#opposite

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

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character. ↗

— Andrew Coyle Bradley

#contributes #convulsion #death #good #implication

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

Man can certainly flee from God... but he cannot escape him. He can certainly hate God and be hateful to God, but he cannot change into its opposite the eternal love of God which triumphs even in his hate. ↗

— Karl Barth

#certainly #change #escape #eternal #eternal love

The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! We need more welfare and fewer jobs. ↗

— Jerry Brown

#cut #fewer #jobs #just #more

Whenever a situation develops to its extreme, it is bound to turn around and become its opposite. ↗

— Frank Capra

#become #bound #develops #extreme #opposite

The national debate on health care once centered on improving access to quality care, yet the effect of Obamacare will be the exact opposite, resulting in the shameful degradation of care for the neediest individuals. ↗

— Fred Upton

#care #centered #debate #degradation #effect

As the earth spins through space, a view from above the North Pole would encompass most of the wealth of the world - most of its food, productive machines, doctors, engineers and teachers. A view from the opposite pole would encompass most of the world's poor. ↗

— Barry Commoner

#doctors #earth #encompass #engineers #food

Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity. ↗

— Coco Chanel

#opposite #people #poverty #some #some people