Quotes About Convictions

My war - and I have yet to win a decisive battle - is with the modes of thought and conditioned feelings that prevail in psychology and therefore also in the way we think and feel about our being. Of these conditions none are more tyrannical than the convictions that clamp the mind and heart into positivistic science (geneticism and computerism), economics (bottom-line capitalism), and single-minded faith (fundamentalism).

those with the most passionate convictions can justify the most savage cruelties.

During the darkest years of the Iraq war, between 2004 and 2008, there were at least thirty-five convictions in the United States and more than $17 million in fines, forfeitures, and restitution payments made in fraud cases in connection with the American reconstruction of Iraq. But the midlevel officers, enlisted personnel, contractors, and others who have been caught account for only a tiny slice of the billions that have gone missing in Iraq. The biggest thieves have been far more elusive.

But the same "personal charm" that had propelled Taft to the presidency ultimately proved "dangerous" to him, Baker concluded. For far too long, his amiable nature had kept him from the rough-and-tumble of politics, from the need to fight for himself and his convictions. Had he come into the White House

but it would be "a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to the people while in office, and always puts him under the heaviest strain to barter his convictions for the sake of holding office.

him under the heaviest strain to barter his convictions for the sake of holding office.

Dac? am fi avut convingeri, oare am fi avut m?car curajul s? le urm?m?

But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action. Books generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already. You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated. A book, as it were, closes the book.

Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.

I think politics are a very personal thing.

Dalhousie proved staunch in his imperialist and modernizing convictions and resolute in his conclusion, quickly formed, of Indian inferiority.

Tolkien reveals that our personalities take on the quality of our acts. Outward behavior manifests inward convictions, whether for good or ill. "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45).

People want to follow someone with convictions, not questions. Smooth eloquence can never take the place of unwavering belief.

I have values I believe in and certain things I stand for.

Conservative supporters might either have the courage of their convictions or, if truly ashamed, revise them, but they should at least refute the proposition that defending your own interests is only acceptable if you're broke.

The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don't be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.

White liberals face this cognitive dissonance: if they decide that America is ready for a black president and back Obama, they would also be forced to surrender or at least modify decades of convictions about American bias.

I want to be liked for what I do, not for what I pretend to be. I try - maybe too forcefully at times - to have the courage of my convictions and to stand my ground when necessary.

He wrote very well in those days, as it happens, much better than he does now. He had absolute convictions, and style is nothing more than the absolute conviction of possessing a style.

Einstein also said, It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

Those professions which are not so much involved in life itself as concerned with abstract truths are the most dangerous for the young man whose principles are not yet firm and whose convictions are not yet strong and unshakeable.

Those professions which are not so much involved in life itself as concerned with abstract truths are the most dangerous for the young man whose principles are not yet firm and whose convictions are not yet strong and unshakeable. At the same time these professions may seem to be the most exalted if they have taken deep root in our hearts and if we are capable of sacrificing our lives and all endeavours for the ideas which prevail in them.

To realize the relative validity of one's convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilized man from a barbarian.

The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views.