Quotes About Conviction

I dislike persons who change their basic ideas, and I dislike them when they change them for good reasons quite as much as when they change them for bad ones. A convert to a good idea is simply a man who confesses that he was formerly an ass—and is probably one still. When such a man favors me with a certificate that my eloquence has shaken him I feel about him precisely as I'd feel if he told me that he had started (or stopped) beating his wife on my recommendation.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. - H.L. Mencken

Grant, for reasons perhaps partly inborn and partly acquired, rarely revisited choices once made. He planned according to the information at hand; he prepared for all reasonable contingencies; he decided what to do as events unfolded. Then, calm in the conviction that he could have done no more, he accepted what destiny delivered.

Eugene Debs entered jail a moderate Unionist and emerged a Socialist.

One with God is always a majority. But many have been burned at the stake while the boats were being counted. Thomas Reed

Now pastor Jón Prímus laughed. Philosophy and theology have no effect on him, much less plain common sense. Impossible to convince this man by arguments. But humour he always listens to, even though it be ill humour.

There comes a time when to be uncompromising is the only realistic course.

The conviction that everything that happens on earth must be comprehensible to man can lead to interpreting history by commonplaces. Comprehension does not mean denying the outrageous, deducing the unprecedented from precedents, or explaining phenomena by such analogies and generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience are no longer felt.

That the authority of the nation-state itself depended largely on the economic independence and political neutrality of its civil servants becomes obvious in our time; the decline of nations has invariably started with the corruption of its permanent administration and the general conviction that civil servants are in the pay, not of the state, but of the owning classes.

it is rare to meet people who believe they possess the truth; instead, we are constantly confronted by those who are sure that they are right.

An "idealist" was a man who lived for his idea—hence he could not be a businessman—and who was prepared to sacrifice for his idea everything and, especially, everybody.

No nation-state could with a clear conscience ever try to conquer foreign peoples, since such a conscience comes only from the conviction of the conquering nation that it is imposing a superior law upon barbarians.

Massa's worden niet overtuigd door feiten, zelfs niet door verzonnen feiten, maar uitsluitend door de consistentie van het systeem waarvan ze menen deel uit te maken. Herhaling - waarvan het belang enigszins overschat wordt, om dat men meestal gelooft dat de massa's weinig of niet in staat zijn om te snappen en te onthouden - is alleen belangrijk omdat ze de maa's overtuigt van de consistentie van de tijd.

But I know my truth.

Life had stopped for her a long time ago. She was so out of touch with her feelings that she had no joy in her life and no concept of the fact that she could be wrong. She delivered her care of her insane patients in a killing manner, but she was convinced she was right.

It's okay to have faith in something that you can't see or touch.

The way I knew I was right about something was the kids got angry. That's very important: you touch that anger.

I come from a long line of very strong, tough women. We stick to our principles and stand up for what we believe in, which is fundamental fairness, which is my raison d'etre.

I'm tough in the sense that I believe as strongly in what I'm doing as anybody else believes in what they are doing.

It can be tough to stand alone for something you believe in.

I have realised taking a stand is tough, but what's tougher is maintaining it and letting go of all those who doubt your intent.

Sometimes standing up for things that are right makes things tougher.

The toughest thing to do in politics is to do the right thing when your supporters think the right thing is something else.

I couldn't just hand in any old rubbish - I can't go on tour and sing something for three years if I don't believe in it.