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The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.
Mark TwainYou looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question.
Toni MorrisonI refuse to turn to theology to justify the life or redeem it. There is a question always of the connection to the eternal. I say to myself above all, keep alive your conviction that there are sacred elements in the life in the practice of the life that must be respected. But the conviction in the existence of the sacred does not necessarily imply that you need to believe in a creator, because we are the ones that made the sacred.
Stanley KunitzDoubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite โ it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. Weโve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. Thatโs the silence under the chatter of our time.
John Patrick ShanleyOur 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 WalesaThere is no form of conviction more intimate and irresistible than that which arises from the inward teaching of the Spirit.
Charles HodgeFrom my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom. This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise.
Frederick DouglassThe best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
William Butler YeatsIt is my conviction that the public always shows itself more honest in its spontaneity than do those who officially set themselves up as judges of works of art.
Igor StravinskyAt birth we begin to discover that shapes, sounds, lights, and textures have meaning. Long before we learn to talk, sounds and images form the world we live in. All our lives, that world is more immediate than words and difficult to articulate. Photography, reflecting those images with uncanny accuracy, evokes their associations and our instant conviction. The art of the photographer lies in using those connotations, as a poet uses the connotations of words and a musician the tonal connotations of sounds.
Nancy NewhallIt is my conviction that basic Reality is not all that perplexing. What seems difficult to assimilate are the manifold details of Reality, not its fundamental elements.
Richard MathesonI believe it is the conviction of the purest men, that the net amount of man and man does not much vary. Each is incomparably superior to his companion in some faculty. His want of skill in other directions, has added to his fitness for his own work.
Ralph Waldo EmersonIn spite of my conviction that a group of deliberately assembled relatives can be one of the dullest, if not most dangerous, gatherings in the world, I am smugly foolhardly enough to have invited all my available family, more than once, to dine with me.
M. F. K. FisherTo discover depravity in those whom we have loved, is one of the most exquisite tortures to a virtuous mind, and the conviction is often rejected before it is finally admitted.
Ann RadcliffeYou 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 LinMan's chief delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness.
Neville GoddardSophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage.
Hector Hugh MunroWe can walk through the darkest night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for the good.
Martin Luther King, Jr.I do not say that all lawyers are bad, but I do maintain that the general tendency is bad: standing up in a court for whichever side has paid you, affecting warmth and conviction, and doing everything you can to win the case, whatever your private opinion may be, will soon dull any fine sense of honour. The mercenary soldier is not a valued creature, but at least he risks his life, whereas these men merely risk their next fee.
Patrick O'BrianAlready a couple of the faithful have sent in checks for a foundation memorial to the innocents who perished at the hands of the ninja at Waco. ... I have been criticized by referring to our federal masked men as "ninja" ... Let us reflect upon the fact that a man who covers his face shows reason to be ashamed of what he is doing. A man who takes it upon himself to shed blood while concealing his identity is a revolting perversion of the warrior ethic. It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view.
Jeff CooperThe world has always needed human beings who refuse to believe that history is nothing but a dull, monstrous selfrepetition, a selfperpetuating, meaningless game, only varied in outer garb, who cannot be converted from their conviction that history signifies progress in morality, that our race is ascending on an invisible ladder from an animal nature towards divinity, from brutal violence to the wisely ordering intellect, and that the ultimate stage of complete understanding is already close at hand, indeed has almost been attained.
Stefan ZweigVan Gogh is the best example of how a person can be on the right track, propelled by gut feeling and some kind of strange obsessive stubborn conviction, that no one seems to understand.
Jim RoweLove without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God's saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God's mercy and grace.
Timothy KellerThe German mind, may it live! Almost invisible as a mind, it finally manifests itself assertively as a conviction.
Franz GrillparzerA religion which has lost its basic conviction about the interconnection of men with men in their common struggles for the human, will never command belief in the realm of the superhuman.
Max LernerA leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
Ralph NaderCome home to the affirmation that we have a dream. Come home to the conviction that we can move our country forward. Come home to the belief that we can seek a newer world. And let us be joyful in the homecoming.
George McGovernClearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.
Jean Francois RevelBeneath everything else, North and West, there ran a profound, unvoiced, almost subconscious conviction that the [American] nation was going to go on growing-in size, in power, in everything a man could think of-and in that belief there was a might and a fury that would take form instantly at the moment of shock.
Bruce CattonA king is a man strong of character and conviction who leads by example and truly cares for the suffering of his people,not a brute who rules simply because he is the strongest.
R. A. SalvatoreOn television and in the movies, crimes are always solved. Nothing is left uncertain. By the end, the viewer knows whodunit. In real life, on the other hand, many murders remain unsolved, and even some that are "solved" to the satisfaction of the police and prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to result in a conviction.
Alan DershowitzI must honestly declare my conviction that, since the days of the Reformation, there never has been so much profession of religion without practice, so much talking about God without walking with Him, so much hearing God's words without doing them.
J. C. RyleI wrote almost all of it in the deepest hope and conviction. Sifting my thoughts and choosing my words. Trying to say what was true. And I'll tell you frankly, that was wonderful.
Marilynne RobinsonI have a conviction that it's only when you are put at full stretch that you can realise your full potential.
Edward DunlopThe Greek word for idiot, literally translated, means one who does not participate in politics. That sums up my conviction on the subject.
Gladys PyleI'm no use to anybody,' I say. 'I'm a cรฉrรฉbrale, can't you see that?' Thinking how funny a book would be, called 'Just a Cรฉrรฉbrale or You Can't Stop Me From Dreaming'. Only, of course, to be accepted as authentic, to carry any conviction, it would have to be written by a man. What a pity, what a pity!
Jean RhysIt is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.
Harry FrankfurtHis universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.
Victor HugoWithin forty years of their arrival in the Plymouth colony, the first white settlers were afraid their children had lost the dedication and religious conviction of the founding generation. Ever since, Americans have looked to the next generation not only with love and solicitude but with a good measure of anxiety, worrying whether they themselves were good parents, fearful that their children would not turn out well.
Kenneth KenistonI 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 ScacchiI implore you, I entreat you and I challenge you to speak with conviction. To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks the determination with which you believe it. Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker, it is not enough these days to simply question authorityโyou've got to speak with it too.
Taylor MaliFaith is not a blind, irrational conviction. In order to believe, we must know what we believe, and the grounds on which our faith rests.
Charles HodgePowerful, yes, that is the word that I constantly rolled on my tongue, I dreamed of absolute power, the kind that forces others tokneel, that forces the enemy to capitulate, finally converting him, and the more the enemy is blind, cruel, sure of himself, buried in his conviction, the more his admission proclaims the royalty of he who has brought on his defeat.
Albert CamusFrom religion ... they will learn the only true lesson of equality - the conviction that our destinies are not in our own hands; they will see that no situation in life is without its share of suffering; - and this perpetual reference to a higher power ought equally to teach the rich humility, and the poor devotion.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon