Quotes about opposition
page 18

“All I want to leave behind is a new generation full of new ideas and examples. Not the opposite.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Idea

“Socrates roamed and surrounded by the oppositions in Athens, like a lion that's surrounded by hyenas in the forest.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“The truth is respectful opposition is not the enemy, it’s an important part of a health a democracy.”

Peadar Tóibín (1974) Irish politician

Peadar Tóibín to host Waterford meeting about new party https://www.wlrfm.com/2019/01/21/peadar-toibin-to-host-waterford-meeting-about-new-party/ (January 21, 2019)

Democracy, Health, Truth, Parting

“The subject of learning lies in the provinces of neuroscience and psychology. It is the opposite of instinct. Instinct is generically-determined behaviour; learning is behaviour modified by experience.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 16 “Memory” (p. 220)

Learning

“Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
XI, 18
Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book XI

Pain, Anger

“Life is a checkerboard, and the player opposite you is time. If you hesitate before moving, or neglect to move promptly, your men will be wiped off the board by time. You are playing against a partner who will not tolerate indecision!”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 173

Life, Time, Men, Indecision

“We unwittingly focus on fear and distrust, as if those were the only possible options available to us, while all along we have the alternative of deliberately centering our attention on the opposite, the mystery, the wonder of what is happening to us.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Eagle's Gift, (1981)

Fear

“The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

Steve Bannon (1953) American media executive and former White House Chief Strategist for Donald Trump

Source: According to " “Flood the zone with shit”: How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation" (2018)

Way

“The pairs of opposites have never been clearer: gross materialism, stock exchanges reeling because of overwhelming greed, and at the same time people dying in millions from starvation.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The Art of Living: Living within the Laws of Life (2006)

Time, People

“I'm not looking to be defined as someone that is there in opposition, but rather someone that's there serious about doing the job and doing the work. It's a piece of paper. I could care less about it.”

Jared Golden (1982) American politician from Maine

“I speak in general. I think that Putin does not understand that criticizing power can help this power. How do we fight corruption in the United States? There are two forces - independent media and powerful opposition party.”

Michael McFaul (1963) American academic and diplomat

"Izvestia Interview with Michael McFaul" in Carnegie Endowment for World Peace https://carnegieendowment.org/2002/05/15/izvestia-interview-with-michael-mcfaul-pub-984 (15 May 2002)

Understanding, Help, Thinking, Fight

“Don't make a mistake to vote for opposition candidates who sole aim is opposing government programs. This will mean that you won't receive the services you deserve.”

Robinah Nabbanja (1969) Ugandan politician and teacher

Source: Robinah Nabbanja (2021) cited in " Uganda: PM Nabbanja Stings "Unreliable" Nup's Nakweede in Kayunga Campaigns https://allafrica.com/stories/202112130435.html" on All Africa, 12 December 2021.

“Since we are socialists, we must necessarily also be antisemites because we want to fight against the very opposite: materialism and mammonism... How can you not be an antisemite, being a socialist!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: "Why We Are Anti-Semites," August 15, 1920 speech in Munich at the Hofbräuhaus. Translated from Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 16. Jahrg., 4. H. (Oct., 1968), pp. 390-420. Edited by Carolyn Yeager. https://carolynyeager.net/why-we-are-antisemites-text-adolf-hitlers-1920-speech-hofbr%C3%A4uhaus

Fight

“You’ll have to excuse our customs and immigration staff: they preach courtesy and respect while demonstrating exactly the opposite.”

Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 14 (p. 265)

“Here is the root of all romanticism: that man, the individual, is an infinite reservoir of possibilities; and if you can so rearrange society by the destruction of oppressive order then these possibilities will have a chance and you will het Progress. One can define the classical quite clearly as the exact opposite to this. Man is an extraordinary fixed and limited animal whose nature is absolutely constant. It is only by tradition and organization that anything decent can be got out of him.”

T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) English Imagist poet and critic

Source: Speculations (Essays, 1924)

Chance, Nature, Animals

“This important act reflects the will of a people demanding unity, especially within the opposition, in order to defeat the dictatorship... I want a social pact with every sector, the productive sectors, with business, with workers, with teachers, with farmers and campesinos, with the informal economy and small and medium-sized businesses”

Xiomara Castro (1959) First Lady of Honduras

Source: Quoted in Could Honduras Shift Left? A Look at Xiomara Castro, by Brendan O'Boyle, America's Quarterly, October 14, 2021

People, Teachers, Business

“People did not always love the mountains. Just a few hundred years ago the high mountains were regarded as horrible, monstrous places filling people with terror and fear. The inhabitants near them were seen as awful demons, subhumans. But this attitude got transformed into just the opposite, especially by Romantic writers and painters in the nineteenth century. Seen by the Romantics, high mountains became places of impossible beauty, where the quality of light and the expansive solitary grandeur of the high peaks opened the heart of the individual. A man climbing a mountain became the image of self-conscious intelligence pitted against the eternal indifference of the forces of nature. Compared to these forces of nature, we are nothing save for the will that moves our limbs. Only that will is truly our own.”

Heinz R. Pagels (1939–1988) American physicist

Source: The Cosmic Code (1982), p. 271-272

Mountain, Intelligence, Indifference, Nature

“Sit with closed eyes in the early morning. Meditate on courage, the opposite of fear, for half an hour. Think of the advantages of courage and the disadvantages of fear.”

Swami Sivananda (1887–1963) Indian philosopher

Conquest of Fear (c-1960)

Courage, Thinking, Fear

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

Michael Pollan book The Botany of Desire

Source: The Botany of Desire (2001), Chapter 1, “Desire: Sweetness / Plant: The Apple” (p. 41)

Soul

“Will the right hon. Lady take the opportunity today and every day to make clear to the country, as only she can, that the courses that are being commended to her by the official Opposition and by many other voices mean nothing but a deliberate return to hyper-inflation?”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1980/jul/22/prime-minister-engagements#column_267 to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons (22 July 1980) <br class="br">1980s

Country

“I also believe that in many parts of this country, and certainly in many parts of this globe, that the opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.”

Bryan Stevenson (1959) American lawyer, social reformer and academic

We need to talk about an injustice https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice|

Justice, Country, Wealth, Thinking

“We should not only deal with the landlords' scattering of land and their opposition to the agrarian policy until now, but also deal with scattering of land and opposition to the agrarian policy from now on.”

Trường Chinh (1907–1988) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1907-1988)

Implementing the Land Reform (1958) (excerpts)

“People under assault, and hopelessly overmatched, often do the opposite of what propriety might suggest: they dig in when they ought to accommodate. We call this behavior “siege mentality.””

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Source: Full House (1996), Chapter 14, “The Power of the Modal Bacter” (p. 213)

People, Behavior

“Laughter, ridicule, opposition, persecution, are often the only reward which Christ's followers get from the world.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Vol. II, John XII: 20–26, p. 334
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. John (1865–1873)

World, Christ, Laughter

“The urge to excel and the urge to lead aren’t the same. Sometimes I think they may be opposites.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 2, “The Voyage Out” (p. 67)

Thinking

“Those who take bold steps know what risks they face. It could mean difficulty, uncertainty, danger, pain and even death. But a coward chooses the opposite path, even though he knows that the path he takes is not without risk. Running will never solve the problem.”

Titon Rahmawan

Pain, Problem, Death

“In life true progress is an art of balance, a dance between opposites: it's knowing to dose ambition and gratitude, effort and rest, action and reflection.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Nella vita il vero progresso è un'arte di equilibrio, una danza tra opposti: è saper dosare ambizione e riconoscenza, sforzo e riposo, azione e riflessione.
Source: prevale.net

Dance, Gratitude, Art, Life

Quotes about opposition page 18

Quotes about opposition
page 18