Opposition Quotes - Page 12

• I'm proud of the fact that I stood up early and unequivocally in opposition to Bush's foreign policy. [...] That opposition hasn't changed.

  Barack Obama

  Up Early, Proud, Facts

  "Not "corrupted" by DLC, Says Obama". www.blackcommentator.com. June 19, 2003.

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• I have no opposition at all to technology. I think technology is a wonderful thing that has to be used thoughtfully, and we can't just assume that every bit of new technology improvesthe quality of life; it's really in how the technology is used. What I am very disturbed about is this trend of everything happening faster and faster and faster and there being more and more general noise in the world, and less and less time for quiet reflection on who we are, and where we're going.

  Alan Lightman

  Technology, Thinking, Reflection

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• In its relation to the reality of daily life, the high culture of the past was many things opposition and adornment, outcry and resignation. But it was also the appearance of the realm of freedom: the refusal to behave.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Past, Reality, Culture

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.75, Routledge

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• Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the "conquest of transcendence" achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.

  Herbert Marcuse

  Differences, Alternatives, Dimensions

  Herbert Marcuse (2013). “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”, p.82, Routledge

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• 1) Différance is the systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other. This spacing is the simultaneously active and passive (the a of différance indicates this indecision as concerns activity and passivity, that which cannot be governed by or distributed between the terms of this opposition) production of the intervals without which the "full" terms would not signify, would not function.

  Jacques Derrida

  Mean, Play, Differences

  "Positions" by Jacques Derrida, University of Chicago Press, (p. 21), 1982.

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• It is sufficiently evident from many circumstances, that the doctrine of the divinity of Christ did not establish itself without much opposition, especially from the unlearned among the Christians, who thought that it savoured of Polytheism , that it was introduced by those who had had a philosophical education, and was by degrees adopted by others, on account of its covering the great offence of the cross , by exalting the personal dignity of our Saviour.

  Joseph Priestley

  Christian, Philosophical, Divinity

  Joseph Priestley (1871). “A History of the Corruptions of Christianity”, p.19

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• Much more should have been achieved by a Labour Government in office and Labour pressure in opposition. Against the dogged resistance to change, we should have pitted a stronger will to change. I conclude that a move to the Left is needed.

  Anthony Crosland

  Moving, Government, Should Have

  Anthony Crosland (1974). “Socialism now and other essays”, Jonathan Cape

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• Courage is finding the inner strength and bravery required when confronting danger, difficulty, or opposition. Courage is the energy current behind all great actions and the spark that ignites the initial baby steps of growth. It resides deep within each of us, ready to be accessed in those moments when you need to forge ahead or break through seemingly insurmountable barriers. It is the intangible force that propels you forward on your journey.

  Cherie Carter-Scott

  Baby, Courage, Journey

  Cherie Carter-Scott (1999). “If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules: Ten Rules for Being Human as Introduced in Chicken Soup for the Soul”, p.104, Harmony

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• We have a small faction, and they are a minority, who believe they are there to govern. Then there is the majority of us who believe that indeed we are there to govern but more importantly we are there to be an opposition to the Democratic philosophy and the only way to do that is through confrontation.

  Tom DeLay

  Philosophy, Believe, Majority

  Houston Chronicle, April 14, 1991.

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• The problem was, I enjoyed Question Period too much and loved the challenge it provided. Far from being a dreaded burden, it had become an exciting part of my life; opposition members attacked me, I fought back, I won or lost or held them to draw, and the next day we did it all over again.

  Jean Chretien

  Next Day, Challenges, Too Much

  "My Years As Prime Minister". Book by Jean Chrétien, 2007.

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• Do you know how hard it is to make a home?... That's something that a woman does from inside herself. You do it in the face of all sorts of opposition. Husbands are very appreciative when it works out well. But they're not that anxious to help. It's understandable. They don't know how.

  Samuel R. Delany

  Husband, Home, Work Out

  Samuel R. Delany (2010). “Dhalgren”, p.188, Hachette UK

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• We are trying to persuade all the Iraqi opposition to come breathe freedom in Iraq and use liberated Kurdistan as a base for our common struggle.

  Jalal Talabani

  Struggle, Iraq, Trying

  "Kurds Organizing Anti-Hussein Forces - Sidebar For a Quiet Colonel, A Moving Role as Santa Claus". Boston Globe, October 25, 1992.

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• Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement - that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic.

  Charles Fort

  Mean, Magic, World

  Charles Fort (2014). “Wild Talents”, p.180, Baen Publishing Enterprises

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• To believe Christianity stands in opposition to slavery is at best to think anachronistically and at worst to not understand Christianity.

  Derrick Jensen

  Believe, Thinking, Slavery

  Derrick Jensen (2002). “The Culture of Make Believe”

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• If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money.

  Paul Krugman

  Climate Action, Want, Global Warming

  "Who Cooked the Planet?". www.nytimes.com. July 25, 2010.

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• Futurism and Cubism are comparable in importance to the invention of perspective, for which they substituted a new concept of space. All subsequent movements were latent in them or brought about by them.. ..the two movements cannot be regarded as in opposition to each other, even though they started from opposite points; I maintain [an idea approved by Appolinaire and later by Matisse that they are two extremes of the same sign, tending to coincide at certain points which only the poetic instinct of the painter can discover: 'poetry' being the content and 'raison d'tre' of art.

  Gino Severini

  Art, Opposites, Ideas

  "Letters of the great artists" by Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, (pp. 248-249), 1963.

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• Every politician, every member of the clerical profession, ought to incur the reasonable suspicion of being an interested supporter of false doctrines, who becomes angry at opposition, and endeavors to cast an odium on free inquiry. Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

  Thomas Cooper

  Truth, Religion, Doctrine

  Thomas Cooper (1829). “Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy ...”, p.375

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• Free inquiry entails recognition of civil liberties as integral to its pursuit, that is, a free press, freedom of communication, the right to organize opposition parties and to join voluntary associations, and freedom to cultivate and publish the fruits of scientific, philosophical, artistic, literary, moral and religious freedom.

  Paul Kurtz

  Religious, Party, Communication

  Paul Kurtz (1983). “In defense of secular humanism”, Prometheus Books

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• The public's continuing ambivalence about cultural matters is all the more striking given that the political conversation on these issues has for 30 years been dominated by an aggressive, radical right-wing insurgency that has achieved an influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Its potent secret weapon has been the guilt and anxiety about desire that inform the character of Americans regardless of ideology; appealing to those largely unconscious emotions, the right has disarmed, intimidated, paralyzed its opposition.

  Ellen Willis

  Character, Years, Wings

  "Escape from Freedom". "Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination", Vol 1, No 2, 2006.

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• Incorporating in their colorful, slashing, superbly readable pages, the major themes of the "left" opposition under Walpole, these libertarian tracts, emerging first in the form of denunciations of standing armies in the reign of William III, left an indelible imprint on the "country" mind everywhere in the English-speaking world.

  Bernard Bailyn

  Country, Army, Mind

  Bernard Bailyn (2017). “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition”, p.36, Harvard University Press

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• The opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

  Bertrand Russell

  Agreement, Creative, Intuition

  Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.17, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Indeed, what forces us at all to suppose that there is an essential opposition of 'true' and 'false'? Is it not sufficient to assume degrees of apparentness and, as it were, lighter and darker shadows and shades of appearance- different 'values', to use the language of painters?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Shadow, Essentials, Degrees

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.236, Modern Library

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• Official opposition to overall economic planning and planning controls has been characterized in a recent editorial as "Papa knows best." But it is precisely because Papa does not know best that I believe that Government should not presume to tell any businessman or industrialist what he should or should not do, far less what he may or not do; and no matter how it may be dressed up that is what planning is.

  John James Cowperthwaite

  Believe, Government, May

  Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (p. 133), March 30, 1962.

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• We are deeply concerned about the situation in Russia with regards to human rights. There are several examples of this situation, such as the new law requiring NGOs to register as "foreign agents", the law banning homosexual "propaganda", problems with the rule of law and arbitrary judicial processes, and court rulings against the opposition.

  Cecilia Malmstrom

  Law, Russia, Rights

  "Situation in Russia". Personal blog at the European Commission website, ec.europa.eu. January 17, 2014.

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• Any opposition not based on rationalism or science or experience will one day or other, reveal the fraud, selfishness, lies and conspiracies.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Lying, One Day, Selfishness

  "Collected works of Periyar E.V.R." by Tantai Periyār, (p. 504), 2005.

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