Opposed Quotes

In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population. ~ Noam Chomsky

I am very much opposed to abortion personally. But I don't think it is the government's rule. ~ Arlen Specter

The conservative idea is not that government has no role. You might have argued that in the thirties when conservatives opposed the New Deal. ~ Charles Krauthammer

I can't write from the subconscious actually, because a lot of the time when I co-write with other people, I'm writing for them as opposed to for myself. When it comes to lyrics, I tend to want to give them their voice, since it's most likely going to be on their record, or somebody else's record. And I find for more commerial-style music, people want simplicity, less vagueness, and less space to fill between the lines, so to speak. So I can't be quite as ethereal and mystical. ~ Gary Louris

The typical unhappy man is one who, having been deprived in youth of some normal satisfaction, has come to value this one kind of satisfaction more than any other, and has therefore given to his life a one-sided direction, together with a quite undue emphasis upon the achievement as opposed to the activities connected with it. ~ Bertrand Russell

Now... all opposed to being rescued, raise your hands, otherwise, I'd like to get the fuck out of here


~Veiron, Her Demonic Angel ~ ~ Felicity Heaton

[Hermogenes] despises God's law in his painting, maintains repeated marriages [almost certainly a reference to remarrying after divorce or perhaps even widowhood, which Tertullian, who became a Montanist, opposed], alleges the law of God in defense of lust [likely same reference], and yet despises it in respect of his art. ~ Tertullian

I try to make all my work as honest as possible. I want the audience to feel like they're watching two people talking-having a conversation-as opposed to watching actors fake it. I want the audience to get lost in the fact that this is so good it could be real. ~ Danny Burstein

I am an unmarried man, as opposed to a single man. A bachelor, according to the dictionary, is a man who has never been married. An unmarried man is not married at the moment. Many of these terms have fallen into disuse. ~ Raymond Burr

As an American I am of course fundamentally opposed to democracy and to anyone advocating or defending democracy, which in theory and practice is the basis of socialism. ~ Rose Wilder Lane

Speak up when you're supposed to, as opposed to trying to write prescriptions for the way people should live. ~ Don Cheadle

The hardest part about parenting is when I have to be The Dad
aka the Fun-Sucker
as opposed to being a friend. ~ James Patterson

In any case, what would be the point of having all that, and you, darling Eve, if I can't have time with you, away from your work and mine?"
"I could probably take a week."
"I was thinking four."
"Four? Four weeks? That's a month."
His eyes laughed over the rim of his cup. "Is it now? I believe you're right."
"I can't take a month off. A month is like ... a month."
"As opposed to what? A chicken?"
"Ha. Look, maybe I could stretch it to ten days, but - "
"Three weeks."
Her forehead furrowed.
"We had to cancel plans for a quick weekend away twice this year. Once for your work, once for mine. Three weeks."
"I couldn't take more than two, even - "
"Two and a half. We split the difference." He handed her a fork.
She frowned at it. "You were always going for the two and a half. ~ J.D. Robb

All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, including Israel and Hamas. But Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic and totalitarian regimes. It does not deform the truth; it inverts it. It routinely paints a picture for the outside world that is diametrically opposed to reality. And all of us reporters who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel's Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories - required under the rules of American journalism - although we know they are untrue. ~ Chris Hedges

You can't help noticing that since abandoning its faith in the unseen world Europe seems also to have lost its faith in the seen one. Consider this poll taken in 2002 for the first anniversary of September 11: 61 percent of Americans said they were optimistic about the future, as opposed to 43 percent of Canadians, 42 percent of Britons, 29 percent of the French, 23 percent of Russians, and 15 percent of Germans. I wouldn't reckon those numbers will get any cheerier over the years. ~ Mark Steyn

I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is. ~ Joan D. Chittister

In this day and age, there is a limitless plethora of readily available distractions just waiting to take your mind off what you were supposed to be doing, and instead keep you unproductive and unmotivated. With distractions so easy to come by, and society so geared towards instant gratification as opposed to "Hard graft" for results, it is little wonder that many people suffer from a condition most commonly referred to as laziness. ~ James Frankton

I learned English at school, or at least that's how it started. Also, in Holland - as opposed to some other European countries - we don't dub anything, so as a kid growing up, always watching English and American movies in their original language really helped. ~ Michiel Huisman

What is the evolutionary value of blushing? It seems not to be to our advantage to do it, to involuntarily reveal our inner emotions. If we're trying to manipulate or lie, actions in furtherance of individual goals as opposed to the goals of others, blushing would not seem to be helpful. And yet everyone blushes, except the psychopath. ~ Frans De Waal

Maybe someday we will find refuge in true reality. In the meantime, can I just say how opposed I am to all of this? ~ Alejandra Pizarnik

I support health care reform in this country, but the current bills we have before us are too big, too costly, and the people who send me to Washington to be their voice are opposed to them and this process. ~ Mike Ross

There had been a head of the FDA (who later turned out to be a fraud) his name was Fishbein and he was rampantly opposed to any alternative therapy. He went after Hoxsey, the Hoxsey therapy back in the 1940's and 50's, and destroyed Hoxsey. But not before Hoxsey sued the AMA and Fishbein and [proved] that the therapy actually worked. But it didn't help him because they closed him down anyhow ~ Gary Null

The reward of a successful collaboration is a thing that cannot be produced by either of the parties working alone. It is akin to the benefits of sex with a partner, as opposed to masturbation. The latter is fun, but you show me anyone who has gotten a baby from playing with him or herself, and I'll show you an ugly baby, with just a whole bunch of knuckles. ~ Harlan Ellison

Believers are often thought of as people who have some kind of private conviction or repudiation of something, whereas "the faithful" refers to a relationship, which was also incidentally the earlier sense of "faith" in premodern, preliberal Christianity. This is not to say, incidentally, that "faith" refers simply to external behavior as opposed to internal belief but that it refers to an act. ~ Talal Asad

For many people, God is primitive, behind, trying to drag everything back to some prehistoric era as opposed to spirit, force, love, drawing us into a better future, which to me is - that story has done something in me and I've seen it do things in other people. ~ Rob Bell

She paused, and said, "May I ask you a question?" He said, "Sure." "Are we having dinner?" "That's what it said on the menu. Lunch was different, and this sure ain't breakfast." "No, I mean having dinner, as opposed to grabbing road food." "As in candlelight and piano music?" "Not necessarily." "Violin players and guys selling roses?" "If appropriate." "Like a date?" She said, "Broadly, I suppose." He said, "Honest answer?" "Always." "Suppose we had found Keever yesterday, maybe stepping off the train, or fallen over in a wheat field somewhere, with a sprained ankle, somewhat hungry and thirsty but otherwise OK, then yes, for sure I would have asked you out to dinner, and if you had accepted, then we'd be having that dinner right about now, so I guess this half-qualifies. ~ Lee Child

In a social media age, it seems that everyone lives in their own reality and that when you give consideration to Newt Gingrich, he exists in an alternate reality, at some level, where the things he says are so diametrically opposed to the record. ~ Steve Schmidt

Others, and so on. And anything that is opposed to God in our lives is actually one of the many gods of the kingdom of earth. You will always be running scared if you worship other gods, because idols can't deliver on their promises. In the Old Testament, the choice before ~ Edward T. Welch

I opposed the war in Iraq because I did not believe it was in our national security interest, and I still don't. What we [America] did was akin to taking a baseball bat to a beehive. Our primary security threat right now is terrorism
and by doing what we did in Iraq, we've managed to alienate a good part of the world and most of the allies whose intelligence and other help we need to combat and defeat terrorism. ~ Jerry Springer

He's a man, dear," Amelia explained kindly. "Sustained thinking is very difficult for them." "As opposed to women," Leo retorted, "who have the remarkable ability to make decisions without doing any thinking at all. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I think that comedy is a good defense for a child. Because you know childhood is a nightmare as it is. And so why not use comedy and being funny as a defense to get through your life as opposed to drugs, alcohol and good looks? Because those things are dangerous when your young. ~ Joy Behar

Pride became this dogma which meant you couldn't criticize anything gay - if you were the least bit critical of gay culture or people or any gay person doing any gay thing, that was an insufficient display of pride. You were suffering from internalized homophobia. As opposed to external homophobia. ~ Dan Savage

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. ~ Mark Twain

Part of [having uncommon sense] is being able to tune out folly, as opposed to recognizing wisdom. If you bat away many things, you don't clutter yourself. ~ Charlie Munger

[W]e conceive the Devil as a necessary part of a respectable view of cosmology. Ours is a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer. It is as impossible for most men to conceive of a morality without sin as of an earth without 'sky'. Since 1692 a great but superficial change has wiped out God's beard and the Devil's horns, but the world is still gripped between two diametrically opposed absolutes. The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon - such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas. ~ Arthur Miller

The noise you hear after people see something you do
whether it's a TV show or a movie
that always makes you see that thing slightly differently. Without question. The ability of a television series to make adjustments is something you've got to take advantage of. And test-screening a movie can be helpful too. But the part that can be dangerous is when you take those notes as gospel, instead of taking them with a grain of salt. The key is to use the response as one of the tools in your box, as opposed to using it to determine what you do. ~ J.J. Abrams

Meekness implies a spirit of gratitude as opposed to an attitude of self-sufficiency, an acknowledgement of a greater power beyond oneself, a recognition of God, and an acceptance of his commandments. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

Everybody will say that they're not opposed to immigration; they're opposed to illegal immigration. That's what I'm saying. ~ Sam Brownback

As opposed to touring for three years and then going into the studio and writing an album, I think this record is representative of a lot of everyday people. ~ Nuno Bettencourt

I am opposed to abortion on demand, and I am opposed to the 1967 Act in Britain being transferred to the north. ~ Martin McGuinness

How are we doing in the electronics field as opposed to, you know, we hear how advanced the Japanese are? Do you think we're still pretty competitive? Oh, yes. ~ Jack Kilby

Not long ago, after my last trip to Russia, I had a conversation with an American very eminent in the field of politics. I asked what he read, and he replied that he studied history, sociology, politics and law.

"How about fiction - novels, plays poetry?" I asked.

"No," he said, "I have never had time for them. There's so much else I have to read."

I said, "Sir, I have recently visited Russia for the third time and don't know how well I understand Russians; but I do know that if I only read Russian history I could not have had the access to Russian thinking I have had from reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin, Turgenev, Sholokhov, and Ehrenburg. History only recounts, with some inaccuracy, what they did. The fiction tells, or tries to tell, why they did it and what they felt and were like when they did it."

My friend nodded gravely. "I hadn't though of that," he said. "Yes, that might be so; I had always thought of fiction as opposed to fact."

But in considering the American past, how poor we would be in information without Huckleberry Fin, An American Tragedy, Winesburg, Ohio, Main Street, The Great Gatsby, and As I Lay Dying. ~ John Steinbeck

I enjoy the competition and the process of learning as we compete. The whole thing is just fascinating. I don't know what I'll do when I retire. When I go sailing, I look around ... anyone want to race? I just love competing as opposed to just going out and watching the sunset. ~ Larry Ellison

Two diametrically opposed points of view concerning religion in the West are to bee seen among Muslims. Some consider all Westerners to be Christians, with the small Jewish minority being of course an exception, and often refer to Westerners as "those Christians" as if the West were of the Middle Ages when the Crusades were carried out and when Western civilization lived in what has been called the Age of Faith. Another group of Muslims hold the opposite view that all Westerners are materialists or agnostics and skeptics and in fact there is no religion among the Westerners. Now it is essential to insist that both of these views are false. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr

You wrong me. You wrong me, Mole. I loathe and despise this human trait of hounding smaller creatures to death, with large numbers opposed against one solitary animal. But, don't you see, it's the law of the wild. This poor fox is sacrificed today to the humans' cruelty. ~ Colin Dann

The body of the Earth, large, sluggish and inapt for motion, is not to be disturbed by movement (especially three movements), any more than the Aetherial Lights [stars] are to be shifted, so that such ideas are opposed both to physical principles and to the authority of the Holy Writ which many time: confirms the stability of the Earth (as we shall discuss more fully elsewhere). ~ Tycho Brahe

Over the past thirty-five years, untold numbers of gay Christians have turned from God in their "failure" and "inability to please God," who, they were told, could not accept them as a gay person. Some felt so rejected and depressed that they turned to self-destructive behaviors, including suicide; some went deep in the closet to try to fit in at church; some became vehemently opposed to all things religious; some decided to seek God in other religions, or no religion; and very few individuals were able to find a church community in which they could worship and serve God without being rejected. ~ Kathy Baldock

At a certain point you have to make a decision in your life about where will you best serve, and I decided that I would best serve as a producer as opposed to a studio executive. There are many upsides to being the studio executive, but one of the downsides is that you get removed from the actual process of making the movie. ~ Adam Leipzig

I like doing everything. That's why I came to Pixar, as opposed to Disney or any other studio - it's small. At the time I started, I was, like, the 10th person in the animation group, and we all had to do everything. That's the way I like it, keeping it fresh. ~ Pete Docter

I think the most important thing to remember is that pain passes. And artistically, the pain is going to pass. It's what you want to express out of the pain as opposed to indulging in the agony-and-pain mantra of songwriting that became such a hit in the '90s and still, all the way up to now. ~ Alex Ebert

I don't want to be throwing the football on the front yard when I'm 75. I mean, I'm not opposed to men doing that. But I don't think it's gonna work for me. ~ Alec Baldwin

Somebody said, "Well, you're going to write your definitive book about your life, biography." No, I'm not. I haven't done that. I wrote a book of letters which gives an insight into the real me as opposed to the public perceptions of me. But I'm convinced historians will figure out the things we got wrong and hopefully the things we got right. ~ George H. W. Bush

In the end, everything came down to money. It came down to what a person actually did, as opposed to who they thought they were ~ Nicholas Sparks

Many of us had this idea of doing independent film, of making personal, relevant films, as opposed to Hollywood fluff. I directed a few. ~ Robert Kane Pappas

We have then, in the first part of The Faerie Queene, four of the seven deadly sins depicted in the more important passages of the four several books; those sins being much more elaborately and powerfully represented than the virtues, which are opposed to them, and which are personified in the titular heroes of the respective books. The alteration which made these personified virtues the centre each of a book was probably part of the reconstruction on the basis of Aristotle Ethics.
The nature of the debt to Aristotle suggests that Spenser did not borrow directly from the Greek, but by way of modern translations. ~ Janet Spens

Things which are seemingly opposed may in fact be working together ~ Idries Shah

It's - as opposed to tape where you have a magnetic tape that's excited by frequencies that you hit, digital was a process where musical sounds are transferred to numbers and stored as numbers. ~ Herb Alpert

Patience is a virtue Savannah, to tolerate delay. It implies self control and forbearance, as opposed to wanting what we want when we want it. Something to think about ... ~ Catherine Weaver

I have worked with a great many comedians as opposed to comics, although I have worked with comics as well, I make the distinction. ~ Bobby Darin

My mother was an actress in comedies. My father wrote scenarios. They were not opposed to my being an actor. I really didn't know what it meant, but I wanted to be one anyway. ~ Jean-Pierre Leaud

Real truths, as opposed to imagined ones, are able to stand up to rigorous debate and questioning . ~ Jeffrey Small

Both the Democratic and Republican parties are bought and paid for by corporate America and cater to the needs of the highest bidder as opposed to the people they claim to represent. I cannot be bought. ~ Roseanne Barr

Remember the referendum on the Charlottetown constitutional accord? The more Canada's political and business elites threatened Canadians that the country would disappear into a black hole if the accord weren't passed, the more Canadians opposed it. ~ Preston Manning

Certainly, blame for all this [turmoil in the Middle East] doesn't rest solely with the terrible decisions that were made at the end of World War I, but it was then that one particularly toxic seed was planted. Ever since, Arab society has tended to define itself less by what it aspires to become than by what it is opposed to: colonialism, Zionism, Western imperialism in its many forms. This culture of opposition has been manipulated - indeed, feverishly nurtured - by generations of Arab dictators intent on channeling their people's anger away from their own misrule in favor of the external threat, whether it is "the great Satan" or the "illegitimate Zionist entity" or Western music playing on the streets of Cairo. ~ Scott Anderson

If you want a symbol of Roman power and strength look no further than the Praetorian or Imperial Guard. We could take this one step further. It was this world of Roman power into which Christ came, in which the Apostles ministered, in which the New Testament authors wrote, and in which Christianity came into being. And to all of those things, Rome stood opposed, violently opposed. ~ Stephen Nichols

We are opposed to all cruelty, so as advocates of non-violence, opponents of oppression, people who abhor the cruelty inherent in slaughtering we say the only ethical way to consume flesh is to pick up the carcass of an animal who has died naturally or been killed accidentally, say by being hit by a car, and eat that. ~ Ingrid Newkirk

Unilateral disarmament by Britain is opposed to our country's best interests, could begin the unravelling of NATO and therefore jeopardise the stability of Europe. ~ James Callaghan

The challenge is maintaining your interest over a long career, as opposed to pushing hard with no longevity. I'm surprised that I've been able to dance as long as I have. ~ Damian Woetzel

One response was given by the innkeeper when Mary and Joseph wanted to find a room where the Child could be born. The innkeeper was not hostile; he was not opposed to them, but his inn was crowded; his hands were full; his mind was preoccupied. This§ is the answer that millions are giving today. Like a Bethlehem innkeeper, they cannot find room for Christ. All the accommodations in their hearts are already taken up by other crowding interests. Their response is not atheism. It is not defiance. It is preoccupation and the feeling of being able to get on reasonably well without Christianity. ~ Billy Graham

Indeed, there is much in pure humanitarian culture, as opposed to rigid scientific training, which encourages absorption in the affairs of mankind, and more or less indifference to the unfathomed abysses of star-strown space that yawn interminably about this terrestrial grain of dust. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Babbage ... gave the name to the [Cambridge] Analytical Society, which he stated was formed to advocate 'the principles of pure d-ism as opposed to the dot-age of the university.' ~ W. W. Rouse Ball

Society ... is nothing more than the war of a thousand petty opposed interests, an eternal strife of all the vanities, which, turn in turn wounded and humiliated one by the other, intercross, come into collision, and on the morrow expiate the triumph of the eve in the bitterness of defeat. To live alone, to remain unjostled in this miserable struggle, where for a moment one draws the eyes of the spectators, to be crushed a moment later
this is what is called being a nonentity, having no existence. Poor humanity! ~ Nicolas Chamfort

I find respect for a mediocre British composer, as opposed to a really good American, ridiculous because they automatically respect a composer if he's from England. ~ John Corigliano

Moreover, as the leadership of the House confirmed last year, the Administration remains opposed to a congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide due to Turkish objections. This approach sends absolutely the wrong signal to Turkey and to the rest of the world. ~ Patrick J. Kennedy

A man convinced against his will, stands opposed ever still. A man convinced he is right, gives the effort twice the fight. ~ Jeffrey Fry

Thhe essence of documentary filmmaking is how you manipulate the material to create an emotional impact, as opposed to just delivering information. ~ Richard Ray Perez

[I] learned ... that friends are a good source of food and soul when one has not yet gotten the hang of cooking or living (as opposed to dying) alone. That nothing-not booze, not love, not sex, not work, not moving from state to state-will make the past disappear. Only time and patience heal things. I learned that cutting up your arms in an attempt to make the pain move from inside to outside, from soul to skin, is futile. That death is a cop-out. I tried all of these things. ~ Marya Hornbacher

I like the feeling of being dominated. It actually makes me feel safe as opposed to challenged. ~ Angelina Jolie

As far as I know, the guys at Pixar are opposed to a Monsters, Inc. sequel. ~ John Goodman

My interest has always been in an architecture which reflects the modernity of our epoch as opposed to the rethinking of historical references. My work deals with what is happening now - our techniques and materials, what we are capable of doing today. ~ Jean Nouvel

It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress. In the process by which opinion is formed, it is very probable that, by the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached. It is because we do not yet know which of the many competing new opinions will prove itself the best that we wait until it has gained sufficient support. ~ Friedrich August Von Hayek

There was much that was endearing in this strangely Russian search for absolutes - such as the passion for big ideas that gave the literature of nineteenth-century Russia its unique character and power - and yet the underside of this idealism was a badgering didacticism, a moral dogmatism and intolerance, which in its own way was just as harmful as the censorship it opposed. ~ Orlando Figes

You need to have camaraderie in the clubhouse. Wherever you're working, be it a baseball team or at a business, you want to walk in there and say, 'Geez, it's great to be at work. Let's go get 'em,' as opposed to walking in there knowing there's going to be a commotion. ~ Pat Gillick

Even though all these obstacles keep coming at you, you just have to keep going through them. Because it's worth it to do something in your life, as opposed to fantasizing about doing something. ~ Diane Keaton

Say what you will about the leadership of 'SNL,' they have crafted an institution as opposed to just running a show. I don't think that's by accident. ~ Phil LaMarr

I don't consider myself a stand-up comedian. I consider myself a performer; a comic as opposed to stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedians stand there and do their bits; I break every rule in creation. If there's a rule that can be broken in stand-up, I'll do it. ~ J. B. Smoove

I sensed that my life was better when I focused on things that were working as opposed to focusing on the long list that goes wrong, but I wanted to know if there was any validity to that. ~ Deborah Norville

Every time I've gotten myself into trouble, it's because I'm choosing a project based on a long-term career goal as opposed to something that speaks to me at the moment. ~ Ryan Reynolds

I believe that whenever I want to learn something I can learn it much better and faster by myself if I'm motivated to learn it as opposed to kind of doing it in more a standard, institutionalized way. ~ Oren Peli

I gotta ask you ... why do you always circle before you lie down?" I said.
"As opposed to what?" Johnny Depp asked, astonished by the question. "You mean not circle? How would I tamp down the leaves and twigs and get comfortable?"
"What leaves and twigs?" I said. "This bed is twig-free."
"Hmm. I see your point," said Johnny Depp, pausing for a second before he resumed circling. "But did it occur to you maybe that's because I circle first? ~ Merrill Markoe

He was stoutly opposed to the idea of marrying anyone; but if, as happens to the best of us, he ever were compelled to perform the wedding glide, he had always hoped it would be with some lady golf champion who would help him with his putting, and thus, by bringing his handicap down a notch or two, enable him to save something from the wreck, so to speak. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

People assume when my hair is long that I am a lot cooler than I actually am. I am not opposed to this misconception, by the way, but it is a misconception. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

But when a system of religion is made to grow out of a supposed system of creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in a manner almost inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an entirely different ground. It is then that errors, not morally bad, become fraught with the same mischiefs as if they were. It is then that the truth, though otherwise indifferent itself, becomes an essential, by becoming the criterion that either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies by contradictory evidence, the reality of the religion itself. In this view of the case it is the moral duty of man to obtain every possible evidence that the structure of the heavens, or any other part of creation affords, with respect to systems of religion. But this, the supporters or partizans of the christian system, as if dreading the result, incessantly opposed, and not only rejected the sciences, but persecuted the professors. ~ Thomas Paine

I am not really sure that Diana Vreeland did Yves Saint Laurent a favor, as opposed to the world, by putting that exhibition at the Met in 1983. Because I'm sure that Saint Laurent started looking back at his own work. You see that with artists, don't you? Once they get their first retrospective, it's really hard for them to push ahead. ~ Suzy Menkes

The participants gave higher ratings to the studies that confirmed their initial point of view even when the studies on both sides had supposedly been carried out by the same method. And in the end, though everyone had read all the same studies, both those who initially supported the death penalty and those who initially opposed it reported that reading the studies had strengthened their beliefs. Rather than convincing anyone, the data polarized the group. Thus even random patterns can be interpreted as compelling evidence if they relate to our preconceived notions. The ~ Leonard Mlodinow

A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course. Ships, like men, do poorly when the wind is directly behind, pushing them sloppily on their way so that no care is required in steering or in the management of sails; the wind seems favorable, for it blows in the direction one is heading, but actually it is destructive because it induces a relaxation in tension and skill. What is needed is a wind slightly opposed to the ship, for then tension can be maintained, and juices can flow and ideas can germinate, for ships, like men, respond to challenge. ~ James A. Michener

Moreover, people have become accustomed to reading to escape as opposed to reading to think. ~ Leigh M. Lane

So many actors are lively-minded, creative people who just tread water in this awful way, waiting for the phone to ring and doing their hair for auditions. It feels like a bit of a dreamer's life - as opposed to a sensible ventriloquist's life. ~ Nina Conti

As opposed to putting too much confidence in myself, or in an image or a scene or a set of brushes, I really want to allow the oil paint to perform, to show me the things that it wants to do, beyond my imagination. ~ Dan Colen

I had to tell about my colonic, which expresses the fact why I'm so neat today as opposed to a few years ago. I never knew that the weight made that much difference. ~ James Brown