-
True freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want, but the courage to stand up for what you believe in.
Author:
Angela Davis
-
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.
Author:
Pia Zadora
-
The conviction of our Ukrainian nation is embedded in the pages of its history.
Author:
Viktor Yushchenko
-
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
Author:
William Yeats
-
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.
Author:
Markus Wolf
-
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.
Author:
Adam Weishaupt
-
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
Author:
Daniel Webster
-
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.
Author:
Marcia Wallace
-
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.
Author:
Lech Walesa
-
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.
Author:
Lech Walesa
-
You must stick to your conviction, but be ready to abandon your assumptions.
Author:
Denis Waitley
-
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.
Author:
Guy Verhofstadt
-
There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.
Author:
Atal Vajpayee
-
The ruling classes today nourish the conviction that national hatreds and rivalries are inevitable.
Author:
Charles Trevelyan
-
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.
Author:
Dylan Thomas
-
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!
Author:
Billy Sunday
-
It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.
Author:
John Steinbeck
-
The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.
Author:
Gertrude Stein
-
A man of conviction is often more to be desired than a man of experience.
Author:
Curt Siodmak
-
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.
Author:
Rob Simmons
-
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."
Author:
Florence Shinn
-
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.
Author:
John Shimkus
-
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
Author:
George Shaw
-
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.
Author:
David Seabury
-
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.
Author:
Greta Scacchi
-
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.
Author:
Frederick Sanger
-
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.
Author:
Barry Sanders
-
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.
Author:
Bertrand Russell
-
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.
Author:
Charles Rosen
-
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.
Author:
Elliot Richardson
-
Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work.
Author:
Joshua Reynolds
-
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.
Author:
Jim Ramstad
-
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.
Author:
River Phoenix
-
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.
Author:
John Passos
-
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Author:
Blaise Pascal
-
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.
Author:
Orhan Pamuk
-
Conviction without experience makes for harshness.
Author:
Flannery O'Connor
-
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.
Author:
Dave Obey
-
A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
Author:
Ralph Nader
-
My opinion, my conviction, gains immensely in strength and sureness the minute a second mind as adopted it.
Author:
Malcolm Muggeridge
-
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.
Author:
John Moody
-
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.
Author:
Kelly Miller
-
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.
Author:
Peter Medawar
-
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.
Author:
Phyllis McGinley
-
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.
Author:
Mike McCready
-
When thugs by nature meet thugs by political conviction, 5-0 is not surprising.
Author:
John McCarthy
-
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.
Author:
George Mason
-
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.
Author:
Orison Marden
-
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.
Author:
Naguib Mahfouz
-
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.
Author:
James Lowell
-
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.
Author:
Franz Liszt
-
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
Author:
Walter Lippmann
-
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.
Author:
Maya Lin
-
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
Author:
Georg Lichtenberg
-
Do not confuse weak reservations with strong convictions.
Author:
Thomas Jefferson
-
I have never known so much naive conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty.
Author:
Claude Levi-Strauss
-
To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; that is not to be taken seriously in politics.
Author:
Vladimir Lenin
-
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.
Author:
Robert Lee
-
Liberals subscribe to the new flexible, pluralistic definition of the family; their defense of families carries no conviction.
Author:
Christopher Lasch
-
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.
Author:
Joseph Lancaster
-
Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal.
Author:
Jeane Kirkpatrick
-
My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.
Author:
Arthur Keith
-
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.
Author:
Rosabeth Kanter
-
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.
Author:
Herman Kahn
-
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Author:
Samuel Johnson
-
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.
Author:
Lyndon Johnson
-
Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.
Author:
Andrew Johnson
-
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.
Author:
William Jenkins
-
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.
Author:
Dee Hock
-
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.
Author:
Friedrich Hayek
-
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
Author:
Vaclav Havel
-
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.
Author:
Vaclav Havel
-
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.
Author:
Learned Hand
-
If you don't love what you do, you won't do it with much conviction or passion.
Author:
Mia Hamm
-
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.
Author:
Simon Greenleaf
-
If I practised sex, out of moral conviction, that was one thing; but to enjoy it... seemed a defeat.
Author:
Martha Gellhorn
-
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.
Author:
Carl Gauss
-
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.
Author:
Jim Garrison
-
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.
Author:
John Gardner
-
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.
Author:
John Gardner
-
A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
Author:
Mohandas Gandhi
-
Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.
Author:
Harry Fosdick
-
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.
Author:
Gustave Flaubert
-
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.
Author:
Millicent Fawcett
-
It's my firm conviction that when Uncle Sam calls, by God we go, and we do the best that we can.
Author:
R. Ermey
-
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.
Author:
Recep Erdogan
-
I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.
Author:
George Eliot
-
That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Author:
Albert Einstein
-
It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Author:
Albert Einstein
-
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.
Author:
Atom Egoyan
-
Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination.
Author:
Andrea Dworkin
-
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.
Author:
John Drinkwater
-
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.
Author:
John Doolittle
-
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.
Author:
Benjamin Disraeli
-
If this work seems so threatening, this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange, but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction.
Author:
Jacques Derrida
-
Our consciences are littered like an old attic with the junk of sheer conviction.
Author:
Wilford Cross
-
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.
Author:
Stafford Cripps
-
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.
Author:
Catherine Crier
-
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.
Author:
Jim Cramer
-
Through these adversities, Israel has endured with continued strength, conviction, and faith.
Author:
Jerry Costello
-
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.
Author:
Charles Cooley
-
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.
Author:
Roscoe Conkling
-
Constant repetition carries conviction.
Author:
Robert Collier
-
Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which one would think, might dispose us to modesty.
Author:
Jeremy Collier
-
It is absolutely my conviction, that Walter Salles will figure among the great directors of our time.
Author:
Arthur Cohn
-
An indictment is not a conviction.
Author:
Howard Coble
-
Mix a conviction with a man and something happens.
Author:
Powell Clayton
-
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.
Author:
Alex Chilton
-
If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.
Author:
Lord Chesterfield
-
Conviction is the conscience of the mind.
Author:
Nicolas Chamfort
-
Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.
Author:
Thomas Carlyle
-
Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.
Author:
Thomas Carlyle
-
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.
Author:
Michael Caine
-
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Author:
Samuel Butler
-
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.
Author:
Martin Buren
-
Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.
Author:
Jean Bruyere
-
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.
Author:
Earl Browder
-
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.
Author:
Louis Brandeis
-
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.
Author:
Barbara Boxer
-
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.
Author:
Ambrose Bierce
-
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.
Author:
Daniel Berrigan
-
Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.
Author:
Walter Benjamin
-
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.
Author:
Pope Benedict XVI
-
With the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice.
Author:
Pat Benatar
-
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.
Author:
William Barclay
-
To bathe a cat takes brute force, perseverance, courage of conviction - and a cat. The last ingredient is usually hardest to come by.
Author:
Stephen Baker
-
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.
Author:
Ibrahim Babangida
-
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.
Author:
Owen Arthur
-
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.
Author:
B. Ambedkar
-
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.
Author:
Christiane Amanpour
-
It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
Author:
Muhammad Ali
-
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.
Author:
Felix Adler
-
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.
Author:
Franklin Adams