Quotes about Conviction

We have become morally confused as a people, and possess neither the human sympathy nor the corporate will to put our inner convictions into practice.  We are split personalities.

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Either we have hope or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons ...Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more propitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. 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.

"Guts are a combination of confidence, courage, conviction,
strength of character, stick-to-itiveness, pugnaciousness,
backbone, and intestinal fortitude. They are mandatory for anyone
who wants to get to and stay at the top."

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.

If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised too, it will be a matter of our having dispensed with the dogma of faith.  If our tribalism is ever to give way to an extended moral identity, our religious beliefs can no longer be sheltered from the tides of genuine inquiry and genuine criticism.  It is time we realized that to presume knowledge where one has only pious hope is a species of evil.  Wherever conviction grows in inverse proportion to its justification, we have lost the very basis for human cooperation.  Where we have reason for what we believe, we have no need of faith; where we have no reasons, we have lost both our connection to the world and to one another.  People who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power.  The only thing we should respect in a person’s faith is his desire for a better life in this world;  we need never have respected his certainty that one awaits him in the next.

The self-righteousness and other ego-puffery that makes missionaries and evangelists out of Christians is in truth a measure of how far they are from even the one thing they think is most certainly true, i.e. the confidence that they are truly Christians.

Because of the very intimate character of philosophical norms and criticisms, a teacher in philosophy has to be like Alexander the Great:  never issuing dictates as to what his soldiers ought to do that he was not ready and willing to leap into doing himself.  An excellent teacher is one accomplished in serving as an exemplar, every act of every kind of thinking and every form of perspective must be something he is prepared to illustrate by carrying out himself.  Students need to see the incandescent arc-welding that joins ideas together into thoughts.  If one is saying something that inflicts suffering, one by all rights had better be prepared to suffer along with the student, to sympathize and assure them that the profit for this agony consists in freedom and clarity. 

Thanks to his complex convictions, made strong with the forces of animus and anima, the alchemist believes he is seizing the soul of the world, participating in the soul of the world. Thus, from the world to the man, alchemy is a problem of souls.

How could I recognize, even at the last possible moment, that there was something left to fight for and then walk away when my highest ideal is to fight for the people I love? Especially when I finally felt I could match conviction with courage, intent with action?

Hope is... not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen.

So long as I am acting from duty and conviction, I am indifferent to taunts and jeers. I think they will probably do me more good than harm.

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions.

Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University education used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. . . . These amusing mental acrobatics are all right to play with. They are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless. . . . I always rested on the following argument. . . We look up to the sky and see the sun. Our eyes are dazzled and our senses record the fact. So here is this great sun standing apparently on no better foundation than our physical senses. But happily there is a method, apart altogether from our physical senses, of testing the reality of the sun. It is by mathematics. By means of prolonged processes of mathematics, entirely separate from the senses, astronomers are able to calculate when an eclipse will occur. They predict by pure reason that a black spot will pass across the sun on a certain day. You go and look, and your sense of sight immediately tells you that their calculations are vindicated. So here you have the evidence of the senses reinforced by the entirely separate evidence of a vast independent process of mathematical reasoning. We have taken what is called in military map-making "a cross bearing." . . . When my metaphysical friends tell me that the data on which the astronomers made their calculations, were necessarily obtained originally through the evidence of the senses, I say, "no." They might, in theory at any rate, be obtained by automatic calculating-machines set in motion by the light falling upon them without admixture of the human senses at any stage. When it is persisted that we should have to be told about the calculations and use our ears for that purpose, I reply that the mathematical process has a reality and virtue in itself, and that once discovered it constitutes a new and independent factor. I am also at this point accustomed to reaffirm with emphasis my conviction that the sun is real, and also that it is hot - in fact hot as Hell, and that if the metaphysicians doubt it they should go there and see.

Soul Gathers Force It is possible, when the future is dim, when our depressed faculties can form no bright ideas of the perfection and happiness of a better world,-it is possible still to cling to the conviction of God's merciful purpose towards His creatures, of His parental goodness even in suffering, still to feel that the path of duty, though trodden with a heavy heart, leads to peace; still to be true to conscience; still to do our work, to resist temptation, to be useful, though with diminished energy, to give up our wills when we cannot rejoice under God's mysterious providence. In this patient, though uncheered obedience, we become prepared for light. The soul gathers force.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.

The greatest happiness of life it the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world . . . Either we have hope or we don't; it is a dimension of the soul, and it's not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons ... Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather and ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more propitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. 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.

True love is the outward demonstration of inward conviction.

The supreme happiness to life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves.

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

There's a difference between opinion and conviction. My opinion is something that is true for me personally; my conviction is something that is true for everybody - in my opinion.