#opposite

The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind. ↗

— May Sarton

#comes #mind #minute #opposite #utters

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#case #either #expense #idealism #in other words

People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words. ↗

— Felix Mendelssohn

#ambiguous #complain #entire #everyone #exactly

The town of L— represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left behind, yet not out of sight, nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in everlasting but gentle agitation, and brooded over by a dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the mind and the mood which then swayed it. For it seemed to me as if then first I stood at a distance, and aloof from the uproar of life; as if the tumult, the fever, and the strife, were suspended; a respite granted from the secret burthens of the heart; a sabbath of repose; a resting from human labours. Here were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life, reconciled with the peace which is in the grave; motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm: a tranquility that seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonisms; infinite activities, infinite repose. ↗

— Thomas de Quincey

#reconciliation-of-opposites #equality

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#life #opposites #summer #winter #life

Long after the traces of the human animal have disappeared, many of the species it is bent on destroying will still be around, along with others that have yet to spring up. The Earth will forget mankind. The play of life will go on. ↗

— John Gray

#extinction #humans #the-coast-opposite-of-humanity #unsaved #life

You couldn't have strength without weakness, you couldn't have light without dark, you couldn't have love without loss ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#opposites #love

You were always saying you were gonna shoot him," he mutters, but it's kind of half-hearted. "Stupid fucking little tit, he needs a bullet in his head. What do you keep him round for, anyway?" Because he makes me laugh. Because, fuck knows why, he adores me. Because he needs somebody to look after him and nobody else knows how. Because everything about us is wrong and I never ever want to be right. Because I wake up in the morning and see him sleeping next to me with his stupid dyed hair and his stupid painted nails and his stupid toy monkey and I remember I love him so much I don't know what to do, I love him I love him I LOVE HIM. ↗

— Richard Rider

#opposites-attract #love

We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing. ↗

— Konstantin Josef Jireček

#paradox #paradox

The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet. ↗

— Andy Warhol

#between #exciting #meet #most #never