Quotes and Sayings about Conviction
"FOR a long time the conviction has been dimly felt in the community that, without prejudice to existing institutions, the legal day of weekly rest might be employed to advantage for purposes affecting the general good."
- Felix Adler
(Related: Legal, Time, Community, Conviction, Day, Prejudice, Rest)
"He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions."
- Louisa May Alcott
(Related: Actions)
"It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen."
- Muhammad Ali
(Related: Belief, Conviction, Deep, Repetition)
"Indeed in the full flush of journalistic passion and conviction I once told an interviewer that of course I would never get married. And I most definitely would never have children."
- Christiane Amanpour
(Related: Children, Conviction, Passion)
"For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights."
- B. R. Ambedkar
(Related: Successful, Conviction, Discontent, Revolution, Rights, Importance, Justice, Necessity)
"The mission of the playwright is to look in his heart and write, to write whatever concerns him at the moment; to write with passion and conviction. Of course the measure of the man will be the measure of the play."
- Robert Anderson
(Related: Heart, Conviction, Man, Measure, Mission, Passion, Play, Will)
"Let us go forward in this battle fortified by conviction that those who labour in the service of a great and good cause will never fail."
- Owen Arthur
(Related: Battle, Cause, Conviction, Service, Will)
"Most importantly, nothing has happened to change my conviction that freedom and the love of liberty remain the essential defining attributes of our national character as a people."
- Ibrahim Babangida
(Related: Change, Love, People, Character, Conviction, Freedom, Liberty, Nothing)
"To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction - and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by."
- Stephen Baker
(Related: Courage, Perseverance, Conviction, Force)
"One of the dreariest spots on life's road is the point of conviction that nothing will ever again happen to you."
- Faith Baldwin
(Related: Life, Conviction, Nothing, Road, Will)
"If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach."
- William Barclay
(Related: Certainty, Christ, Conviction, Man)
"I think that people need to have the courage of their convictions and not be trying to fool people into thinking that they've changed overnight."
- Chris Bell
(Related: People, Courage, Fool, Thinking, Trying)
"I am a Muslim Arab, in my actions oriented very to the left, in my convictions."
- Ahmed Ben Bella
(Related: Muslim, Actions)
"With the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice."
- Pat Benatar
(Related: Power, Sacrifice, Conviction)
"Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place."
- Pope Benedict XVI
(Related: God, People, Christian, Conviction, Israel, Will)
"The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions."
- Walter Benjamin
(Related: Life, Power, Facts, Present)
"Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction."
- Walter Benjamin
(Related: Work, Conviction, Quotations)
"And their conviction is that if it is done with that kind of purity it will go somewhere. I believe that with all my heart, but I'm not responsible for its going somewhere."
- Daniel Berrigan
(Related: Heart, Conviction, Purity, Will)
"Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Chance, Conviction, Man)
"Be strong and follow your own convictions. You can't assume there is a lot of time to do what you like. This is what David Bowie is afraid of: that he will die before he gets a chance to make a real strong contribution."
- Marc Bolan
(Related: Time, Chance, Will)
"When you take a stand out of deep conviction, people know. They may not even agree, but they ask, 'Do I want someone who is willing to take a hard stand and someone I can trust to do that when the chips are down?' They want that."
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Trust, People, Conviction, Deep, May, Want)
"I have withstood the power of convictions a long time; and therefore I fear I shall be finally left of God."
- David Brainerd
(Related: Power, God, Time, Fear)
"To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution."
- Louis D. Brandeis
(Related: Government, Conviction, End, Law, May, Order)
"What remains constant for me, during the last 15 years, has been the conviction that the cold war was a calamity for the entire world, and that it can be justified by no consideration of theory, nor by any supposed national interest."
- Earl Browder
(Related: War, Calamity, Consideration, Conviction, Interest, Theory, World, Years)
"Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth."
- Jean de la Bruyere
(Related: Truth, Conviction, Logic)
"My conviction of the necessity of further legislative provisions for the safe-keeping and disbursement of the public moneys and my opinion in regard to the measures best adapted to the accomplishment of those objects have been already submitted to you."
- Martin Van Buren
(Related: Accomplishment, Conviction, Necessity, Opinion, Public)
"The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Conviction, Man, Nothing)
"I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn't."
- Michael Caine
(Related: Conviction, End)
"Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?"
- John Calvin
(Related: Faith, Church, Nothing)
"Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Conviction)
"Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Conviction)
"Conviction is the conscience of the mind."
- Nicolas de Chamfort
(Related: Conscience, Conviction, Mind)
"No more duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions."
- Edwin Hubbel Chapin
(Related: Life, Duty, Loyalty, Theater)
"If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself."
- Lord Chesterfield
(Related: Conviction, Open)
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions."
- Gilbert K. Chesterton
(Related: Virtue, Man, Tolerance)
"If you're writing anything decent, it's in you, it's your spirit coming out. If it's not an expression of how a person genuinely feels, then it's not a good song done with any conviction."
- Alex Chilton
(Related: Conviction, Expression, Song, Spirit, Writing)
"It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their confusions."
- John Ciardi
(Related: Men, Courage, Praise)
"All the strength and force of man comes from his faith in things unseen. He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions."
- James Freeman Clarke
(Related: Faith, Strength, Actions, Force, Man)
"Strong convictions precede great actions."
- James Freeman Clarke
(Related: Actions)
"Mix a conviction with a man and something happens."
- Powell Clayton
(Related: Conviction, Man)
"An indictment is not a conviction."
- Howard Coble
(Related: Conviction)
"It is absolutely my conviction, that Walter Salles will figure among the great directors of our time."
- Arthur Cohn
(Related: Time, Conviction, Will)
"When the pressure comes, preferences give way while convictions hold firm."
- Edwin Louis Cole
(Related: Pressure)
"Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which one would think, might dispose us to modesty."
- Jeremy Collier
(Related: Nature, Conviction, Learning, Modesty)
"Constant repetition carries conviction."
- Robert Collier
(Related: Conviction, Repetition)
"Obeying instructions I should never dare to disregard, expressing, also, my own firm conviction, I rise in behalf of the State of New York to propose a nomination with which the country and the Republican party can grandly win."
- Roscoe Conkling
(Related: Conviction, Country, Party, Republican, State)
"A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory."
- Charles Horton Cooley
(Related: Conviction, Grace, Man, May, Nothing, Oratory, Order, Tact, Will)
"Through these adversities, Israel has endured with continued strength, conviction, and faith."
- Jerry Costello
(Related: Faith, Strength, Conviction, Israel)
"We are all wrong so often that it amazes me that we can have any conviction at all over the direction of things to come. But we must."
- Jim Cramer
(Related: Conviction, Direction, Wrong)
"The Petersons have not come forward in the press. Apparently they feel the media bears a large responsibility for Scott's conviction. It may be a while before we hear anything from them."
- Catherine Crier
(Related: Conviction, May, Media, Press, Responsibility)
"Many hard comments have been made on my efforts in India from the side of the Congress party, yet I feel content in the deep conviction that the offer I traveled 22,000 miles to discuss with Indian leaders was a real contribution to a solution of our differences."
- Stafford Cripps
(Related: Congress, Content, Conviction, Deep, Leaders, Party, Solution)
"Our consciences are littered like an old attic with the junk of sheer conviction."
- Wilford O. Cross
(Related: Conviction, Old)
"We all like to hear a man speak out on his convictions and principles. But at the same time, you must understand that when you're running on a ticket, you're running with a team."
- Richard J. Daley
(Related: Time, Man, Principles, Running)
"Provincial governments in Canada have terminated the positions of marriage commissioners who have, for personal religious convictions, not performed same sex marriages. It has happened in Saskatchewan."
- Stockwell Day
(Related: Marriage, Sex, Canada, Religious)
"Convictions do not imply reasons."
- Margaret Deland
"If this work seems so threatening, this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange, but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction."
- Jacques Derrida
(Related: Work, Conviction)
"I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment."
- Benjamin Disraeli
(Related: Purpose, Being, Conviction, Existence, Fulfillment, Meditation, Nothing, Will)
"With his trademark courage and conviction, President Reagan led us out of the Cold War, spreading his vision of freedom, resulting in the release of millions of people from the yoke of communism."
- John Doolittle
(Related: War, People, Courage, Vision, Communism, Conviction, Freedom, President)
"There can be no proof that Blake's lyric is composed of the best words in the best order; only a conviction, accepted by our knowledge and judgment, that it is so."
- John Drinkwater
(Related: Knowledge, Conviction, Judgment, Order, Proof, Words)
"Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination."
- Andrea Dworkin
(Related: Conviction, Discrimination, Genocide)
"What is important is that one utilizes one's intellect and not to be 100 percent sure about one's convictions. One should always leave room for doubt."
- Shirin Ebadi
(Related: Doubt, Intellect)
"While mainstream media is led by profit, ratings and popularist culture and filtered by the current political climate, Alternative Media is lead solely by the convictions of the campaign and film maker."
- Ben Edwards
(Related: Climate, Culture, Film, Media, Profit)
"It was very important that it be done in such a way that it be executed with complete conviction. If I had done it both ways, if I was trying to cover myself in case it didn't work, then it would have been to no purpose."
- Atom Egoyan
(Related: Work, Purpose, Conviction, Trying)
"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: War, Act, Conviction, Killing, Murder, Nothing)
"That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."
- Albert Einstein
(Related: God, Power, Idea, Conviction, Deep, Universe)
"I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence."
- George Eliot
(Related: Conviction, Literary, Production)
"As a politician who cherishes religious conviction in his personal sphere, but regards politics as a domain belonging outside religion, I believe that this view is seriously flawed."
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Related: Politics, Religion, Conviction, Religious)
"It's my firm conviction that when Uncle Sam calls, by God we go, and we do the best that we can."
- R. Lee Ermey
(Related: God, Conviction)
"A large part of the present anxiety to improve the education of girls and women is also due to the conviction that the political disabilities of women will not be maintained."
- Millicent Fawcett
(Related: Education, Women, Anxiety, Conviction, Girls, Present, Will)
"It is always incorrect to assume you can know what someone's moral convictions are based on their philosophical theories."
- Stanley Fish
(Related: Theories)
"The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Related: Life, Success, Conviction, Romantic, Sense)
"At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity."
- Gustave Flaubert
(Related: Conscience, Conviction, Vanity)
"Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick
(Related: People, Conviction, Democracy, Possibilities)
"A man with convictions finds an answer for everything. Convictions are the best form of protection against the living truth."
- Max Frisch
(Related: Truth, Living, Man, Protection)
"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."
- Mohandas Gandhi
(Related: Conviction, Trouble)
"The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else."
- John W. Gardner
(Related: Education, Goal, Burden, Conviction, Pursuit, School, Will)
"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all."
- John W. Gardner
(Related: Conviction, Extremism, World)
"I always received much more satisfaction as a defense attorney in obtaining an acquittal for a client than I ever have as a D.A. in obtaining a conviction. All my interests and sympathies tend to be on the side of the individual as opposed to the state."
- Jim Garrison
(Related: Conviction, Defense, Satisfaction, State)
"I am coming more and more to the conviction that the necessity of our geometry cannot be demonstrated, at least neither by, nor for, the human intellect."
- Carl Friedrich Gauss
(Related: Conviction, Geometry, Intellect, Necessity)
"If I practised sex, out of moral conviction, that was one thing; but to enjoy it... seemed a defeat."
- Martha Gellhorn
(Related: Sex, Conviction, Defeat)
"Oh how sweet it is to hear one's own convictions from another's lips."
- Frank Gifford
"I will listen to anyone's convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Related: Will)
"We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs."
- Mikhail Gorbachev
(Related: Philosophy, Traditions)
"The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos."
- Stephen Jay Gould
(Related: Arrogance, Cosmos)
"The former conviction that these two kingdoms were wholly different in structure, in function, and in kind of life, was not seriously disturbed by the difficulties which the naturalist encountered when he undertook to define them."
- Asa Gray
(Related: Life, Conviction, Difficulties)
"In examining the evidence of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that we bring to the investigation a mind freed, as far as possible, from existing prejudice, and open to conviction."
- Simon Greenleaf
(Related: Religion, Truth, Christian, Conviction, Discovery, Investigation, Mind, Open, Prejudice)
"Without a notion of the transcendental, human beings would, indeed, be animals; however, only fools can be convinced of it, and only degenerates need such a conviction."
- Franz Grillparzer
(Related: Animals, Conviction, Fools)
"If you don't love what you do, you won't do it with much conviction or passion."
- Mia Hamm
(Related: Love, Conviction, Passion)
"Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions."
- Dag Hammarskjold
(Related: Experience, Peace, Quiet)
"Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions."
- Dag Hammarskjold
(Related: Peace, Quiet)
"What to an outsider will be no more than the vigorous presentation of a conviction, to an employee may be the manifestation of a determination which it is not safe to thwart."
- Learned Hand
(Related: Determination, Conviction, May, Will)
"Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
- Vaclav Havel
(Related: Hope, Optimism, Certainty, Conviction, Sense, Will)
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
- Vaclav Havel
(Related: Hope, Certainty, Conviction, Sense, Will)
"I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions."
- Friedrich August von Hayek
(Related: Time, Conviction, Neglect, Questions, Timidity, Value)
"What will become compellingly important is absolute clarity of shared purpose and set of principles of conduct sort of institutional genetic code that every member of the organization understands in a common way, and with deep conviction."
- Dee Hock
(Related: Purpose, Clarity, Conviction, Deep, Principles, Will)
"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
- Victor Hugo
(Related: Happiness, Life, Conviction)
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves."
- Victor Hugo
(Related: Happiness, Life, Conviction)
"However, it must always remain a dialogue, and never an imposition of the church's own convictions and methods. Propose, not impose. To serve, and not to dominate."
- Claudio Hummes
(Related: Church)
"In this kind of situation, we tend to cling to his convictions, we believe that, by magic, we are going to recover. Then we agree to drive less good cars and we are fatally more exposed. It is what finally happened to me with Ensign."
- Jacky Ickx
(Related: Magic)
"It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
(Related: Age, Courage, Individuality)
"We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
(Related: Death, Men, Courage, Thoughts)
"Ronald Reagan's well documented final battles with Alzheimer's disease were fought with the same conviction and courage that his many public battles were fought."
- William L. Jenkins
(Related: Courage, Conviction, Disease, Public)
"It is hard to describe the thrill of creative joy which the artist feels when the conviction seizes her that at last she has caught the very soul of the character she wishes to portray, in the music and action which reveal it."
- Maria Jeritza
(Related: Music, Soul, Action, Character, Artist, Conviction, Joy, Wishes)
"Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide."
- Andrew Johnson
(Related: Courage, Constitution, Conviction)
"What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you're advancing. If you don't you're as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn't there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you."
- Lyndon B. Johnson
(Related: Argument, Conviction, Sense, Will)
"No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library."
- Samuel Johnson
(Related: Conviction, Public, Vanity)
"I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country. You don't need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice!"
- Mother Jones
(Related: Country, Hell, Vote)
"For if enough people were really convinced that growth should be halted, and if they acted on that conviction, then billions of others might be deprived of any realistic hope of gaining the opportunities now enjoyed by the more fortunate."
- Herman Kahn
(Related: People, Growth, Hope, Conviction, Now)
"The Martha Stewart trial makes clear how far women have risen in the business world. America can be proud of our equal-opportunity prosecution and conviction."
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter
(Related: Business, Women, America, Conviction, World)
"The motion pictures I have made and the plays I have chosen to direct represent my convictions."
- Elia Kazan
"My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics."
- Arthur Keith
(Related: Science, Truth, Conviction, Ethics)
"People will judge you according to your own convictions."
- Dexter Scott King
(Related: People, Will)
"Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal."
- Jeane Kirkpatrick
(Related: Equality, Conviction, Democracy, Value)
"When the principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then the battle is your calling, and peace has become sin. You must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith."
- Abraham Kuyper
(Related: Faith, Peace, Friend, Battle, Day, Enemy, Fire, Principles, Sin)
"I was induced to establish several orders of merit, from conviction that emulation, well directed, becomes a useful servant; and, that the latent genius of some youth is more easily brought into action this way, than by the more sordid gratification of self-interest."
- Joseph Lancaster
(Related: Genius, Action, Conviction, Merit, Self, Youth)
"Liberals subscribe to the new flexible, pluralistic definition of the family; their defense of families carries no conviction."
- Christopher Lasch
(Related: Family, Conviction, Defense, Liberals)
"The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy."
- Robert E. Lee
(Related: Policy, Honesty, Conviction, Criticism, Man, Right, Saying)
"To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; that is not to be taken seriously in politics."
- Vladimir Lenin
(Related: Politics, Conviction, Devotion, Spiritual)
"I have never known so much naive conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty."
- Claude Levi-Strauss
(Related: Conviction, Poverty)
"The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle."
- Georg C. Lichtenberg
(Related: Conviction, Reason)
"You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art."
- Maya Lin
(Related: Art, Conviction, Help, Question, Study)
"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: Men, Leader, Conviction, Will)
"Broad paths are open to every endeavour, and a sympathetic recognition is assured to every one who consecrates his art to the divine services of a conviction of a consciousness."
- Franz Liszt
(Related: Art, Consciousness, Conviction, Open)
"The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience."
- James Russell Lowell
(Related: Experience, Faith, Conviction)
"I was suffering from a peculiar and persistent sense that I was being pursued, and also the conviction that under the political order of the times, our lives had no meaning."
- Naguib Mahfouz
(Related: Being, Conviction, Meaning, Order, Sense, Suffering)
"My personal political convictions are rooted in the populist political traditions of western Canada."
- Preston Manning
(Related: Canada, Traditions)
"There can be no great courage where there is no confidence or assurance, and half the battle is in the conviction that we can do what we undertake."
- Orison Swett Marden
(Related: Courage, Battle, Confidence, Conviction)
"I retired from public Business from a thorough Conviction that it was not in my Power to do any Good, and very much disgusted with Measures, which appeared to me inconsistent with common Policy and Justice."
- George Mason
(Related: Business, Power, Policy, Conviction, Justice, Public)
"Our political differences, now matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions."
- John McCain
(Related: Founding, Now)
"When thugs by nature meet thugs by political conviction, 5-0 is not surprising."
- John McCarthy
(Related: Nature, Conviction)
"There's Eddie's conviction and his lyrics and his ideals, and he can just rock straight out. His vocals are incredible. And we all are really competent musicians."
- Mike McCready
(Related: Conviction, Ideals, Musicians)
"I am not a Christian because God changed my life; I am a Christian because of my convictions about who Jesus Christ is."
- Josh McDowell
(Related: God, Life, Christian)
"A mistake made by many people with great convictions is that they will let nothing stand in the way of their views, not even kindness."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Mistake, People, Kindness, Nothing, Will)
"When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion."
- Phyllis McGinley
(Related: Argument, Conviction, Facts, Fool, May, Mind, Opinion, Prejudice, Providence, Reason)
"I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing over whether it is true or not."
- Peter Medawar
(Related: Age, Advice, Conviction)
"Both state and church have as their object actions as well as convictions, the former insofar as they are based on the relations between man and nature, the latter insofar as they are based on the relations between nature and God."
- Moses Mendelssohn
(Related: Nature, God, Church, Actions, Man, State)
"Moreover, broad plans commensurate with our national purpose and resources would bring conviction of our power to every soldier in the front line, to the nations associated with us in the war, and to the enemy."
- Kelly Miller
(Related: Power, War, Purpose, Conviction, Enemy, Nations)
"The public conviction that a railroad linking the West and the East was an absolute necessity became so pronounced after the gold discoveries of '49 that Congress passed an act in 1853 providing for a survey of several lines from the Mississippi to the Pacific."
- John Moody
(Related: Act, Congress, Conviction, Gold, Necessity, Public)
"My opinion, my conviction, gains immensely in strength and sureness the minute a second mind as adopted it."
- Malcolm Muggeridge
(Related: Strength, Conviction, Mind, Opinion)
"I believe that nothing enjoys a higher estate in our society than the right given by the First and Fourteenth Amendments freely to practice and proclaim one's religious convictions."
- Frank Murphy
(Related: Society, First, Nothing, Practice, Religious, Right)
"A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done."
- Ralph Nader
(Related: Power, Leader, Dream, Vision, Conviction, Energy)
"As to the war, while it is always thought rash to have any strong military convictions, I have always believed that if they would go straight to Sebastopol early in the season they would take it with little difficulty."
- Francis W. Newman
(Related: War, Thought, Difficulty, Military)
"Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Truth, Lies)
"Experience burned into me the conviction that access to education ought to be based on how much you are willing to learn and how hard you are willing to work, not on how many dollars your family has in their bank account."
- Dave Obey
(Related: Education, Experience, Family, Work, Bank account, Conviction)
"Conviction without experience makes for harshness."
- Flannery O'Connor
(Related: Experience, Conviction)
"Now the true soldiers of Christ must always be prepared to do battle for the truth, and must never, so far as lies with them, allow false convictions to creep in."
- Origen
(Related: Truth, Battle, Christ, Lies, Now, Soldiers)
"The dangers which threaten us are twofold: First, from the Confederate forces, composed of men whose earnest convictions and reckless bravery it is idle to deny."
- Robert Dale Owen
(Related: Men, Bravery, First)
"The challenge is to lend conviction even to the voices which advocate views I find personally abhorrent, whether they are political Islamists or officers justifying a coup."
- Orhan Pamuk
(Related: Challenge, Conviction)
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
- Blaise Pascal
(Related: Men, Conviction, Evil, Religious)
"If I were sufficiently romantic I suppose I'd have killed myself long ago just to make people talk about me. I haven't even got the conviction to make a successful drunkard."
- John Dos Passos
(Related: People, Successful, Conviction, Romantic, Talk)
"My feeling about him is that the America that we have today, the freedoms we enjoy and the privileges we have, are really the reflection of Abe Lincoln's convictions, his vision, and his toughness."
- Gregory Peck
(Related: Vision, America, Feeling, Reflection, Today)
"Music is a hobby, because I'm not making any money out of it, but I put just as much conviction into that as I do into my acting."
- River Phoenix
(Related: Money, Music, Acting, Conviction)
"As we celebrate President Reagan's remarkable career and historic legacy, we also celebrate a man of strong character, deep conviction, unforgettable charm, and wonderful wit."
- Jim Ramstad
(Related: Character, Career, Charm, Conviction, Deep, Man, President, Remarkable, Wit)
"Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place."
- Joseph Ratzinger
(Related: God, People, Christian, Conviction, Israel, Will)
"Requiring military hospitals to perform elective abortions exposes the physicians, the nurses, the military personnel to move against their own personal convictions of life in many cases."
- Rick Renzi
(Related: Life, Hospitals, Military, Nurses, Physicians)
"Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work."
- Joshua Reynolds
(Related: Work, Conviction, End, Language, Words)
"The vice president had a bargaining asset, however, that no ordinary person has: He was next in line to the presidency. I saw no chance that he would resign first, then take his chances on trial, conviction, and jail."
- Elliot Richardson
(Related: Chance, Conviction, First, Presidency, President, Vice)
"I cannot doubt that women will line up, like the men elected, with the groups whose political thinking and convictions are in accord with their own political convictions."
- Edith Rogers
(Related: Men, Women, Doubt, Thinking, Will)
"Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
(Related: Work, Beliefs)
"We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Life, Belief, Hope, Conviction, World)
"The belief may be too often mistaken, but the illusion of coming into direct contact with the past is intoxicating and persuasive, and can result in an interpretation that carries conviction. Sometimes confidence is all that's needed."
- Charles Rosen
(Related: Belief, Confidence, Conviction, Illusion, May, Past, Result)
"The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions."
- Jean Rostand
(Related: Being, Nobility)
"When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Belief, Habit, Conviction, Man, Will)
"Of what worth are convictions that bring not suffering?"
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
(Related: Suffering, Worth)
"We peruse one ideal, that of bringing people together in peace, irrespective of race, religion and political convictions, for the benefit of mankind."
- Juan Antonio Samaranch
(Related: Religion, Peace, People, Mankind, Race)
"Shortly after the end of last season, I felt that I probably would not return for the 1999-2000 season. I also felt that I should take as much time as possible to sort through my feelings and make sure that my feelings were backed with conviction."
- Barry Sanders
(Related: Time, Feelings, Conviction, End)
"And indeed this theme has been at the centre of all my research since 1943, both because of its intrinsic fascination and my conviction that a knowledge of sequences could contribute much to our understanding of living matter."
- Frederick Sanger
(Related: Knowledge, Conviction, Living, Research, Understanding)
"I am a person with leftist convictions, and always have been."
- Jose Saramago
"Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers should lead the Democratic Party. They are the only Democrats with any convictions."
- Evan Sayet
(Related: Democrats, Party)
"I had the conviction that lovemaking fools you. The overpowering emotions it induces make you think you're sharing the same feelings as the other person and that they're imagining the same as you."
- Greta Scacchi
(Related: Feelings, Conviction, Emotions, Fools, Sharing)
"Courage and conviction are powerful weapons against an enemy who depends only on fists or guns. Animals know when you are afraid; a coward knows when you are not."
- David Seabury
(Related: Courage, Animals, Conviction, Enemy, Weapons)
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Patriotism, Conviction, Country)
"Rosa Parks was a woman of strength, conviction, and morality. Her action on December 1, 1955, to defy the law made her a leading figure in our nation's civil rights history."
- John Shimkus
(Related: History, Morality, Action, Strength, Civil rights, Conviction, December, Law, Leading, Nation, Woman)
"You will be a failure, until you impress the subconscious with the conviction you are a success. This is done by making an affirmation which "clicks.""
- Florence Scovel Shinn
(Related: Success, Failure, Affirmation, Conviction, Will)
"Indictments of any kind are serious. That being said, let's not forget that an indictment is not a conviction. We still have due process in this country."
- Rob Simmons
(Related: Being, Conviction, Country, Forget)
"Sometimes love is stronger than a man's convictions."
- Isaac Bashevis Singer
(Related: Love, Man)
"A man of conviction is often more to be desired than a man of experience."
- Curt Siodmak
(Related: Experience, Conviction, Man)
"Freedom. And Justice. If you have those two, it covers everything. You must stick to those principles and have the courage of your convictions."
- Ian Smith
(Related: Courage, Freedom, Justice, Principles)
"How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions!"
- Logan Pearsall Smith
"Now that I've got some films under my belt, I have the courage of my convictions regarding acting. It gives me a leg to stand on."
- Mira Sorvino
(Related: Courage, Acting, Now)
"The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting."
- Gertrude Stein
(Related: Conviction, Luck)
"It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming."
- John Steinbeck
(Related: Intelligence, Conviction, Fish, Man)
"This idea, as you know, that I have firm convictions that the idea of issues being a big deal where our mutual friend went back and he felt so strongly that the determining factor in electoral success should be a proven character."
- James Stockdale
(Related: Success, Idea, Friend, Character, Being)
"I have lived most of my life with the conviction that I don't dream, because I never could retrieve a dream."
- Theodore Sturgeon
(Related: Life, Dream, Conviction)
"A revival does two things. First, it returns the Church from her backsliding and second, it causes the conversion of men and women; and it always includes the conviction of sin on the part of the Church. What a spell the devil seems to cast over the Church today!"
- Billy Sunday
(Related: Men, Women, Church, Causes, Conviction, Devil, First, Sin)
"Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions."
- Thomas Szasz
(Related: Certainty, Doubt, Neurosis, Problems)
"The ideals of the party were close to me, and I have tried to adhere to those principles all my life. In essence, they are the same as in the Ten Commandments in the Bible. I will never change my convictions."
- Valentina Tereshkova
(Related: Change, Life, Bible, Ideals, Party, Principles, Will)
"Follow your honest convictions and be strong."
- William Makepeace Thackeray
"Don't be too harsh to these poems until they're typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction."
- Dylan Thomas
(Related: Conviction, Poems)
"The ruling classes today nourish the conviction that national hatreds and rivalries are inevitable."
- Charles E. Trevelyan
(Related: Conviction, Today)
"Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art."
- John Updike
(Related: Art, Change, People, Facts)
"There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states."
- Atal Bihari Vajpayee
(Related: Conviction)
"I invite you, from my sentiments, my convictions and my responsibilities, to work together in the construction of a Uruguay where being young is not suspicious, where aging is not a problem."
- Tabare Vazquez
(Related: Work, Being)
"Where do you find the strength to brave a barrage of enemy fire and to bring your wounded friends to safety at great risk to your own life? Conviction."
- Guy Verhofstadt
(Related: Life, Strength, Conviction, Enemy, Fire, Friends, Risk, Safety)
"Brothers in suffering, brothers in resistance, brothers in ideals and conviction. It is now our duty to further strengthen this bond in order to secure this hard-won freedom for future generations."
- Guy Verhofstadt
(Related: Brothers, Conviction, Duty, Freedom, Future, Generations, Ideals, Now, Order, Suffering)
"You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions."
- Denis Waitley
(Related: Conviction)
"Our firm conviction that ours is a just cause and that we must find a peaceful way to attain our goals gave us the strength and the awareness of the limits beyond which we must not go."
- Lech Walesa
(Related: Goals, Strength, Awareness, Cause, Conviction, Limits)
"This conviction brought me, in the summer of 1978, to the Free Trade Unions - formed by a group of courageous and dedicated people who came out in the defense of the workers' rights and dignity."
- Lech Walesa
(Related: People, Conviction, Defense, Dignity, Rights, Summer, Trade, Workers)
"We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions."
- Lech Walesa
(Related: People, Prison, Violence, Yield)
"I have a deep conviction that our lives are eternal, that it is waking and sleeping, that we are born together with the people we love lifetime after lifetime."
- Marcia Wallace
(Related: Love, People, Conviction, Deep, Waking)
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
- Daniel Webster
(Related: Conviction)
"It was the full conviction of this, and of what could be done, if every man were placed in the office for which he was fitted by nature and a proper education, which first suggested to me the plan of Illumination."
- Adam Weishaupt
(Related: Nature, Education, Conviction, First, Man, Office)
"I tried to instill a different motivation, to give them the security and the conviction that they were doing something good, something necessary, something useful - if you want to use a grandiose expression, that they were doing something for peace."
- Markus Wolf
(Related: Peace, Motivation, Conviction, Expression, Security, Want)
"The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence."
- Tom Wolfe
(Related: Life, Men, Belief, Being, Conviction, Existence, Fact, Loneliness, Now)
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
- William Butler Yeats
(Related: Conviction)
"The conviction of our Ukrainian nation is embedded in the pages of its history."
- Viktor Yushchenko
(Related: History, Conviction, Nation)
"And I like the way Cain writes his women. Very strong. They're kind of lusty, they know what they want, they're full of conviction. Cain's women are sexual."
- Pia Zadora
(Related: Women, Conviction, Want)