Duality Quotes

“As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

“How wonderful it would be if everything could always be as clear and simple as it used to be when you were twelve years old, or twenty years old. If there really were only two colors in the world: black and white. But even the most honest and ingenuous cop, raised on the resounding ideal of the stars and stripes, has to understand sooner or later that there's more than just Darkness and Light out on the streets. There are understandings, concessions, agreements. Informers, traps, provocations. Sooner or later the time comes when you have to betray your own side, plant bags of heroin in pockets, and beat people on the kidneys—carefully, so there are no marks.”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain just as the loveliest melodies are not too sublime to be expressed by notes.”
― W. Somerset Maugham

“Like the house committee investigation—
like the preceding 45-led years
since the escalator descent
into the madness of the infant king,
like the faulty re-emergence
in fits and starts from
the miasma of disease and its wake,
the level of stress
the prevalence of anxiety
moment to moment, day to day
was immense and incessant—
seemingly unbearable—so great
I thought so many times I could not
continue to withstand it
sustain it and yet
and yet it had to be done.

One insane venture
accomplished.
Lessons learned, both
exquisitely beautiful and exquisitely
painful.”
― Shellen Lubin

“The moment that you consciously decide to terminate the repetitiveness of diminishing all that you are, because of outside and inside noise, is the moment that you will officially take control of your own narrative.”
― Robin S. Baker, Esotericism With an Unconventional Soul: Exploring Philosophy, Spirituality, Science, and Mysticism

“You have the right to create an identity that transcends labels, breaks ceilings, and encompasses an infinite amount of traits at once. Here you will meet the most enlightened parts of yourself.”
― Robin S. Baker, Esotericism With an Unconventional Soul: Exploring Philosophy, Spirituality, Science, and Mysticism

“Imagine, he said, that you enter a large, somewhat crumbling hall that echoes with the sounds of people mumbling and talking repetitively to themselves. All around you these people fall into prostrate positions, some of them weeping. Where are you? Sara's answer was immediate: in an asylum. Perhaps, Kreizler answered, but you could also be in a church. In the one place the behavior would be considered mad; in the other, not only sane, but as respectable as any human activity can be.”
― Caleb Carr, The Alienist

“Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible into one another, and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?”
― Isaac Newton, Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light-Based on the Fourth Edition London, 1730

“People do tend to burrow in
for winter holidays
but then
burrowing can be as damaging
(implosion, avoidance)
as it can be cozy
(buzzword: self-care)
maybe one maybe t'other
maybe some of both.”
― Shellen Lubin

“He yielded with what pleasure there was in the act, to the soft warm pressure of tears. The sense of relief did not last, for as soon as he let them flow they became atrociously hot and abundant so as to interfere with his eyesight and respiration. He walked down the cobbled Omigod Lane towards the embankment. Tried clearing his throat but it merely led to another gasping sob. He was sorry now he had yielded to that temptation for he could not stop yielding and the throbbing man in him was soaked. As usual he discriminated between the throbbing one and the one that looked on: looked on with concern, with sympathy , with a sigh, or with bland suprise.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister

“Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Despite their illusive nature, twilight never fails to provide a magical quality to the day—a transitional space between day and night, light and dark, head and heart...”
― Felisa Tan, In Search for Meaning

“In the intricate dance of existence, I have learned to waltz with the shadows, finding solace in the understanding that light and darkness are but two sides of the same coin.”
― Jonathan Harnisch, Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia

“The issue of fortuitous encounters brings us to an interesting double standard here. We may recoil in horror at the thought of haphazard chance determining our future life partner, but label that chance `destiny` and we’re entranced by the prospect. On one hand we feel the need to be in control of our romantic choices; on the other hand the thought of losing control can be hugely seductive.”
― Susan Quilliam, How to Choose a Partner

“working out whether you feel comfortable as a member of this community - and comfortably anonymous within it, too. Do you feel normal here? (...) ‘Fitting in’ sounds so dull and passive, but when it comes to your neighbourhood, sticking out is worse.”
― Hugo Macdonald, How to Live in the City

“Adam laid in the dark for a long time, thinking and not thinking. Thinking in an indirect way in the fashion one knows the sun is there without having to look straight at the thing.”
― Exurb1a, The Fifth Science

“What is considered to be “right” is kindness, love, and charity, and what is considered to be “wrong” is hatred, fighting, and selfishness. These things seem to be right and wrong in religious texts like the Bible and in many cultures. From what I perceive, a common theme in righteousness and wrongness is human interaction. Specifically, how a person is treated. Doing something with one of the “right” traits is considered to be a good intention, because it has the benefit of others in mind. Kindness, love, and charity are meant to aid people; those who express these traits have the benefit of the recipient in mind. So, in morality, there is a benefit-intention duality. That is what standards for morality comprise; a benefit-intention duality, which is my own neologism that describes that actions are considered moral through the consideration of the benefit of others. So, the benefit is important, but in morality, a person must intend to be doing something for the benefit of others.”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“I want to say now that the voice takes up space, in two senses. It inhabits and occupies space; and it also actively procures space for itself. The voice takes place in space, because the voice is space.”
― Steven Connor, Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism

“Asking if your cup is half-empty or half-full is an oxymoron...

Your cup is completely filled with both water, and air. Being filled by two different things makes it completely full.

The beauty of duality creates a (w)hole.”
― Laurence BL

“Belief is ever its own tempter to believe differently”
― Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy

“The veil between reality and dream is a delicate one, a thin separation that gives rise to the duality of illusion and truth. It is a line that blurs and shifts, inviting us to question what is real and what is merely a manifestation of our minds.”
― Yahia El Haroui

“I’d always been mystified by the dualities of this bridge. By how scary it was to walk across when I was young, but how great it felt to get to the other side.”
― Caleb Pinkerton, The Suicide Journal

“What is life without loss, love without loneliness, ecstasy without pain? You can't have one without the other or you could never appreciate either.”
― Courtney M. Privett, The Crystal Lattice

“Medievel 'Templarism' , as described by Loiseleur, recognized a d and duality of gods, one a superior being of the celestial world, who was pure spirit and perfect, the other an evil god, germinated and indeed wealth was created.”
― Malcolm Barber, In Praise of the New Knighthood

“I am someone who absolutely loves combining scientific facts with spirituality.”
― Robin S. Baker, Esotericism With an Unconventional Soul: Exploring Philosophy, Spirituality, Science, and Mysticism

“For me, as an Inner Alchemist, there is no body and soul; the body and the soul are one indivisible thing. The soul then IS the body in a certain vibrational range.
As such, there is no Out There or In Here for an Alchemist. Duality and separation are a good way to teach at first, they help to create demarcations that can certainly help to maintain a type of sanity in a young mind, but they are illusions that must be left behind as the intellect grows.”
― John Kreiter, The Way of the Projectionist: Alchemy’s Secret Formula to Altered States and Breaking the Prison of the Flesh

“And I would find a way to serve both my god and my heart. Surely He does not give us hearts so we may spend our lives ignoring them.”
― Robin LaFevers, Grave Mercy

“Contrast Brings Clarity, It is Our Greatest Teacher”
― Lee Papa

“I have seen, there,
In the moonlit space of self, where the ego glides,
Its silvery essence, a mirror upon life’s tides.
Shaped by the ebb and flow of journey’s dance,
Reflecting beliefs, in life’s intricate, ever-changing stance.

This luminary, a learned guide in identity’s play,
Casts shadows, illusions in its luminous display.
A sculptor, artful, in societal norms it trusts,
Chiseling character with life’s whims and cultural dust.

The ego, in its carnival, spins tales so keen,
Crafting who we ought to be in expectations unseen.
In costumes of roles and societal dreams it dresses,
Creating our outward selves in myriad, intricate presses.

In stark contrast, behold the inner sun, our essence so bright,
A steadfast flame, in the core of our being, burning with pure light.
Unfiltered, unwavering, unlike the moon’s fickle gleam,
A constant force, our authentic self, a deep, untouched stream.

This essence, our unchanging truth, in the heart it resides,
A whisper of eternity, beyond masks, where true self abides.
Beyond roles, beyond transient ego’s elaborate dance,
Lies this truth, unswayed by the external world’s fleeting glance.

In the quest for self, twixt these luminaries, discernment is key,
Traversing the self’s tangle, understanding what must be.
Though ego’s voice echoes loud, in desires and fears it plays,
It’s the essence’s silent light that guides through life’s stormy bays.

Through recognition, understanding, transformation’s alchemy begins,
Turning life unexamined into enlightened existence’s wins.
A celestial voyage, within us, between sun and moon’s embrace,
Ego teaches, grows us, in our worldly place.

The essence, radiant and wise, to eternity connects,
Offering authenticity, a path that perfects.
Yin and yang, in our existence, they intertwine,
In their dance, our soul’s rhythm, in harmony, divine.

In moon’s reflection and sun’s light, a balance we find,
Understanding their interplay, the rhythm of humankind.”
― Kevin L. Michel, The 7 Laws of Quantum Power

“Hope is the slowest poison.”
― Duncan Ralston, Dead Men Walking: a Novelette