“Sometimes the cause of civilization is best served by a hard stare into the soul of its opposite.”
Source: The Botany of Desire (2001), Chapter 1, “Desire: Sweetness / Plant: The Apple” (p. 41)
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Michael Pollan37
American author, journalist, activist, and professor of jou… 1955Related quotes
“But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
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.
Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States
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."
“To serve Armenia is to serve the Civilization.”
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom
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
Vincent Massey (1887–1967) Governor General of Canada
Address to the Canadian Club of Ottawa, December 18, 1952
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)
“If civilization has an opposite, it is war.”
Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle
Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 8 “Another Way into Orgoreyn” (p. 101)
“We write songs about wrong cause its hard to see right”
Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois
"The Corner" (Track 2)
Albums, Be (2005)
