“It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.”
Vol. I, p. 53
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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Sydney Smith68
English writer and clergyman 1771–1845Related quotes
“A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.”
Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer
Gerrard Winstanley (1609–1676) English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist
The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649)
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Letter to the president of Congress, Heights of Harlem (24 September 1776)
1770s
Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official
Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the right of self determination http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx. <br class="br">2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly
José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses
Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)
Context: It is not a question of the mass-man being a fool. On the contrary, to-day he is more clever, has more capacity of understanding than his fellow of any previous period. But that capacity is of no use to him; in reality, the vague feeling that he possesses it seems only to shut him up more within himself and keep him from using it. Once for all, he accepts the stock of commonplaces, prejudices, fag-ends of ideas or simply empty words which chance has piled up within his mind, and with a boldness only explicable by his ingenuousness, is prepared to impose them everywhere.… Why should he listen if he has within him all that is necessary? There is no reason now for listening, but rather for judging, pronouncing, deciding. There is no question concerning public life, in which he does not intervene, blind and deaf as he is, imposing his "opinions."
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge
343 U.S. 324-325
Judicial opinions, Zorach v. Clauson (1952)
George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention
Letter to the Committee of Merchants in London (6 June 1766) http://www.virginia1774.org/GMMerchants.html
“Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
Source: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956