“Sometimes the cause of civilization is best served by a hard stare into the soul of its opposite.”

Source: Lady Midnight

The Soul-Winner (1895)

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
Context: The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are usually not realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. The philosopher Hegel said that truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.

Quotes, Concession speech (2000)
Context: I've seen America in this campaign, and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for and that's a fight I'll never stop. As for the battle that ends tonight, I do believe, as my father once said, that "No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out."

A letter from 1 May, 1896, Hawarden, as cited in: [Mesrovb Jacob Seth, Armenians in India, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day: A Work of Original Research, https://books.google.com/books?id=BlreO8bmK30C&pg=PA91, 1937, Asian Educational Services, 978-81-206-0812-2, 91–]
1890s

Address to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, December 18, 1952
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 8 “Another Way into Orgoreyn” (p. 101)

"The Corner" (Track 2)
Albums, Be (2005)

Inside the Spaceships