Contrary Quotes - Page 37

• There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition

  Blaise Pascal

  Light, Desire, Obscurity

  Blaise Pascal, W. F. Trotter, T. S. Eliot (2003). “Pensees”, p.118, Courier Corporation

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• After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.

  Paulo Coelho

  Love, Happiness, Real

  FaceBook post by Paulo Coelho from Aug 04, 2016

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• We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.

  Wendell Berry

  Effort, Would Be, World

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• Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.

  Haim Ginott

  Parenting, Opposites, Punishment

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• This is perhaps one of the most important things I learned during this investigation: We see what we believe, and not just the contrary; and to change what we see, it is sometimes necessary to change what we believe.

  Jeremy Narby

  Believe, Important, Sometimes

  Jeremy Narby (2016). “The Cosmic Serpent”, p.105, Hachette UK

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• For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue preservd . On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign Invaders.

  Samuel Adams

  Patriotic, People, Ignorant

  "Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814".

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• But if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said. On the contrary - we are found!' said Aesop. But when we are afraid, who can we turn to, if not the gods?' Ourselves. We turn to ourselves anyway. We only pretend there are gods and that they care about us. It is a comforting falsehood.

  Erica Jong

  Atheist, Comforting, Atheism

  Erica Jong (2013). “Sappho's Leap: A Novel”, p.266, Open Road Media

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• Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more.

  Terry Pratchett

  Believe, Belief, Needed

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “Pyramids: (Discworld Novel 7)”, p.216, Random House

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• As I understand it, I am being paid only for my work in arranging the words; my property is that arrangement. The thoughts in this book, on the contrary, are not mine. They came freely to me, and I give them freely away. I have no "intellectual property," and I think that all claimants to such property are theives.

  Wendell Berry

  Book, Thinking, Giving

  Wendell Berry (1993). “Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays”, Pantheon

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• Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion? Don't they all have the same meaning? So what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in both cases, they are significant of what I have been and what I am? Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

  Albert Camus

  Beautiful, Liars, Lying

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• It grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainly out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse.

  William P. Young

  Believe, Responsibility, Thinking

  "The Shack". Book by William P. Young, books.google.ru. June 20, 2008.

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• They could not understand the advantage of living contrary to their inclinations in this world in order to enjoy a hypothetical well-being in another.

  Isabel Allende

  Order, World, Advantage

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• Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent... But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it...You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief... But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely.You know what pain is. You know what love is. "All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.

  Mitch Albom

  Pain, Grief, Mean

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• This was the start of a period that blurs as I try to recall it. Incidents seem to cascade and merge. Events become feelings, fellings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Heart, Feelings, Trying

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• These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking.... Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his mind.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Believe, Passion, Thinking

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• Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.

  Emily Post

  Etiquette, Presumption

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• About dreams. It is usually taken for granted that you dream of something that has made a particularly strong impression on you during the day, but it seems to me it´s just the contrary. Often it´s something you paid no attention to at the time -- a vague thought that you didn´t bother to think out to the end, words spoken without feeling and which passed unnoticed -- these are the things that return at night, clothed in flesh and blood, and they become the subjects of dreams, as if to make up for having been ignored during waking hours.

  Boris Pasternak

  Life, Dream, Strong

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• A girl who would fall in love so easily or want a man to love her so easily would probably get over it just as quickly, very little the worse for wear. On the contrary, a girl who would take love seriously would probably be a good while finding herself in love and would require something beyond mere friendly attentions from a man before she would think of him in that light.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Girl, Falling In Love, Men

  Lucy Maud Montgomery, Francis W. P. Bolger, Elizabeth R. Epperly (1992). “My dear Mr. M.: letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M. Montgomery”, Oxford University Press, 1992

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• Love is rather impotent and pitiful: My father must have told me a million times how much he loved me, but that emotion - assuming it was even real - hardly had the strength to counter the many other acts of wrong he committed against me. Contrary to romance novels and the love-conquers-all mentality that even those of us who grow up in an era of divorce are - in response to some atavistic instinct - still raised to believe, love is always a product and a victim of circumstances. It is fragile and small.

  Elizabeth Wurtzel

  Growing Up, Father, Real

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• Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us.

  Jean Baudrillard

  World, Meaning Of Life, Killing

  The Ecstasy of Communication "Seduction, or the Superficial Abyss" (1987)

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• On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in the way his trousers cling to those most English parts of him.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Mouths, Way, Dignity

  Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith (2009). “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, p.231, Quirk Books

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• From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Hatred, Delight, Arise

  Jonathan Edwards, Sereno Edwards Dwight (1829). “A treatise concerning religious affections. Five discourses on important subjects”, p.20

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• Remember also that it is not knowledge but the yearning for knowledge that makes for a complete, accomplished man. Such a man does not stand still but perseveres in the face of adversity, nor does he remain untouched by the pain cause by absence. On the contrary, he recognizes himself in each cry, uttered or repressed, in the smallest rift, in the most pressing need.

  Elie Wiesel

  Pain, Adversity, Men

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• It's not a question of learning much.On the contrary.It's a question of UNLEARNING much.' Osho

  Rajneesh

  Love, Inspirational

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• Miracles, contrary to popular belief, do not just happen. A miracle is the achievement of the impossible, and it is only when we put aside out greed, anger, pride and prejudice so that our minds are open and ready to accept it, that a miracle can occur.

  Julie Andrews

  Pride, Achievement, Greed

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