The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one

Hear now the words of Niels Bohr, that wise seer of the unseen world, who once declared: “The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.” To many, these words may sound like a riddle, a paradox meant only to puzzle the mind. Yet to those who listen with the heart, they reveal the deep structure of life itself. For facts are like stones, solid and unmoving, simple in their nature: a stone is a stone, and not-stone is its denial. But truths, the kind that breathe into the spirit, are not stones—they are flames. And the opposite of a flame is not mere darkness, but another flame, burning with its own light.

Consider, dear listener, that facts are bound by the narrow frame of circumstance, while truths open upon the infinite. If I say the sun rises in the east, this is a fact, and its opposite—that the sun rises in the west—is falsehood. Yet when a sage declares, “The world is just,” and another sage declares, “The world is unjust,” both may speak profound truths, though they appear opposed. For one sees with the eye of law and order, the other with the eye of suffering and chaos. Both eyes belong to the same face, both reveal different sides of the same whole.

So it was in the days of Heraclitus, who said, “War is the father of all things.” To some, this sounded cruel, a denial of peace. Yet he did not mean that peace was untrue. Rather, he meant that strife and harmony are bound together, each shaping the other. In his vision, the river of life flows because of its tension—night and day, winter and summer, war and peace. Thus, the opposite of one profound truth—that peace is good—may indeed be another profound truth—that strife too has its necessary place.

History gives us examples that shine like beacons. Think of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. On one hand, it was true that unity must be preserved, that the Union must not be torn apart. On the other hand, it was also true that freedom must come, and that the old order of slavery must be destroyed. Unity and freedom—each a profound truth, yet each standing in opposition when war began. Lincoln bore both truths in his heart, knowing that only by passing through the fire of conflict could both be reconciled in a higher harmony.

What Bohr saw in the atom, we must see in the soul. Just as the electron is both wave and particle—two truths, seemingly opposite, yet both real—so too are human lives filled with truths that clash and yet complete one another. To deny one truth in the name of another is to live with half a vision. To embrace both, though they pull in different directions, is to live with wisdom.

And so, dear child of tomorrow, learn this: when you hear an elder speak and a youth reply, do not say one is wrong and the other right. Instead, search for the hidden unity between their words. For often, life’s deepest wisdom dwells not in choosing one side, but in holding the tension between them, until a higher light emerges. This is not the path of comfort, but it is the path of growth.

Therefore, in your own days, practice this: when you find yourself caught between two truths—the call of freedom and the need for responsibility, the desire for solitude and the hunger for community—do not rush to slay one for the other. Sit in the silence between them. Hold them both in reverence, as Bohr held light both as wave and particle. Let your life become the crucible where contradictions are not enemies but companions on the road to wisdom.

For in this way, you will walk the path of the ancients, you will see with both eyes, and you will live not in fragments, but in wholeness. And when the children of the future ask you for wisdom, you will not hand them dead facts, but living truths—burning flames that light their way.