise and sequels and books and games and pajama bottoms. It was an infinite reservoir, it was an endless void. It was responsible for a cornucopia of made up words like Jedi, the Force and lightsaber.

A lightsaber was a sword made of light. A sword was a weapon used to murder people.

A Jedi was a knight who believed in an idea of relative good and performed supernatural feats using the Force. A Jedi used supernatural feats and his lightsaber to murder people with opposing ideas of relative good.

The Force was an ill-explained mystical energy which ran throughout the fictional universe of Star Wars. It was a device which allowed characters to perform supernatural feats whenever a lull was created by poor writing in the screenplay.

As might be imagined, the Force was used with great frequency. — Jarett Kobek

The opposing party rarely causes so much angst as does one's own. — Dick Morris

The principle of avoiding conflict and never opposing an aggressor's strength head-on is the essence of aikido. We apply the same principle to problems that arise in life. The skilled aikidoist is as elusive as the truth of Zen; he makes himself into a koan - a puzzle which slips away the more one tries to solve it. He is like water in that he falls through the fingers of those who try to clutch him. Water does not hesitate before it yields, for the moment the fingers begin to close it moves away, not of its own strength, but by using the pressure applied to it. It is for this reason, perhaps, that one of the symbols for aikido is water. — Joe Hyams

The effect of emotional venting is to sustain an unsatisfactory status quo. Most people think the opposite, that complaining is part of an effort to change an unsatisfying situation. Nope. Complaining lets off pressure so that we neither explode with frustration nor feel compelled to take the often risky steps of openly opposing a difficult person or situation. Keeping emotional pressure tolerably low doesn't change problematic circumstances but rather perpetuates them. — Martha N. Beck

Jesus did not advocate non-violence merely as a technique for outwitting the enemy, but as a just means of opposing the enemy in such a way as to hold open the possibility of the enemy's becoming just as well. Both sides must win. We are summoned to pray for our enemies' transformation, and to respond to ill-treatment with a love that not only is godly but also, I am convinced, can only be found in God. — Walter Wink

There are no heroes and there are no villains. There are just opposing points of view. That's all history is...the viciously long battle between world views. — Peter J. Tomasi

Listening to the debates about public schools on the Christian Right, one hears plenty of opposing opinions and a great deal of confusion. Some want to change the schools, others want to leave them. But the smart money seems to know what it is doing. It provides support for programs like the Good News Club, which slowly erode the support for public education in the country at large and in their own constituency in particular. And then it lays the groundwork for dismantling public education in favor of a private system of religious education funded by the state. — Katherine Stewart

Those who have prophesied dreadful consequences as a result of the greater sexual freedom which the young assert - unwanted babies, venereal disease and so on - are usually the very same people who seek the fulfillment of their prophecies by opposing the free availability to the young of contraception and the removal of the stigma and mystification that surround venereal disease. — Colin Ward

If your mind is open to opposing ideas, your intelligence will go up. If your mind is closed to opposing ideas, your ignorance is in control. Intelligence or ignorance? Your ability to keep an open mind and appreciate multiple points of view is conscious choice. And one that can open your world, and shape your childs future. — Robert Kiyosaki

The only actions that do not cause opposing reactions are those that are aimed at the good of all. — Eckhart Tolle

When a player keeps a calm demeanor on the court, it's easier for his ability to shine. The best response to an opposing player's physical or psychological tactics is to keep cool and come right back at him with the force of your game, not your fists. Revenge is always sweeter if your team wins the game. — Walt Frazier

tenure at Treasury was not as successful as his career at Alcoa. Almost immediately after taking office he began focusing on a couple of key issues, including worker safety, job creation, executive accountability, and fighting African poverty, among other initiatives. However, O'Neill's politics did not line up with those of President Bush, and he launched an internal fight opposing Bush's proposed tax cuts. He was asked to resign at the end of 2002. "What I thought was the right thing for economic policy was the opposite of what the White House wanted," O'Neill told me. "That's not good for a treasury secretary, so I got fired. — Charles Duhigg

Having a puppet is a way of having opposing opinions - I say a thing; he says the other. — Nina Conti

Every situation is an equilibrium of forces; every life is a struggle between opposing forces working within the limits of a certain equilibrium — Henri Frederic Amiel

In D&D, my first move, when you're dealing with an opposing army like that, would be to lure away a group of them-say five-and take their clothes."

"Is this so they have to go back to the fortress naked and their embarrassment will negatively affect morale?" Said Jace. "Because that seems complicated. — Cassandra Clare

Men of many words sometimes argue for the sake of talking; men of ready tongues frequently dispute for the sake of victory; men in public life often debate for the sake of opposing the ruling party, or from any other motive than the love of truth. — George Crabbe

The building is rather like a medieval Castle and was established in the Sixth Century and soon afterwards, as the Moslem armies advanced Westwards from the Arabian Peninsula, somebody had the prescience to build a small Mosque in its courtyard to guard against it being burned or demolished. At the time of the Crusades it was the turn of the Monastery to protect the Mosque, and so it has been down the ages, each House of God extending its shelter to the other as opposing armies came and went. — Ahdaf Soueif

The Jedi Order's homespun cloaks announced: I want for nothing, because I am clothed in the Force; the cloaks of the Sith: I am the light in the dark, the convergence of opposing energies. — James Luceno

It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Obstacles are not opposing you, but merely and gently re-routing you. It is important not to view that which stands in your way as your 'enemy.' It can often be your best friend, sending you on a detour that takes you around what would have been your biggest stumbling block. — Neale Donald Walsch

I see the policy of opposing same-sex marriages or unions, whatever you call it, as bigotry or discrimination. — Patrick J. Kennedy

You have ten minutes," he told me. "Ten minutes to think about what you did wrong and how bad you feel right now. Are you ready?"

He'd actually clicked a button on his watch and timed me, and for those ten minutes I brooded and sulked and wallowed in humiliation. I remembered the errors I'd made on the field and corrected them in my head. I imagined punching every player on the opposing team square in the mouth. And then Dad told me my time was up.

"There. It's over now," he said. "Now you look forward and figure out how you're going to get better. — Elle Kennedy

Ecologist Paul Ehrlich stressed that people who hold opposing opinions need to engage in open discussion with well-reasoned dissent. Positions should be questioned and criticized, not the people who hold them. Personal attacks preclude open discussion because, once someone is put on the defensive, fruitful exchanges are impossible, at least for the moment. — Marc Bekoff

At a time when our country is waging two wars, approval ratings for Congress are at historic lows, unemployment is at a 70-year high and financial institutions have collapsed around us, I can't imagine anyone seriously opposing a National Day of Prayer. — Franklin Graham

Are we giving our voice to peace or resisting the opposing voice? There is an important difference. — Colleen Mariotti

The most effective way to close down the human mind and to manipulate its sense of self is to program into it some form of dogma. A dogma will always vehemently defend itself from other information and repel any alternative opinion which contradicts its narrow, solidified view. Dogmas become a person's sense of security and means of retaining power, and humanity tends to cling to both until its knuckles turn white. Dogmas take endless forms, and when you can persuade different people to hold opposing dogmas, the manipulation of conflict and control through "divide and rule" becomes easy. — David Icke

But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places. — Jay-Z

Lincoln found himself in a stifling courtroom one hot summer day, pleading his client's case. The opposing lawyer, in a concession to the oppressive heat, took off his coat and vest as the debate went on. The man's shirt had its buttons in the back, a style which was unusual even then. Lincoln looked at his opponent and sized up the man's apparel. Knowing that the rural jury disliked pretension of any kind, or any attempt to show superior social rank, he said: "Gentlemen of the jury, having justice on my side, I don't think you will be at all influenced by the gentleman's pretended knowledge of the law, when you see he does not even know which side of his shirt should be in front." The jury burst into laughter, and Lincoln won the case. — Rriiver Nyile

Loving the Second Amendment while opposing the NRA is every bit as natural as loving Jesus while opposing Westboro Baptist Church. — John Fugelsang

Seemingly by design, the American legal system encourages defense counsel to be as mendacious as possible. As Monroe Freedman, a legal ethicist and former dean of Hofstra Law School, has written, "The attorney is obligated to attack, if he can, the reliability or credibility of an opposing witness whom he knows to be truthful." It's an essential component of our adversarial system of justice, based on the theory that justice is best achieved not through a third-party investigation directed by an impartial judge but, instead, through vigorous disputation by the interested parties: trial by verbal combat. The — Jon Krakauer

At that time two opposing concepts of the Game called forth commentary and discussion. The foremost players distinguished two principal types of Game, the formal and the psychological. — Hermann Hesse

If you go to Cass Sunstein, what net neutrality means is now if you go to FoxNews, you will have Arianna Huffington, a little box pop up with her showing that "Bill O'Reilly is wrong on this" or "here's an opposing view of Bill O'Reilly". — Glenn Beck

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values. — William J. Clinton

Through nonviolent resistance the Negro will be able to rise to the noble height of opposing the unjust system while loving the perpetrators of the system. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Take your well-disciplined strengths, stretch them between the two great opposing poles, because inside human beings is where God learns. — Rainer Maria Rilke

For those scientists who take it seriously, Darwinian evolution has functioned more as a philosophical belief system than as a testable scientific hypothesis. This quasi-religious function of the theory is, I think, what lies behind many of the extreme statements that you have doubtless encountered from some scientists opposing any critical analysis of neo-Darwinism in the classroom. It is also why many scientists make public statements about the theory that they would not defend privately to other scientists like me. — James A. Shapiro

Men cannot be men - much less good or heroic men - unless their actions have meaningful consequences to people they truly care about. Strength requires an opposing force, courage requires risk, mastery requires hard work, honor requires accountability to other men. Without these things, we are little more than boys playing at being men, and there is no weekend retreat or mantra or half-assed rite of passage that can change that. A rite of passage must reflect a real change in status and responsibility for it to be anything more than theater. No reimagined manhood of convenience can hold its head high so long as the earth remains the tomb of our ancestors — Jack Donovan

I wanted to be a sportswriter because I loved sports and I could not hit the curve ball, the jump shot, or the opposing ball carrier. — Dick Schaap

To each virtue there is an opposing vice; hence the wicked take vices for virtues. — Saint Nikodimos

I never understood the whole point of opposing or hating someone else's happiness. — Seimone Augustus

For Sorel, the fact that Marx's prediction that contemporary society would increasingly divide itself into two, and no more than two, mutually hostile classes was falsified by time, could be offset by the readiness of the proletariat to remain intransigent, opposing its nonproletarian opponents with absolute determination. — A. James Gregor

Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling. — Nathaniel Branden

Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

We Masons are among the fortunate ones who are taught to meet together with others opposing convictions or competitive ideas and yet respect each other as Brothers. — Albert Pike