Convictions Quotes

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
― Winston Churchill

“Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.”
― Nietzsche

“Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“The sharpest minds often ruin their lives by overthinking the next step, while the dull win the race with eyes closed.”
― Bethany Brookbank, Write like no one is reading

“I would rather have strong enemies than a world of passive individualists. In a world of passive individualists nothing seems worth anything simply because nobody stands for anything. That world has no convictions, no victories, no unions, no heroism, no absolutes, no heartbeat. That world has rigor mortis.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“You can't be neutral on a moving train.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly.”
― Emil Cioran

“Convictions are prisons.”
― Friedrich Nietzche, The Birth of Tragedy/Seventy-five Aphorisms/The Anti-Christ

“We need not be afraid of second-guessing our firm convictions or our holy truths because they often look like dazzling poppies or scented daffodils wilting after a while as if they had never existed. (“Measuring space”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon. But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the generality of mankind most hate—the necessity of revising their convictions. Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds. Let them as speedily perform a strategic right-about-face, and follow the truth wherever it leads.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley

“[I]f you seek in every way to minimise my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight.”
― Christine de Pizan, Le Débat Sur Le Roman De La Rose

“It is an odd thing, to lose faith in the beliefs you once held firmly. How strange it is to have carried your convictions like a set of keys, only to realize they will not open any doors.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“It is the philosophers, theologians, and evangelists who are said to be filled with pride and bigotry due to the strong convictions that they represent. On the contrary, teachings can be either taken or dismissed; whereas voting is the only thing the average person can do to force everyone to live how they would prefer. A simple vote is among the largest yet most acceptable forms of bigotry, and that is because people play the card only when they feel that in doing so it conveniences themselves.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“[S]ince you are angry at me without reason, you attack me harshly with, "Oh outrageous presumption! Oh excessively foolish pride! Oh opinion uttered too quickly and thoughtlessly by the mouth of a woman! A woman who condemns a man of high understanding and dedicated study, a man who, by great labour and mature deliberation, has made the very noble book of the Rose, which surpasses all others that were ever written in French. When you have read this book a hundred times, provided you have understood the greater part of it, you will discover that you could never have put your time and intellect to better use!"

My answer: Oh man deceived by willful opinion! I could assuredly answer but I prefer not to do it with insult, although, groundlessly, you yourself slander me with ugly accusations. Oh darkened understanding! Oh perverted knowledge ... A simple little housewife sustained by the doctrine of Holy Church could criticise your error!”
― Christine de Pizan, Le Débat Sur Le Roman De La Rose

“Knowledge & understanding mixed with ones convictions of 'experience' is hardly impositional".

~R. Alan Woods [2012]”
― R. Alan Woods, The Journey Is The Destination: A Photo Journal

“Do you have a truth of your own, Anton? Tell me, do you? Are you certain of it? Then believe it, not in my truth, not in Geser's. Believe in it and fight for it. If you have enough courage. If the idea doesn't make you shudder. What's bad about Dark freedom is not just that it's freedom from others. That's another explanation for little children. Dark freedom is first and foremost freedom from yourself, from your own conscience and your own soul. The moment you can't feel any pain in your chest—call for help. Only by then it'll be too late”
― Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch

“On the whole, scientific methods are at least as important results of investigation as any other results, for the scientific spirit is based upon a knowledge of method, and if the methods were lost, all the results of science could not prevent the renewed prevalence of superstition and absurdity. Clever people may learn as much as they like of the results of science, but one still notices in their conversation, and especially in the hypotheses they make, that they lack the scientific spirit; they have not the instinctive distrust of the devious courses of thinking which, in consequence of long training, has taken root in the soul of every scientific man. It is enough for them to find any kind of hypothesis on a subject, they are then all on fire for it, and imagine the matter is thereby settled. To have an opinion is with them equivalent to immediately becoming fanatical for it, and finally taking it to heart as a conviction. In the case of an unexplained matter they become heated for the first idea that comes into their head which has any resemblance to an explanation—a course from which the worst results constantly follow, especially in the field of politics. On that account everybody should nowadays have become thoroughly acquainted with at least one science, for then surely he knows what is meant by method, and how necessary is the extremest carefulness.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“Indeed, on close inspection one sees that by far the greater number of educated people still desire convictions from a thinker and nothing but convictions, and that only a small minority want certainty. The former want to be forcibly carried away in order thereby to obtain an increase of strength; the latter few have the real interest which disregards personal advantages and the increase of strength also. The former class, who greatly predominate, are always reckoned upon when the thinker comports himself and labels himself as a genius, and thus views himself as a higher being to whom authority belongs. In so far as genius of this kind upholds the ardour of convictions, and arouses distrust of the cautious and modest spirit of science, it is an enemy of truth, however much it may think itself the wooer thereof.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“There was a risk in theorizing. I had witnessed, close up, the fatal, comic effect upon professors and students of hypotheses which had become unconscious convictions. And thus warned, I had thrown overboard, as a reporter facing facts, many of my college-bred notions . . . It was hard to do; ideas harden like arteries; indeed, one theory of mine is that convictions are identical with hardened arteries. But the facts . . . forced me to drop my academic theories one by one; and my reward was the discovery that it was as pleasant to change one’s mind as it was to change one’s clothes. The practice led one to other, more fascinating—theories.”
― Lincoln Steffens

“Every opinion, every belief and even every firm conviction and certainty is a leap of faith. We just have to sort out the useful ones.”
― Giannis Delimitsos

“I can not learn Philosophy and I can not take a glimpse of Wisdom all alone and by myself. All together we philosophize, because this is the best way to do it; nay, this is the only way to do it. Of course, other thinkers cannot teach me what I already know, but they can help me unlearn what I thought I knew or see what I haven’t seen clearly yet. As a solitary thinker, I would be a mere listener of the echo of my convictions.”
― Giannis Delimitsos

“The one who says, "I search only for the truth, and nothing but the truth" is a candidate for the tyrant's throne. The one who says, "I have found the truth" is already sitting on it.”
― Giannis Delimitsos

“As leaders we need to remember that. Strong convictions precede great actions. When we know something is right-- and that conviction is bolstered by the knowledge that our motives are pure...-- we need to follow through. Others may second-guess our thinking and our decision-making. But when we know what's right, we can't let those things throw us off. We need to stand by our convictions.”
― John C. Maxwell, Wisdom from Women in the Bible: Giants of the Faith Speak into Our Lives

“Do I find comfort in what I believe, or do I find comfort that more people believe what I believe than those who do not? For while the former is based on convictions, the latter is based on comfort.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The strength of our convictions transcends the weight of past mistakes, the influence of our environment, and the limitations imposed by external factors. A resolute purpose holds the power to overcome, defy, and thrive, shining brightly even in the face of adversity.”
― Erick "The Black Sheep" G

“the others see and feel like me, but they do not dare. me, i dare. i have the courage of my convictions.”
― Paul Cézanne

“Allow yourself time to heal and transform into the ultimate you.”
― Asa Don Brown

“You have convictions that are bigger than your own family and your own circumstances. You have imagination; you are able to see the larger picture. Sometimes the price you have to pay is the anger of people who can’t understand why you are taking the stand you are.”
― Susan Correll Foy, The Rebel's Return

“Never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense”
― Jim Collins, [How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In] [By: Collins, Jim] [June, 2009]

“Success is more about having the right convictions. It is not just about having the right connections.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, The Kind of Substance You Need For Your Success