Contrary Quotes - Page 8

• The sole fact of having a school to train creative people is absolute lunacy... The idea of 'pedagogical vision' is ignoble, it has nothing to do with art, it's contrary to art. I really believe in teaching, despite what I say.

  Christian Boltanski

  Education, Art, Believe

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• The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants.

  Jack Kevorkian

  Decision, Advice, Want

  "The Kevorkian Verdict". "Frontline", www.pbs.org. May 14, 1996.

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• Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names … Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Mean, Men, Opposites

  "The Flame is Green" by R. A. Lafferty, (Ch. 5), 1971.

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• Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through weakness and daring through timidity.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Passion, Weakness, Sometimes

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• ANARCHISM (from the Gr. , and , contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Government, Agreement, Law

  Peter Kropotkin (2012). “Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings”, p.284, Courier Corporation

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• [I]n my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when I complain of the defect of mine, they do not believe me, and reprove me, as though I accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Country, Strong, Memories

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.239, Delphi Classics

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• Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Believe, Writing, Defense

  Michel de Montaigne (1979). “Essays”

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• On the contrary, it's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics . It's the things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance gold transfers we can't talk about, because those are understood so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!

  Richard P. Feynman

  Weather, Psychology, Gold

  "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Book by Richard P. Feynman, 1985.

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• If then it be possible that one contrary should exist, or be called into existence, the other contrary will also appear to be possible.

  Aristotle

  Should, Existence, If Then

  Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes (1833). “Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric”, p.166

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• Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Character, Men, Would Be

  Daniel J. Boorstin (1993). “The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson”, p.178, University of Chicago Press

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• Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature.

  William Faulkner

  Negative, Purity, States

  William Faulkner (2011). “FAULKNER READER”, p.116, Modern Library

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• Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.

  George Washington

  Happiness, Government, Law

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.20

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• Fame, if not double fac'd, is double mouth'd, And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds; On both his wings, one black, the other white, Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.

  John Milton

  Names, Wings, White

  John Milton, Elijah Fenton, Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Poetical Works of John Milton”, p.97

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• The Constitution does not protect the sovereignty of States for the benefit of the States or state governments as abstract political entities, or even for the benefit of the public officials governing the States. To the contrary, the Constitution divides authority between federal and state governments for the protection of individuals.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Government, Political, Doe

  New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), June 19, 1992.

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• The maxim that men are not to be praised before their death was invented by envy and too lightly adopted by philosophers. I, on the contrary, maintain that they ought to be praised in their lifetime if they merit it; but jealousy and calumny, roused against their virtue or their talent, labour to degrade them if any one ventures to bear testimony to them. It is unjust criticism that they should fear to hazard, not sincere praise.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Unjust Criticism, Envy

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• It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All dynamic action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical, either takes place between two subjects, whether they react equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or partially, or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs. But by "semiosis" I mean, on the contrary, an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Mean, Two, Important

  "Pragmatism (1907)". "The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings". Book edited by the Peirce Edition Project, Volume 2, p. 411, 1998.

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• I am almost convinced (quite contrary to opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing a murder) immutable.

  Charles Darwin

  Opinion, Murder, Origin Of Species

  Charles Darwin, James T. Costa (2009). “The Annotated Origin: A Facsimile of the First Edition of On the Origin of Species”, p.6, Harvard University Press

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• I think art is the only political power, the only revolutionary power, the only evolutionary power, the only power to free humankind form all repression. I say not that art has already realized this, on the contrary, and because it has not, it has to be developed as a weapon, at first there are radical levels, then you can speak about special details.

  Joseph Beuys

  Art, Thinking, Political

  "The Role of Documentation in Conceptual Art: : An Aesthetic Inquiry". Book by Robert C. Morgan, 1978.

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• The strong appearance of design [in nature] allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.

  Michael Behe

  Strong, Simple, Ducks

  "Design for Living" by Michael Behe, www.nytimes.com. February 7, 2005.

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• It is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.

  Pope Leo XIII

  Wisdom, Rights, Confusion

  Pope Leo XIII (1990). “A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII”, p.148, TAN Books

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• You could think of extraordinary examples to the contrary: The Grapes of Wrath... and even into the 70s.

  Charlton Heston

  Thinking, Wrath, Example

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• My mission is to see things as they are. Exactly contrary of a mission.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Atheism, Missions, Positive Atheism

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• They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish.

  Denis Diderot

  Fashion, Mistake, Voice

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• In the ordinary, everyday understandings of the words involved, to say that someone survived death is to contradict yourself; while to assert that all of us live forever is to assert a manifest falsehood, the flat contrary of a universally known truth: namely, the truth that all human beings are mortal. For when, after some disaster, the 'dead' and the 'survivors' have both been listed, what logical space remains for a third category?

  Antony Flew

  Space, Forever, Understanding

  Antony Flew (2000). “Merely Mortal?: Can You Survive Your Own Death?”

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• Many men without morals have attacked religion because it was contrary to their inclinations. Many wise men have despised it because it seemed to them ridiculous. Many persons have regarded it with indifference, because they have never felt its true disadvantages. But it is as a citizen that I attack it, because it seems to me harmful to the happiness of the state, hostile to the march of the mind of man, and contrary to sound morality, from which the interests of state policy can never be separated.

  Baron d'Holbach

  Wise, Men, Mind

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