Opposition Quotes - Page 24

• Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Brother, Compassion, Views

  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

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• A life without problems or limitations or challenges--life without "opposition in all things," as Lehi phrased it (2 Nephi 2:11)--would paradoxically but in very fact be less rewarding and less ennobling than one which confronts--even frequently confronts--difficulty and disappointment and sorrow.

  Jeffrey R. Holland

  Disappointment, Challenges, Sorrow

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• I felt that if a man's proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition, it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the living and meet with no response neither approval nor opposition just as if he were left helpless in a boundless desert.

  Lu Xun

  Real, Fighting, Men

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• Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence... they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and... a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have.

  Amartya Sen

  Country, Party, Independent

  "The 'Silently' Creeping Famine" by Alemayehu G. Mariam, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 18, 2010.

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• This self now as I leant over the gate looking down over fields rolling in waves of colour beneath me made no answer. He threw up no opposition. He attempted no phrase. His fist did not form. I waited. I listened. Nothing came, nothing. I cried then with a sudden conviction of complete desertion. Now there is nothing. No fin breaks the waste of this immeasurable sea. Life has destroyed me. No echo comes when I speak, no varied words. This is more truly death than the death of friends, than the death of youth.

  Virginia Woolf

  Echoes, Self, Sea

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1446, Delphi Classics

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• One of the goals of philosophy is wage theoretical battle. That is why we can say that every thesis is always, by its very nature, an antithesis. A thesis is only ever put forward in opposition to another thesis, or in defence of a new one.

  Louis Althusser

  Philosophy, Goal, Battle

  Louis Althusser, François Matheron, Olivier Corpet (2006). “Philosophy of the Encounter: Later Writings, 1978-87”, p.268, Verso

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• If you focus your awareness only upon your own rightness, then you invite the forces of opposition to overwhelm you.

  Frank Herbert

  Focus, Awareness, Force

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.181, Penguin

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• To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Views

  Aung San Suu Kyi (1997). “Letters From Burma:”

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• Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you - even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition.

  Neil Gaiman

  Football, Dream, Father

  "American Gods". Book by Neil Gaiman, June 19, 2001.

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• Margaret liked this smile; it was the first thing she had admired in this new friend of her father's; and the opposition of character, shown in all these details of appearance she had just been noticing, seemed to explain the attraction they evidently felt towards each other.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Smile, Father, Character

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2010). “The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (20+ Books)”, p.1419, BookCaps Study Guides

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• OUR ORDINATION: Sir Isaac Newton, 1642 – 1747 About the times of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition.

  Isaac Newton

  Men, Attention, Body

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• All great discoveries...are products as much of doubt as of certainty, and the two in opposition clear the air for marvelous accidents.

  Mark Helprin

  Air, Discovery, Two

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• Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Being Yourself

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.149, Princeton University Press

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• William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.

  Tennessee Williams

  Writing, Heart, Loss

  Tennessee Williams (1945). “The Glass Menagerie”, p.105, New Directions Publishing

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• I had a moral opposition to eating before dawn on the grounds that I was not a nineteenth-century Russian peasant fortifying myself for a day in the fields.

  John Green

  Dawn, Fields, Moral

  John Green (2012). “The Fault in Our Stars”, p.82, Penguin

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• If someone should ask, "how should an Opposition function?" the best answer would be, "in the manner of a traditional mother-in-law who watches the performance of household work by a daughter-in-law and follows her about with her comments.

  R.K. Narayan

  Daughter, Mother, Law

  R. K. Narayan (1988). “A Writer's Nightmare: Selected Essays, 1958-1988”, p.88, Penguin Books India

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• The ruling power is always faced with the question, ‘In such and such circumstances, what would you do?’, whereas the opposition is not obliged to take responsibility or make any real decisions.

  George Orwell

  Real, Responsibility, Decision

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.193, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Insurgent, he says. Noun. A person who acts in opposition to the established authority, who is not necessarily regarded as a belligerent.

  Veronica Roth

  Nouns, Authority, Persons

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• But all I feel is impatience, fury for the opposition I anticipate and the lies I'm going to have to tell to make it happen, and frustration that I can't even take a walk without them sending someone to hover. Attack me," she said. "I beg your pardon, Lady Queen?" "You should attack me, and we'll see what he does. He's probably quite bored--it'll be a relief to him." "Mightn't he run me through with his sword?" "Oh." Bitterblue chuckled. "Yes, I suppose he might. That would be a shame." "I'm gratified that you think so," said Giddon dryly.

  Kristin Cashore

  Running, Queens, Lying

  Kristin Cashore (2012). “Bitterblue”, p.84, Penguin

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• Satanism represents opposition to hypocrisy, every human being feels rage, every human being feels anger, and we feel it is natural to express that anger in a healthy way.

  Nikolas Schreck

  Hypocrisy, Healthy, Way

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• ...art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition - otherwise life becomes impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence.

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Art, Men, Expression

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 192), 1986.

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• I was lying, but I wanted to rouse him. I have an inborn urge to contradict; my whole life has been a mere chain of sad and futile opposition to the dictates of either heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast makes me as cold as a midwinter's day, and, I believe, frequent association with a listless phlegmatic would make me an impassioned dreamer.

  Mikhail Lermontov

  Lying, Believe, Heart

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• Here, fire turns into water; Here, the dancing of the rain declares the sun. There's no opposition in existence, no contradiction; Everything supports everything else.

  Rajneesh

  Rain, Fire, Dancing

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• Either way, you are in charge. Jealousy works against you. It takes control away from you, hands it over to the opposition. Maintain control.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Hands, Way, Take Control

  Ellen Hopkins (2013). “Collateral: A Novel”, p.273, Simon and Schuster

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• Balance every thought with its opposition. Because the marriage of them is the destruction of illusion.

  Aleister Crowley

  Balance, Illusion, Destruction

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