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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  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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• 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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• Great necessities call out great virtues.

  Abigail Adams

  Inspirational, Retirement, Women

  Letter to John Quincy Adams, 19 Jan. 1780

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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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• 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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• We must wrestle earnestly in prayer, like men contending with a deadly enemy for life.

  J. C. Ryle

  Prayer, Men, Enemy

  J.C. Ryle (2015). “Bible commentary - The gospel of John”, p.100, Editora Dracaena

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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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• 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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• While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the conscience of others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to Him only in this case are they answerable.

  George Washington

  Religious, Freedom, Heart

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.376

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• From hence, let fierce contending nations know, what dire effects from civil discord flow.

  Joseph Addison

  War, Flow, Fierce

  'Cato' (1713) act 5, sc. 1, closing lines

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• These are the 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. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

  Abigail Adams

  Hero, Heart, Character

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• Salvation and justice are not to be found in revolution, but in evolution through concord. Violence has ever achieved only destruction, not construction; the kindling of passions, not their pacification; the accumulation of hate and destruction, not the reconciliation of the contending parties; and it has reduced men and parties to the difficult task of building slowly after sad experience on the ruins of discord.

  Pope Pius XII

  Hate, Party, Passion

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• Without needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site of variously contending discourses.

  Seamus Heaney

  Realizing, Consciousness, Site

  Seamus Heaney (2014). “Crediting Poetry: The Nobel Lecture”, p.11, Macmillan

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• Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

  Brian Tracy

  Strength, Stars, Inspiration

  Twitter post from Mar 18, 2015

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• Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
  To and fro in his breast his thoughts were heaving and dashing,
  As in a foundering ship.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Life, Self, Ships

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1861). “The poetical works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, including his translations and notes”, p.352

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• Certainly there is no contending against the Will of God; but still there is some difficulty in ascertaining, and applying it, to particular cases.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Religious, Cases, Difficulty

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.131, Fordham Univ Press

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• Although Verwoerd thought Africans were lower than animals, his death did not yield us any pleasure. Political assassination is not something I or the ANC ever supported. It is a primitive way of contending with an opponent

  Nelson Mandela

  Animal, Yield, Political

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• Whether it's watching a $4,000 laptop fall off the conveyor belt at airport security, contending with a software conflict that corrupted your file management system, or begging your family to stop opening those virus-carrying 'greeting cards' attached to emails, all computer owners are highly leveraged and highly vulnerable technology investors.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Fall, Technology, Airports

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• The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.

  John William Draper

  Faith, Science, Discovery

  John William Draper (1875). “History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science: By John William Draper ...”, p.6, New York, D. Appleton

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• By faith ponder on this, that though thou art no way able in or by thyself to get the conquest over thy distemper, though thou art even weary of contending, and art utterly ready to faint, yet that there is enough in Jesus Christ to yield thee relief.

  John Owen

  Jesus, Art, Yield

  John Owen (2001). “Temptation and Sin”, p.79, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

  John Adams

  Religious, Revenge, Passion

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.229

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• Kent. Where's the king? Gent. Contending with the fretful elements; Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, That things might change or cease; tears his white hair, Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all.

  William Shakespeare

  Running, Kings, Rain

  William Shakespeare (1813). “The Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.836

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• If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side’s battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and from the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it.

  C. S. Lewis

  Real, Fighting, Self

  C. S. LEWIS (1961). “The Screwtape Letters & Screwtape Proposes a Toast”

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