“We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

— John F. Kennedy

1961, Inaugural Address
Context: Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

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John F. Kennedy 469

35th president of the United States of America 1917–1963

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“When we say he has created this illusion, we lower him and his infinity. He is beyond all this.
Only when we find him in ourselves, and even in our day to day life, do all doubts vanish.”

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Context: Who says God has created this world? We have created it by our own imagination.
God is supreme, independent. When we say he has created this illusion, we lower him and his infinity. He is beyond all this.
Only when we find him in ourselves, and even in our day to day life, do all doubts vanish.

“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.”

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“We know as little of a supreme being as of Matter. But there is as little doubt of the existence of a supreme being as of Matter. The world beyond is reality, and experiential fact. We only don't understand it.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

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“And from the point of view of art there are no concrete or abstract forms, but only forms which are more or less convincing lies. That those lies are necessary to our mental selves is beyond any doubt, as it is through them that we form our aesthetic point of view of life.”

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“We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.”

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Context: Theologians often say that faith must come first, and that morality must be deduced from faith. We say that morality must come first, and faith, to those whose nature fits them to entertain it, will come out of the experience of a deepened moral life as its richest, choicest fruit.
Precisely because moral culture is the aim, we cannot be content merely to lift the mass of mankind above the grosser forms of evil. We must try to advance the cause of humanity by developing in ourselves, as well as in others, a higher type of manhood and womanhood than the past has known.
To aid in the evolution of a new conscience, to inject living streams of moral force into the dry veins of materialistic communities is our aim.
We seek to come into touch with the ultimate power in things, the ultimate peace in things, which yet, in any literal sense, we know well that we cannot know. We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.

“One unquestioned text we read,
All doubt beyond, all fear above;
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Can burn or blot it—God is love.”

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“Never underestimate the value of a falsehood, friends. Never doubt the power of a lie. Blessed are the mendacious, for they shall grow wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 2 (p. 42; spoken by the Devil)

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The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Eerdmans, 1989 (reprinted 2002),19.

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

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John F. Kennedy 469

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