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About this quote

What does it mean?
Opposites like day/night or real/imagined rely on each other, and their interaction drives change.
In plain terms
Opposites need each other, and this mix creates change.
What can you take from it?
Change arises from the tension of opposites.

Where it applies

  • Understanding seasons
  • relationships
  • philosophical theory

Putting it to work

  • Embracing contrast
  • understanding cycles

Questions to consider

  • What opposites do you depend on?
  • Is conflict necessary for growth?

Another view

Sometimes things exist independently without needing opposites.

More from Wallace Stevens

  1. Nothing had happened because nothing had changed. Yet the General was rubbish in the end.

    Permalink to quote #128
  2. Music falls on the silence like a sense, A passion that we feel, not understand.

    Permalink to quote #130
  3. The right, uplifted foreleg of the horse Suggested that, at the final funeral, The music halted and the horse stood still.

    Permalink to quote #127

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