
„The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.“
— W.B. Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
— W.B. Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
— George W. Bush 43rd President of the United States 1946
2000s, 2002, Compassionate Conservatism (April 2002)
— William Makepeace Thackeray novelist 1811 - 1863
The Virginians (1857-1859), Ch. 4.
— Chester Bowles American politician 1901 - 1986
The Conscience of a Liberal, 1962, Page 256
— Rachel Corrie American anti-war and human rights activist 1979 - 2003
— Bob Dole American politician 1923
Reported in Tom Crisp, The Book of Bob: Choice Words, Memorable Men (2007), p. 113.
— Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays
1960s, Context: The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays (1961)
— Calvin Coolidge American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929) 1872 - 1933
1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925), Context: It can safely be assumed that self-interest will always place sufficient emphasis on the business side of newspapers, so that they do not need any outside encouragement for that part of their activities. Important, however, as this factor is, it is not the main element which appeals to the American people. It is only those who do not understand our people, who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction. No newspaper can be a success which fails to appeal to that element of our national life. It is in this direction that the public press can lend its strongest support to our Government. I could not truly criticize the vast importance of the counting room, but my ultimate faith I would place in the high idealism of the editorial room of the American newspaper.
— Joseph Goebbels Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897 - 1945
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926), Dieses Buch widme ich dem Andenken meines Freundes Richard Flisges, der am 19. Juli 1923 in einem Bergwerk bei Schliersee als tapferer Soldat der Arbeit in den schweren Tod ging.
— Camille Paglia American writer 1947
Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 204, on John Winkler’s claim that “Sappho’s consciousness is a larger circle enclosing the smaller one of Homer,” in Winkler’s Constraints of Desire.
— Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette French general and politician 1757 - 1834
Context: An irresistible passion that would induce me to believe in innate ideas, and the truth of prophecy, has decided my career. I have always loved liberty with the enthusiasm which actuates the religious man with the passion of a lover, and with the conviction of a geometrician. On leaving college, where nothing had displeased me more than a state of dependance, I viewed the greatness and the littleness of the court with contempt, the frivolities of society with pity, the minute pedantry of the army with disgust, and oppression of every sort with indignation. The attraction of the American revolution transported me suddenly to my place. I felt myself tranquil only when sailing between the continent whose powers I had braved, and that where, although our arrival and our ultimate success were problematical, I could, at the age of nineteen, take refuge in the alternative of conquering or perishing in the cause to which I had devoted myself.
Letter to the Bailli de Ploën, as quoted in Recollections of the Private Life of General Lafayette (1835) by Jules Germain Cloquet, Vol. I, p. 24
— John Gray 1948
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002), The Vices of Morality: Justice and Fashion (p. 102-3)
— Gore Vidal American writer 1925 - 2012
2000s, What I've Learned (2008)
— Ferdinand Marcos former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986 1917 - 1989
1965, Address at the launching of the Mabuhay Ang Pilipino Movement, Malacañang (30 November 1972)
— George W. Bush 43rd President of the United States 1946
2000s, 2003, Hope and Conscience Will Not Be Silenced (July 2003), Context: In the struggle of the centuries, America learned that freedom is not the possession of one race. We know with equal certainty that freedom is not the possession of one nation. This belief in the natural rights of man, this conviction that justice should reach wherever the sun passes, leads America into the world. With the power and resources given to us, the United States seeks to bring peace where there is conflict, hope where there's suffering, and liberty where there's tyranny. And these commitments bring me and other distinguished leaders of my government across the Atlantic to Africa.