Contending Quotes

• Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.

  George Washington

  Patriotic, Liberty, World

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson (1776). “The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799”, p.212

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Quincy Adams

  Religious, Business, 4th Of July

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  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

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• Great necessities call out great virtues.

  Abigail Adams

  Inspirational, Retirement, Women

  Letter to John Quincy Adams, 19 Jan. 1780

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• These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.

  Abigail Adams

  Character, Wish, Endurance

  Letter to John Quincy Adams, 19 Jan. 1780

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• If we are indeed contending for truth and righteousness, let us not tarry till we have talent, or wealth, or any other form of visible power at our disposal; but with such stones as we find in the brook, and with our own usual sling, let us run to meet the enemy.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Running, Wisdom, Enemy

  Charles Spurgeon (2015). “Daily Devotion - 365 Days With Jesus”, p.55, Editora Dracaena

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• Just as the roots of trees take firmer hold when they are contending with the wind; so faith takes firmer hold when it struggles with adverse appearances.

  Robert Murray M'Cheyne

  Christian, Struggle, Wind

  Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1847). “Additional Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Late Minister of St. Peter's Church, Dundee: Consisting of Various Sermons and Lectures Delivered by Him in the Course of His Ministry”, p.470

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• The American president increasingly used his influence to create conflicts, intensify existing conflicts, and, above all, to keep conflicts from being resolved peacefully. For years this man looked for a dispute anywhere in the world, but preferably in Europe, that he could use to create political entanglements with American economic obligations to one of the contending sides, which would then steadily involve America in the conflict and thus divert attention from his own confused domestic economic policies.

  Adolf Hitler

  Confused, Men, Years

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• I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honor and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour.

  Hannibal

  War, Yield, Honor

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• Once the command of the air is obtained by one of the contending armies, the war becomes a conflict between a seeing host and one that is blind.

  H. G. Wells

  War, Army, Air

  H. G. Wells (2015). “Anticipations: H. G. Wells Collections”, p.97, 谷月社

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• Living in the middle of beautiy like this, we've no call to have puny ideas about God. Why do you suppose His world is so fancy-fine, so full of wonderment if He doesn't want everything to be good and perfect and right and healthy? But we can spoil His good work. When we mess things up, then we shouldn't blame Him and try to make ourselves feel better by contending that it's what He wanted.

  Catherine Marshall

  Feel Better, Ideas, Perfect

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• And I’m drawn to failure. I often write about it, and I’m sympathetic with it, I think, because I feel I’m contending with it constantly in my own life.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Feels, My Own, My Own Life

  "America's Foremost Woman of Letters". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 03, 2006.

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• I think we are warranted in contending that a society thus constituted, and which may be rendered so admirable an engine of improvement, far from meriting reproach, deserves highly of the community.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Thinking, Community, May

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• I hate to play a tournament in which I'm not contending. It's just not any fun for me.

  Phil Mickelson

  Fun, Hate, Play

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• I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to extreme old age.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Children, Thinking, Years

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.439, Yale University Press

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• A people contending for life and liberty are seldom disposed to look with a favorable eye upon either men or measures whose passions, interests or consequences will clash with those inestimable objects.

  George Washington

  Passion, Eye, Men

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson, United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission (1944). “The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799: prepared under the direction of the United States George Washington bicentennial commission and published by authority of Congress”

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• It is true that a great deal of the rhetoric of the new atheism is often just the confessional rote of materialist fundamentalism (which, like all fundamentalisms, imagines that in fact it represents the side of reason and truth); but it is also true that the new atheism has sprung up in a garden of contending fundamentalisms.

  David Bentley

  Garden, Sprung Up, Atheism

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• Highest good is like water. Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes closest to the way.

  Laozi

  Love, Water, Way

  Laozi, D. C. Lau (1989). “Tao Te Ching”, p.11, Chinese University Press

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• There is no contending with necessity, and we should be very tender how we censure those that submit to it. It is one thing to be at liberty to do what we will, and another thing to be tied up to do what we must.

  Roger L'Estrange

  Liberty, Should, Submit

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• Two things, well considered, would prevent many quarrels: first, to have it well ascertained whether we are not disputing about terms, rather than things; and, secondly, to examine whether that on which we differ is worth contending about.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Two, Firsts, Quarrels

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.206

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• Macbeth is contending with the realities of this world, Hamlet with those of the next.

  Jones Very

  Reality, World, Next

  Jones Very (1839). “Essays and Poems”, p.89

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• Mother of the Sun, Theia of many names, for your sake men honor gold as more powerful than anything else; and through the value you bestow on them, o queen, ships contending on the sea and yoked teams of horses in swift-whirling contests become marvels.

  Pindar

  Mother, Horse, Queens

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• I have been contending all my life, and always with God.

  Lincoln Steffens

  Has Beens

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• Plants, in a state of nature, are always warring with one another, contending for the monopoly of the soil,-the stronger ejecting the weaker,-the more vigorous overgrowing and killing the more delicate. Every modification of climate, every disturbance of the soil, every interference with the existing vegetation of an area, favours some species at the expense of others.

  Joseph Dalton Hooker

  Science, Stronger, Climate

  Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Thomson (1855). “Introductory essay to the Flora Indica: including preliminary observations on the study of Indian botany; a summary of the labours of Indian botanists; a sketch of the meteorology of India; outlines of the physical geography and botany of the provinces of India: With 2 Maps. By J. D. Hooker and Thomas Thomson. Reprinted from the "Flora Indica"”, p.41

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• Require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them, in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for.

  George Washington

  Men, Order, Mind

  George Washington (1989). “Maxims of George Washington: Political, Military, Social, Moral, and Religious”, Mount Vernon Ladies Assn of the

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