Opposition Quotes - Page 17

• Severe opposition is a measure of success (because) one inevitable result of winning a majority change in consciousness is a backlash from those forces whose power depended on the old one.

  Gloria Steinem

  Winning, Majority, Consciousness

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• The role of the opposition leader differs from that of the chancellor. If this government is to be successful, I have to take the emotional state of all partners into account. Besides, the Social Democrats didn't exactly present me with the motto "Let us dare to have more freedom" on a silver platter.

  Angela Merkel

  Successful, Emotional, Silver Platter

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• We knew the Syrian situation was complex and there were lots of divisions, particularly on the side of the opposition... This is a tough job... It can perhaps be done if you stand united and work with me in putting sustained pressure on the protagonists or the parties to come together and seek a political settlement.

  Kofi Annan

  Jobs, Party, Political

  "Kofi Annan on 40 Years Trying to End War, Promote Peace at the United Nations". Interview with Jeffrey Brown, www.kofiannanfoundation.org. September 20, 2012.

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• First you give life and action and guidance to ideas, then they take on power of their own and sweep aside all opposition.

  Napoleon Hill

  Ideas, Giving, Firsts

  Napoleon Hill (2015). “Think and grow rich: Brazilian edition”, p.88, CDG Edições e Publicações LTDA

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• If religious feeling is put in opposition to social change, then it does become an opium, but if it is joined to the struggle for social change then it is a wonderful medicine.

  Fidel Castro

  Religious, Struggle, Medicine

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• Success is the most natural thing in the world. The person who does not succeed has placed himself in opposition to the laws of the Universe.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Law, Succeed, Doe

  Elbert Hubbard (2008). “A Message to Garcia: And Other Classic Success Writings”, p.20, Penguin

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• ...tis a dangerous thing to ingage the authority of Scripture in disputes about the Natural World, in opposition to Reason; lest Time, which brings all things to light, should discover that to be evidently false which we had made Scripture to assert.

  Thomas Burnet

  Light, World, Scripture

  Thomas Burnet (1697). “The Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the Earth, and of All the General Changes which it Hath Already Undergone, Or is to Undergo Till the Consummation of All Things ...”, p.18

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• During the 2300 years since Plato, very little opposition has been registered to his ideas.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Plato, Years, Ideas

  "Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction". Book by Ludwig von Mises, 1952.

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• The words 'theory' and 'practice' are of Greek origin; they carry our thoughts back to the ancient philosophers by whom they were contrived, and by whom they were also contrasted and placed in opposition, as denoting two mutually conflicting and mutually inconsistent ideas. ... [this fallacy] based on a double system of natural laws retarded for centuries the development of physical science, notably mechanics.

  William John Macquorn Rankine

  Law, Practice, Ideas

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• In the middle ages of Christianity opposition to the State opinions was hushed. The consequence was, Christianity became loaded with all the Romish follies. Nothing but free argument, raillery & even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Age, Opinion, Argument

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Life and Writings of ...”

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• People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  People, Cost, Alive

  "Letters to a Young Poet". Book by Rainer Maria Rilke. Letter Seven (May 14, 1904), 1929.

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• I noticed - and this is one of the people don't understand of Tony [Abbot] - he grew. To me he grew as opposition leader. He come in - he wasn't really good at the beginning when he was opposition leader. He won the confidence of the Australian people and got the job as Prime Minister. He grew in Indigenous affairs. To me, we just totally disagreed in it, but now we're very much one on one on it.

  Warren Mundine

  Jobs, People, Leader

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• They successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.

  John Steinbeck

  Strong, Eye, People

  "The Winter of Our Discontent". Book by John Steinbeck. Part One, Chapter III, 1961.

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• I learned early that you'd better know what you're talking about. You'd better realize that certain issues are going to be so hot - no matter what reason, what logic you apply to it - you're going to be met with an opposition just because their viewpoint is different, and there's no way they're going to accept your reasoning. Furthermore, they're going to attack you because you will be portrayed as not being credible: "You're an actor. What do you know?"

  Robert Redford

  Talking, Issues, Hot

  Interview with Sean P. Means, www.sltrib.com. December 02, 2005.

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• If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I will have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific, with enough left over to run the Great Salt Lake out of business. But I wish to say I never shed any of these tears personally, because I am never in love, and furthermore, barring a bad break, I never expect to be in love, for the way I look at it love is strictly the old phedinkus, and I tell the little guy as much.

  Damon Runyon

  Running, Ocean, Love Is

  Damon Runyon (2008). “Guys and Dolls and Other Writings”, p.216, Penguin

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• To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Way, Nihilist, Decent

  Christopher Hitchens (2001). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, Basic Books (AZ)

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• I want to be the top player in the league, and I want to bring my game to another level. I want to play against the opposition's best players-and I want to beat them.

  Jarome Iginla

  Player, Games, League

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• I don't think the American people had a clear picture of either Nixon or me. I think they thought that Nixon was a strong, decisive, tough-minded guy and that I was an idealist and antiwar guy who might not attach enough significance to the security of the country. The truth is, I was the guy with the war record, and my opposition to Vietnam was because I was interested in the nation's well-being.

  George McGovern

  Country, Strong, War

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• The fact that there are singer-songwriters dealing with substantive issues is encouraging. It's important for young people to perceive that there are acceptable avenues of dissent, because we live in a world where dissent is hard-pressed; treated as if it were unpatriotic. I've always liked the concept of the loyal opposition. It allows for dissent to be a respectable part of the whole.

  Mary Travers

  Issues, People, Important

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• we must continue to be open in the face of great opposition.  No one is encouraging us to be open and still we must peel away the layers of the heart.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Heart, Layers, Faces

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• The functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it. We are always told that things are going on well; Why change them? 'Chi sta bene, no si mueve,' said the Italian, 'let him who stands well, stand still.' This is true; and I verily believe they would go on well with us under an absolute monarch, while our present character remains, of order, industry and love of peace, and restrained as he would be, by the proper spirit of the people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Character, Italian

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.209, Cambridge University Press

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• All Buddhas and ordinary people are just one mind. This mind is beyond all measurements, names, oppositions: this very being is it; as soon as you stir your mind you turn away from it.

  Huangbo Xiyun

  Names, People, Mind

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• Putting the AR movement directly in opposition to the environmental movement, which should be our natural allies in fighting human arrogance and domination of the planet.

  Peter Singer

  Fighting, Arrogance, Environmental

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• The opposition to teaching evolution is, of course, almost always given a religious reason. That may usually be its real basis, but I think it is often a mask, perhaps unconscious, for underlying anti-intellectualism or antiscientism.

  George Gaylord Simpson

  Religious, Real, Teaching

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• Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

  Lord Acton

  Mother, Country, Powerful

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