Opposing Ideas Quotes

The most intense wars are civil wars, just as the most vivid and rending personal conflicts are internal ones, and what I hope to do now is give some idea of what it is like to fight on two fronts at once, to try and keep opposing ideas alive in the same mind, even occasionally to show two faces at the same time. ~ Christopher Hitchens

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the sign of a superior mind is the ability to hold two opposing ideas at the same time. ~ Sherman Alexie

In the United States and Canada, many young people are currently being raised on the idea of "safe spaces". Ideas that fall outside of the framework of Political Correctness are seen as so offensive that hearing these ideas is believed to be psychologically damaging. The young generation should therefore get 'protected' from these opposing ideas. It is hard to come up with a more effective way to create a generation of idiots. Besides being deeply and intensely indoctrinated with Political Correctness, these young people have an additional tendency to connect Western values and principles to the concept of "white supremacy". Western values and principles are thus "racist" and Western Civilisation is "oppressive". ~ Paul Nielsen

If your mind is open to opposing ideas, your intelligence will go up. If your mind is closed to opposing ideas, your ignorance is in control. Intelligence or ignorance? Your ability to keep an open mind and appreciate multiple points of view is conscious choice. And one that can open your world, and shape your childs future. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

Myth offers a third place to stand or a third way to see when we find ourselves caught between opposing ideas and hardening ideologies. ~ Michael Meade

The ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each. ~ Roger Martin

Students need to learn how to think critically, how to argue opposing ideas. It is important for them to learn how to think. You can always cook. ~ Charlie Trotter

It's about believing two opposing ideas in your head at the same time: hope and grief. ~ Claire Fuller

Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time is the sign of a first-rate intelligence. Something similar applies in foreign policy. Ford Fraker, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, describes the alliance as "a long-term marriage founded on fundamental interests and principles". ~ Anonymous

Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling. ~ Nathaniel Branden

Science has, after all, made some colossal blunders in the past ... Our current materialism and its rejection of the idea of a spirit or soul might be just another great falsity. ~ Susan Blackmore

What may be called linear thinking goes straight out from one pole or from one idea of the cosmos of ideas, which every true philosophy is. This idea, cut off from its interrelations and interdependencies with the cosmos,[linear thinking] then fanatically thinks to a finish. Then it becomes radical individualism or socialism or totalitarianism or anarchism. This linear thinking, so characteristic of the modern mind and irs countless -isms, is a stranger to Catholic political philosophy. For Catholic political philosophy is spheric thinking. ~ Heinrich Albert Rommen

The theory of relativity and quantum mechanics argue that you can twist time and space, that something can appear out of nothing, and that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time. This makes a mockery of our common sense, yet nobody seeks to protect innocent schoolchildren from these scandalous ideas. Why? The theory of relativity makes nobody angry, because it doesn't contradict any of our cherished beliefs. Most people don't care an iota whether space and time are absolute or relative. If you think it is possible to bend space and time, well, be my guest. Go ahead and bend them. What do I care? In contrast, Darwin has deprived us of our souls ~ Yuval Noah Harari

My idea of the real aristocrat is the master workman, no matter what his line of work may be. ~ Henry Latham Doherty

There are three related ideas, which I will elaborate as we go on. They are imagination, which is the process of bringing to mind things that are not present to our senses; creativity, which is the process of developing original ideas that have value, and innovation, which is the process of putting new ideas into practice. ~ Ken Robinson

I love the idea of the big life - the life that matters, the life that makes a difference. The life where stuff happens, where people take action. The opposite of the life where the girl can't even speak to the boy she likes; the opposite of the life where the friends aren't even good friends, and lots of days are wasted away feeling bored and kind of okay, like nothing matters much. ~ E. Lockhart

When we fail to open the closed-minded consumers of racist ideas, we blame their closed-mindedness instead of our foolish decision to waste time reviving closed minds from the dead. When our vicious attacks on open-minded consumers of racist ideas fail to transform them, we blame their hate rather than our impatient and alienating hate of them. When people fail to consume our convoluted antiracist ideas, we blame their stupidity rather than our stupid lack of clarity. When we transform people and do not show them an avenue of support, we blame their lack of commitment rather than our lack of guidance. When the politician we supported does not change racist policy, we blame the intractability of racism rather than our support of the wrong politician. When we fail to gain support for a protest, we blame the fearful rather than our alienating presentation. When the protest fails, we blame racist power rather than our flawed protest. When our policy does not produce racial equity, we blame the people for not taking advantage of the new opportunity, not our flawed policy solution. The failure doctrine avoids the mirror of self-blame. The failure doctrine begets failure. The failure doctrine begets racism. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

I think when science fiction is at its worst, it's just spaceships flying around shooting at each other. There has to be a lot more going on than that ... science fiction is about exploring new worlds and new ideas, not about ray guns and action, necessarily. ~ Jeff Lemire

I do support a sex-positive attitude for young people. Use condoms, that's important. I love the idea that promiscuity can be healthy but it's got some dodgy crevasses. Ooh, that's a bad reference! But it's got some dangerous cavities there. You know what I'm saying. ~ Rachael Taylor

They turned their desks into a trigonometric war room, poring over equations scrawling ideas on blackboards, evaluating their work, erasing it, starting over. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly

The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises it is flat. Flat characters ... in their purest form ... are constructed round a single idea or quality; when there is more than one factor to them, we get the beginning of the curve toward the round. The really flat character can be experessed in one sentence such as, "I will never desert Mr Micawber." There is Mrs Micawber - she says she won't desert Mr Micawber; she doesn't, and there she is. ~ E. M. Forster

Poetry is that magic which consists in awakening sensations with the help of a combination of sounds ... that sorcery by which ideas are necessarily communicated to us, in a definite way, by words which nevertheless do not express them. ~ John Banville

The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness, beauty and truth. ~ Albert Einstein

I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we're dealing with, and that we're not making a picture for Harvard Law School, we're making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people. ~ Billy Wilder

Not even Sen. [Joseph] McCarthy was able to repress ideas he opposed as effectively as Harvard's hiring committees have suppressed the conservative viewpoints they despise and fear. ~ David Horowitz

I don't like the idea of the black race being diluted out of existence. I like the idea of all of us being here. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them. ~ J.K. Rowling

Every time a man puts a new idea across, he faces a dozen men who thought of it before he did. But they only thought of it. ~ Oren Arnold

Every one is made of matter, and matter is continually going through a chemical change. This change is life, not wisdom, but life, like vegetable or mineral life. Every idea is matter, so of course it contains life in the name of something that can be changed. Motion, or change, is life. Ideas have life. A belief has life, or matter; for it can be changed. Now, all the aforesaid make up man; and all this can be changed. ~ Phineas Quimby

I like the idea all memory is fiction, that we have queued a couple of things in the back of our minds and when we call forth those memories, we are essentially filling in the blanks. We're basically telling ourselves a story, but that story changes based on how old we are, and what mood we're in, and if we've seen photographs recently. We trust other people to tell us the story of our lives before we can remember it, and usually that's our parents and usually it works, but obviously not always. And everybody's interpretation is going to be different. ~ Steven Tyler

Statistically, it would seem improbable that any mathematician or scientist, at the age of 66, would be able through continued research efforts, to add much to his or her previous achievements. However I am still making the effort and it is conceivable that with the gap period of about 25 years of partially deluded thinking providing a sort of vacation my situation may be atypical. Thus I have hopes of being able to achieve something of value through my current studies or with any new ideas that come in the future. ~ John Forbes Nash

When I first started writing, I hated myself for being so uncertain, about images, clauses, ideas, even the pen or journal I used. Everything I wrote begin with maybe and perhaps and ended with I think or I believe. But my doubt is everywhere. Even when I know something to be true I fear the knowledge will dissolve, will not, despite my writing it, stay real. ~ Ocean Vuong

One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner ... and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect man and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

The most interesting ideas definitely come at night. ~ Richard Hawley

We cannot control the way people interpret our ideas or thoughts, but we can control the words and tones we choose to convey them. Peace is built on understanding, and wars are built on misunderstandings. Never underestimate the power of a single word, and never recklessly throw around words. One wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence - and even start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors. ~ Suzy Kassem

Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite indepedent of anyone. ~ Anne Frank

Humanism was not invented by man, but by a snake who suggested that the quest for autonomy might be a good idea. ~ R.C. Sproul

The theology of the hammer embraces wholeheartedly the idea that the love of God and love of man must be blended. The word and the deed must come together. One without the other is devoid of meaning ... As the deed gets closer to the word, God gets closer to us. The results are always wonderful - and sometimes spectacular! ~ Millard Fuller

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

I just like the idea of pills. I like to collect them but not actually take them. When I fell off my horse, I got tons of stuff: Demerol and Vicodin and Xanax and Valium and Oxycontin, which is supposed to be like heroin. And I'm quite scared to take them. I'm a control freak. ~ Madonna Ciccone

Someone who's amoral and selfish can be a threat to you, but they're also a threat to everyone else, and that tends to limit how much time they can spend on you personally. But someone who believes in what he's doing can convince other people that opposing you is the right thing to do. In the long run, that's a lot more dangerous. ~ Benedict Jacka

I think the idea of having a game based on reality is compelling right off the bat because everyone has some experience with the subject of the game. ~ Will Wright

....when it comes to finding out about new jobs - or, for that matter, new information, or new ideas - "weak ties" are always more important than strong ties. ~ Mark Granovetter

It's weird to have something that's mine-not-Ma's. Everything else is both of ours. I guess my body is mine and the ideas that happen in my head. But my cells are made out of her cells so I'm kind of hers. ~ Emma Donoghue

The work of art is the exaggeration of an idea. ~ Andre Gide

The best idea ever thought of in the history of humanity is useless unless someone communicates it. It will die in the test tube. And in our case, what we're communicating here to people is not necessarily something they want to hear. And so, our demeanor - how we deliver this message - takes on crucial, crucial importance. ~ Phil Plait

Now if you think about the 20th century and the idea of visual vocabulary the album occupies a really important space in the cultural landscape and, above all. ~ DJ Spooky

The living ideas of the dead are more powerful and effective than the dead ideas of the living. ~ Serj Tankian

It's not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway. ~ Norman Mailer

The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me. ~ Elizabeth Blackwell

I like ideas. I find them more exciting than human behavior for the most part. ~ John Banville

There can be no more thrilling idea of intimacy that connecting with someone through the agency of the written word. Here we meet, on the page, naked and unadorned: shorn of class, race, gender, sexual identity, age and nationality. The reader I seek is a tautology, for he/she is simply ... the person who wants to read what I have written. ~ Will Self