Convinced Quotes - Page 4

• If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Heaven, Doubt

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.232

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• The truth, I am convinced, is that there is no longer a poetical audience among the higher class of minds, that moral, political, and physical science have entirely withdrawn from poetry the attention of all whose attention is worth having; and that the poetical reading public being composed of the mere dregs of the intellectual community, the most sufficing passport to their favour must rest on the mixture of a little easily-intelligible portion of mawkish sentiment with an absolute negation of reason and knowledge.

  Thomas Love Peacock

  Reading, Class, Poetry

  Thomas Love Peacock, Herbert Francis Brett Brett-Smith (1921). “Four Ages of Poetry: Shelley's Defence of Poetry. Browning's Essay on Shelley. Edited by H.F.B. Brett-Smith”

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• Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.

  Laurence Sterne

  Art, Humor, Enemy

  Laurence Sterne (1847). “Works, Containing the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Sermons, Letters and C”, p.29

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• To give a name to a thing is as gratifying as giving a name to an island, but it is also dangerous: the danger consists in one's becoming convinced that all is taken care of and that once named, the phenomenon has also been explained.

  Primo Levi

  Taken, Islands, Names

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• We take foreigners to be incomplete Americans -- convinced that we must help and hasten their evolution.

  Saul Bellow

  America, Helping, Evolution

  Saul Bellow (2016). “It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future”, p.280, Odyssey Editions

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• It's hard for writers to get on with their work if they are convinced that they owe a concrete debt to experience and cannot allow themselves the privilege of ranging freely through social classes and professional specialties. A certain pride in their own experience, perhaps a sense of the property rights of others in their experience, holds them back.

  Saul Bellow

  Pride, Rights, Class

  Saul Bellow (2016). “It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future”, p.62, Odyssey Editions

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• When you're convinced that you're right and you believe that you have the license to do anything because you're right, you can be bossy and you can be dangerous. You can be oppressive. You can be a tyrant.

  Terry O'Quinn

  Believe, Tyrants, Dangerous

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• Life continues, and some mornings, weary of the noise, discouraged by the prospect of the interminable work to keep after, sickened also by the madness of the world that leaps at you from the newspaper, finally convinced that I will not be equal to it and that I will disappoint everyone - all I want to do is sit down and wait for evening. This is what I feel like, and sometimes I yield to it.

  Albert Camus

  Morning, Yield, Waiting

  "Lyrical and Critical Essays (Letter to P.B.)". Book by Albert Camus, 1967.

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• Ive never drunk coffee. Im convinced it has something to do with why my skin is good. I have either mint, green or black tea.

  Saffron Aldridge

  Coffee, Drunk, Black

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• So far we have not convinced the Chinese authorities. My own brother was refused a visa on what was probably my last chance of seeing him when he was going around the world on a tour. Scott Nearing was similarly refused.

  Anna Louise Strong

  Brother, Chinese, World

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• But centaurs never existed; there could never be So to speak a double nature in a single body Or a double body composed of incongruous parts With a consequent disparity in the faculties. The stupidest person ought to be convinced of that.

  Lucretius

  Centaurs, Body, Speak

  Titus Lucretius Carus, Lucretius, C. H. Sisson (2003). “De Rerum Natura”, p.160, Psychology Press

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• If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.

  Bertrand Russell

  Meditation, Half, Affair

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Mortals and Others”, p.35, Routledge

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• I am convinced the most unfortunate people are those who would make an art of love. It sours other effort. Of all artists, they are certainly the most wretched.

  Norman Mailer

  Love, Art, People

  Norman Mailer (1992). “Advertisements for Myself”, p.181, Harvard University Press

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• I am convinced that the moment is coming when, with its message of eternal, universal values, it will come to the aid of our society. For in these words: "Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," lie those very moral principles that will enable us to survive even the most critical situations.

  Boris Yeltsin

  Lying, Principles, Our Society

  "Against the Grain : An Autobiography" by Boris Yeltsin, (p. 251), 1990.

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• China was the most optimistic place I'd ever been. Everybody I met was pretty much convinced that their children would have it better than their parents had had it. It was like being in America in the 1950's, with this deep optimism about the future because everything was getting better, and that fascinated me.

  Neil Gaiman

  Children, Optimistic, America

  Source: collider.com

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• Early on in my life I comprehended that death is the most tragic event in our life. Events of early Monday July 14, 1958 [Coup in Iraq] had convinced me that hate is the most destructive force in our life.

  Ala Bashir

  Life, Monday, Hate

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• A man in the wrong may more easily be convinced than one half right.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Half, May

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1961). “Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume II: 1822-1826”, p.110, Harvard University Press

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• I do not believe that a moral philosophy can ever be founded on a scientific basis. … The valuation of life and all its nobler expressions can only come out of the soul’s yearning toward its own destiny. Every attempt to reduce ethics to scientific formulas must fail. Of that I am perfectly convinced.

  Albert Einstein

  Life, Philosophy, Believe

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb”, p.230, Princeton University Press

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• I'm supposed to be a normal, sane type person, but after you go through war and such, you become superstitious. I am convinced that somebody is looking after me.

  Daniel Inouye

  War, Normal, Type

  Source: www.achievement.org

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• ... women learned one important lesson--namely, that it is impossible for the best of men to understand women's feelings or the humiliation of their position. When they asked us to be silent on our question during the War, and labor for the emancipation of the slave, we did so, and gave five years to his emancipation and enfranchisement.... I was convinced, at the time, that it was the true policy. I am now equally sure that it was a blunder.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  War, Men, Years

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• I am convinced that nothing will happen to me, for I know the greatness of the task for which Providence has chosen me.

  Adolf Hitler

  Greatness, Tasks, Comedy

  Adolf Hitler (1942). “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939”

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• Churchill is the very type of a corrupt journalist. There is not a worse prostitute in politics. He himself has written that it'sunimaginable what can be done in war with the help of lies. He's an utterly amoral repulsive creature. I'm convinced that he has his place of refuge ready beyond the Atlantic. He obviously won't seek sanctuary in Canada. In Canada he'd be beaten up. He'll go to his friends the Yankees. As soon as this damnable winter is over, we'll remedy all that.

  Adolf Hitler

  War, Lying, Winter

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• The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it.

  Diane Wakoski

  Editors, Needs, Pages

  Diane Wakoski (1980). “Toward a new poetry”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• A parent who from his own childhood experience is convinced of the value of fairy tales will have no difficulty in answering his child's questions; but an adult who thinks these tales are only a bunch of lies had better not try telling them; he won't be able to related them in a way which would enrich the child's life.

  Bruno Bettelheim

  Children, Lying, Thinking

  Bruno Bettelheim (1976). “The uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales”, Knopf

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• I remain a religious agnostic, but, unlike most atheists, I not only am not hostile to traditional religion but consider it a highly valuable, not to say essential, social institution... I am convinced that the moral regeneration and repair of a frayed social fabric that this country so badly needs will not take place unless more people take their religion seriously.

  Guenter Lewy

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Guenter Lewy (1996). “Why America Needs Religion: Secular Modernity and Its Discontents”, p.12, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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