“
Together, we form a necessary paradox; not a senseless contradiction.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
A friend's loyalty lasts longer than their memory. Over the course of a long friendship, you might fight with your friend, even get angry with them. But a true friend will forget that anger after a while, because their loyalty to their friend outweighs the memory of the disagreement.
”
”
Matthew Reilly (The 5 Greatest Warriors (Jack West Jr, #3))
“
Friends become wiser together through a healthy clash of viewpoints.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God)
“
It's easy to be friends with when shares the same opinions.
”
”
Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
“
This is only one of the reasons why a strong friendship is critical. A surface-level relationship might snap under the tension of disagreement, but by living our lives together, we were forced to reconcile.
”
”
Nabeel Qureshi (Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity)
“
Couples with a strong friendship have a lot more access to their humor, affection, and the positive energy that make it possible to have disagreements or to live with them in a much more constructive and creative way. It’s about earning and building up points.
”
”
John M. Gottman (The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples)
“
Some friendships fade. Others dissolve under stress or disagreement. Still other friends just leave. Those that stick, however, are almost irreplaceable; and the sadness of long life is losing friends.
”
”
Hugh Hewitt (The Happiest Life: Seven Gifts, Seven Givers, and the Secret to Genuine Success)
“
Ove could not in all honesty remember how it all started. It wasn't the sort of dispute where you did remember. It was more an argument where the little disagreements had ended up so entangled that every new word was treacherously booby-trapped, and in the end it wasn't possible to open one's mouth at all without setting off at least four unexploded mines from earlier conflicts. It was the sort of argument that had just run, and run, and run. Until one day it just ran out.
”
”
Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove)
“
Some girls would consider this an insult. Not me, because if you had any idea how close we used to be, you would know how sincere she is. I guess you could say she’s still my friend, but a friend I keep at arm’s length.
”
”
Michael Benzehabe (Zonked Out: The Teen Psychologist of San Marcos Who Killed Her Santa Claus and Found the Blue-Black Edge of the Love Universe)
“
Friends have disagreements sometimes but they don't dwell on the disagreement, they always find a way to dismantle the tension and move on.
”
”
Euginia Herlihy
“
Classical philosophy holds that perpetual agreement with another person is incompatible with friendship. Because no two people can possibly agree on everything, someone who never expresses disagreement with you is acting insincerely - and true friendship requires sincerity above almost everything else.
”
”
Michael Austin (We Must Not Be Enemies: Restoring America's Civic Tradition)
“
Yet how strong was friendship? Could it banish disagreement over a fundamental issue of human liberty—as if the issue and the disagreement didn’t exist?
”
”
John Jakes (The North and South Trilogy: North and South / Love and War / Heaven and Hell (North and South, #1-3))
“
They had never been able to sustain fifteen minutes’ conversation with one another without advancing irreconcilable points of view, invigorating in friendships, but in close blood relations producing only uneasy cordiality.
”
”
Harper Lee (Go Set a Watchman)
“
Such directness would not fly in most relationships. We are all more governed by our feelings than by our rationality, and emotions run high in debates about beliefs. But disagreement is not evidence of disrespect. Indeed, I debate hardest with the people I respect the most, because I take their ideas seriously. But our society seems to be losing the art of debate within friendships, and we instead surround ourselves with people who think like us.
”
”
Rebecca McLaughlin (Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World's Largest Religion)
“
Dumb creatures have not human feelings, but have certain impulses which resemble them: for if it were not so, if they could feel love and hate, they would likewise be capable of friendship and enmity, of disagreement and agreement.
”
”
Seneca (On Anger)
“
Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that he had published in an obscure newspaper. This riposte referred to my opinions as ‘racist.’ I would obviously scorn to deny such an allegation on my own behalf. I would, rather, prefer to repudiate it on behalf of my former friend. He had known me for many years and cooperated with me on numerous projects, and I am quite confident that he would never have as a collaborator anyone he suspected of racial prejudice. But it does remind me, and not for the first time, that quarrels on the left have a tendency to become miniature treason trials, replete with all kinds of denunciation. There's a general tendency—not by any means confined to radicals but in some way specially associated with them—to believe that once the lowest motive for a dissenting position has been found, it must in some way be the real one.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens
“
Genuine friendships are hard to come by and even harder to hold on to. Real friendship is the sort that lasts a lifetime. The type that can overcome disagreements and differences as if they never happened. And the real test of friendship? True friendship arises from the ashes of separation stronger and more powerful than before.
”
”
Siobhan Davis ™ (Finding Kyler (The Kennedy Boys, #1))
“
Dwight Eisenhower, who watched Churchill at work in operational planning. “Completely devoted to winning the war and discharging his responsibility as Prime Minister of Great Britain, he was difficult indeed to combat when conviction compelled disagreement with his views. . . . He could become intensely oratorical, even in discussion with a single person, but at the same time his intensity of purpose made his delivery seem natural and appropriate. He used humor and pathos with equal facility, and drew on everything from the Greek classics to Donald Duck for quotation, cliché and forceful slang to support his position.
”
”
Jon Meacham (Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship)
“
You squeeze and crinkle the toothpaste tube even though you know it bothers your spouse. You complain about the dirty dishes instead of putting them in the dishwasher. You fight for your own way in little things, rather than seeing them as an opportunity to serve. You allow yourself to go to bed irritated after a little disagreement. Day after day you leave for work without a moment of tenderness between you. You fight for your view of beauty rather than making your home a visual expression of the tastes of both of you. You allow yourself to do little rude things you would never have done in courtship. You quit asking for forgiveness in the little moments of wrong. You complain about how the other does little things, when it really doesn’t make any difference. You make little decisions without consultation. You quit investing in the friendship intimacy of your marriage. You fight for your own way rather than for unity in little moments of disagreement. You complain about the other’s foibles and weaknesses. You fail to seize those openings to encourage. You quit searching for little avenues for expressing love. You begin to keep a record of little wrongs. You allow yourself to be irritated by what you once appreciated. You quit making sure that every day is punctuated with tenderness before sleep takes you away. You quit regularly expressing appreciation and respect. You allow your physical eyes and the eyes of your heart to wander. You swallow little hurts that you would have once discussed. You begin to turn little requests into regular demands. You quit taking care of yourself. You become willing to live with more silence and distance than you would have when you were approaching marriage. You quit working in those little moments to make your marriage better, and you begin to succumb to what is.
”
”
Paul David Tripp (What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage)
“
Because [a human's] chances of surviving... are much better living in a tribe or group than alone, she's developed these beautiful, incredibly complex social tools like empathy, patience, generousity, guilt, friendship, shame, and loyalty that help hold together groups of up to a couple hundred people together even when there's internal disagreements.
...Ever so often, though, a member of [a human's] tribe is born without access to those social tools, and is thus only capable of caring about herself. The modern term is sociopath...
...All those social tools we developed only really work on the small scale, though ---it's as if we only have enough true empathy to extend to a couple hundred people at a time...
...Which is why in our modern world of free markets, [the sociopath's] lack of empathy actually makes her better at surviving...Empathy and morality are clearly vital to our species, but they're often illogical within the simple framework of free-market capitalism...Maybe [the sociopath] installs pain-medicine vending machines, or markets Oxycontin as nonaddictive, or pays her workers much, much less than what it costs to live. This is the kind of innovative thinking that makes [the sociopath] an apex predator of the free market.
”
”
Emily Guendelsberger (On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane)
“
It is the power of temperance, the steadying hand of wisdom, and the warmth of love for all that shapes my words even in the midst of the most heightened of disagreements. For if I allow temperance, wisdom and the warmth of love to guide any engagement I may have (even though it might be one with my most hostile enemy), I will have set the stage for a place where seemingly unassailable walls can come down, hands can be extended in unexpected friendship, and the impossible is made impossibly possible.
”
”
Craig D. Lounsbrough
“
Every war is not worth fighting and
every victory is not worth celebrating
because not ever disagreement
should create an enemy.
”
”
Tonny K. Brown
“
No relationship survives or, more accurately, survives happily without a joint commitment to the genuine happiness of the other person. We do not have to sacrifice our destiny, talents, friendships, or ambitions, but their impact on the other person has to be seriously considered. When times are uncomfortable, challenging, not what we wanted or imagined, or actively distressing, we should not revert to dishonesty, nondisclosure, or manipulation to get our own way. What good is getting our way if that way is destructive to our partner? We will end up suffering anyway from the painful demise of our relationship. A different, new, reformed way can evolve. Some things aren’t that important, and disagreement is of minimal importance. Some things have a huge impact on the life of both people, and some sort of agreement has to be earnestly sought. Compromise is not difficult when the people involved care about the other’s emotional, mental, and physical health.
”
”
Donna Goddard (Touched by Love (Love and Spirit, #2))
“
The most positive outcome I know to such a friendship is the recognition that we do not have to figure out which one of us is wrong; indeed, that concept may not even apply. By ordinary logic, if two people or groups disagree, then one is wrong — or it is all relative and does not much matter anyway. But the basis for both disagreement and friendship is something that is neither strictly logical nor entirely relative. Rather, the basis for theological friendship between Christians and Jews is a mystery — the word Paul rightly uses (Rom 11:25; cf. 11:33) as he struggles with this most painful new fact of salvation history, the separation of Jews and Gentiles within the household of Israel’s faith. The mystery has only deepened over time, as the two communities have over a period of two thousand years sustained an allegiance to the God to whom Israel’s Scriptures bear witness, and likewise have experienced the faithfulness of that God to them. This prolonged duality is something neither Paul nor anyone else in the first century anticipated. At the very least, it should caution us all to modesty in our theological assertions.
”
”
Ellen F. Davis (The Art of Reading Scripture)
“
Well,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “I don’t think I agree with either of you. I don’t think Freddy has got any scheme up his sleeve. But on the other hand, I don’t think he’s making a mistake in being friendly with them. There are two things you can do if you have a disagreement with somebody. You can try to settle it by fighting, or you can try to settle it by being friendly with them. I don’t think we’d get anywhere by fighting with the Snedekers. They’d just take the teapot and walk off, and we couldn’t stop them. But if we make friends of them, they’re as likely as not to decide the teapot isn’t worth fighting about. As long as Aunt Effie feels we’re her enemies, she’s willing to fight with us. But if she feels we’re her friends, she might come to value our friendship more than she does the teapot.
”
”
Walter Rollin Brooks (Freddy's Cousin Weedly (Freddy the Pig))
“
Integrity is distinct from authenticity. Integrity doesn’t require us to act out every private thought and feeling. Sometimes, counterintuitively, integrity requires a disconnect between our inner feelings and our outer conduct. But this disconnect exists to serve others. Integrity expresses itself in action based on deeply held core values—for example, the value of friendship and respecting those around us—rather than temporary feelings or selfish desire. When we find ourselves in a disagreement with a friend, spouse, or sibling, we will often bite our tongues instead of saying exactly how we feel. This is inauthentic. But it’s not hypocritical.
”
”
Alexandra Hudson (The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves)
“
People disagree about the meaning of books, bodies, and schools, and how they should be valued. In fact, we disagree about the norms appropriate to many of the domains that markets have invaded—family life, friendship, sex, procreation, health, education, nature, art, citizenship, sports and the way we contend with the prospect of death. But that's my point: once we see that markets and commerce change the character of the goods they touch, we have to ask where markets belong—and where they don't. And we can't answer this question without deliberating about the meaning and purpose of goods, and the values that should govern them. Such deliberations touch, unavoidably, on competing conceptions of the good life. This is terrain on which we sometimes fear to tread. For fear of disagreement, we hesitate to bring our moral and spiritual convictions into the public square. But shrinking from these questions does not leave them undecided. It simply means that markets will decide them for us.
”
”
Michael J. Sandel (What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets)
“
They’d disagreed on things but that was okay. Friends could disagree. Disagreement didn’t make you enemies. It brought you closer by forcing you to better understand yourself and each other.
”
”
C.M. Martens (Born To Die (Rishi's Wish Book 4))
“
There is a reason why so many social clubs ban the discussion of politics and religion: disagreements have ended friendships and started wars.
”
”
Arthur C. Brooks (From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life)
“
Given the opportunity, a culture attempts to mold its members into ideal personalities. The ideal personality in Native American cultures is a person shows kindness to all, who puts the group ahead of individual wants and desires, who is a generalist, who is steeped in spiritual and ritual knowledge—a person who goes about daily life and approaches “all his or her relations” in a sea of friendship, easy-going-ness, humour, and good feelings. She or he is a person who attempts to suppress inner feelings, anger, and disagreement with the group. She or he is a person who is expected to display bravery, hardiness, and strength against enemies and outsiders. She or he is a person who is adaptable and takes the world as it comes without complaint. That is the way it used to be! That is the way it should be!
”
”
Taiaiake Alfred (Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom)
“
Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse. Because Nathaniel and Olivia have kept their friendship strong despite the inevitable disagreements and irritations of married life,
”
”
John M. Gottman (The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert)
“
I think it's pretty common for teenagers to fantasize about dying young. We knew that time would force us into sacrifices - we wanted to flame out before making the choices that would determine who we became. When you were an adult, all the promises of your life was foreclosed upon, every day just a series of compromises mitigated by little pleasures that distracted you from your former wildness, from your truth. Sylvia Plath, Marilyn Monroe, Edie Sedgwick, Janis Joplin. They got to be beautiful forever. And wasn't that the ultimate feminine achievement - to be too gorgeous, too fucked up, too talented and sad and vulnerable to survive, like some kind of freak orchid with a two-minute lifespan? Who else could we look up to? Being young doesn't seem like enough of an excuse - we egged each other on, committed, together, to these poisonous theories, until we reached a point where disagreement would have meant a betrayal of our friendship. How could we have been so wrong and so stupid?
”
”
Julie Buntin (Marlena)
“
Let’s explore how your Approval Seeker shows up in your life. What things do you do to make sure people like you? What things do you avoid, so others won’t be upset? Take a moment to reflect on this now. The more self-aware you can become, the more power you have to transform yourself and your results. Be sure to think about each of the core areas in your life–your work and career, dating and romantic life, friends and family. 15 Common Signs of Approval Seeking 1. Avoiding No You avoid saying no to others. You fear they will become upset or think you’re a bad person, so you usually say yes, even if it adds more stress to your life. 2. Hesitation You often wait for the “right thing” to say (and thus speak way less than you normally do). 3. Nervous Laughter You’re quick to laugh at whatever another person says, even if it’s not that funny. Your laugh might come too quickly, too often, or at inappropriate times. 4. Difficulty with Endings You have difficulty ending things, from conversations to friendships to romantic relationships. As a result, you may drag things out longer than you really want to. 5. Overly Agreeable You smile, nod, and are very agreeable with others (regardless of your actual opinions on the subject). 6. Avoiding Disagreement You avoid disagreeing with others, challenging others, or stating alternative perspectives. 7. Fear of Judgment You’re afraid of the judgments of others (which can lead to nervousness, hesitation, over-thinking, and social anxiety). 8. Fear of Upset You’re often afraid that others are secretly angry or critical of you, even though they seem to like you when you’re together. This can lead to a constant background unease that you may have “done something wrong” that someone is upset about. 9. Pressure to Entertain You feel pressure to have something great to share, such as a funny or highly engaging story about an adventure you’ve had. 10. Second Guessing & Conversational Replays During an interaction, you experience self-consciousness and doubt about how you are coming across. You imagine you should be someone “better” than you are. Afterwards, you replay the interaction in your mind and find all the things you did wrong, ways you may have upset the other person, and things you should have said. 11. Habitual Apologies You’re quick to apologize out of habit, even for minor transgressions, like starting to speak at the same time as someone else. 12. Submissive Body Language You demonstrate submissive body language, such as looking away frequently or keeping your eyes down. 13. Putting Others First You have a strong habit of putting others’ needs ahead of your own, thinking it is selfish to do otherwise. 14. Not Stating Desires You rarely state what you want directly. Instead, you may suggest or imply something and hope the other person detects it. You often question your desires and think they might be either too much or not worth asking for. 15. Attempting to Fit In & Impress You try to fit in to groups by pretending to be interested in things you are not, or exaggerating about your experiences, wealth, or achievements. All submission to peer pressure is approval seeking.
”
”
Aziz Gazipura (Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself)