Incline Quotes - Page 2

• When it comes to believing things without actual evidence, we all incline to what we find most attractive.

  James Hilton

  Believe, Attractive, Evidence

  James Hilton (2016). “LOST HORIZON - The Legend of Shangri-La: Adventure Classic”, p.155, e-artnow

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And almost everyone when age, disease, or sorrows strike him, inclines to think there is a God, or something very like him.

  Arthur Hugh Clough

  Thinking, Sorrow, Age

  'Dipsychus' (1865) sc. 6

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• No man ever believes with a true and saving faith unless God inclines his heart; and no man when God does incline his heart can refrain from believing.

  Blaise Pascal

  Believe, Heart, Men

  Blaise Pascal, Thomas Adam (1833). “Thoughts on religion”, p.38

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humble patience, tirelessness and persistence in prayer conquer the unconquerable God and incline Him to mercy. According to the Lord's parable, the importunity of the widow inclined a wicked and unjust judge to grant her petition (cf. Lk. 18:1 ff.). The Lord gave this parable for a special purpose ? to teach us not to faint, but to pray patiently. If an unjust judge was persuaded to grant the petition of the widow, how can God fail to incline His ear to our prayers, if we persist in imploring Him since He is the essence of lovingkindness?

  Lorenzo Scupoli

  Christian, Prayer, Humble

  9 Copy quote

• A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.

  Isaac Watts

  Believe, Dark, Men

  Isaac Watts, Joseph Emerson (1855). “The Improvement of the Mind”, p.29

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?

  Blaise Pascal

  God, Distance, Games

  Pensees no. 680 (1658). Popularly known as "Pascal's wager."

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The comfortable thing about the study of history is that it inclines us to think hopefully of our own times.

  Agnes Repplier

  Thinking, History, Study

  Agnes Repplier (1924). “Under dispute”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The timely dew of sleep Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight inclines Our eyelids.

  John Milton

  Fall, Sleep, Dew

  John Milton (1824). “The poetical works of John Milton: with notes of various authors, principally from the editions of Thomas Newton, Charles Dunster and Thomas Warton ; to which is prefixed Newton's life of Milton”, p.263

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• What the meaning of human life may be I don't know: I incline to suspect that it has none.

  H. L. Mencken

  May, Human Life, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him.

  Blaise Pascal

  Fear, Believe, Character

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 244, 1895.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• A tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is, even for its own sake, incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest.

  Henry Fielding

  Men, Honor, Mind

  Henry Fielding (1903). “The Works of Henry Fielding: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I... recommend to every one of my Readers, the keeping a Journal of their Lives for one Week, and setting down punctually their whole Series of Employments during that Space of Time. This kind of Self-Examination would give them a true State of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One Day would rectifie the Omissions of another, and make a Man weigh all those indifferent Actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Space, Omission

  Joseph Addison (1804). “The works of ... Joseph Addison, collected by mr. Tickell”, p.271

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's nothing like fishing to pass the time and to incline toward a sort of magnificent stupidity in which nothing matters but tackle, bait, sunlight and the strike.

  Faith Baldwin

  Fishing, Stupidity, Bait

  Faith Baldwin (1934). “Honor bound”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We incline to think that God cannot explain His own secrets and that He would like a little information upon certain points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us. But it is this Being of the matter; there lies the knot with which we choke ourselves. As soon as you say Me, a God, a Nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him in the street.

  Herman Melville

  Lying, Thinking, Secret

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.4889, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Morality has been conceived up to the present in a very narrow spirit, as obedience to a law, as inner struggle between opposite laws. As for me, I declare that when I do good I obey no one, I fight no battle and win no victory. The cultivated person has only to follow the delicious incline of his or her inner impulses. Be beautiful and then do at each moment whatever your heart may inspire you to do. This is the whole of morality.

  Ernest Renan

  Beautiful, Struggle, Heart

  10 Copy quote

• Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, - they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.

  James Russell Lowell

  Hero, Men, Perfect

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.66

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Day and night my thoughts incline To the blandishments of wine, Jars were made to drain, I think; Wine, I know, was made to drink.

  Richard Henry Stoddard

  Wine, Night, Thinking

  Richard Henry Stoddard (1871). “The Book of the East: And Other Poems”, p.213

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And I will trust that He who heeds
  The life that hides in mead and wold,
  Who hangs you alder's crimson beads,
  And stains these mosses green and gold,
  Will still, as He hath done, incline
  His gracious care to me and mine.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Gold, Moss, Done

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1895). “The complete poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When self-interest inclines a man to print, he should consider that the purchaser expects a pennyworth for his penny, and has reason to asperse his honesty if he finds himself deceived.

  William Shenstone

  Honesty, Book, Men

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.15

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It should seem that indolence itself would incline a person to be honest, as it requires infinitely greater pains and contrivance to be a knave.

  William Shenstone

  Honesty, Pain, Knaves

  William Shenstone (1804). “Essays on Men and Manners”, p.151

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a singular fact that most men of action incline to the theory of fatalism, while the greater part of men of thought believe in providence.

  Honore de Balzac

  Believe, Men, Facts

  14 Copy quote

• The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Self, May

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1843). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.305

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The stars incline, but do not impel.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Stars, Destiny

  5 Copy quote

• Sadness came into the world with Satan - that world our Saviour never prayed for, the world you say I do not know. Oh, it is not so difficult to recognize: it is the world that prefers cold to warmth! What can God find to say to those who, of their own free will, of their own weight incline towards sadness and turn instinctively towards the night?

  Georges Bernanos

  Sadness, Night, World

  "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.

  John Dryden

  Age, Genius, Study

  'An Essay of Dramatic Poesy' (1668)

  6 Copy quote

  Show source