Conviction Quotes - Page 26

• Genuine contempt, on the other hand, is the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of another.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Hands, Genuine, Contempt

  "Counsels and Maxims". Book by Arthur Schopenhauer translated by T. Bailey Saunders (Volume 2, Chapter 24, § 324), 1851.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Government, Church, Authority

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.169, 谷月社

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think I have fallen in love and I believe the woman in question, though she has not said so, returns my feelings. How can I be sure when she has said nothing? Is this youthful vanity? I wish in some ways that it were. But I am so convinced that I barely need question myself. This conviction brings me no joy.[…]I am driven by a greater force than I can resist. I believe that force has its own reason and its own morality even if they may never be clear to me while I am alive.

  Sebastian Faulks

  Believe, Thinking, Vanity

  4 Copy quote

• Legislators in Kansas, Arizona and 23 other states who are properly determined to protect religious freedom can begin by asking themselves: Does any religious conviction justify denying lesbians and gays a basic legal promise of non-discrimination in hiring, public accommodations, and housing? Surely the answer to this question is no. Correcting that inequity would begin the process of recognizing that both sides - gay couples and religious objectors - have rights and that reasonable accommodation is possible only when both sides have something to gain.

  David Blankenhorn

  Religious, Couple, Gay

  4 Copy quote

• No man must encroach upon my province, nor I upon his. He may advise me, moderately and without pertinaciousness, but he must not expect to dictate to me. He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his. I ought to exercise my talents for the benefit of others; but that exercise must be the fruit of my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service.

  William Godwin

  Exercise, Men, Atheism

  William Godwin, Kay Codell Carter (1971). “Enquiry concerning political justice: with selections from Godwin's other writings”, Clarendon Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• From my childhood it has been my conviction that men would reach the planets in my lifetime . . . this conviction . . . rests on two beliefs, one scientific and one political: (1) there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our present-day science. And we shall only find out what they are if we go out and look for them. (2) it is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilization that small groups of people can escape from their neighbors and from their governments, to go and live as they please in the wilderness.

  Freeman Dyson

  Running, Men, Civilization

  4 Copy quote

• Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.

  Jean Francois Revel

  Civilization, Energy, Doe

  Attributed by Jeane Kirkpatrick in her August 20, 1984 speech to the Republican national convention in Dallas, Texas, as cited in "Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History" (rev.), edited by William Safire, W. W. Norton & Co., (p. 1029), 2004.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one's total orientation to life. Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One's religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for.

  Rollo May

  Religious, Attitude, Intellectual

  Rollo May Ph.D. (1953). “Man's Search for Himself”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe I and all the Chinese people have such a conviction that China will make continuous progress and the people's wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible.

  Wen Jiabao

  Believe, People, Chinese

  7 Copy quote

• Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Leaving, Criminals, Proud

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1968). “I Have a Dream: The Quotations of Martin Luther King, Jr”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is safer to quote what is written than what is spoken. What a man writes it is fair to presume he believes as a matter of general conviction, but it is not so with what he utters in the freedom of conversation. In that he may only express the feeling of the moment, and not his settled judgment, or matured opinion.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Believe, Writing, Men

  Christian Nestell Bovee (1862). “Intuitions and Summaries of Thought”, p.125

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• For the multiculturist/diversity crowd, culture, ideas, customs, arts and skills are a matter of racial membership where one has no more control over his culture than his race. That's a racist idea, but it's politically correct racism. It says that one's convictions, character and values are not determined by personal judgment and choices but genetically determined. In other words, as yesteryear's racists held: race determines identity.

  Walter E. Williams

  Art, Character, Race

  24 Copy quote

• No it was not the novelty, and it was not the danger and the adventure (although these had their charm). It was certainly not a passing whim (if it had been the hard work would have dispelled it in a very short time!). I think there were three chief reasons for my choice of career: First, a real love for, and interest in aviation Secondly, a determination to earn my own money and to make my career a paying proposition. Thirdly, a conviction that aviation was a profession of the future and therefore had room to welcome its new followers.

  Pauline Gower

  Determination, Women, Real

  7 Copy quote

• The best people in a dying culture are the outcasts considered crazy by the leaders; the ones most disillusioned with their own culture. In Yeats' phrase, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Intense emotional attachment to any value, any virtue, any set of "shoulds" is a disease, a mental illness, a condition of self-murder and cultural assassination.

  Brad Blanton

  Crazy, Emotional, Attachment

  Brad Blanton (1996). “Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth”, Dell

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sequester has forced liberals to clarify their conviction that whatever the government's size is at any moment, is the bare minimum neccessary to forestall intolerable suffering.

  George Will

  Government, Suffering, Politics

  "George Will: The manufactured crisis of sequester". www.washingtonpost.com. February 22, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do have strong convictions and political opinions, but I don't think it's necessary to imbue my photographic work with them. I use photography as a vessel for visual material to flow through, to encourage conversation with the viewer. I try to present a catalyst and invite viewers to tell their own stories.

  Michael Kenna

  Photography, Strong, Thinking

  16 Copy quote

• The ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Character, Honor, Foundation

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “the Wisdom of Life: Top of Schopenhauer”, p.42, 谷月社

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the second half of life the necessity is imposed of recognizing no longer the validity of our former ideals but of their contraries. Of perceiving the error in what was previously our conviction, of sensing the untruth in what was our truth, and of weighing the degree of opposition, and even of hostility, in what we took to be love.

  Carl Jung

  Errors, Age, Degrees

  8 Copy quote

• Rich men without convictions are more dangerous in modern society than poor women without chastity.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Ethics, Rich

  7 Copy quote

• The conviction: I will not tolerate this age. The freedom: the freedom to act on my conviction. And I will act. No one else has both the conviction and the freedom. Many agree with me, have the conviction, but will not act. Some act, assassinate, bomb, burn, etc., but they are the crazies. Crazy acts by crazy people. But what if one, sober, reasonable, and honorable man should act, and act with perfect sobriety, reason, and honor? Then you have the beginning of a new age. We shall start a new order of things.

  Walker Percy

  Crazy, Men, Order

  Walker Percy (1989). “Lancelot”

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Thankfulness grows best in the seed-bed of conviction, just as some plants must be placed in the soil in the winter if they are to flower in the summer.

  Sinclair B. Ferguson

  Summer, Flower, Winter

  6 Copy quote

• My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Men, Self, Liberty

  Mahatma Gandhi (1980). “All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections”, p.137, A&C Black

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft.

  Eric Hoffer

  Life, Self, Burning

  Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.14, Harper Collins

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• No democracy has ever long survived the failure of its adherents to be ready to die for it. My own conviction is this, the people must either go on or go under.

  David Lloyd George

  Democracies Have, Long, People

  David Lloyd George “War Memoirs of David Lloyd George: 1917-1918”

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• A religion which has lost its basic conviction about the interconnection of men with men in their common struggles for the human, will never command belief in the realm of the superhuman.

  Max Lerner

  Struggle, Men, Religion

  4 Copy quote