Quotes & Sayings About Opposites Truth

The way the world is made. The truth is all around you, plain to behold. The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good." She took a step toward him. "Death and life. Everywhere, opposites. Everywhere, the war. — George R R Martin

Because all the societies, all the nations, all the cultures, have taken it for granted that the individuals exist for them, not vice-versa. To me, just the opposite is the case: the society exists for the individual, the culture exists for the individual, the nation exists for the individual. Everything can be sacrificed, but the individual cannot be sacrificed for anything. Individuality is the very flowering of existence - nothing is higher than it. But no culture, no society, no civilization is ready to accept a simple truth. — Rajneesh

The truth is all around you, plain to behold. The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. One is black, the other white. There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good. Death and life. Everywhere, opposites. — George R R Martin

The first step on the path to fearlessness is to embrace two critical principles of truth that are the opposites of the two core fears (the fear of failure and the fear of loss). If you practice trusting these two truths you can eliminate fear in any situation. The first is to trust that your value isn't on the line because life is a classroom, not a test. The second is to trust that your journey is the perfect classroom journey for you; that anything you lose, you are meant to lose; and that each experience serves you no matter what happens. — Kimberly Giles

Non-violent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Defiance combined with non-retaliatory acceptance of repression from one's opponents is active, not passive. It requires strength, and there is nothing automatic or intuitive about the resoluteness required for using non-violent methods in political struggle and the quest for Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi

Goodness & love are as real as their terrible opposites, and, in truth, far more real, though I say this mindful of the enormous evils ... But love is the final reality; and anyone who does not understand this, be he writer or sage, is a man flawed of wisdom. — Sheldon Vanauken

God continually turns you from one state of feeling to another, revealing truth by means of opposites.... So that you may have the two wings of fear and hope; for the bird with one wing is unable to fly.... — Jalaluddin Rumi

There are also two kinds of truths, those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible: truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, reason can be found by analysis, resolving it into more simple ideas and truths, until we come to those which are primary. — Gottfried Leibniz

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

But it seems to me to be an imperfection in things of beauty, and a weakness in man, if an explanation from the shallow-side has a destructive effect. The horror which we feel for Freudian interpretations is entirely due to our own barbaric or childish naivete, which believes that there can be heights without corresponding depths, and which blinds us to the really "final" truth that, when carried to extremes, opposites meet. — C. G. Jung

If God causes man to be sick, sickness must be good, and its opposite, health, must be evil, for all that He makes is good and will stand forever. If the transgression of God's law produces sickness, it is right to be sick; and we cannot if we would, and should not if we could, annul the decrees of wisdom. It is the transgression of a belief of mortal mind, not of a law of matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sickness. The remedy is Truth, not matter,
the truth that disease is unreal. — Mary Baker Eddy

True worth is as inevitably discovered by the facial expression, as its opposite is sure to be clearly represented there. The human face is nature's tablet, the truth is certainly written thereon. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

The old saying of the two kinds of truth. To the one kind belongs statements so simple and clear that the opposite assertion obviously could not be defended. The other kind, the so-called 'deep truths', are statements in which the opposite also contains deep truth. — Niels Bohr

The Mathematics are Friends to Religion, inasmuch as they charm the Passions, restrain the Impetuosity of the Imagination, and purge the Mind from Error and Prejudice. Vice is Error, Confusion, and false Reasoning; and all Truth is more or less opposite to it. Besides, Mathematical Studies may serve for a pleasant Entertainment for those Hours which young Men are apt to throw away upon their Vices; the Delightfulness of them being such as to make Solitude not only easy, but desirable. — John Arbuthnot

Disregarding all evidence to the contrary, the student of Truth will maintain that he lives in a PERFECT Universe and among people potentially perfect. He will regulate his thinking to meet this necessity and refuse to believe in its opposite. At first he may be influenced by conditions, and he may appear weak, but as time goes on he will PROVE TO HIMSELF that his position is a correct one, for that which appears imperfect will begin to slip from his experience — Ernest Holmes

If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field. — Michel De Montaigne

On the other hand, with a sense of the sacred, one grows in understanding and
truth. The Holy Spirit becomes his frequent and then constant companion.
More and more he will stand in holy places and be entrusted with holy
things. Just the opposite of cynicism and despair, his end is eternal
life. — D. Todd Christofferson

There are two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are clearly absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth — Niels Bohr

Small and mid-sized companies in this country historically have been responsible for creating the overwhelming majority of new jobs in the private sector. One of the most-common misconceptions about our private enterprise system is that large companies, such as the Fortune 500, are integral to the process of job creation in this country. The truth is quite the opposite. — Michael Milken

We come from nothing ... which, in reality, is everything; It is that pure energy, the space where Brahmn (energy) resides. Awareness of this absolute reality leads us to the ultimate truth about our lives. It is also through this awareness that Self within can deal with dualities in life, to discriminate and choose, leading to happiness and sadness. To find one's center one needs to respect both dual properties; bring the opposites closer, surrender and accept in oneness ... and follow the path of bliss ... — Gian Kumar

The various elements of truth stand in perpetual antithesis, sometimes requiring us to believe apparent opposites while we wait for the moment when we shall know as we are known. — A.W. Tozer

Truth, in the great practical concerns
of life, is so much a question of the reconciling and
combining of opposites, that very few have minds sufficiently
capacious and impartial to make the adjustment with an
approach to correctness, and it has to be made by the rough
process of a struggle between combatants fighting under
hostile banners. — John Stuart Mill

One master defines Zen as the art of feeling the polar star in the southern sky. Truth can be reached only through the comprehension of opposites. — Okakura Kakuzo

All students of man and society who possess that first requisite for so difficult a study, a due sense of its difficulties, are aware that the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for truth, as of mistaking part of the truth for the whole. It might be plausibly maintained that in almost every one of the leading controversies, past or present, in social philosophy, both sides were in the right in what they affirmed, though wrong in what they denied; and that if either could have been made to take the other's views in addition to its own, little more would have been needed to make its doctrine correct. — John Stuart Mill

The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites - day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end. — C. G. Jung

The ethic of truth is the complete opposite of an 'ethics of communication'. It is an ethic of the Real The ethic of truth is absolutely opposed to opinion, and to ethics in general. — Alain Badiou

The purpose of scientific method is to select a single truth from among many hypothetical truths. That, more than anything else, is what science is all about. But historically science has done exactly the opposite. Through multiplication upon multiplication of facts, information, theories and hypotheses, it is science itself that is leading mankind from single absolute truths to multiple indeterminate, relative ones. — Robert M. Pirsig

In the face of the idea that truth might afford the opposite of satisfaction and turn out to be completely shocking to humanity at any given historical moment, ... the fathers of pragmatism made the satisfaction of the subject the criterion of truth. For such a doctrine there is no possibility of rejecting or even criticizing any species of belief that is enjoyed by its adherents. — Max Horkheimer

People shouldn't say one thing if they really mean the other. That's my problem with people, they say something without thinking about it. Without having experienced the opposites. I've been there, I've been everywhere. I tread the path of adventure, and the path was paved with gold, and every little detour was filled with joyous surprises. But then you get to the end, and the fates reveal your truth. One truth. The one truth. — Nikhil Sharda

The truth is you can't try to let go. Trying is the opposite of letting go. To let go is to relinquish trying. To let go is much more like to let be. — Adyashanti

So for me the essence of life is very simple. It is just this, awareness that allows us to trust in our own truths (without feeling any need to convince others), living gracefully amidst the chaos, maintaining a sense of balance (not being pulled around by the supposed opposites or false paradoxes), and being able to choose how we direct our lives. — Julia Woodman

Not ordinarily do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self assertive humble ... truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis that reconciles the two. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Elric knew that everything that existed had its opposite. In danger he might find peace. And yet, of course, in peace there was danger. Being an imperfect creature in an imperfect world he would always know paradox. And that was why in paradox there was always a kind of truth. That was why philosophers and soothsayers flourished. In a perfect world there would be no place for them. In an imperfect world the mysteries were always without solution and that was why there was always a great choice of solutions. — Michael Moorcock

The truth is that economic competition is the very opposite of competition in the animal kingdom. It is not a competition in the grabbing off of scarce nature-given supplies, as it is in the animal kingdom. Rather, it is a competition in the positive creation of new and additional wealth. — George Reisman

The Procrastinator has the opposite problem. He can't selectively focus his attention and might endure frequent accusations about his laziness. In truth, he's so distracted by stimuli that he can't figure out where or how to get started. Sounds, smells, sights and the random wanderings of his thoughts continually vie for his attention. — Kate Kelly

Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash. — Louis Aragon

As if there could be true stories: things happen in one way, and we retell them in the opposite way. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Oaths be of the heart, and he that breaketh them in open fact is oft, as now, no breaker in truth, for already were they scorned and trampled on by his opposites. — E.R. Eddison

Things external to her may have their own weight and dimension: but within inside us she gives them such measures as she wills: death is terrifying to Cicero, desirable to Cato, indifferent to Socrates. Health, consciousness, authority, knowledge, beauty and their opposites doff their garments as they enter the soul and receive new vestments, coloured with qualities of her own choosing: brown or green; light or dark; bitter or sweet, deep or shallow, as it pleases each of the individual souls, who have not agreed together on the truth of their practices, rules or ideas. Each soul is Queen in her own state. So let us no longer seek excuses from the external qualities of anything, the responsibility lies within ourselves. Our good or our bad depends on us alone. So let us make our offertories and our vows to ourselves not to Fortune: she has no power over our behaviour, on the contrary our souls drag Fortune in their train and mould her to their own idea. — Michel De Montaigne

Nothing makes a woman more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize those most who are hardest to come at, or that nothing besides chastity, with its collateral attendants, truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives a man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things. — Joseph Addison

The troubling truth is that rewards and punishments are not opposites at all; they are two sides of the same coin. And it is a coin that does not buy very much. — Alfie Kohn

Rhetoric is useful because truth and justice are in their nature stronger than their opposites; so that if decisions be made, not in conformity to the rule of propriety, it must have been that they have been got the better of through fault of the advocates themselves: and this is deserving reprehension. — Aristotle.

Some things seem to be viewed in similar ways by many people, and I think we should take another look at these and truly question them. In our search for our own truth we need to ensure that we are not acting like sheep, merely following the herd behaviour.
One of these areas is that things are often regarded as opposites, things like black and white, day and night, light and dark, are obvious examples. A more open view might say they are opposite sides of one coin. I would go a little further and suggest to you that they are actually part of the same thing. Just as the coin cannot exist without its two sides, I would suggest that our world cannot exist without these so called opposites because they give us a spectrum to exist in, a matrix, or framework, that stretches between the two extremes (or polarities) to include every variation of light and shade that we sense or experience in-between. — Julia Woodman

If you have a correct statement, then the opposite of a correct statement is of course an incorrect statement, a wrong statement. But when you have a deep truth, then the opposite of a deep truth may again be a deep truth. — Niels Bohr

John Duns Scotus, OFM, taught that the opposite of good was not bad but nonbeing itself. The opposite of truth was not falsity but nonbeing itself. And the opposite of unity was not multiplicity but nonbeing itself. All the opposites are all held and contained within pure being, even the finite and the infinite, matter and Spirit, male and female, etc., and this harmony between things is called beauty, which for some is a fourth transcendental itself. This worldview creates a very positive theology and anthropology based on original blessing instead of original sin. It also creates a philosophical basis for nondual thinking and the nature of evil. Evil is nonbeing and unconsciousness. Beauty is the fullness of being and full consciousness. — Richard Rohr

In its confounding of the logic that maintains terms like high and low, or base and sacred as polar opposites, it is this play of the contradictory that allows one to think the truth that Bataille never tired of demonstrating: that violence has historically been lodged at the heart of the sacred; that to be genuine, the very thought of the creative must simultaneously be an experience of death; and that it is impossible for any moment of true intensity to exist apart from a cruelty that is equally extreme. — Rosalind E. Krauss

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

There are sure to be two prescriptions diametrically opposite. — Henry David Thoreau

In every truth, the opposite is equally true. A truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided. — Hermann Hesse

The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth.
[Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.] — Jean De La Bruyere