Quotes about sincerity
page 5

“This may be the most bizarre recommendation, but I am sincere. I'm not saying it's not an issue or it's not important, but proportionally speaking, stop complaining about health care…if there was something that we could do about it that were quick or easy, it would be done…There is no solution.”

John E. Sununu (1964) American politician

Sununu: No quick fix for health costs http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061203/REPOSITORY/612030359, Concord Monitor (December 3, 2006)

Health

“A true seeker could not accept any teachings, not if he sincerely wished to find something. But he who had found, could give his approval to every path, every goal; nothing separated him from all of the other thousands who lived in eternity, who breathed the Divine.”

Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer

Source: Siddhartha (1922), p. 80

“It was the human spirit itself that failed at Paris. It is no use passing judgments and making scapegoats of this or that individual statesman or group of statesmen. Idealists make a great mistake in not facing the real facts sincerely and resolutely. They believe in the power of the spirit, in the goodness which is at the heart of things, in the triumph which is in store for the great moral ideals of the race. But this faith only too often leads to an optimism which is sadly and fatally at variance with actual results. It is the realist and not the idealist who is generally justified by events. We forget that the human spirit, the spirit of goodness and truth in the world, is still only an infant crying in the night, and that the struggle with darkness is as yet mostly an unequal struggle…. Paris proved this terrible truth once more. It was not Wilson who failed there, but humanity itself. It was not the statesmen that failed, so much as the spirit of the peoples behind them.”

Jan Smuts (1870–1950) military leader, politician and statesman from South Africa

Smuts in a letter dated 8 January 1921, published in the New York Evening Post, 2 March 1921

People, Truth, World, Faith

“No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion. If we seek to force, we but tear apart that which united, is invincible. There is no way whereby our labor movement may be assured sustained progress in determining its policies and its plans other than sincere democratic deliberation until a unanimous decision is reached. This may seem a cumbrous, slow method to the impatient, but the impatient are more concerned for immediate triumph than for the education of constructive development.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States: The T.U.E.L. to the End of the Gompers Era. New york: International Publishers Co, 1991, p. 361-362.

Education, Way, Decision, Tear

“Sincerity is the most overrated virtue in the catalogue.”

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Star of the Sea (p. 637)
Time Patrol

“Some sensual unthinking persons affirm, that a long life is no great blessing, and that the state of a man, who has passed his seventy-fifth year, cannot really be called life; but this is wrong, as I shall fully prove; and it is my sincere wish, that all men would endeavour to attain my age [of eighty-three], that they might enjoy that period of life, which, of all others is most desirable.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

Life, Men, Age, Personality

“I Gladly avail myself of the opportunity of inscribing to you, for a second time, a work of mine on Algebra, as a sincere tribute of my respect, affection and gratitude.
I trust that I shall not be considered as derogating from the higher duties which, (in common with you), I owe to my station in the Church, if I continue to devote some portion of the leisure at my command, to the completion of an extensive Treatise, embracing the more important departments of Analysis, the execution of which I have long contemplated, and which, in its first volume I now offer to the public, under the auspices of one of my best and dearest friends.”

George Peacock (1791–1858) Scottish mathematician

Vol. I: Arithmetical Algebra To the Rev. James Tate, M.A. Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's p. i
A Treatise on Algebra (1842)

Time, Gratitude

“And a writer observed, "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity," and I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Quoting Westbrook Pegler
2008, 2008 Republican National Convention

People

“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. That which you have taken, and so solemnly repeated on that venerable ground, is an ample pledge of your sincerity and devotion to your country and its government.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull http://books.google.com/books?id=E2kFAAAAQAAJ&dq=editions%3AVsZcW99fWPgC&pg=PA265#v=onepage&q&f=false (New York, 1848), pp 265-6. There are some differences in the version that appeared in The Works of John Adams (Boston, 1854), vol. 9, pp. 228-9 http://books.google.com/books?id=PZYKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA228#v=onepage&q&f=false, most notably the words "or gallantry" instead of "and licentiousness". 1790s

People, World, Religion, Justice

“I wish as sincerely as any man, that learned men may have all the encouragements, and all the advantages that are consistent with the general right and good of mankind.”

Joseph Yates (judge) (1722–1770) English barrister and judge

4 Burr. Part IV., 2394.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)

Men, Learning

“He was very pure in mind and heart. He was a lover: a lover not only of his race but a lover of all mankind. His heart was so broad, so great, so magnanimous, and this gave him a most sincere feeling of absolute oneness with everyone. This is what made him so divinely great.”

Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) Indian writer and guru

On Martin Luther King, Jr.
America The Beautiful (2010)

Feeling, Lovers, Heart

“It is said,—and men seem to think that condemnation can go no further than such a censure—that they brought us within twenty-four hours of revolution…But is it in truth so great an evil, when the dearest interests and the most sincere convictions are at stake, to go within twenty-four hours of revolution?”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

On resistance to the Reform Act 1832. Quarterly Review, 123, 1867, p. 557
1860s

Men, Truth, Thinking, Evil

“A weary and exhausted understanding of religion is not acceptable. A Muslim should speak lively, fluently and sincerely. A Muslim would not feel the need for a heavy peroration.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

24 June 2013.
A9 TV addresses, 2013

Religion, Feeling, Understanding

“An artist will betray himself by some sort of sincerity.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

The Dagger with Wings (1926)

“In late 1989, the profound transformation that took place in this country brought me here to Prague Castle. It all happened so suddenly that I did not even have time to properly consider whether or not I was up to the task, and I was sincerely of the opinion that I would just take it on for a few months until the first free elections.
Clearly, things turned out quite differently: I have now been here for more than thirteen years, if we discount the short break in the latter half of 1992.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Farewell Address (2003)

Time, Country

“The ownership of MRT 3 must be settled immediately as the contract, I think, has been ANOMALOUS and GROSSLY DISADVANTAGEOUS to the government from the beginning. The government must already now have the rightful control of the MRT 3 operations. Unless we resolve this issue, we prolong the agony of the public waiting for an EFFECTIVE and EFFICIENT mass transport system. The Department of Transportation and Communication, by any possible means, should immediately act on this if it is really sincere in easing the daily plight of the riding public.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, February 18). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152256768810610/ 2014, Facebook

Communication, Thinking, Waiting

“I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is termed Collectivism.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to F. W. Hirst on being unable to write a preface to Essays in Liberalism by "Six Oxford Men" (2 January 1897), as quoted In the Golden Days (1947) by F. W. Hirst, p. 158
1890s

Effort, Freedom

“I daresay anything can be made holy by being sincerely worshipped.”

Iris Murdoch book The Message to the Planet

The Message to the Planet (1989) p. 322.

““Pascal’s Wager never appealed to me. It seems logically… shallow.”
“Perhaps because it posits only two choices,” said Aenea. Somewhere in the desert night, an owl made a short, sharp sound. “Spiritual resurrection and immortality or death and damnation,” she said.
“Those last two aren’t the same thing,” I said.
“No, but perhaps to someone like Blaise Pascal they were. Someone terrified of ‘the eternal silence of these infinite spaces.’”
“A spiritual agoraphobic,” I said.
Aenea laughed. The sound was so sincere and spontaneous that I could not help loving it. Her.
“Religion seems to have always offered that false duality,” she said, setting her cup of tea on a flat stone. “The silences of infinite space or the cozy comfort of inner certainty.””

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 10 (p. 166)

Love, Death, Religion, Silence

“If the rulers sincerely desire the empire to be wealthy and dislike to have it poor, desire to have it orderly and dislike to have it chaotic, they should bring about universal love and mutual aid. This is the way of the sage-kings and the way to order for the world, and it should not be neglected.”

Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period

Book 4; Universal Love II
Mozi

Love, World, Way, Universe

“Sometimes he had indulged in daydreams about finding someone. More often, though, he had tried to adjust to what he sincerely believed was the inevitable — that he was actually the only one left in the world. At least in as much of the world as he could ever hope to know.”

Richard Matheson book I Am Legend

Source: I Am Legend (1954), Ch. 13

World, Hope

“The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble. Let us keep our end in view, let us press forward to our goal. Let us not indulge in pride, nor give in to our sinful passions. Let us steadily exert ourselves to reach a higher degree of holiness till we shall finally arrive at a perfection of goodness which we seek and pursue as long as we live, but which we shall attain then only, when, freed from all earthly infirmity, we shall be admitted by God into his full communion.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 23.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God, Passion, Perfection

“If you feel sincerely sorry on account of your sins, and believe that Christ is able and willing to forgive you, the work is done. You may trust with all the confidence of a child who confesses his fault, and casts himself into his father's arms. This is faith; a simple trust in the power and willingness of the Father to forgive, for the sake of what Christ the Son has done.”

Samuel I. Prime (1812–1885) American clergyman, traveler, and writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 232.

Faith, Feeling, Confidence, Forgiveness

“The Diary of Vaslav Nijinjsky reaches a limit of sincerity beyond any of the documents that we have referred to on this study. There are other modern works that express the same sense that civilized life is a form of living death; notably the poetry of T. S. Eliot and the novels of Franz Kafka; but there is an element of prophetic denunciation in both, the attitude of healthy men rebuking their sick neighbors. We possess no other record of the Outsider's problems that was written by a man about to be defeated and permanently smashed by those problems.”

Colin Wilson book The Outsider

Source: The Outsider (1956), p. 115

Life, Death, Men, Problem

“Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

"Nationality" (1862)

Idea, Support, Time, Country

“Her respectful tone sounded almost sincere.”

Ann Leckie book Ancillary Justice

Source: Ancillary Justice (2013), Chapter 8 (p. 117)

“To practice Sincerity is to burden everyone else with believing you.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#170
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“Communism, they will admit, is Socialism gone hog-wild, but they do not seem capable of recognizing this as an inevitable consequence. Their hatred of Communism does not make them individualists. This is not to question the sincerity of those who have hit the sawdust trail. Far from it. The individualist, who accepts as basic the right of every man to make a fool of himself—provided he does not infringe the equal rights of others—is quick to accept the repentance at face value. But, repentance is not conversion; there is reason to believe that conversion is impossible.”

Frank Chodorov (1887–1966) American libertarian thinker

Source: One is A Crowd: Reflections of An Individualist (1952), pp. 3-4

Fools, Communication, Question

“The convictions of the multitudes — and on certain points like the desirability of organizing the world on a nationalist basis there is overwhelming agreement — are sincere convictions. They are, as we know, sometimes disastrously erroneous; but they are also disastrously honest. The Nationalisms, the Protectionisms, the Mercantilisms and all the other fallacies which rack Europe and create the chaos are sincerely held fallacies. They are, to these multitudes, the truth, and the prophet who denies them shall be stoned.”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Truth, World

“Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Spinoza, Correspondence, 146, Letter xix

Love, Men, Friendship, People

“Truly it is a sad thing for a people, as for a man, to fall into Scepticism, into dilettantism, insincerity; not to know Sincerity when they see it. For this world, and for all worlds, what curse is so fatal?”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

People, World, Sadness

“Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them…”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

Provisions of the Last Will and Testament of Dr. James Rush http://books.google.com/books?id=lSowTqXCyyUC&pg=PA13&dq=%22dreaded+by+the+advocates+of+error%22&hl=en&ei=NCJGTP-fBJ-QnwfB8K2uBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=13&ved=0CGQQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22dreaded%20by%20the%20advocates%20of%20error%22&f=false

Truth, Fear, Error, Intelligence

“Rousseau diagnosed a total degeneration, a complete fall of humanity from “Nature” in the society of the eighteenth century. All spontaneity had been denaturalized through convention, all naïveté had been replaced by finesse, all sincerity had been glossed over by facades of social intercourse, etc.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 53

Nature

“The key is to practice praying - and to practice praying regularly, privately, sincerely and specifically.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

“The religious instruction I received of the Lutheran pastor Bode, preparatory to my confirmation, produced no effect upon my mind in favour of the truth of our divine religion, having studied all the works written against it with so much energy. I often insinuated to pastor Bode my doubts on religious matters, but either he did not or would not understand me; I was wavering between deism and atheism, so much so, that had it not been for the love towards my revered father, and the persuasions of Ferry, I should have avoided being present at the imposing and sacred ceremony of confirmation, which produced such an effect upon my young mind, that I prayed sincerely to God to give me faith, and had I not continued to read with Ferry and one Belzing so many blasphemous works, I should have returned to my former religious principles much sooner, as I did at a later period of my life.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Love, Life, God, Truth

“While mere process of thinking is the process of habits, ideals, definitions, investigations, classifications, valuations and behavior, due process of thinking, which is due process of law, is the process of correct habits, right ideals, true definitions, sincere investigation, reasonable classification, reasonable value, and justice; whereas its opposite, undue process, is perverse habit, wrong ideals, double meanings, partial investigation, class legislation, confiscation and injustice.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 351-352

Justice, Law, Behavior, Thinking

“I have devoted most of my time during the last six months to the study of Muslim History and Muslim Law and I am inclined to think that Hindu-Muslim unity is neither possible not practicable… I do honestly and sincerely believe in the necessity and desirability of Hindi-Muslim unity. I am also fully prepared to trust the Muslim leaders, but what about the injunctions of the Koran and Hadis. The leaders cannot override them.”

Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–1928) Indian author and politician

Lala Lajpat Rai: Quoted in B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan, Vol. 8 Writings and Speeches, also in K. Elst Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, Rupa 2001, and also quoted by A. Ghosh in "Making of the Muslim psyche" in Devendra Swarup, Politics of conversion, New Delhi, 1988, p148. http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_030114.htm http://eminentpeopleonislam.blogspot.com/2013/08/lala-lajpat-rai-1865-1928.html

Law, History, Thinking, Study

“Both anti-Semitism and the Ku Klux Klan are an insult to democracy and a contradiction of it. But faith honest, sincere, hopeful, opens a door to moving forward in this new and very difficult world in which our children must live. It opens the door into that world in a spirit inspired by something more than the merely human, the gain-seeking and the temporary. It brings us, our children and our grandchildren, in touch with the eternal verities which are the only possible foundation for a civilization and a life that are worthy of human ambition and human endeavor.”

Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator

Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)

Life, Children, World, Faith

“Early rising, honesty, and work. There is a great difference in merit between being awakened and waking up someone else. Working in the shadows and praising others is honesty. If you do not put into practice what you hear, you will become a lie. Work on top of work, saying to yourself, ‘Just a little more, just a little bit more’; this is not greed, it is work that comes from true sincerity.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

Anecdotes of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, from Anecdote 111, "Being Awakened in the Morning," p. 94.
Anecdotes of Oyasama

Lie

“In some minds the defence of the human spirit was sincerely identified with the defence of a particular nation, conceived as the home of all enlightenment.”

Olaf Stapledon book Last and First Men

Source: Last and First Men (1930), Chapter I: Balkan Europe; Section 3, “Europe After the Anglo-French War” (p. 26)

Home

“I sincerely believe that I was the rightful 2001 Overall Ms. Olympia. I’m not saying Juliette didn’t display a nice overall package; I’m just saying I believe my physique was better.”

Iris Kyle (1974) American bodybuilder

2008-04-08
Iris Kyle, Ms. Olympia
IFBBPRO.com
Internet
http://www.ifbbpro.com/features/iris-kyle-ms-olympia/
Sourced quotes, 2008

“At the dawn of a worldwide religious war that Americans prefer to name a war against terror, I feel myself drawn to Islam, drawn to read the Koran, even to kiss the Koran—melodramatically, but sincerely—as I did one evening recently in front of a university audience. I meant to honor Islam. I meant to convey that, as a Christian, I consider myself a loving brother to the Muslim, as I am to the Jew, by the favor of Father Abraham.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Love, War, Feeling, Kiss

“I hate the place like poison with a sincere hatred.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Responding to a suggestion that he return to Hollywood to work on a script of Tender is the Night in a letter to his agent (10 January 1935)
Quoted, Letters

Hate

“We do not wish to become subordinate to any power. We will be friends with the powers of the world. We will be sincere friends to the powers that are sincere in their intentions and their friendship to us.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

Speech delivered at the officers' club (June 16, 1959).
Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)

Friendship, World

“Your greatest ministry innovation could come from your greatest limitation - if you have a sincere passion to reach and care for people.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

People, Passion

“One ground for suspicion of apparently sincere moral convictions is their link with some special interest of those who hold them. The questions cui bono and cui malo are appropriate questions to raise when we are searching for possible contaminants of conscience. Entrenched privilege, and fear of losing it, distorts one's moral sense.”

Annette Baier (1929–2012) New Zealand philosopher

Source: Knowing Our Place in the Animal World, p. 63

Fear, Search, Question, Sense

“They have been taught that if you are sunny, cheery, sincere, group-adjusted, popular, the world is yours, including barbecue pits, charge plates, diaper service, percale sheets, friends for dinner, washer-dryer combinations, color slides of the kiddies on the home projector, and eternal whimsical romance — with crinkly smiles and Rock Hudson dialogue. So they all come smiling and confident and unskilled into a technician’s world, and in a few years they learn that it is all going to be grinding and brutal and hateful and precarious. These are the slums of the heart.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Travis McGee series, (1964)

Hate, World, Smile, Color

“That soul is on the certain path toward light which, sincerely desiring the light, constantly submits to the claims of the light as they are made known. That soul cannot stay in darkness, any more than a flower opening its petals broadly to the sun can stay in shadow.”

Wayland Hoyt (1838–1910) American Baptist Minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 389.

Soul, Flowers, Light, Sun

“It is the right time for him to retire, the best time that Kumble would have looked for. He has done a great job for India and is leaving on a high. He has made his debut under me in the state. He has been a dedicated, sincere, honest, disciplined and good thinking and a great champion cricketer and on the basis on these I can say that I have literally seen him grow and establish himself as a icon and a legendary cricketer both on the field and off it.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

By Syed Kirmani.
Kumble Calls it a Day: Quotes... For and By Kumble...

Thinking, Time

“Paul was undeniably sincere. He believed that in reinterpreting the Christian faith so as to make it acceptable to the Romans he was doing that faith a service. His make-up was imperial rather than democratic. Both by birth and training he was unfitted to enter into the working-class consciousness of Galileans. He was in culture a Hellenist, in religion a Pharisee, in citizenship a Roman. From the first strain, Hellenism, he received a bias in the direction of philosophy rather than economics; from the second, his Pharisaism, he received a bias toward aloofness, otherworldliness; and from the third, his Romanism, he received a bias toward political acquiescence and the preservation of the status quo.”

Bouck White (1874–1951) American author and novelist

Source: The Call of the Carpenter (1914), p. 227

Faith, Religion, Birth, Training

“My dear Theo, Sincere wishes for your good health and serenity on your birthday. I would like to have sent you the painting of the potato eaters for this day, but although it's coming along well, it's not quite finished yet. Although I'll have painted the actual painting in a relatively short time, and largely from memory, it's taken a whole winter of painting studies of heads and hands. And as for the few days in which I've painted it now - it's consequently been a formidable fight, but one for which I have great enthusiasm. Although at times I feared that it wouldn't come off. But painting is also 'act and create.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 30 April 1885, letter 497 - vangoghletters online http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let497/letter.html Vincent refers to his famous painting 'Potato Eaters' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_The_potato_eaters_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg 1880s, 1885

Health, Fear, Birthday, Study

“Sincerity is the key which will open the door through which you will see your separate parts, and you will see something quite new. You must go on trying to be sincere. Each day you put on a mask, and you must take it off little by little.”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

All and Everything: Views from the Real World (1973)

Parting

“Shykh Nuruddin Mubarak Ghaznavi was the most important disciple of Shykh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi, founder of the second most important sufi silsila after the Chishtiyya, who died in Baghdad in 1235 AD. Ghaznavi had come and settled down in India where he passed away in 1234-35 AD. He served as Shykh-ul-Islam in the reign of Shamsuddin Iltutmish (AD 1210-1236), and propounded the doctrine of Din Panahi. Barani quotes the first principle of this doctrine as follows in his Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi. “The kings should protect the religion of Islam with sincere faith… And kings will not be able to perform the duty of protecting the Faith unless, for the sake of God and the Prophet’s creed, they overthrow and uproot kufr and kafiri (infidelity), shirk (setting partners to God) and the worship of idols. But if the total uprooting of idolatry is not possible owing to the firm roots of kufr and the large number of kafirs and mushriks (infidels and idolaters), the kings should at least strive to insult, disgrace, dishonour and defame the mushrik and idol-worshipping Hindus, who are the worst enemies of God and the Prophet. The symptom of the kings being the protectors of religion is this:- When they see a Hindu, their eyes grow red and they wish to bury him alive; they also desire to completely uproot the Brahmans, who are the leaders of kufr and shirk and owning to whom kufr and shirk are spread and the commandments of kufr are enforced… Owing to the fear and terror of the kings of Islam, not a single enemy of God and the Prophet can drink water that is sweet or stretch his legs on his bed and go to sleep in peace.””

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

God, Fear, Peace, Faith

“The building of the Jindeng Bridge will not only help hone Taiwan's bridge building technologies, it will also help boost development in Kinmen itself. The Jindeng Bridge will facilitate the building of water pipes and electricity transmission cables between Kinmen and Xiamen, allowing Kinmen to import fresh water and electricity from (Mainland) China. A move that would also manifest Taiwan's sincerity in pursuing peace and co-prosperity with (Mainland) China.”

Lee Chu-feng (1953) Taiwanese politician

Lee Chu-feng (2009) cited in " Bridge to Xiamen popular with Kinmen residents http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/02/08/2003435563" on Taipei Times, 8 February 2009

Peace, Water, Help

“We feel much sorrow for you, the elm tree had said. But what kind of sorrow—a real and sincere sorrow, or the superficial and pedantic sorrow of the immortal for a frail and flickering creature that was about to die?”

Clifford D. Simak book All Flesh is Grass

Source: All Flesh is Grass (1965), Chapter 24 (p. 247)

Feeling, Tree

“Just as in climbing a mountain we leave behind the earth where we stand, to reach the heart of God we have to leave behind unfavorable earthly attachments. Sincere spiritual practice is an uphill climb, and no matter how many difficulties we face, we have to continue looking upward with hope. The mountain provides all support for those who strive to reach its top. Similarly, if we are sincere, the Lord will provide us with the means to reach his supremely merciful heart.”

Radhanath Swami (1950) Gaudiya Vaishnava guru

?
The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Tulsi Books, 2010)

God, Hope, Mountain, Support

“The primordial Buddhas are saying,
: "Not doing wrong action,
Sincerely doing every kind of good,
naturally clarifies this mind.
This is the Teaching of all the Buddhas."
This is the universal precept of the Seven Buddhas, our Founding Ancestors, and is truly transmitted by earlier Buddhas to later Buddhas and is received by later Buddhas from earlier Buddhas. It is not only the Teaching of the Seven Buddhas but of all the Buddhas. This principle must be investigated and mastered through practice.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

"Shoaku makusa : Not Doing Wrong Action" http://wwzc.org/dharma-text/shoaku-makusa-not-doing-wrong-action as translated by Anzan Hoshin roshi and Yasuda Joshu Dainen roshi (2007)

Nature, Universe

“You know who doesn't like that bit? Cops. They don't like it. They don't like it. And I think its important -- I'm being sincere. I think its important that we acknowledge, all of us, that there are plenty of good, decent, ethical, very brave cops, who put their lives on the line every day, and they don't appreciate being painted with this broad brush as being violent predators just because of the actions of a minority of their brothers. They don't like being stereotyped so that when you see blue, you just think "Oh, violent thug."”

David Cross (1964) American comedian, writer and actor

They don't appreciate it.
Making America Great Again

Thinking, Painting

“Our national history has presented various phases of this problem. Slavery showed one; the complexities of interstate commerce have kept others constantly in mind. On the day the Constitution was finished, probably more people would have seen seeds of conflict and dangers to the Union in future commercial relations than in slavery. But commerce became a source of strength, while slavery be- came a cause of division. It brought the Union into danger; and in the end was destroyed itself. Where there was sincere acceptance of the dual sovereignty theory, where the States sought to do their full part, and accepted the de- terminations of the National Government as to the rest, the plan worked. Where the States sought more from the Federal authority than it could give, and resisted national demands — then came dissension and, at length, war.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

War, People, History, Problem

“An’ I don’t want much outa life,
I never wanted a mansion in the south.
I just-a want to find someone sincere
Who’d treat me like he talks,
One good man.”

Janis Joplin (1943–1970) American singer and songwriter

One Good Man (1969)

Life

“These Disciplines [mathematics] serve to inure and corroborate the Mind to a constant Diligence in Study; to undergo the Trouble of an attentive Meditation, and cheerfully contend with such Difficulties as lie in the Way. They wholly deliver us from a credulous Simplicity, most strongly fortify us against the Vanity of Scepticism, effectually restrain from a rash Presumption, most easily incline us to a due Assent, perfectly subject us to the Government of right Reason, and inspire us with Resolution to wrestle against the unjust Tyranny of false Prejudices. If the Fancy be unstable and fluctuating, it is to be poised by this Ballast, and steadied by this Anchor, if the Wit be blunt it is sharpened upon this Whetstone; if luxuriant it is pared by this Knife; if headstrong it is restrained by this Bridle; and if dull it is roused by this Spur. The Steps are guided by no Lamp more clearly through the dark Mazes of Nature, by no Thread more surely through the intricate Labyrinths of Philosophy, nor lastly is the Bottom of Truth sounded more happily by any other Line. I will not mention how plentiful a Stock of Knowledge the Mind is furnished from these, with what wholesome Food it is nourished, and what sincere Pleasure it enjoys. But if I speak farther, I shall neither be the only Person, nor the first, who affirms it; that while the Mind is abstracted and elevated from sensible Matter, distinctly views pure Forms, conceives the Beauty of Ideas, and investigates the Harmony of Proportions; the Manners themselves are sensibly corrected and improved, the Affections composed and rectified, the Fancy calmed and settled, and the Understanding raised and excited to more divine Contemplation. All which I might defend by Authority, and confirm by the Suffrages of the greatest Philosophers.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 31: Prefatory Oration

Pleasure, Truth, Lie, Food

“Instantly you should awaken, walk in the right way, keep aloof from all abomination and idolatry, forsake false prophets, preachers and priests; and seek the true teachers, sacraments and divine service; for a true, sincere, Christian faith cannot be idle; but it changes, renews, purifies, sanctifies and justifies more and more; it makes joyous and glad, for by faith it knows that hell, devil, sin and death, are conquered through Christ, and that grace, mercy, and redemption from sin and eternal life, are acquired through him.”

Menno Simons (1496–1561) Dutch theologian, founder of the Mennonites

Ibid, p.157

Life, Death, Faith, Way

“Having still in my recollection so many excellent men, to whose grandfathers, upon the same spots, my grandfather had yielded cheerful obedience and reverence, it is not without sincere sorrow that I have beheld many of the sons of these men driven from their fathers' mansions, or holding them as little better than tenants or stewards, while the swarms of Placemen, Pensioners, Contractors, and Nabobs…have usurped a large part of the soil.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (21 December 1816), quoted in Karl W. Schweizer and John W. Osborne, Cobbett and His Times (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), p. 31.

Men, Parting

“Neither force, nor argument, nor opinion," said Merlyn with the deepest sincerity, "are thinking. Argument is only a display of mental force, a sort of fencing with points in order to gain a victory, not for truth. Opinions are the blind alleys of lazy or of stupid men, who are unable to think. If ever a true politician really thinks a subject out dispassionately, even Homo stultus will be compelled to accept his findings in the end. Opinion can never stand beside truth. At present, however, Homo impoliticus is content either to argue with opinions or to fight with his fists, instead of waiting for the truth in his head. It will take a million years, before the mass of men can be called political animals.”

T. H. White book The Book of Merlyn

The Book of Merlyn (1977)

Men, Truth, Stupidity, Thinking

“There is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism to which every sincere and believing Mahomedan belongs--that is, the theory of the spiritual brotherhood and unity of the children of the Prophet. It is a deep, perennial element in that Perso-Arabian culture, that great family of civilisation to which we gave the name Islamic in the first chapter. It connotes charity and goodwill towards fellow-believers everywhere…It means an abiding interest in the literature of Islam, in her beautiful arts, in her lovely architecture, in her entrancing poetry. It also means a true reformation -- a return to the early and pure simplicity of the faith, to its preaching by persuasion and argument, to the manifestation of a spiritual power in individual lives, to beneficent activity for mankind. This natural and worthy spiritual movement makes not only the Master and His teaching but also His children of all climes an object of affection to the Turk or the Afghan, to the Indian or the Egyptian. A famine or a desolating fire in the Moslem quarters of Kashgar or Sarajevo would immediately draw the sympathy and material assistance of the Mahomedan of Delhi or Cairo. The real spiritual and cultural unity of Islam must ever grow, for to the follower of the Prophet it is the foundation of the life of the soul.”

Aga Khan III (1877–1957) 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community

p. 156; a variant of this begins "This is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism…", but is otherwise identical.
/ India in Transition (1918)

Family, Soul, Beauty, Children

“To believe it possible to know a universally valid truth is in no way to encourage intolerance; on the contrary, it is the essential condition for sincere and authentic dialogue between persons. On this basis alone is it possible to overcome divisions and to journey together towards full truth”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Encyclical Fides et Ratio, 14 September 1998 Source: www.vatican.va http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio_en.html

Truth, Way, Universe, Personality

“In a strict usage the same symbol should never represent the act of sincerely asserting something and the content of what is asserted. For the symbolic distinction between the two, Frege has introduced the 'signpost' symbol. … \vdash p is to signify the actual assertion of p, while the bare symbol p must henceforth be used only as part of a sentence. … It should be clear from the modality of a sentence whether it is a question, a command, an invective, a complaint or an allegation of fact.”

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) Hungarian-British polymath

Source: Personal Knowledge (1958), p. 27

Question, Parting

“To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honourable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions which beget further war.”

Ralph Bunche (1904–1971) American diplomat

Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time (1950)

War, World, Peace, Effort

“If I go out of public life with one feeling, with one conviction, it is this : a deep regret for many bitter words I have used in my life, deep sincere repentance for my violence of language. But I hope they will be forgiven me by God and man, because not once in all my life have I attacked anybody unjustly from my point of view, and without believing it was my duty to do so.”

Henri Bourassa (1868–1952) Canadian politician

Henri Bourassa, Fiery Politician, Dies, The Globe and Mail, September 1, 1952, page A1.

Life, God, Hope, Feeling

“I thank God who has blessed Mysore so abundantly in material ways that He has blessed her also with a sincere, modest, liberal-minded and industrious people; and I thank my people themselves, my Government and my officers that by their hearty co-operation for the good of Mysore they have earned for it the name of the Model State and the signal proof of appreciation which we have just received from the Supreme Government…. And I appeal specially to the rising generation to hold before themselves always the ideal of brotherhood and good citizenship, so that when they come to fill our places, they may continue in all good ways to advance and increase the welfare of our beloved Motherland.”

Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) King of Mysore

In his address to the public on the occasion of his Silver Jubilee of his reign. Modern_Mysore, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University, 26 November 2013, archive.org, 347-49 http://archive.org/stream/modernmysore035292mbp/modernmysore035292mbp_djvu.txt, As ruler of the state

God, People, Way

“There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to his brother, A.P. Chekhov (October 13, 1888)
Letters

Silence, Heart

“"It is hard to describe precisely what made Mr. Howard's stories stand out so sharply; but the real secret is that he himself is in every one of them, whether they were ostensibly commercial or not. He was greater than any profit-making policy he could adopt — for even when he outwardly made concessions to Mammon-guided editors and commercial critics, he had an internal force and sincerity which broke through the surface and put the imprint of his personality on everything he wrote." ~ H. P. Lovecraft, "Robert Ervin Howard: A Memorium", Fantasy Magazine, 1936 (Reprinted in The Last Celt, Glenn Lord ed., p. 69, 1976,”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

About

Secret, Personality

“The agriculturists in this part of the country were Jats, and they made their submission and were granted protection. When all these circumstances were communicated to Hajjaj [Muhammed bin Qasim's uncle], he sent an emphatic answer, ordering that those who showed fight should be destroyed, or that their sons and daughters should be taken as hostages and kept. Those who choose to submit, and in whose throats the water of sincerity flowed, were to be treated with mercy, and their property secured to them…”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume I, p. 190
Quotes from The Chach Nama

Communication, Water, Fight, Parting

“[I]f you want to reason about faith, and offer a reasoned (and reason-responsive) defense of faith as an extra category of belief worthy of special consideration, I'm eager to [participate]. I certainly grant the existence of the phenomenon of faith; what I want to see is a reasoned ground for taking faith as a way of getting to the truth, and not, say, just as a way people comfort themselves and each other (a worthy function that I do take seriously). But you must not expect me to go along with your defense of faith as a path to truth if at any point you appeal to the very dispensation you are supposedly trying to justify. Before you appeal to faith when reason has you backed into a corner, think about whether you really want to abandon reason when reason is on your side. You are sightseeing with a loved one in a foreign land, and your loved one is brutally murdered in front of your eyes. At the trial it turns out that in this land friends of the accused may be called as witnesses for the defense, testifying about their faith in his innocence. You watch the parade of his moist-eyed friends, obviously sincere, proudly proclaiming their undying faith in the innocence of the man you saw commit the terrible deed. The judge listens intently and respectfully, obviously more moved by this outpouring than by all the evidence presented by the prosecution. Is this not a nightmare? Would you be willing to live in such a land? Or would you be willing to be operated on by a surgeon you tells you that whenever a little voice in him tells him to disregard his medical training, he listens to the little voice? I know it passes in polite company to let people have it both ways, and under most circumstances I wholeheartedly cooperate with this benign agreement. But we're seriously trying to get at the truth here, and if you think that this common but unspoken understanding about faith is anything better than socially useful obfuscation to avoid mutual embarrassment and loss of face, you have either seen much more deeply into the issue that any philosopher ever has (for none has ever come up with a good defense of this) or you are kidding yourself.”

Daniel Dennett book Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995)

Love, People, Truth, Faith

“Charity begins in your own family. "Charitable spirits” mustn’t forget to keep their own slates clean, to address problems and inequities within their own four walls with decency and fairness before trying to make the world a better place. People who aren’t willing to do that are not sincere in their claim to benevolence.”

Begum Aga Khan (1963) German philanthropist

Interview with GALA Magazine (January 2007) http://www.princessinaara.org/news/gala0701.pdf

People, World, Family, Problem

“In the past, it was easier to believe in my own effectiveness. If I worked hard, with good colleagues and good ideas, we could make a difference. But now, I sincerely doubt that.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Source: Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time (2005), p. 327

Idea, Past

“It is a lonely and arduous excursion, a sufficient test of courage and sincerity: for most men prefer to dwell in comfortable ignorance upon the lower slopes, and there to make of their obvious characteristics a drapery which shall veil the naked truth.”

Evelyn Underhill book Practical Mysticism

Source: Practical Mysticism (1914), Chapter V, Self Adjustment, p. 82

Men, Truth, Courage

“Let's make a deal; if you promise not to get "personal" with me, I will promise not to show you as the crude, fat and obnoxious slob which everyone knows you are. Sincerely, Donald J. Trump.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Letter to journalist Shannon Donnelly http://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/lifestyles/before-twitter-name-calling-letter-from-donald-trump/KaGSV40cQnefESyXhe5CuN/, 1996 1990s

Personality

“I can imagine no man who will look with more horror on the End than a conscientious revolutionary who has, in a sense sincerely, been justifying cruelties and injustices inflicted on millions of his contemporaries by the benefits which he hopes to confer on future generations: generations who, as one terrible moment now reveals to him, were never going to exist. Then he will see the massacres, the faked trials, the deportations, to be all ineffaceably real, an essential part, his part, in the drama that has just ended: while the future Utopia had never been anything but a fantasy.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The World's Last Night (1952)

Hope, Imagination, Sense, Future

“As for acquiescing in what a man understands not, or cannot reconcile to his reason, they know best the fruits of it that practice it. For my part, I'm a stranger to it, and cannot reconcile myself to such a principle. On the contrary, I am pretty sure he pretends in vain to convince the judgment, who explains not the nature of the thing. A man may give his verbal assent to he knows not what, out of fear, superstition, indifference, interest, and the like feeble and unfair motives: but as long as he conceives not what he believes, he cannot sincerely acquiesce in it, and remains deprived of all solid satisfaction. … But he that comprehends a thing, is as sure of it as if he were himself the author.”

John Toland book Christianity not Mysterious

Christianity not Mysterious (1696), Section II: That the Doctrines of the Gospel are not contrary to Reason, Chapter 1

Fear, Motivation, Understanding, Nature

“Increasingly I suspected that this race, in spite of all its triumphs, was now living on the great ideas of its past, mouthing concepts that it no longer had the sensibility to understand, paying verbal homage to ideals which it could no longer sincerely will, and behaving within a system of institutions many of which could only be worked successfully by minds of a slightly finer temper.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter III: The Other Earth; 3. The Prospects of the Race (p. 39)

Idea, Understanding, Past

“2593. A prudent and discreet Silence will be sometimes more to thy Advantage, than the most witty expression, or even the best contrived Sincerity. A Man often repents that he has spoken, but seldom that he has held his Tongue.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Silence

“There's nothing like the waiting room of any office of the governmentor its allies to remind you of how lucky you are. You enter a nonplace, nontime. You sit on battered chairs in murky blues and greens that nobody ever names as their favorite color. You stare at the signs that have no bearing on you, nonspecific communiqués from the land that punctuation forgot. You wait until the waiting loses all sense of direction or purpose, until you become like a stone deposited in a field millenia ago by a careless glacier. You are here. This is all you have ever known. In the meantime you are stripped of any sense of individuality, of the idea that you might be different from anyone else in the room except by virtue of your particular problem; and so you become the problem, defensively, accepting it as identity, until it swells and suppurates and becomes all you are. As a species we'll tolerate being close to others, but not so close, and not in those circumstances and when we feel so small: we become rows of dry, fretting eyes, hating everyone around us and sincerely wishing our neighbor dead so we can move up one place in the line.Or maybe it was just me.”

Michael Marshall Smith (1965) British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer

Source: The Lonely Dead (2004), Ch. 5

Hate, Color, Feeling, Idea

“It is characteristic of the most entire sincerity to be able to foreknow. When a nation or family is about to flourish, there are sure to be happy omens; and when it is about to perish, there are sure to be unlucky omens.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean

Family, Happiness

“This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible. Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there - with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.”

David Vitter (1961) U.S. Senator from Louisiana

Douglass K. Daniel, "Senator's number on escort service list" http://web.archive.org/web/20070715094917/news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_co/vitter_dc_madam, Associated Press, July 10, 2007.

God, Marriage, Family, Disappointment

“I want to see all Americans have a reasonable amount of leisure. Then I want to see them educated to use such leisure for their own enjoyment and betterment, and the strengthening of the quality of their citizenship. We can go a long way in that direction by getting them out of doors and really interested in nature. We can make still further progress by engaging them in games and sports. Our country is a land of cultured men and women. It is a land of agriculture, of industries, of schools, and of places of religious worship. It is a land of varied climes and scenery, of mountain and plain, of lake and river. It is the American heritage. We must make it a land of vision, a land of work, of sincere striving for the good, but we must add to all these, in order to round out the full stature of the people, an ample effort to make it a land of wholesome enjoyment and perennial gladness.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Democracy of Sports (1924)

Women, Men, People, Education

“Sincere thanks to all the publishers who rejected my manuscripts. Rejection is the reason behind the creation of this book.”

Gaurav Sharma (author) book The Indian Story of an Author

The Indian Story of an Author (2018)

Books

“Sincerity is that whereby self-completion is effected, and its way is that by which man must direct himself.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Doctrine of the Mean

Way

“There are pretenses which are very sincere, and marriage is their school.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Tres novelas ejemplares y un prólogo [Three Exemplary Novels and a Prologue] (1920); Two Mothers

Marriage, School

“Through the sincerity cultivated by Christian morality the values and ideals established by that morality itself are revealed as fictions.”

Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990) Japanese philosopher

Summarizing Nietzsche’s views, p. 109
The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990)

“Unfortunate is he who cannot gain a few sincere friends during his life and more unfortunate is the one who has gained them and then lost them”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

through his deeds
Nahj al-Balagha

Life

“Plowboy: In your opinion, what are mankind's prospects for the near future?
Asimov: To tell the truth, I don't think the odds are very good that we can solve our immediate problems. I think the chances that civilization will survive more than another 30 years—that it will still be flourishing in 2010—are less than 50 percent.
Plowboy: What sort of disaster do you foresee?
Asimov: I imagine that as population continues to increase—and as the available resources decrease—there will be less energy and food, so we'll all enter a stage of scrounging. The average person's only concerns will be where he or she can get the next meal, the next cigarette, the next means of transportation. In such a universal scramble, the Earth will be just plain desolated, because everyone will be striving merely to survive regardless of the cost to the environment. Put it this way: If I have to choose between saving myself and saving a tree, I'm going to choose me.
Terrorism will also become a way of life in a world marked by severe shortages. Finally, some government will be bound to decide that the only way to get what its people need is to destroy another nation and take its goods … by pushing the nuclear button.
And this absolute chaos is going to develop—even if nobody wants nuclear war and even if everybody sincerely wants peace and social justice—if the number of mouths to feed continues to grow. Nothing will be able to stand up against the pressure of the whole of humankind simply trying to stay alive!”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Mother Earth News interview (1980)

Life, War, People, Truth

“What is needed then? Destroy poverty, that source of crime, by assuring to each the satisfaction of all needs! And how difficult is this to achieve? It would suffice to establish society on new bases where everything would be in common and each, producing according to their aptitudes and strengths, could consume according to their needs. Then we would no longer see people like the hermit of Notre-Dame-de-Grace and others crave a metal of which they become the slaves and the victims! We would no longer see women flaunt their charms, like a vulgar merchandise, in exchange for this same metal that so often prevents us from recognising if the affection is truly sincere.”

Ravachol (1859–1892) French anarchist

Que faut-il alors ? Détruire la misère, ce germe de crime, en assurant à chacun la satisfaction de tous les besoins ! Et combien cela est difficile à réaliser ! Il suffirait d'établir la société sur de nouvelles bases où tout serait en commun, et où chacun, produisant selon ses aptitudes et ses forces, pourrait consommer selon ses besoins. Alors on ne verra plus des gens comme l'ermite de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce et autres mendier un métal dont ils deviennent les esclaves et les victimes ! On ne verra plus les femmes céder leurs appâts, comme une vulgaire marchandise, en échange de ce même métal qui nous empêche bien souvent de reconnaître si l'affection est vraiment sincère.
Trial statement

Women, People

“The defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the Christian world to be sacred. Yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the truth, and by truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Truth, World

“I have tried to lead my life by following a belief that has guided my passage. This I sincerely recommend for all to follow: to witness an injustice and do nothing--that is the biggest crime.”

Bill Bailey (Spanish Civil War veteran) (1910–1995) American labor activist

The Kid from Hoboken: An Autobiography by Bill Bailey http://www.larkspring.com/Kid/Contents.html (1993). The Kid from Hoboken: An Autobiography by Bill Bailey (1993)

Life