Quotes about trust
page 10

“I pray that all polar opposites learn to Agape Love, live and work together as brothers and sisters — or perish as fools. While I voted for Mr. Trump, my confidence remains in God, for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Prayers for President-elect Trump, Congressman Lewis, and everyone including leaders.”

Alveda King (1951) American, civil rights activist, Christian minister, conservative, pro-life activist, and author

Alveda King, MLK’s niece: ‘I voted for Mr. Trump’ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/16/alveda-king-mlks-niece-i-voted-for-mr-trump/ (January 16, 2017)

Love, Life, God, Happiness

“The significance of the Falklands War was enormous, both for Britain's self-confidence and for our standing in the world…We had come to be seen by both friends and enemies as a nation which lacked the will and the capability to defend its interests in peace, let alone in war. Victory in the Falklands changed that. Everywhere I went after the war, Britain's name meant something more than it had. The war also had real importance in relations between East and West: years later I was told by a Russian general that the Soviets had been firmly convinced that we would not fight for the Falklands, and that if we did fight we would lose. We proved them wrong on both counts, and they did not forget the fact.”

Margaret Thatcher book The Downing Street Years

The Downing Street Years (1993)

War, World, Peace, Change

Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms

"Brotherhood by Inversion", p. 330-31
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)

History, Optimism, Nature, Sense

“Let the church come to God in the strength of a perfect weakness, in the power of a felt helplessness and a child-like confidence, and then, either she has no strength, and has no right to be, or she has a strength that is infinite. Then and thus, will she stretch out the rod over the seas of difficulty that lie before her, and the waters shall divide, and she shall pass through, and sing the song of deliverance.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 146.

God, Lie, Water, Singing

“We have the assets, skills, knowledge and ideas to match and overtake our closest neighbours. By that I don't just mean the rest of the UK, but also the small, independent countries, Iceland, Norway, Ireland and Denmark, that form an arc of prosperity around our shores. … There is every reason to feel confident about our economic future. Every part of Scotland has the potential to take us towards our goal.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Lecture (December 19, 2007)

Feeling, Idea, Knowledge, Future

“I accumulated in those years so fine a surplus in the Book of Observance that I have been drawing confidently upon it ever since.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 9 (Education At Bangalore).

Books, Drawing

“Our country as a whole, no less than the Hastings College of Law, values tolerance, cooperation, learning, and the amicable resolution of conflicts. But we seek to achieve those goals through "[a] confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building," not by abridging First Amendment rights.”

Samuel Alito (1950) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Dissenting, CLS v. Martinez, 130 S. Ct. 2971, 3015-16 (2010).

Peace, Law, Learning, Country

“We are confident that the Islamic logic, culture, and discourse can prove their superiority in all fields over all schools of thought and theories.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Ahmadinejad on His Proposal for a Jewish State in Europe and on Iran's Nuclear Energy http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=987 Jan. 2006. 2006

School

“Kill your doubt with the coldest of weapons: Confidence.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Light Grenades (2006)

“There is no other science where judgements are tested in blood and answered in the servitude of the defeated, where the acknowledged authority is the leader who has won or who instills confidence that he can win.”

Bernard Brodie (1910–1978) American nuclear strategist

As quoted in "Military air power : the CADRE digest of air power opinions and thoughts", compiled by Charles M. Westenhoff

Science

“As the peculiar faculty of the eye is to see form and colour, and of the ear to hear sweet tones and voices, so is aspiration peculiar to the soul. To relax from ceaseless aspiration is sin. This energy of aspiration directed to and grasping God, as far as is possible for the creature, is called Hope, which is also a divine virtue. Through this faculty the soul acquires such great confidence that she deems nothing in the Divine Nature beyond her reach.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Sermon VII : Outward and Inward Morality
Meister Eckhart’s Sermons (1909)

God, Hope, Soul, Nature

“If much difficulty should be experienced in the elementary chapters, I know of no work which I can so confidently recommend to be used with the present one, as that of M. Duhamel.”

Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) British mathematician, philosopher and university teacher (1806-1871)

Duhamel, Cours d'Analyse de l'Ecole Polytechnique. Paris, Bachelier. vol i 1841 vol. ii. 1840.
The Differential and Integral Calculus (1836)

“I would like this house to join me in paying fulsome tribute to our scientists, engineers and defence personnel whose singular achievements have given us a renewed sense of national pride and self confidence.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) 10th Prime Minister of India

Extract from Suo Motto statement made in the Parliament, after India’s underground nuclear tests conducted on 11 May 1998.[Sujata K. Dass, Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Prime Minister of India, http://books.google.com/books?id=N8wnA7EtB0IC, 1 January 2004, Gyan Publishing House, 978-81-7835-277-0, 39]

Sense, Housing, Self-confidence

“She never had public favor; it was a bit like the Hillary Clinton thing. She did all the right things for her country, but she wasn't ultimately revered. So she had a conversation with her confidant-adviser. She asked him, when have they ever looked up to or idolized a woman? Only one, he told her, the Virgin Mary. So she said, Then I will become like the Virgin Mary, and she did. She created a facade for herself; she stopped having lovers; she became like a virgin. She became sexless, and painted her face in a white alabaster way, and turned herself into an icon that was untouchable and sexless, and then she had everybody's respect.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Madonna Interview : Aperture Magazine (Summer 1999), Aperture http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-library/madonna-interview-aperture-magazine-summer-1999, About Queen of England, Elizabeth I.

Way, Lovers, Painting, Country

“Perhaps I will achieve a small success today. If so, I must not be taken in. I am not on a roll, I am not in the zone. It was an accident, a happenstance. Such things are bound to happen sometimes. The false feeling of confidence will soon pass.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

March 13
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Feeling, Success, Falseness

“How can you have confidence in a woman who will not risk entrusting her whole life to you, day and night?”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Life, Night

“I can’t be as confident about computer science as I can about biology. Biology easily has 500 years of exciting problems to work on. It’s at that level.”

Donald Ervin Knuth (1938) American computer scientist

Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview http://karthikr.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/donald-knuth-%e2%80%94-computer-literacy-bookshops-interview-1993/ Computer Literacy Bookshops Interview (1993) On why bioinformatics is very exciting

Problem, Science

“The only ones left with any confidence at all are the New Dumb. It is the beginning of the end of our world as we knew it. Doom is the operative ethic.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

2000s, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (2004)

World

“The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 115
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Fear, Feeling, Freedom, Dependency

“Soldiers! I have summoned you together for the last time. The vision we have cherished of a free and independent country, has vanished, and that country is now the spoil of a conqueror. I disband your organization in preference to surrendering it to our enemies. I am no longer your commander. After association of more than two eventful years, I part from you with a just pride, in the fame of your achievements, and grateful recollections of your generous kindness to myself. And now at this moment of bidding you a final adieu accept the assurance of my unchanging confidence and regard. Farewell. John S. Mosby, Col.”

John S. Mosby (1833–1916) Confederate Army officer

Letter to the Mosby's Rangers (April 1865), as quoted in Mosby's Rangers, Simon and Schuster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0671747452 (1991), Jeffry D. Wert, p. 289 Letter (1865)

Time, Parting, Country

“In modern times, the clearest example of history in the ancient, great cycle mode, is found in the work of another German socialist philosopher: Oswald Spengler. Modeling civilizations on the life-cycles of organic beings, he plotted their rise and inevitable decay through predictable phases. For the West, firmly locked into the downside of the wave, relentless, accelerating degeneration can be confidently anticipated. Spengler’s withering pessimism seems not to have detracted significantly from the cultural comfort derived from his archetypal historical scheme.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"Eternal Return, and After" https://web.archive.org/web/20110718030428/http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/index.php/article/detail/269/eternal-return-and-after (2011)

Life, History, Time

“It would not be incorrect to say that all capital is invisible value, in that it is the present value, not of physical things, but of the hopes of the future aroused through confidence in the now invisible but expected transactions of the future.”

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

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 25

Hope, Future

“I proclaim with confidence that Britain can get right back into the world competitive race if only we can break free of the collective chains which hold us back. Unlike the socialists, who trust the state, we trust the people. That is why we are the party of freedom.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Article for the News of the World (29 April 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104052 Leader of the Opposition

People, World, Freedom

“In its own more confused, less advanced way, New Dealism too has spread abroad the stress on the state as against the individual, planning as against private enterprise, jobs (even if relief jobs) against opportunities, security against initiative, "human rights" against "property rights." There can be no doubt that the psychological effect of New Dealism has been what the capitalists say it has been: to undermine public confidence in capitalist ideas and rights and institutions. Its most distinctive features help to prepare the minds of the masses for the acceptance of the managerial social structure.”

James Burnham (1905–1987) American philosopher

Source: The Managerial Revolution, 1941, p. 201–202.

Way, Idea, Help

“My foreign policy has three fundamental branches: first, confidence in our cause, a recognition that the principles America was based upon are not something we shrink from or apologize for, that we stand for those principles; the second is clarity in our purpose, which is that when we have a foreign policy objective, we describe it honestly and clearly to the American people, to Congress and to the people of the world; and number three is resolve in our might, that in those rare circumstances, those rare circumstances where we decide it's essential for us to apply military might, that we do so with overwhelming force, that we do so in the clarity of a mission, understanding the nature of the U. S. interest involved, understanding when the mission would be complete, what will be left when it is -- what will be left behind us when that mission has been -- has been terminated.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

televised remarks, , quoted in * 2012-09-12
What They Said, Before and After the Attack in Libya
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html
2012-09-18
2012

People, World, Understanding, Nature

“Even well-known words were often pronounced differently and could have unfamiliar meanings; connotations were not fixed, but fluid. Definitions drifted. He was constantly brought up short by the sudden realization that what he thought he had said was not at all what he meant—at least as it had been understood by his hearers. Still, he was coming to grips with the slippery speech, and his confidence was growing.”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: The Skin Map (2010), p. 212

“Warned by such evidences of their spiritual illness, believers profit by their humiliations. Robbed of their foolish confidence in the flesh, they take refuge in the grace of God. And when they have done so, they experience the nearness of the divine protection which is to them a strong fortress”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Ps 30:6-7
Page 51.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God, Strong

“As many of you may know, my first chosen career was in the United States Navy, where I served as a submarine officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the same time, we always prayed that our readiness would preserve the peace.
I served under two presidents, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, men who represented different political parties, both of whom had faced their active military responsibilities with honor.
They knew the horrors of war. And later as commanders in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment, and they had a clear sense of mission.
We had a confidence that our leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars of choice unless America's vital interests were in danger.
We also were sure that these presidents would not mislead us when issues involved our national security.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Post-Presidency, DNC address (2004)

Men, War, Peace, Way

“There is no attachment stronger, more unselfish, than the love between brother and sister, thrown on the world orphans at an early age, with none to love them save each other. They feel how much they stand alone, and this draws them more together. Constant intercourse has given that perfect understanding which only familiarity can do; hopes, interests, sorrows, are alike in common. Each is to either a source of pride; it is the tenderness of love without its fears, and the confidence of marriage, without its graver and more anxious character. The fresh impulses of youth are all warm about the heart.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Love, Marriage, Youth, Age

“Let us aspire towards this living confidence, that it is the will of God to unfold and exalt without end the spirit that trusts itself to Him in well-doing as to a faithful Creator.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 239.

God, Faith

“Oh how easy it is to deceive one who is confident!”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Canzone 311, st. 3
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

“I have always believed that fashion was not made only to make women more beautiful, but also to reassure them, give them confidence.”

Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) fashion designer

As quoted in "50 Days of Everyday Fashion" in Yours magazine.

Women, Beauty, Fashion

“The problem is that women try to dress like celebrities whose shape they just don't have. When you emulate someone else's dress sense with a different body shape it just doesn't work. And when you look bad, your confidence dips. Our advice is to go shopping armed with our body shape rules.”

Trinny Woodall (1964) English fashion advisor and designer, television presenter and author

As quoted in "Mistresses of the makeover" by Cathrin Schaer in New Zealand Herald (25 February 2008)

Women, Problem, Sense

“In these and other ways, let us move up the steep and difficult path toward comprehensive disarmament, securing mutual confidence through mutual verification, and building the institutions of peace as we dismantle the engines of war. We must not let failure to agree on all points delay agreements where agreement is possible. And we must not put forward proposals for propaganda purposes.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, UN speech

War, Peace, Way, Failure

“Europe's immigration policy is a disaster — and for reasons that transcend the idiocy of allowing the free influx of young male Muslims from a premodern, war-torn Middle East into a postmodern, pacifist, and post-Christian Europe. Europe has not been a continent of immigrants since the Middle Ages. It lacks the ingredients necessary to assimilate, integrate, and intermarry large numbers of newcomers each year: There is no dynamic and fluid economy, no confidence in its own values, no belief that class and race are incidental, not essential, to one's persona, no courage to assume that an immigrant made a choice to leave a worse place for a better one. And all this is in the context of a class-bound hierarchy masked and excused by boutique leftism.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, Europe at the Edge of the Abyss (2016)

War, Age, Courage

“A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there's no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it's an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.”

Henrik Ibsen The Wild Duck

Hjalmar, Act IV
The Wild Duck (1884)

Marriage, Forgiveness

“Each of my science books said, “This is why we think this; this is how we figured it out; and this is what we still don’t know.” That I can trust. And it inspires me to contribute. Conversely, religious books claim to already know everything we’ll ever need to know, even thought they never explained everything; and you’re forbidden to question them. Instead, you should believe them without suspicion and simply because they said so (even when they have already been proven wrong). This is why the word ‘confidence man’ describes a criminal swindler. Such people should not be trusted. When is it ever wise to believe someone without question?”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Faith is not a virtue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDal8b6-X5o (June 20, 2012)

People, Books, Question, Thinking

“When I was 15, what I wanted in a boyfriend was just that confidence and swagger. I wanted someone who knew what he was doing, because I was just faking it. What I want for my daughter is the exact opposite.”

Ayelet Waldman (1964) American- Israeli writer

Salon.com column http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/waldman/2005/04/25/limon/index1.html

Daughters

“This poem may have meant nothing to you but I am confident that tonight my taking the time to actually write out my anger instead of acting on it has saved the life of at least eleven people in parking enforcement.”

Buddy Wakefield (1974) American poet

Flare Guns and Earthquakes
Poetry

Life, People, Time, Anger

“The lower classes of people in Europe may at some future period be much better instructed then they are at present; they may be taught to employ the little spare time they have in many better ways than at the ale-house; they may live under better and more equal laws than they have hitherto done, perhaps, in any country; and I even conceive it possible, though not probable, that they may have more leisure; but it is not in the nature of things, that they can be awarded such a quantity of money or substance, as will allow them all to marry early, in the full confidence that they shall be able to provide with ease for a numerous family.”

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) British political economist

Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter XIV, paragraph 9

Money, People, Family, Law

“another and longer variant: I now abandon work. It penetrated so deeply and so gently into me, I feel it and it gives me confidence in myself without effort. Color possesses me. I don’t have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Colour and I are one. I am a painter.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (Tunisia, 16 April 1914), # 926, in: The Diaries of Paul Klee, 1898-1918, transl. Pierre B. Schneider, R.Y. Zachary and Max Knight; Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1964
1911 - 1914, Diary-notes from Tunisia' (1914)

Happiness, Color, Feeling, Effort

“If Soviet society is to move forward with confidence toward our great goals, each new generation must rise to an ever-higher level of learning and general cultivation, occupational skill and civic activism. One might say that such is the law of societal progress. In the context of the scientific and technological revolution, under a virtual avalanche of information, this law imposes unwontedly high demands on both those who study and those who teach—from rank-and-file classroom teachers to government ministers.”

Konstantin Chernenko (1911–1985) Soviet politician

Quoted in "Soviet Education" - Page 109 - by International Arts and Sciences Press, M.E. Sharpe, Inc - Education - 1958

Law, Study, Learning, Teachers

“I am no less confident, that no learned lawyer will affirm that an impeachment can lie against the King, they all going in his name: and one of their maxims is, that the King can do no wrong.”

Charles I of England (1600–1649) monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland

Reasons for declining the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur083.htm (21 January 1649)

Lie, Learning

“The usual thing — the statistically normal thing — is for the speaker to tell the graduating class that they are going out into a world torn by dissent, racked by problems of unprecedented knottiness and difficulty, and headed for the abyss of destruction unless the graduating class shoulders its burden and does something splendid to put everything right. The speaker generally admits that he is at the end of his tether: he is old, and broken on the wheel of Fate; his decrepitude and his wounds have been received in this great battle with the world's problems. Nothing — absolutely nothing — is to be expected of him in the future. From his failing hands he throws the torch; he plants the task of setting the world right square on the graduating class. He says that he does it with confidence. But he is usually so gloomy that one wonders how much his confidence is worth. Sometimes one gets the impression that immediately after Convocation he is going home to die.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

What Will the Age of Aquarius Bring
One-Half of Robertson Davies (1977)

Fate, World, Home, Problem

“Some confidence there must be between merchant and manufacturer. In matters exclusively within the province of the manufacturer the merchant relies on the manufacturer's skill, and he does so all the more readily when he has had the benefit of that skill before.”

Edward Macnaghten, Baron Macnaghten (1830–1913) Anglo-Irish rower, barrister, politician and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary

Drummond v. Van Ingen (1887), L. R. 12 Ap. Cas. 297.

“The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake.”

Basil Hume (1923–1999) Catholic cardinal

Basil Hume, in Easter 2014: Best Quotes and Poems to Commemorate the Resurrection of Jesus (18 April 2014) http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/easter-2014-best-quotes-poems-commemorate-resurrection-jesus-1445306

Love, God, Hope

“The Founders also recognized, I think necessarily and certainly at the time, that people with Government service who had served in the legislative branch or served in the executive branch would become judges--Chief Justice Marshall, for example--would have backgrounds that involved Government service or political service. But they also had confidence in the ability of people in our system, once they became judges and put on the black robes, to decide cases fairly and impartially. And that's the way that system has worked for more than two centuries. And I know there has been some discussion about that, but that's the way the system has worked in terms of deciding cases fairly and impartially and not based on political of personal views.”

Brett Kavanaugh (1965) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination OF Brett M. Kavanaugh to be Ciruit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit https://www.congress.gov/108/chrg/shrg24853/CHRG-108shrg24853.htm (April 27, 2004)

People, Justice, Way, Thinking

“But to pass on: Some have propounded the inquiry whether it is practicable for us to go on with the confederacy without further accessions? Have we the means and ability to maintain nationality among the powers of the earth? On this point I would barely say, that as anxiously as we all have been, and are, for the border States, with institutions similar to ours, to join us, still we are abundantly able to maintain our position, even if they should ultimately make up their minds not to cast their destiny with us. That they ultimately will join us be compelled to do it is my confident belief; but we can get on very well without them, even if they should not.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

“Is there any doubt that drug addiction is an escape from an unbearable inner state - from a reality that one cannot deal with - from an atrophying mind one can never fully destroy? If Apollonian reason were unnatural to man, and Dionysian intuition brought him closer to nature and truth, the apostles of irrationality would not have to resort to drugs. Happy, self-confident men do not seek to get stoned. Drug addiction is the attempt to obliterate one's consciousness, the quest for a deliberately-induced insanity. As such, it is so obscene and evil that any doubt about the moral character of its practitioners is itself an obscenity.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

Men, Happiness, Truth, Nature

“At one time, I was an actor in the conduct of foreign policy. I became convinced that I was accomplishing nothing in that capacity, that the problems were deeper, that the answer lay in a direct approach to the public and in an effort to explain to the public what it was really about. Today, even that seems futile. Myths and errors are being established in the public mind more rapidly than they can be broken down. The mass media are too much for us. There is nothing that can be done about it. To correct this, you would have to educate the educators. I must say that I have lost all confidence in the freedom of the mass media. The fact of the matter is that in this country McCarthyism has already won, in the sense of making impossible the conduct of an intelligent foreign policy.”

George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian

April 17, 1951
The Kennan Diaries

Education, Error, Intelligence, Problem

“... our confidence in foretelling and influencing events increases in inverse ratio to our ability to do so. The farther we go from ourselves and from the present, the less we sense the probabilities, and it is easy for us to be "dead certain" about things we cannot possibly know anything about.**The Rules of Chaos (1969), p 23,24”

Stephen Vizinczey (1933) Hungarian-Canadian writer

Sense, Dead

“It’s well to have such a comfortable assurance regarding the worth of those we love. I only wish you may not find your confidence misplaced.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. IX : A Snake in the Grass; Eliza to Gilbert

Love

“It is the nature of the noble and the good and the wise that they impart to us of their nobility and their goodness and their wisdom while they live, making it natural for us to breathe the air they breathe and giving us confidence in our own untested powers. And the same influence in more ethereal fashion they continue to exert after they are gone.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 8 : Suffering and Consolation
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)

Wisdom, Fashion, Nature

“It is so important for us to have faith, trust, confidence in one another. It is the only way we can communicate. Without faith there is no communication, there is no love, or if there was a little love it will die without hope, trust, and confidence. Even if it doesn't die right away, it will be so ill, so weak, and so tired that communication will be miserable as well.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Source: Poustinia (1975), Ch. 12

Love, Faith, Hope, Way

“Because of my job, I learned to be confident a little earlier than most. People pick you apart when you're in the public eye - you're wearing the wrong shoes or you have ugly nail polish on or they're wondering if you got your boobs done - so you have to be a strong person right away.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Interview by Kate Sullivan for Allure, April 2010

People, Shoe, Strong, Learning

“What is most unconscionable is that there is not a shred of evidence to justify the certain loss of life. Do the generalized threats and half-truths of this administration give any one of us in Congress the confidence to tell a mother or father or family that the loss of their child or loved one was in the name of a just cause?”

Pete Stark (1931–2020) American politician

Statement on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, October 8, 2002, in opposition to the resolution authorizing military force against Iraq

Love, Life, Truth, Family

“He possessed an extra vigor, a heightened confidence in himself, a serene capacity for affection which saved him. Nothing as he was growing up at home, nothing at Devon, nothing even about the war had broken his harmonious and natural unity. So at last I had.”

John Knowles book A Separate Peace

Gene, on Finny's strength.
Source: A Separate Peace (1959), P. 194-195

War, Home, Nature

“The more the soul is conformed to Christ, the more confident it will be of its interest in Christ.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Source: Quotes from secondary sources, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, 1895, P. 16.

Soul, Christ

“During the war years, it was my privilege to associate on a number of occasions with prominent personalities, such as Senator Harry S Truman, for whom my battalion staged an artillery demonstration when he visited Fort Bragg in 1941. When I invited him to fire, he did so with confidence. Shaking my hand as he departed, he said that as an old artilleryman he recognized that the fire mission was uncomplicated and that, even so, he suspected the crews had helped him hit the target. "I enjoyed it anyway," he said. When I was in Vietnam, a then former President Truman wrote me a letter of encouragement.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 20.

War, Help, Personality

“My first stop in Rome was a call on an old friend, Foreign Minister Susanna Agnelli. Universally known as Sunni, she had been appointed to the post by the government of Lamberto Dini in part because of her personal stature. A former mayor and senator, the sister of Italy's most famous businessman, Gianni Agnelli, and the author of a best-selling memoir with the delightful title We always wore sailor suits, Sunni Agnelli combined aristocratic bearing with casual informality. Her giant white mane of hair and her imposing height added to her presence. She approached her job as she had probably approached everything else: with a relaxed confidence in her own intuition. She conveyed an impression of great amusement at the passing parade of overly intense men formulating policy. We had known each other for years, but only socially.”

Richard Holbrooke (1941–2010) American diplomat

Source: 1990s, To End a War (1998), p. 136

Men, Sister, Universe, Parting

“What a bridge
Of glass I walk upon, over a river
Of certain ruin! Mine own weighty fears
Cracking what should support me: And those helps,
Which confidence yields to others, are from me
Ravish'd by doubts, and wilful jealousy.”

Philip Massinger The Bondman

The Bondman (1623), Act IV, scene iii.

Fear, Jealousy, Support, Help

“The time has come to deal the enemy a terrific blow in Western Europe.
The blow will be struck by the combined sea, land and air forces of the Allies together constituting one great Allied team, under the supreme command of General Eisenhower.
On the eve of this great adventure I send my best wishes to every soldier in the Allied team.
To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history; and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride of our doings. We have a great and a righteous cause.
Let us pray that " The Lord Mighty in Battle " will go forth with our armies, and that His special providence will aid us in the struggle.
I want every soldier to know that I have complete confidence in the successful outcome of the operations that we are now about to begin.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory.
And, as we enter the battle, let us recall the words of a famous soldier spoken many years ago :
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dare not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all. "

Good luck to each one of you. And good hunting on the main land of Europe.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Personal message to troops of 21st Army Group on the eve of D-Day

Men, Fate, Lie, Fear

“A friend called on me when I was ill, to settle some business. My head was too much confused by my indisposition to understand fully what he said, but I had such unlimited confidence in him, that I did whatever he bid me, in the fullest assurance that it was right. How simply I can trust in man, and how little in God! How unreasonable is a pure act of faith in one like ourselves, if we cannot repose the same faith in God.”

Richard Cecil (clergyman) (1748–1810) British Evangelical Anglican priest and social reformer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 598.

God, Faith, Understanding, Business

“Let me tell you something you haven’t learned yet, something you learn only by living awhile. As you get older, you find that life begins to wear you down. Doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, it happens. Experience, time, events—they all conspire against you to steal away your energy, to erode your confidence, to make you question things you wouldn’t have given a second thought to when you were young. It happens gradually, a chipping away that you don’t even notice at first, and then one day it’s there. You wake up and you just don’t have the fire anymore.”

Terry Brooks (1944) American writer

The Elf Queen Of Shannara

Life, Question, Learning, Time

“Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

January 9, 1758
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“All our confidence in our ability to act collectively is being undermined, with the subtext message Whatever it is, the private sector can do it better. Never mind that there's no evidence for this. Never mind, for instance, that the private US health-care system is 40 percent more expensive per capita than the Canadian public system, even though the Canadian system provides full coverage for all Canadians and the American system leaves some forty-three million without any coverage at all. This isn't because Canadians are smarter than Americans - it's because we have a public system and they don't.”

Linda McQuaig (1951) journalist and author

All You Can Eat: Greed, Lust and the New Capitalism (2001)

Health

“Hence the one-sided errors—ces erreurs d'idée fixe—which we cannot escape when we stand too near to one or the other party; either deceives, yet does it unaware, and we confide most willingly in those who think as we do. But if we are by chance of such indifferent nature that we, without special predilection, keep in continual intercourse with all, then we are bewildered by the perfect self-confidence of either party, and our judgement is neutralised in the most depressing manner.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

French Affairs page 156
The Romantic School (1836)

Error, Nature, Thinking, Chance

“Speakers' nerves affect them in various ways. Some tremble, some become frenzied. I lose all confidence, and suffer from a leaden oppression that makes me wonder why I ever agreed to speak at all; the Tomb and the Conqueror Worm seem preferable to delivering the stupid and piffling speech I have so carefully prepared.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

One Half of Robertson Davies (1989).

Stupidity, Way, Suffering

“The art of growing old is the art of being regarded by the oncoming generations as a support and not as a stumbling-block, as a confidant and not as a rival.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Art, Support

“I was tired of eating poison & I was tired of supporting people that don't support us in a healthy way. […] I am not 100% vegan just yet, I am closing in tho… I feel amazing, energized & got damn confident!!”

Tyrann Mathieu (1992) All-American college football player, defensive back, cornerback

Asked via Twitter why he decided to try veganism (April 2016); quoted in "Nate Diaz and 8 Other Pro Athletes You Had No Idea Were Vegan", Stack (16 December 2016) http://www.stack.com/a/nate-diaz-and-8-other-pro-athletes-you-had-no-idea-were-vegan.

People, Way, Feeling, Support

“My mom always taught me to hold my head up high and be strong and confident in everything I do. … I’ve been interested in fitness and nutrition for most of my life. I became a vegetarian at a very young age and had to learn how to get the proper nutrition to my body. Over a 15-year process I visited trainers, dietitians and doctors; read hundreds of books and studies; and eventually became a personal trainer and fitness nutritionist myself. I want to use all of my real-life experience and the science behind my certifications to help educate everyone struggling with their body image. … Modeling is a lot of hard work and you have to have a very strong sense of self and confidence to succeed.”

Jayde Nicole (1986) Canadian model, Playboy's Playmate of the Month January 2007 and Playmate of the Year 2008

"Jayde Nicole, Miss 2008, Interview", in RunwayLive.com (20 August 2011) https://www.runwaylive.com/3306-jayde-nicole-miss-2008-interview.html.

Life, Books, Age, Education

“The eyes of the people are upon us. […] If we despond, public confidence is destroyed, the people will no longer yield their support to a hopeless contest, and American liberty is no more. […] Despondency becomes not the dignity of our cause, nor the character of those who are its supporters. Let us awaken then, and evince a different spirit, - a spirit that shall inspire the people with confidence in themselves and in us, - a spirit that will encourage them to persevere in this glorious struggle, until their rights and liberties shall be established on a rock. We have proclaimed to the world our determination 'to die freemen, rather than to live slaves.' We have appealed to Heaven for the justice of our cause, and in Heaven we have placed our trust. […] We shall never be abandoned by Heaven while we act worthy of its aid and protection.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

addressing a meeting of delegates to the Continental Congress, assembled at Yorktown, Pennsylvania, September 1777 ; as quoted in The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Volume 2, by William Vincent Wells; Little, Brown, and Company; Boston, 1865 ; pp. 492-493

People, World, Justice, Support

“Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1960s, Farewell address (1961)

Learning

“I seem to vaguely remember a time when America had confidence. And guts. And soldiers fighting a war didn’t need to be given “permission” to defend themselves from enemies trying to kill them.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

January 26, 2007 http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24149_US_Troops_Have_Permission_Not_to_Be_Killed_By_Iranians&only

War, Time, Fight

“Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean all the collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals, and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end.”

Errico Malatesta book Anarchy

Anarchy (1891)

People, Law, Communication, Personality

“We could have waited for a banana to appear, but we believe in the spirit of cheese-development and confidence. We are not so poor that we are unable to carry out this project.”

Benjamin Mkapa (1938) Tanzanian politician and former president

On construction of the Unity Bridge, January 2005 http://www.eastandard.net/archives/cl/hm_news/news.php?articleid=10287 2005

Appearance, Waiting

“And he who in all things recognises himself as the servant of GOD may count on a sufficiency from GOD for all manner of need, and look with confident expectation to GOD to really prosper him in whatever he does.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(J. Hudson Taylor. A Ribband of Blue and Other Bible Studies. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 49).

God

“It is because I have confidence in the reasoned appeal the Socialist Party can make to all sections of the community – manual workers and black coats alike – that I have decided to go to East Lewisham, if I am selected, emphasizing by this action my conviction that the soundest socialist appeal is that which is most universal in its scope.”

Herbert Morrison (1888–1965) British Labour politician

The Times, 10 January 1945.
Morrison abandoned his safe seat in Hackney South for Lewisham East in the 1945 general election despite it being a Conservative-held seat that had never previously returned a Labour MP. The move paid off, and he was elected there.

Communication, Universe

“It is to the influence of the opinion of those whom the multitude [the populous] judges best informed, and to whom it has been accustomed to give its confidence in regard to the most important matters of life, that the propagation of those errors is due, which in times of ignorance, have covered the face of the earth. Magic and astrology offer us two great examples. These errors… having for a basis only universal credence, have maintained themselves during a very long time; but at last the progress of science has destroyed them in the minds of enlightened men, whose opinion consequently has caused them to disappear… through the power of imitation and habit which had so generally spread them… This power, the richest resource of the moral world, establishes and conserves in a whole nation ideas entirely contrary to those… elsewhere… What indulgence ought we not then to have for opinions different from ours, when this difference often depends only upon the various points of view where circumstances have placed us! Let us enlighten those whom we judge insufficiently instructed; but first let us examine critically our own opinions, and weigh with impartiality, their respective probabilities.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace book Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

p, 125
Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (1902)

Life, Men, World, Error

“They say productivity is the key to confidence, and confidence … to productivity. And they’re happy walking back and forth between these two rooms, each the excuse for the other.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#150
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Happiness

“I can conceive no punishment so dreadful as keeping perpetual watch on our words, lest they betray what they mean to conceal; to know no unguarded moment — no careless gaiety — to pine for the confidence which yet we dare not bestow — to tremble, lest that some hidden meaning lurk in a phrase which only our own sickly fancy could torture into bearing such — to have suspicion become a second nature — and to shrink every morning from the glad sunshine, for we know not what a day may bring forth : the wheel of Ixion were a tender mercy compared to such a state.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

No.12. The Heart of Mid Lothian — EFFIE DEANS.
Literary Remains

Nature

“While I usually came back from meeting Gandhiji elated and inspired but always a bit sceptical, and from talks with Jawaharlal, fired with emotional zeal but often confused and unconvinced, meetings with Vallabhbhai were a joy from which I returned with renewed confidence in the future of our country. I have often thought that if fate had decreed that he, instead of Jawaharlal, would be the younger of the two, India would have followed a very different path and would be in better economic shape that it is today.”

J. R. D. Tata (1904–1993) Indian businessman

Keynote: Excerpts from his speeches and chairman's statements to shareholders

Fate, Future, Joy, Country

“"You are certain you can keep the truth from her?"
"Sure," Ed said confidently. "I know I can."
"All right." The Old Man nodded slowly. "I will send you back. But you must tell no one." He swelled visibly. "Remember: you will eventually come back to me — everyone does, in the end — and your fate will not be enviable."”

Philip K. Dick book Adjustment Team

Adjustment Team (1954)

Fate, Truth

“It is not because I pursue a smooth life. But for the calm acceptance of impermanence, and be calm
and confident like a king in any adverse circumstances.”

Richard Gombrich (1937) British Indologist

"When I say I'm a Buddhist"[citation needed]

Life

“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to William Carmichael and William Short (1793)
1790s

Fear

“Yes, the world is watching what we do. Yes, America's destiny is ours to choose. So let's be stronger together, my fellow Americans. Let’s look to the future with courage and confidence. Let’s build a better tomorrow for our beloved children and our beloved country. And when we do, America will be greater than ever.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), (July 28, 2016)

Children, World, Courage, Future

“Unity was essential to victory. The Government contained men of varied views and varied backgrounds but united by a common will to victory, a common acceptance of a way of life. That was what we were fighting for. Our civilization had received terrible wounds. In the British Commonwealth, among the free nations, we cherished the ideals of peace. We believed we could build a new world, purged of evil, and more splendid and good. In that great faith and hope we must bend all our energies in unity together; and…[I have] absolute confidence that, dark as were the clouds to-day, we could already descry the dawn.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the 65th anniversary luncheon of the United Wards' Club in the Connaught Rooms, London (23 February 1942), quoted in The Times (24 February 1942), p. 2.
War Cabinet

Life, Men, World, Peace

“From a rational standpoint, it might be expected that man should be far more willing to express financial confidence in his skills rather than risking his earnings on the mindless meanderings of chance. Experience, however, has strongly indicated the reverse proposition to hold true.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Ten, Games Of Pure Skill And Competitive Computers, p. 337

Chance

“Drug abuse is a lottery. I have never taken drugs and it is only by the grace of God that I did not turn to them. Their prohibition gives them a taboo quality and makes them attractive. I am just so disappointed and deeply unimpressed by this government. They are driven by pragmatism rather than taking a stand on the issue, having the confidence to do what needs to be done. They must be legalised. I believe that passionately.”

Ivor Tiefenbrun (1946) Scottish businessman

Cited from The Scotsman http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/legalise-all-drugs-says-millionaire-tiefenbrun-1-1371780, 31 March 2002. 2002

God, Disappointment, Passion

“The "Second System Effect":
An architect’s first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint.
As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used “next time.” Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system.
This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable.
The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile."”

Fred Brooks (1931) American computer scientist

Page 55.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (1975, 1995)

Idea, Time, Parting

“Beneath the smiling mask, we can see the injury that results from a deficiency of rebellion. The nice ones are never quite real. They lack self-definition, self-confidence, because they have never created boundaries and limits for themselves by making decisions. Having never dared to break the taboos they suffer from shame. Their sins are ones of omission rather than commission. They “have left undone those things they ought to have done,” most especially deciding for themselves what is good and evil.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), pp. 82-83

Smile, Decision, Suffering, Evil

“When young, one is confident to be able to build palaces for mankind, but when the time comes one has one's hands full just to be able to remove their trash.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Letter to Johann Kaspar Lavatar (6 March 1780)

Time

“The last decisive energy of a rational courage which confides in the Supreme Power, is very sublime. It makes a man who intrepidly dares every thing that can. oppose or attack him within the sphere of mortality — who will press toward his object while death is impending over him — who would retain his purpose unshaken amidst the ruins of the world.”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 239.

Death, World, Courage, Decision

“I do not believe that we can make progress in European appeasement if we allow the impression to gain currency abroad that we yield to constant pressure. I am certain in my own mind that progress depends above all on the temper of the nation, and that temper must find expression in a firm spirit. This spirit I am confident is there. Not to give voice it is I believe fair neither to this country nor to the world.”

Anthony Eden (1897–1977) British Conservative politician, prime minister

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1938/feb/21/personal-explanations to the House of Commons (21 February 1938) detailing his resignation from the government as Foreign Secretary

World, Dependency, Country