Opposites quotes
2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside opposites — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Hillary Clinton has a real history of uniting people, of being able to work with both Republicans and Democrats, of trying to fight for people's equal rights. Whereas we really see the polar opposite in her opponent."
"To put it another way: a conference is an elite meeting on equal terms; a congress is a group of elites meeting on opposite terms; a convention is a mob meeting on equal terms; a course is an elite instructing a mob; and a colloquium is a group capable of considering all these phenomena."
"For every romantic possiblity, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and opposite sentence, phrase, or word capable of extinguishing it."
"I said, I'll put on weight. And I started having massages, taking cod-liver oil, and eating twice as much. But I didn't even gain an ounce. I'd made up my mind that on the day the engagement was announced I'd be fatter, and I didn't gain an ounce. Then I went to Mussoorie, which is a health resort, and I ignored the doctors' instructions; I invented my own regime and gained weight. Just the opposite of what I'd like now. Now I have the problem of keeping slim. Still I manage. I don't know if you realize I'm a determined woman."
"Some people think that because they do the opposite of what they are asked to do, they have initiative"
"Wit goes for the jugular, not the jocular, and it's the opposite of football; instead of building character, it tears it down."
"I don't want to make a member of Congress do something that that member of Congress's constituents would not approve of, or would not agree to. So in that regard, I'm kind of the opposite of a lobbyist."
"It's the opposite journey from what I've usually done with films. I find it very easy to go from, say, a lit, pleasurable environment, like what you see outside there, to a very dark place. But the opposite journey, which is what this movie takes, is much more complicated."
"A certain similarity exists, although the type evolves, between all the women we love, a similarity that is due to the fixity of our own temperament, which it is that chooses them, eliminating all those who would not be at once our opposite and our complement, fitted that is to say to gratify our senses and to wring our heart."
"There is no idea that does not carry in itself a possible refutation, no word that does not imply its opposite."
"Additionally, Liesl and Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic--not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying. (From the "Author's Note" at the end)."
"I actually prefer getting into roles that are the polar opposite of me; that's why I've done so many dark and dreary things."
"Justice and I became friends, though we were opposites in many ways - he was extroverted, I was introverted; he was lighthearted, I was serious."
"Law is the highest reason implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite."
"For while we are enclosed in these confinements of the body, we perform as a kind of duty the heavy task of necessity; for the soul from heaven has been cast down from its dwelling on high and sunk, as it were, into the earth, a place just the opposite to godlike nature and eternity. But I believe that the immortal gods have sown souls in human bodies so there might exist beings to guard the world and after contemplating the order of heaven, might imitate it by their moderation and steadfastness in life."
"I think a lot of times, when you're working in this business, and you're both actors or somehow involved in the industry, you can get torn in different directions and be on completely opposite schedules."
"To fly is the opposite of traveling: you cross a gap in space, you vanish into the void, you accept not being in a place for a duration that is itself a kind of void in time; then you reappear, in a place and in a moment with no relation to the where and when in which you vanished."
"Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that."
"I can never say what I want to say, it's been like this for a while now. I try to say something but all I get are wrong words - the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It's like I'm split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this can't catch her."
"Since I'm a novelist I'm the opposite of you - I believe that what's most important is what cannot be measured. I'm not denying your way of thinking, but the greater part of people's lives consist of things that are unmeasurable, and trying to change all these to something measurable is realistically impossible."
