Nine Rhetorical Devices - (7) Antithesis

Via @culturaltutor and Wikipedia.

In rhetoric, antithesis is a figure of speech involving the bringing out of a contrast in the ideas by an obvious contrast in the words, clauses, or sentences, within a parallel grammatical structure.

The term "antithesis" in rhetoric goes back to the 4th century BC, for example Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1410a, in which he gives a series of examples.

An antithesis can be a simple statement contrasting two things, using a parallel structure.

Example:

I defended the Republic as a young man; I shall not desert her now that I am old. 

  - Cicero, 2nd Philippic, 2.118

Further examples:

Man proposes, God disposes.

  - anonymous

I came not to bring peace but a sword. 

  - St Matthew's Gospel, 10:34

In peace you long for war, and in war you long for peace.

  - Vegetius, Epitoma Rei Militaris, book 3, introduction

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

  - William Shakespeare, Hamlet

For many are called, but few are chosen. 

  - Matthew 22:14

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way... 

  - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 

  - Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 

  - St Paul, 1st Epistle to the Corinthians 13:12

My men have become women, and my women, men. 

  - King Xerxes at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), according to Herodotus 8.88.3