Contrary Quotes - page 2

Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; While others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before. (Herodotus)
Ground not upon dreams; you know they are ever contrary. View quote
Thomas Middleton
If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation. View quote
Václav Havel
The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers. View quote
Kenneth Clark
Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors. View quote
Arthur Schopenhauer
A handful of men, inured to war, proceed to certain victory, while on the contrary numerous armies of raw and undisciplined troops are but multitudes of men dragged to slaughter. View quote
Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature. View quote
Denis Diderot
Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Contrary to general belief, an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs. View quote
Edgard Varèse
The bonds between ourselves and another person exists only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying. View quote
Marcel Proust
A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention. (Aldous Huxley)
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction, or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. View quote
Isaac Newton
Plenty of folks are so contrary that if they should fall into the river, they would insist upon floating upstream. View quote
Josh Billings
Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. View quote
Augustine of Hippo
Contrary to what Kafka does, I always like to refer all of my fictions to the level of reality, He, on the other hand, leaves them at an imaginary level. View quote
Manuel Puig
When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion - through the fact that for that someone (or for ourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful. View quote
M. Scott Peck
Fear and I were old buddies, despite my best efforts to the contrary. View quote
Peter Straub
It is idle to say that nations can struggle to outdo each other in building armaments and never use them. History demonstrates the contrary, and we have but to go back to the last war to see the appalling effect of nations competing in great armaments. View quote
Frank B. Kellogg
Jesus was not denying the legitimacy of biblical law. On the contrary, He was affirming biblical law. We love God first; God commands us to keep His word; therefore, we must enforce the law on ourselves. View quote
Gary North
Contrary to popular belief, the experience of terror does not make you braver. Perhaps though, it is easier to hide your fear when you're afraid all the time. View quote
David Benioff
This disaster did not force us to abandon our ideal; on the contrary, from the very first months of the conflict, it led us to define precisely the conditions for its realization. (Leon Jouhaux)
Do not be fooled into believing that because a man is rich he is necessarily smart. There is ample proof to the contrary. View quote
Julius Rosenwald
Not everything I do is gossip or bedroom. To the contrary, I think that's just an easy label to dismiss me and to dismiss the new medium. View quote
Matt Drudge
Contrary to popular belief, Americans don't hate advertising. View quote
Roy H. Williams
The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate, and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible. Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence and certainty. View quote
Johann Gottlieb Fichte