Contrariness Quotes

Law of Contrariness:
Our chief want in life is somebody
who shall make us do what we can.
Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Related topics: Cynical Cute Whimsey

One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself,
but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.
- George Orwell

If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry,
that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware
of having no good reason for thinking as you do.
- Bertrand Russell

Real excellence and humility are
not incompatible one with the other,
on the contrary they are twin sisters.
- Jean Baptiste Lacordaire

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

This communicating of a man's self to his friend
works two contrary effects;
for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.
- Francis Bacon

Contrary to general belief,
I do not believe that friends are necessarily
the people you like best,
they are merely the people who got there first.
- Peter Ustinov

I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives
when it's so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.
- Jimmy Carter

We need less posturing and more genuine charisma.
Charisma was originally a religious term,
meaning "of the spirit" or "inspired."
It's about letting God's light shine through us.
It's about a sparkle in people that money can't buy.
It's an invisible energy with visible effects.
To let go, to just love, is not to fade into the wallpaper.
Quite the contrary, it's when we truly become bright.
We're letting our own light shine.
- Marianne Williamson

Because we fear the responsibility for our actions,
we have allowed ourselves to develop the mentality of slaves.
Contrary to the stirring sentiments of the Declaration of Independence,
we now pledge "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor"
not to one another for our mutual protection, but to the state,
whose actions continue to exploit, despoil, and destroy us.
- Butler D. Shaffer

Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off
a portion of one's being,
but by integration of the contraries.
- Carl Jung

I think wholeness is God's design for us;
and that often amounts to embracing contradictions.
- Bono

What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

Tolerance is the first principle of community;
it is the spirit which conserves
the best that all men think.
- Helen Keller

Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are,
or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.
It is what you think about.
- Dale Carnegie

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

People should think things out fresh
and not just accept conventional terms
and the conventional way of doing things.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I don't think of all the misery
but of the beauty that still remains.
- Anne Frank

The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in a while
and watch your answers change.
- Richard Bach

The most important things in life
are seldom the most obvious.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If a million people say a foolish thing,
it is still a foolish thing.
- Anatole France

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

When you keep getting the wrong answers,
try asking better questions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Men and women are not prisoners of fate,
but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have,
for example, freedom of thought;
instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
- Soren Kierkegaard

The most incomprehensible thing about the world
is that it is comprehensible.
- Albert Einstein

To kill an error is as good a service as,
and sometimes even better than,
the establishing of a new truth or fact.
- Charles Darwin

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
- Albert Einstein

The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.
- Publilius Syrus

The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.
- Terry Goodkind

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
- John F. Kennedy

We should not pretend to understand the world
only by the intellect.
The judgment of the intellect
is only part of the truth.
- Carl Jung

The most important thing about Spaceship Earth -
an instruction book didn't come with it.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

The presence of those seeking the truth
is infinitely to be preferred
to the presence of those who think they've found it.
- Terry Pratchett

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had
because they didn't have the talent
or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
- Nelson Mandela

The world is more malleable than you think
and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape.
- Bono

Inaction breeds doubt and fear.
Action breeds confidence and courage.
If you want to conquer fear,
do not sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.
- Dale Carnegie

Life is fully as bad as you think it is,
so never think life is bad.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sometimes I think we're alone.
Sometimes I think we're not.
In either case, the thought is staggering.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Don't marry the person you think you can live with;
marry only the individual you think you can't live without.
- James C. Dobson

Happiness is when
what you think,
what you say,
and what you do
are in harmony.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

When you think you're out of time,
smile, and turn back the clock.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience
in which you really stop to look fear in the face.
You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Nurture your mind with great thoughts,
for you will never go any higher than you think.
- Benjamin Disraeli

If only the people who worry about their liabilities
would think about the riches they do possess,
they would stop worrying.
- Dale Carnegie

The mind is everything.
What you think you become.
- The Buddha

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart for so long.
If we're in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

If you think you can,
or you think you can't,
you're probably right.
- Henry Ford

Many people allow their need
for other people's approval to control their lives.
They spend their lives worrying about what others think of them.
- Rick Warren

Wonder what opportunities you pass, unwittingly,
because your hands are so busy clasping
what you think you have always known.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

No written law has ever been more binding
than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
- Carrie Chapman Catt

WHY do you care what THEY think?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

How you think when you lose
determines how long it will be until you win.
- Gilbert (G. K.) Chesterton

To change who you are,
change who you think you are.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Those who know how to think need no teachers.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Life does not consist mainly,
or even largely, of facts or happenings.
It consist mainly of the storm of thoughts
that is forever flowing through one's head.
- Mark Twain

You must do the thing that you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Do not think that love,
in order to be genuine,
has to be extraordinary.
What we need is to love without getting tired.
- Mother Teresa

If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labor.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will think of past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.
Today I will be the master of my emotions.
- Og Mandino

Some people care too much. I think it's called love.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

You are what you think you are.
- Bob Richards

What you think of me is none of my business.
- Terry Cole-Whittaker

What we think, we become.
- The Buddha

Words make you think a thought.
Music makes you feel a feeling.
A song makes you feel a thought.
- E. Y. Harburg

Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day;
live life to the fullest;
make the most of what you have.
It is later than you think.
- Horace

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
- Oscar Wilde

Think for yourself and question authority.
- Timothy Leary

The most pathetic person in the world
is someone who has sight, but has no vision.
- Helen Keller

They can because they think they can.
- Virgil

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie