Quotes about assurance
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“Ignorance is the mother of Devotion: A maxim that is proverbial, and confirmed by general experience. Look out for a people, entirely destitute of religion: If you find them at all, be assured, that they are but few degrees removed from brutes. What so pure as some of the morals, included in some theological system? What so corrupt as some of the practices, to which these systems give rise?”

David Hume The Natural History of Religion

Part XV - General corollary
The Natural History of Religion (1757)

People, Religion

“Alexander said, "I assure you I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Life of Alexander
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Knowledge

“I have received feedback from friends who have witnessed kidnappings or relatives of victims who have been subjected to abduction and have paid ransom for their releases. There’s a segment of the community who is already in panic and there must be a concrete action to abate these crimes and prevent the spread of alarm among the public. These are crimes that do not even hide under the cloak of darkness anymore. It is very disturbing. These are the reported ones, but I am sure there are more which have remained unreported by the victims and their families out of fear of retaliation from their aggressors. I ask the PNP to intensify its campaign against criminals and beef up security to protect the public. The people need to be assured that they can walk our streets to and from their homes.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, September 2). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152689785300610/ 2014, Facebook

People, Fear, Family, Home

“Serve God, and God will take care of you. Submit to His will, trust in His grace, and resign yourself into His hands with the assurance that the Lord is well pleased with those "that hope in His mercy."”

Gardiner Spring (1785–1873) American clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 241.

God, Hope

“In looking at this wreck of Governments in all European countries, there is one consideration that suggests itself, sadly elucidative of our modern epoch. These Governments, we may be well assured, have gone to anarchy for this one reason inclusive of every other whatsoever, That they were not wise enough; that the spiritual talent embarked in them, the virtue, heroism, intellect, or by whatever other synonyms we designate it, was not adequate,—probably had long been inadequate, and so in its dim helplessness had suffered, or perhaps invited falsity to introduce itself; had suffered injustices, and solecisms, and contradictions of the Divine Fact, to accumulate in more than tolerable measure; whereupon said Governments were overset, and declared before all creatures to be too false.”

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

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

Suffering, Falseness, Country

“The ordinary man casts a shadow. In a way we do not quite understand, the man of genius casts light. Instinctively, we flinch from this light. We assure ourselves that genius must pay a terrible price. Often history bears us out: the creator, the supreme artist, the master of politics carries the scars of his greatness.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

"Not a Preface, but a Word of Thanks," foreword to Unfinished Journey by Yehudi Menuhin (1977).

Way, History, Understanding, Light

“[C]opyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. […] This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art.”

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).

Art, Idea, Science

“I am prepared to waive the privilege against self-incrimination and to tell you everything you wish to know about my views or actions if your committee will agree to refrain from asking me to name other people. If the committee is unwilling to give me this assurance, I will be forced to plead the privilege of the fifth amendment at the hearing.”

Lillian Hellman (1905–1984) American dramatist and screenwriter

Letter to HUAC (19 May 1952)

People

“My next proposition is that the North is in the course of acquiring this power to abolish slavery. Is that true? I say, gentlemen, the North is acquiring that power by two processes, one of which is operating with great rapidity-that is by the admission of new States. The public territory is capable of forming from twenty to thirty States of larger size than the average of the States now in the Union. The public territory is peculiarly Northern territory, and every State that comes into the Union will be a free State. We may rest assured, sit, that that is a fixed fact. The events in Kansas should satisfy every one of the truth of that. If causes now in operation are allowed to continue, the admission of new States will go on until a sufficient number shall have been secured to give the necessary preponderance to change the Constitution. There is a process going on by which some of our own slave States are becoming free States already. It is true, that in some of the slave States the slave population is actually on the decrease, and, I believe it is true of all of them that it is relatively to the white population on the decrease. The census shows that slaves are decreasing in Delaware and Maryland; and it shows that in the other States in the same parallel, the relative state of the decrease and increase is against the slave population. It is not wonderful that this should be so. The anti-slavery feeling has got to be so great at the North that the owners of slave property in these States have a presentiment that it is a doomed institution, and the instincts of self-interest impels them to get rid of that property which is doomed. The consequence is, that it will go down lower and. lower, until it all gets to the Cotton States-until it gets to the bottom. There is the weight of a continent upon it forcing it down. Now, I say, sir, that under this weight it is bound to go down unto the Cotton States, one of which I have the honor to represent here. When that time comes, sir, the free States in consequence of the manifest decrease, will urge the process with additional vigor, and I fear that the day is not distant when the Cotton States, as they are called, will be the only slave States. When that time comes, the time will have arrived when the North will have the power to amend the Constitution, and say that slavery shall be abolished, and if the master refuses to yield to this policy, he shall doubtless be hung for his disobedience.”

Henry L. Benning (1814–1875) Confederate Army general

Speech to the Virginia Convention (1861)

Truth, Fear, Feeling, Distant

“It is natural that I should bear entire responsibility for the war in general, and, needless to say, I am prepared to do so. Consequently, now that the war has been lost, it is presumably necessary that I be judged so that the circumstances of the time can be clarified and the future peace of the world be assured. Therefore, with respect to my trial, it is my intention to speak frankly, according to my recollection, even though when the vanquished stands before the victor, who has over him the power of life and death, he may be apt to toady and flatter. I mean to pay considerable attention to this in my actions, and say to the end that what is true is true and what is false is false. To shade one's words in flattery to the point of untruthfulness would falsify the trial and do incalculable harm to the nation, and great care must be taken to avoid this.”

Hideki Tōjō (1884–1948) former Prime Minister of Japan and Minister of War executed in 1948

Written in his prison diary https://books.google.com/books?id=aynFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=%22I+should+bear+entire+responsibility+for+the+war+in+general%22&source=bl&ots=ov6_NlNuJx&sig=W_gAxNsPYqUMqh-FE1WF4CbCQ-8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QZHsVMKlLsKiNrnDg6AP&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22I%20should%20bear%20entire%20responsibility%20for%20the%20war%20in%20general%22&f=false, as quoted in The Imperial Japanese Army: The Invincible Years 1941–42 https://books.google.com/books?id=LTZfBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA337&lpg=PA337&dq=%22I+should+bear+entire+responsibility+for+the+war+in+general%22&source=bl&ots=wiF4ARAlht&sig=EjofLr6zBGo9YG4b0dBGjL91VB0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QZHsVMKlLsKiNrnDg6AP&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=%22I%20should%20bear%20entire%20responsibility%20for%20the%20war%20in%20general%22&f=false (2014), by Bill Yenne, Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford Publishing, p. 337. 1940s

Life, Death, War, World

“Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

Source: The Cabinet Council (published 1658), Chapter 25

Way, Personality, Perseverance

“From his loftiest pulpit the modern clerc assures man that he is great in proportion as he is practical.”

Julien Benda (1867–1956) French essayist

Source: Treason of the Intellectuals (1927), p. 150

“Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man — war, poverty, and tyranny — and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Acceptance speech, Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois (26 July 1952)

Pain, War, People, Truth

“Education has a great part to play in assuring the intellectual and moral basis not only for citizenship of the state but also for that world citizenship which is the imperative need of the time. For education to serve the purposes of democracy and world citizenship it should it should be in a real sense “liberal.””

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

During his scholarly lecture tours as a philosopher, in Ghana, quoted in "Jayachamaraja Wodeyar – A Princely scholar".

World, Education, Democracy, Sense

“Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. And I assure you, this will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Invasion of Iraq (March 2003)

Way, Decision, Victory

“As non-scientists, most gardeners deprived of atomic-ray spectrometers, a battery of reagents, and a few million research dollars must look to signs of health such as the birds, reptiles, worms, and plants of their garden-farm. For myself, in a truly natural garden I have come to expect to see, hear, and find evidence of abundant vertebrate life. This, and this alone, assures me that invertebrates still thrive there. I know of many farms where neither birds nor worms exist, and I suspect that their products are dangerous to all life forms.”

Bill Mollison (1928–2016) Australian permaculturist

Source: Permaculture: A Designers' Manual (1988), chapter 8.12

Life, Health, Nature, Bird

“Religion and education meet in their responsibility to make possible the abundant life—the terms are intellectual and spiritual, rather than material. Humane living is assured only to those … who have disciplined themselves to choose and who have the ardor to strive for the excellent “with heart and soul and mind.””

Aurelia Henry Reinhardt (1877–1948) American educator and social activist

Address at Ohio State University, 1940, as quoted in Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society Archives, 3 July 2018, Aurelia Isabel Henry Reinhardt (1877-1948) http://www.uuwhs.org/womenwest.php,

Life, Education, Religion, Soul

“Except for the demented orphan, the living will is quite beside the point. The one time it really is essential is if you think your fractious family will be only too happy to hasten your demise to get your money. That’s what the law is good at — protecting you from murder and theft. But that is a far cry from assuring a peaceful and willed death, which is what most people imagine living wills are about.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, August 14, 2009, "The Truth About Death Counseling" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer082109.php3#.U4GtOcJOWUk at jewishworldreview.com. 2000s, 2009

Death, Money, People, Family

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

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

This is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
1961, Inaugural Address

Support, Success

“It was during that same week that I was up there [In Seattle rehearsing with Pearl Jam]. Day four maybe, or day five, they did a Temple [of the Dog] rehearsal after our afternoon rehearsal. I got to watch these songs, and watch how Chris [Cornell] was working, and watch Matt [Cameron] play drums. It got to "Hunger Strike" - I was sitting in the corner, putting duck tape on a little African drum. About two-thirds of the way though, he was having to cut off the one line, and start the other. I'm not now, and certainly wasn't then, self-assured or cocky, but I could hear what he was trying to do, so I walked up to the mic - which I'm really surprised I did - and sang the other part, "Going hungry, going hungry." The next time I was up, he asked if I'd record it - so it was just me and Chris in the same studio that we made [1991's] Ten record. I really like hearing that song. I feel like I could be real proud of it - because one, I didn't write it, and two, it was such a nice way to be ushered onto vinyl for the first time. I'm indebted to Chris time eternal for being invited onto that track.”

Eddie Vedder (1964) musician, songwriter, member of Pearl Jam

Hunger, Dogs, Way, Feeling

“One great state says to others, as each in effect has been saying during the ten years of armament debate: "It is true that we ask for considerable power. Perhaps, all things considered, greater power than you. But it need not disturb you in the least, for we give you our most positive assurance that that power will be used purely for defense. And by defense we mean this: that when we get into a dispute with you as to our respective rights, when, that is, the question is whether you are right or we are right, what we mean by defense is that we shall always be in a position to be sole judge of the question. And so much stronger than you, that you will have to accept our verdict without any possibility of appeal. Could anything be fairer?"”

Norman Angell (1872–1967) British politician

Peace and the Public Mind (1935)

Question

“There is no single speech nor article in which it is not said that the purpose of all these orgies is the peace of Europe. At a dinner given by the representatives of French literature, all breathe of peace. M. Zola, who, a short time previously, had written that war was inevitable, and even serviceable; M. de Vogue, who more than once has stated the same in print, say, neither of them, a word as to war, but speak only of peace. The sessions of Parliament open with speeches upon the past festivities; the speakers mention that such festivities are an assurance of peace to Europe.
It is as if a man should come into a peaceful company, and commence energetically to assure everyone present that he has not the least intention to knock out anyone's teeth, blacken their eyes, or break their arms, but has only the most peaceful ideas for passing the evening.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 1

War, Peace, Literature, Idea

“Our methods may seem strange and indirect. Even incomprehensible. But I assure you we know what we're doing.”

Philip K. Dick book Adjustment Team

Adjustment Team (1954)

“This terrible tragedy has created the opportunity to fashion a determined global response to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, wherever it exists and under whatever name. I assured President Bush of India's complete support in this.”

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

After his meeting with George W. Bush in Washington in 2001 A World United, 5 December 2013, The White House http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/national-anthem/newdelhi.html,

Fashion, Support

“While reiterating Tanzania's support to the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination, please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration”

John Magufuli (1959) Tanzanian politician

President of the United Republic of Tanzania Dr. John Pombe Joseph Magufuli has reaffirmed the support of his country to the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination said in a letter President of Republic, Secretary General of the Polisario Front, on the occasion the celebrations in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of proclamation of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, quoted on AllAfrica, "Tanzania: President of Tanzania Reiterates Support to Right of the Saharawi People to Self-Determination" http://allafrica.com/stories/201603011576.html, February 28, 2016.

People, Support

“Be assured, my dear Anne, that it is only by taking our lesson from God and doing the will of God, that we can either please Him in time, or be happy with Him in eternity.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 573.

God, Time, Happiness

“From experience it has been observed that a newly converted Communist frequently acquires a feeling of omniscient superiority over his unconverted fellow men. He feels that at last the universe is laid out before him in a simple, comprehensible manner. If he has never wrestled with philosophical problems before he is likely to be overwhelmed by the infatuating possibility that through Dialectical Materialism man has finally solved all of the basic problems necessary to understand the universe. In this state of mind the student will often drop his attitude of critical inquiry. He will invite indoctrination in heavy doses because of his complete assurance that he has at last discovered Truth in its ultimate form.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Men, Truth, Feeling, Understanding

“My friends assured me that Hitler’s talk was sheer bombast,” Vishniac said in 1955. “But I replied that he would not hesitate to exterminate those people when he got around to it. And who was there to defend them? I knew I could be of little help, but I decided that, as a Jew, it was my duty to my ancestors, who grew up among the very people who were being threatened, to preserve — in pictures, at least — a world that might soon cease to exist.”

Roman Vishniac (1897–1990) American photographer

People, World, Help

“Each of us in the US - the long middle finger - must be careful that we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure that we are giving a hand, not the finger. Unfortunately, I think this is how the reset of the world looks at the US right now. Not as part of the hand-giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers –but instead scratching our nose and sending a signal.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

When she drew compassion with the five most populated of the seven continents of the world in a lectuere which created a furore necessitating an apology from her. Quoted in [. Branson, Douglas M ., The Last Male Bastion: Gender and the CEO Suite in America s Public Companies, http://books.google.com/books?id=wTFSa2qouSwC&pg=PA98, 15 December 2009, Routledge, 978-0-203-86566-8, 98–]

Pain, World, Business, Thinking

“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)

Confidence, Time, Parting, Country

“The high tenet of this philosophy (Liberalism) is that Liberty is an endowment from the Creator of every individual man and woman upon which no power, whether economic or political, can encroach, and that not even the government may deny. And herein it challenges all other philosophies of society and government; for all others, both before and since, insist that the individual has no such unalienable rights, that he is but the servant of the state. Liberalism holds that man is master of the state, not the servant; that the sole purpose of government is to nurture and assure these liberties. All others insist that Liberty is not a God-given right; that the state is the master of the man.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Page 4
The Challenge to Liberty (1934)

God

“There may be those who wish to hear more — more promises to this group or that — more harsh rhetoric about the men in the Kremlin — more assurances of a golden future, where taxes are always low and subsidies ever high. But my promises are in the platform you have adopted — our ends will not be won by rhetoric and we can have faith in the future only if we have faith in ourselves.”

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

1960, The New Frontier

Men, Faith, Future

“We cannot rely exclusively on military power to assure our long-term security. Lasting peace is gained as justice and democracy advance.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks on U.S.-British relations and foreign policy (November 2003)

Peace, Justice, Democracy

“As for some countries’ concerns about Russia's possible aggressive actions, I think that only an insane person and only in a dream can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people’s fears with regard to Russia. They just want to play the role of front-line countries that should receive some supplementary military, economic, financial or some other aid. Therefore, it is pointless to support this idea; it is absolutely groundless. But some may be interested in fostering such fears. I can only make a conjecture.

For example, the Americans do not want Russia's rapprochement with Europe. I am not asserting this, it is just a hypothesis. Let’s suppose that the United States would like to maintain its leadership in the Atlantic community. It needs an external threat, an external enemy to ensure this leadership. Iran is clearly not enough – this threat is not very scary or big enough. Who can be frightening? And then suddenly this crisis unfolds in Ukraine. Russia is forced to respond. Perhaps, it was engineered on purpose, I don’t know. But it was not our doing.

Let me tell you something – there is no need to fear Russia. The world has changed so drastically that people with some common sense cannot even imagine such a large-scale military conflict today. We have other things to think about, I assure you.”

Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister

2015-06-06, Interview to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/49629 2011 - 2015

People, World, Fear, Dreams

“Large-scale riots in East Pakistan have compelled over two lakh Hindus and other minorities to come over to India. Indians naturally feel incensed by the happenings in East Bengal. To bring the situation under control and to prescribe the right remedy for the situation it is essential that the malady be properly diagnosed. And even in this state of mental agony, the basic values of our national life must never be forgotten. It is our firm conviction that guaranteeing the protection of the life and property of Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan is the responsibility of the Government of India. To take a nice legalistic view about the matter that Hindus in Pakistan are Pakistani nationals would be dangerous and can only result in killings and reprisals in the two countries, in greater or lesser measure. When the Government of India fails to fulfill this obligation towards the minorities in Pakistan, the people understandably become indignant. Our appeal to the people is that this indignation should be directed against the Government and should in no case be given vent to against the Indian Muslims. If the latter thing happens, it only provides the Government with a cloak to cover its own inertia and failure, and an opportunity to malign the people and repress them. So far as the Indian Muslims are concerned, it is our definite view that, like all other citizens, their life and property must be protected in all circumstances. No incident and no logic can justify any compromise with truth in this regard. A state, which cannot guarantee the right of living to its citizens, and citizens who cannot assure safety of their neighbours, would belong to the barbaric age. Freedom and security to every citizen irrespective of his faith has indeed been India’s sacred tradition. We would like to reassure every Indian Muslim in this regard and would wish this message to reach every Hindu home that it is their civic and national duty to ensure the fulfillment of this assurance.”

Deendayal Upadhyaya (1916–1968) RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh

Joint statement for the Indo-Pak confederation that D Upadhyaya signed, on 12 April 1964, with Dr Lohia, quoted in L.K. Advani, My Country My Life (2008)

Life, People, Truth, Age

“The assurance that we have no means of answering [final] questions is no valid excuse for callousness towards them. The more deeply should we feel, down to the roots of our being, their pressure and their sting. Whose hunger has ever been [sated] with the knowledge that he could not eat?”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Source: History as a System (1962), p. 15

Hunger, Feeling, Question, Knowledge

“Throughout theological history we have been assured by religious leaders that if we perform certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate our passions, limit our appetites and refrain from sexual indulgence, we shall, after sufficient torture of the mind and body, find something beyond this little life. And that is what millions of so-called religious people have done through the ages, either in isolation, going off into the desert or into the mountains or a cave or wandering from village to village with a begging bowl, or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing their minds to conform to an established pattern. But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind which wants to escape from all turmoil, which has denied the outer world and been made dull through discipline and conformity — such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1960s, (1969)

Life, People, Age, World

“If the present civilisation does not acquire some stable moral fondations ("bases morales stables", Fr.), its existence will hardly be more assured than that of the civilisations that have preceeded it, and which have fallen”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

or collapse, or failed
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 41.

“It is true that we were cautious in our planning. There were many uncertainties about how well our Lunar module systems and our Pressure suit and backpack would match the engineering predictions in the hostile lunar environment. We were operating in a near perfect vacuum with the temperature well above 200 degrees Fahrenheit with the local gravity only one sixth that of Earth. That combination cannot be duplicated here on Earth, but we tried as best we could to test our equipment for those conditions. For example, because normal air conditioning is inadequate for lunar conditions, we were required to use cold water to cool the interior of our suits. We did not have any data to tell us how long the small water tank in our backpacks would suffice. NASA officials limited our surface working time to 2 and 3/4 hours on that first surface exploration to assure that we would not expire of hyperthermia.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Letter to Robert Krulwich (2010)

Hostility, Water, Time, Perfection

“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, Confidence

“All true love to God is preceded in the heart by these two things — a sense of sin, and an assurance of pardon. There is no love possible — real, deep, genuine, worthy of being called love of God — which does not start with the belief of my own transgression, and with the thankful reception of forgiveness in Christ.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 397.

Love, God, Forgiveness, Sense

“O ye Gods, and O great Jove,
Have pity on a father's love
And hear Evander's prayer:
If 'tis your purpose to restore
My Pallas to my arms once more;
If living is to see his face,
Then grant me life, of your dear grace:
No toil too hard to bear.
But ah! if Fortune be my foe,
And meditate some crushing blow,
Now, now the thread in mercy break,
While hope sees dim and cares mistake,
While still I clasp thee darling boy,
My latest and my only joy,
Nor let assurance, worse than fear,
With cruel tidings wound my ear.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VIII, p. 295

Love, Life, God, Fear

“An earlier version of this volume was originally contracted for and produced as a monograph by Warner Modular Communications, Inc., a subsidiary member of the Warner communications and entertainment conglomerate. The publishing house had run a relatively independent operation up to the time of the controversy over this document. The editors and publisher were enthusiastic about the monograph and committed themselves to put it out quickly and to promote it with vigor. But just prior to publication, in the fall of 1973, officials of the parent company got wind of it, looked at it, and were horrified by its “unpatriotic” contents. Mr. William Sarnoff, a high officer of the parent company, for example, was deeply pained by our statement on page 7 of the original that the “leadership in the United States, as a result of its dominant position and wide-ranging counter-revolutionary efforts, has been the single most important instigator, administrator, and moral and material sustainer of serious bloodbaths in the years that followed World War II.” So pained were Sarnoff and his business associates, in fact, that they were quite prepared to violate a contractual obligation in order to assure that no such material would see the light of day. […] they decided to close down the publishing house […]. The history of the suppressed monograph is an authentic instance of private censorship of ideas per se. The uniqueness of the episode lies only in the manner of suppression. Usually, private intervention in the book market is anticipatory, with regrets that the manuscript is unacceptable, perhaps “unmarketable.””

Edward S. Herman (1925–2017) American journalist

Sometimes the latter contention is only an excuse for unwillingness to market, although it may sometimes reflect an accurate assessment of how the media and journals will receive books that are strongly critical of the established order.
Source: The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, with Noam Chomsky, 1979, pp. xiv-xvii.

Pain, War, Books, World

“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, Confidence, Understanding

“With each tentative tiptoe and stumble, I had to inwardly assure myself that I was a good comedian and that my life was not pointless. “I am addicted to comfort,” I thought as I tumbled into the wood chips. I have become divorced from nature; I don’t know what the names of the trees and birds are. I don’t know what berries to eat or which stars will guide me home. I don’t know how to sleep outside in a wood or skin a rabbit. We have become like living cutlets, sanitized into cellular ineptitude. They say that supermarkets have three days’ worth of food. That if there was a power cut, in three days the food would spoil. That if cash machines stopped working, if cars couldn’t be filled with fuel, if homes were denied warmth, within three days we’d be roaming the streets like pampered savages, like urban zebras with nowhere to graze. The comfort has become a prison; we’ve allowed them to turn us into waddling pipkins. What is civilization but dependency? Now, I’m not suggesting we need to become supermen; that solution has been averred before and did not end well. Prisoners of comfort, we dread the Apocalypse. What will we do without our pre-packed meals and cozy jails and soporific glowing screens rocking us comatose? The Apocalypse may not arrive in a bright white instant; it may creep into the present like a fog. All about us we may see the shipwrecked harbingers foraging in the midsts of our excess. What have we become that we can tolerate adjacent destitution? That we can amble by ragged despair at every corner? We have allowed them to sever us from God, and until we take our brothers by the hand we will find no peace.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Life, God, Peace, Food

“Well, you know, in the first place I'm a pretty private person. But I can assure you that I'm no saint by any means of the imagination. You know, we go to parties and we drink like any other people. But I think the key word is balance. I've been married (to keyboardist Emilio Estefan) for 28 years; we've been together for 30 years. I had my son when I was very young and my priority has always been my family. My husband has been very supportive. We live a very normal life, something that may be boring to some people. But it's a great life! We travel a lot. My son is 26 and my dauther is 11. Family is the center of our lives. We try to stay out of the tabloids.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

answer to question "How do you maintain your clean image, something not every artist can do?"
2007, 2008

Life, People, Family, Travel

“It becomes you to be wise to smell, feel, and have in estimation these fair books, de haulte gresse, light in the pursuit, and bold at the encounter. Then you must, by a curious reading and frequent meditation, break the bone and suck out the substantific marrow, — that is what I mean by these Pythagorean symbols, — with assured hope of becoming well-advised and valiant by the said reading; for in it you shall find another kind of taste, and a doctrine more profound, which will disclose unto you deep doctrines and dreadful mysteries, as well in what concerneth our religion as matters of the public state and life economical.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Prologue.
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Gargantua (1534)

Life, Books, Religion, Hope

“Excessive acreages of unused buildings, commercial and residential were created. The need for such construction, given the space demands of modern business bureaucracy, was believed to be without limit. In later consequence, the solvency of numerous banks, including that of some of the nation's largest and most prestigious institutions, was either fatally impaired or placed in doubt. The lending of both those that failed or were endangered and others was subject, by fear and example to curtailment. The construction industry was severely constrained and its workers left unemployed. A general recession ensued. Any early warning as to what was happening would have been exceptionally ill received, seen as yet another invasion of the benign rule of laissez faire and a specific interference with the market. However in keeping with the exceptions to this rule, there would be eventual salvation in a government bailout of the banks. Insurance of bank deposits — a far from slight contribution to contentment — was permissible, as well as assurance that were a bank large enough, it would not be allowed to fail. A preventive role by government was not allowed; eventual government rescue was highly acceptable.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Culture of Contentment

Source: The Culture of Contentment (1992), Ch. 5

Fear, Business

“It is a fundamental assertion of this study that the majority society, in its fear-provoked zeal to maintain and assure its inequitable position in American society, flirted with and came dangerously close to total abandonment of the particular freedom upon which all others are ultimately dependent, the right to disagree. Moreover, it is an ancillary claim of this study that the danger has not yet passed.”

Huey P. Newton (1942–1989) Co-founder of the Black Panther Party

War Against the Panthers: A Study of Repression in America (June 1980)

Fear, Study, Freedom, Dependency

“Heredity is not the dark specter which some people have thought—merciless and unchangeable, the embodiment of Fate itself. This dark, pessimistic belief which tinges even the literature of to-day comes, no doubt, from the general lack of knowledge of the laws governing the interaction of these two ever-present forces of heredity and environment wherever there is life.
My own studies have led me to be assured that heredity is only the sum of all past environment, in other words environment is the architect of heredity; and I am assured of another fact: acquired characters are transmitted and—even further—that all characters which are transmitted have been acquired…”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Life, Fate, People, Law

“You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government. Foreign affairs are in the capable hands of Ernest Bevin. His task is quite sufficiently difficult without the irresponsible statements of the kind you are making... I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome.”

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

Letter to Harold Laski, Chairman of the Labour Party (1946), quoted in David Butler and Gareth Butler, Twentieth Century British Political Facts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 289.
Prime Minister

Silence, Parting

“For I can assure you that we love our country, not for what it was, though it has always been great — not for what it is, though of this we are deeply proud — but for what it someday can, and, through the efforts of us all, someday will be.”

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

"Address at a Luncheon Meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board (33)", (13 February 1961) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx 1961

Love, Effort, Country

“The aggressive Edwardian prosperity that lends so comfortable a background to Elgar's finales is now as strange to us as the England that produced Greensleeves and The Woodes so wilde. Stranger, in fact, and less sympathetic. In consequence much of Elgar's music, through no fault of its own, has for the present generation an almost intolerable air of smugness, self-assurance and autocratic benevolence.”

Edward Elgar (1857–1934) English composer

Constant Lambert Music Ho! (London: Hogarth Press, [1934] 1985) p. 240.
Criticism

Music

“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, Sincerity

“Religion, of course, assured him that the answer to his query was, in various books, explicitly written, in very dissimilar forms. But Kennaston could find little to attract him in any theory of the universe based upon direct revelations from heaven. Conceding that divinity had actually stated so-and-so, from Sinai or Delphi or Mecca, and had been reported without miscomprehension or error, there was no particular reason for presuming that divinity had spoken veraciously: and, indeed all a available analogues went to show that nothing in nature dealt with its inferiors candidly.”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 26 : "Epper Si Muove"

Books, Religion, Error, Nature

“We would no doubt end up understanding quicker that the anarchists are right when they say that in order to have moral and physical tranquillity, we must destroy the causes that create crimes and criminals : it is not by suppressing he who, rather than die a slow death by the deprivations that he has had to and will have to undergo, with no hope of seeing them end, prefers, if he has a bit of energy, take by force that which can assure him well-being, even at the risk of his own death which can only be an end to his sufferings.”

Ravachol (1859–1892) French anarchist

On finira sans doute plus vite par comprendre que les anarchistes ont raison lorsqu'ils disent que pour avoir la tranquillité morale et physique, il faut détruire les causes qui engendrent les crimes et les criminels : ce n'est pas en supprimant celui qui, plutôt que de mourir d'une mort lente par suite de privation qu'il a eues et aurait à supporter, sans espoir de les voir finir, préfère, s'il a un peu d'énergie, prendre violemment ce qui peut lui assurer le bien-être, même au risque de sa mort qui ne peut être qu'un terme à ses souffrances.
Trial statement

Death, Hope, Understanding, Suffering

“The conception of yourselves as altogether virtuous and wronged is, I assure you, not at all the one which onlookers hold of you. No doubt, you have rights on your side. No doubt, some of you suffered without just cause. But nothing which has been done to you cries aloud to Heaven for condemnation as your own actions.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

Open letter to the Masters of Dublin (1913)

Suffering

“I am assured at any rate
Man's practically inexterminate.
Someday I must go into that.
There's always been an Ararat
Where someone someone else begat
To start the world all over at.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"A-Wishing Well" (1962)
1960s

World

“Is the Minister aware that the recent publication "Over Here", produced by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, lists 157 such bases, not 66 that the hon. Gentleman mentioned? Will the hon. Gentleman assure us that this army of occupation of 30,000 personnel is not spying on any British citizens or political activities in this country? … Will the Minister further assure the House that the British Government have complete control over all activities in United States bases and that they will not allow those forces to deny civil liberties to people demonstrating outside them or to those who observe cruise missiles while they are touring around this country? Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House that it is time for the United States forces to leave this country and stop harassing British citizens and making Britain a nuclear aircraft carrier for the Pentagon?”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1988/apr/26/united-states-forces in the House of Commons (26 April 1988). 1980s

People, Time, Housing, Country

“The overall agenda here is quite simply the ruling classes, or the classes of Europe intend to stride on to the world stage as a powerful economic entity. And they want to be as powerful as the US, meaning they want a stronger foreign policy and a military wing to back them up. But I can assure the Government that the debate will be a very intensive debate, a very vigorous debate and I think the benefit perhaps this time is that certain distractions that were raised the last time would be set aside, and therefore we can concentrate on the more fundamental issues. […] Take for example this notion that Irish youth would be conscripted into an army. The only people I heard that from was Government ministers in the course of the campaign who said this is being said. Nobody here raised any such red herring. These were the so-called concerns that were being addressed. But the major concerns as to what the Treaty was really about has not been changed one iota.”

Joe Higgins (1949) Irish socialist politician

breakingnews.ie http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/eykfojojqlkf/

People, Youth, World, Thinking

“This Conference:… (3) recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ; (4) while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals”

Peter Akinola (1944) Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria

Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality, Lambeth Conference 1988.
Associated quotations

Love, God, People, Fear

“The needs of business, and the extensive market obviously waiting, assured the advent of mass-produced arithmetical machines just as soon as production methods were sufficiently advanced.
With machines for advanced analysis no such situation existed; for there was and is no extensive market; the users of advanced methods of manipulating data are a very small part of the population.”

Vannevar Bush book As We May Think

As We May Think (1945)

Business, Waiting, Parting

“Assurance of hope is more than life. It is health, strength, power, vigor, activity, energy, manliness, beauty.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 16.

Life, Health, Beauty, Hope

“Security is an impostor; little can be achieved while each seeks his own freedom from want, from war, or from fear. The general nature of all fear is the awareness that development is threatened. Fear and its consequences can be eliminated only by action leading to continuous development. Action can bring the assurance of a development which is more welcome than either spiritual or material security. Only through the pursuit of a general development can the species acquire the unity of purpose which may, as one of its secondary consequences, eliminate unemployment and war. In the individual life the same is true: only in unitary development can fear be overcome. Every individual experiences countless shocks from his first breath to his last, and these challenges are necessary to his development. But a unitary tradition can assist the members of each maturing generation to turn these challenges to advantage and to retain their basic integrity.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Source: The Next Development in Man (1948), p. 256

Life, War, Fear, Nature

“I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament — temperament is the word — I know nothing.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote of Degas in conversation with George Moore, later quoted by Moore in Impressions and Opinions (1891)
1876 - 1895

Art, Study

“By the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, Stalin had created a regime that had abandoned every principle that had presumably typified left-wing aspirations and had given himself over to notions of ‘socialism in one country’ — with all the attendant attributes: nationalism, the leadership principle, anti-liberalism, anti-individualism, communitarianism, hierarchical rule, missionary zeal, the employment of violence to assure national purpose, and anti-Semitism — making the Soviet Union unmistakenly ‘a cousin to the German National Socialism.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century, (2000), pp. 4-5

Country

“I assure you, a tiger, or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Isabella Linton on Heathcliff (Ch. XIII).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

““Do you have any papers for Will Barrent?”
“None,” the lawyer said. “His case is in different hands. I’m afraid it might not be completely processed until after the Games are over.”
“But I’ll probably be dead then,” Barrent said.
“That, I can assure you, won’t stop the papers from being properly served,” the fat lawyer said proudly. “Dead or alive, you will retain all your rights.””

Robert Sheckley book The Status Civilization

Source: The Status Civilization (1960), Chapter 18 (p. 77)

Game, Dead

“Thus, the way Romila Thapar equates Mahmud Ghaznavi with Harsha of Kashmir (twelfth century) as being both temple plunderers, can be shown up to be in gross conflict with the contemporary testimonies about the two….. Romila Thapar's explanation that Ghaznavi's behaviour was essentially the same as Harsha's, can only rest on an utter incompetence in reading the source material, or in a deliberate attempt to distort history. What is more, if at all one wants to compare Harsha's behaviour with that of the Muslim rulers, one should face the connection that the contemporary historian Kalhan explicitly makes. Commenting on Harsha's temple plundering, he writes :"Prompted by the Turks in his employ, he behaved like a Turk"…. Kalhan is simply saying that the very idea that a temple need not be respected, was borrowed by Harsha from the Muslim Turks. These already had a well-established reputation for temple desecration, and that is a fact to which the Nehruvian historians prefer not to draw the readers' attention….. So, here we have a case of a history professor who does not realize that the proofs he cites have hardly any logical connection with the thesis he proposes; or who is so assured about his eminence that he doesn't expect readers to notice the faulty reasoning.”

Harsha of Kashmir

Koenraad Elst 1991: Ayodhya and after: issues before Hindu society.

Way, History, Idea, Reading

“Even if mankind had any desire to rid itself of the Seven Deadly Sins, Greed had been assured of a place in our hearts by virtue of time. By writing it down on a piece of paper and parading it as law and belief, Greed could be resurrected at a moment's notice.
That was the beauty of the written word. It was invariably taken at face value and granted permit to be spoken as the truth. It lived longer than the man.
And wreaked havoc in the process.”

Stel Pavlou book Decipher

Decipher, The First Time, p. 7 (2001).

Truth, Law, Beauty, Time

“During the last few decades the business world has brought about a complete revolution in the methods of manufacturing, distributing and selling goods. That the revolution is beneficial and important no businessman will deny. But however important'these things? are, the business man realizes that his most pressing problem is methods of influencing and handling men rather than things:
The young man looking forward to a career sees that the man who has unusual ability in handling men is sure to attain the position of superintendent or manager; but that the man who has great cunning in handling material things is not thereby assured of a position above that of a skilled mechanic.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: Influencing men in business, 1911, p. 9; Chapter 1 Introduction, lead paragraph

Men, World, Business, Problem

“The only assurance that I can now give of the future is reference to the past. The course which I have taken in the past in connection with this rebellion must be regarded as a guaranty of the future. My past public life, which has been long and laborious, has been founded, as I in good conscience believe, upon a great principle of right, which lies at the basis of all things. The best energies of my life have been spent in endeavoring to establish and perpetuate the principles of free government, and I believe that the Government in passing through its present perils will settle down upon principles consonant with popular rights more permanent and enduring than heretofore. I must be permitted to say, if I understand the feelings of my own heart, that I have long labored to ameliorate and elevate the condition of the great mass of the American people. Toil and an honest advocacy of the great principles of free government have been my lot. Duties have been mine; consequences are God's. This has been the foundation of my political creed, and I feel that in the end the Government will triumph and that these great principles will be permanently established.”

Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) American politician, 17th president of the United States (in office from 1865 to 1869)

Quote, First Presidential address (1865)

Life, God, People, Feeling

“In physical science and in industrial technique… we have emancipated ourselves… from the savage dependence upon catastrophes for progress… In science and in industry we are radicals—radicals relying on a tested method. But in matters of social organization we retain a large part of the conservatism characteristic of the savage mind…
The 'social reformer' we have always with us, it is true. Or rather most of us are 'social reformers' of some kind… Yet the story of the past in matters of social organization is not a story that we should like to have continued for a thousand and one years. Reform by agitation or class struggle is a jerky way of moving forward, uncomfortable and wasteful of energy. Are we not intelligent enough to devise a steadier and a more certain method of progress? Most certainly, we could not keep social organization what it is even if we wanted to. We are not emerging from the hazards of war into a safe world. On the contrary, the world is a very dangerous place for a society framed as ours is, and I for one am glad of it.
Taking us all together as one people in a group of mighty peoples, our first and foremost concern is to develop some way of carrying on the infinitely complicated processes of modern industry and interchange day by day, despite all tedium and fatigue, and yet to keep ourselves interested in our work and contented with the division of the product…
What is lacking to achieve that end… is not so much good will as it is knowledge—above all, knowledge of human behavior. Our best hope for the future lies in the extension to social organization of the methods that we already employ in our most progressive fields of effort. In science and in industry… we do not wait for catastrophes to force new ways upon us… We rely, and with success, upon quantitative analysis to point the way; and we advance because we are constantly improving and applying such analysis. While I think that the development of social science offers more hope for solving our social problems than any other line of endeavor, I do not claim that these sciences in their present state are very serviceable.
They are immature, speculative, filled with controversies. Nor have we any certain assurance that they will ever grow into robust manhood, no matter what care we lavish upon them…. Those of us who are concerned with the social sciences… are engaged in an uncertain enterprise; perhaps we shall win no great treasures for mankind. But certainly it is our task to work out this lead with all the intelligence and the energy we possess until its richness or sterility be demonstrated.”

Wesley Clair Mitchell (1874–1948) American statistician

Source: "Statistics and Government," 1919, pp. 45, 47, 48-51; as cited in: Arthur F. Burns. " New Facts on Business Cycles http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0386," in: Arthur F. Burns (ed). The Frontiers of Economic Knowledge. Princeton University Press. 1954. p. 61 - 106; p. 63

War, People, World, Hope

“Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2004, 2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29

“But I think all of us would also agree that there's a very central part of your faith in how you approach public life. And I, frankly, would be really worried if somebody assured me that nothing in their faith would affect their judgments, because then I'd wonder, where's your judgment — how can you have judgment if you have no faith? And how can I trust you with power if you don't pray? Who you pray to, how you pray, how you come close to God is between you and God. But the notion that you're endowed by your creator sets a certain boundary on what we mean by America.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

Republican debate http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/10/last-nights-gop-debate-transcript.html 2011-10-18 2010s

Life, God, Faith, Thinking

“To him, the one Absolute Conscience, in every moral disaster our conscience turns for assured refuge and certain renewal of moral courage and strength. That is the real act and infallible function of Prayer.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.403

Courage

“She was painfully aware that doing one’s best was never assurance that it wasn’t the wrong choice anyway.”

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 3, “Bottle of Memories” (p. 42)

“[A]dvancement of the human factor in industry… varies so much that unless we use measurement and abide by the results, there is no possibility of repeating the process accurately and efficiently at will, or of predicting and controlling the future conditions that assure that advancement.”

Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Sr. (1868–1924) American industrial engineer

Source: Measurement of the human factor in industry (1917), p. 3.

Future

“But one problem remains. How can the conspiracy-minded Modern Democratic Party Women be assured that the switch was made? It is true that not many people would see the new bills and so some doubt might arise among the Democratic sisterhood about whether Wilson was really removed and then replaced on the bill by the three ladies named above. There is only one sure-fire means of relieving the Modern Democratic Party Women of their doubts before the whining starts. That means is to have the Democratic National Committee direct its current icon, Hilary Clinton, to publicly report on who appears on the $100,000 note each time she and her husband receive a packet of those bills from one or another of the foreign governments for which they are apparently selling out American interests. After all, if you cannot trust America’s graft-taker-in-chief, who can you trust?”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention http://non-intervention.com/1689/democrats-scourge-the-south-after-the-battle-flag-it%e2%80%99s-on-to-old-hickory/ (9 July 2015), by M. Scheuer. 2010s

Women, People, Problem, Appearance

“As believers we have no need to fear death. Christ himself assures us of a safe arrival home in heaven!”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 47

Death, Fear, Home, Christ

“Anybody can reduce taxes, but it is not so easy to stand in the gap and resist the passage of increasing appropriation bills which would make tax reduction impossible. It will be very easy to measure the strength of the attachment to reduced taxation by the power with which increased appropriations are resisted. If at the close of the present session the Congress has kept within the budget which I propose to present, it will then be possible to have a moderate amount of tax reduction and all the tax reform that the Congress may wish for during the next fiscal year. The country is now feeling the direct stimulus which came from the passage of the last revenue bill, and under the assurance of a reasonable system of taxation there is every prospect of an era of prosperity of unprecedented proportions. But it would be idle to expect any such results unless business can continue free from excess profits taxation and be accorded a system of surtaxes at rates which have for their object not the punishment of success or the discouragement of business, but the production of the greatest amount of revenue from large incomes. I am convinced that the larger incomes of the country would actually yield more revenue to the Government if the basis of taxation were scientifically revised downward. Moreover the effect of the present method of this taxation is to increase the cost of interest. on productive enterprise and to increase the burden of rent. It is altogether likely that such reduction would so encourage and stimulate investment that it would firmly establish our country in the economic leadership of the world.”

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

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

World, Feeling, Business, Success

“The illiterate expression ‘given data’ constantly recurs in Lange. It appears to have an irresistable attraction to mathematical economists because it doubly assures them that they know what they do not know. It seems to bewitch them into making assertions about the real world for which they have no empirical justification whatever.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

1980s and later, "Two Pages of Fiction" (1982)

World, Mathematics, Appearance

“In this highly competitive world, there is a crying need for the government to assure that schools in the country, for one, are able to produce graduates who have the capability to find quality work that mostly requires a sufficient level of technology skills.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

[www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/02/16/909422/chiz-wants-eco-growth-translated-jobs The Philippine Star]
2013, Mid-Term Campaign Trail

World, School, Cry, Country

“The architect should also have a knowledge of the study of medicine on account of the questions of climates, air, the healthiness and unhealthiness of sites, and the use of different waters. For without these considerations the healthiness of a dwelling cannot be assured.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book I, Chapter I, Sec. 10

Question, Knowledge, Study, Water

“I want to assure the people that Gujarat shall not tolerate any such accident. The culprits will get full punishment for their sins. Not only this, we will set an example, that nobody not even in his dream, thinks of committing a heinous crime like this.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Cited in: Caroline Sweetman (2005) Gender, Peacebuilding, and Reconstruction. p. 94
2002, "When select phrases are lifted and distorted out of context", 2002

People, Dreams, Thinking

“I know that when I look at today’s Mexicans and Central Americans, they seem to me fundamentally the same as my grandparents seeking a better life in America. On the other side, however, open immigration can’t coexist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure health care and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global. So Democrats have mixed feelings about immigration; in fact, it’s an agonizing issue.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"The Curious Politics of Immigration" http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/the-curious-politics-of-immigration/, 26 April 2010, The Conscience of a Liberal blog at The New York Times

Life, Health, Feeling, Strong

“Soldiers, by an agreement between General Ironhewer and me, the troops of the Army of Kentucky have surrendered. That we are beaten is a self-evident fact, and we cannot hope to resist the bomb that hangs over our head like the sword of Damocles. Richmond is fallen. The cause for which you have so long and manfully struggled, and for which you have braved dangers and made so many sacrifices, is today hopeless. Reason dictates and humanity demands that no more blood be shed here. It is your sad duty, and mine, to lay down our arms and to aid in restoring peace. As your commander, I sincerely hope that every officer and soldier will carry out in good faith all the terms of the surrender. War such as you have passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. But in captivity and when you return home a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect even of your enemies. In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. I have never sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I advise you to a course I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers. Preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to me and, I hope, will be magnanimous.”

Harry Turtledove book Settling Accounts: In at the Death

C.S. Army General George S. Patton's final address to the Army of Kentucky in July 1944, p. 339
Settling Accounts: In at the Death (2007)

War, Sadness, Peace, Faith

“.. I saw Gauguin; he told me his theories about art and assured me that the young [artists] would find salvation by replenishing themselves at remote and savage sources. I told him that this art did not belong to him, that he was a civilized man and hence it was his function to show us harmonious things. We parted, each unconvinced. Gauguin is certainly not without talent, but how difficult it is for him to find his own way! He is always poaching on someone's ground; now he is pillaging the savages of Oceania.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote about Paul Gauguin 23 Nov. 1893, in Racontars d'un Rapin, Paul Gauguin; as quoted by John Rewald, in 'Introduction' of Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien, ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro – (translated from the unpublished French letters by Lionel Abel); Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 221
1890's

Art, Way, Parting

“I understand, of course, that many people find smoking objectionable. That is their right. I would, I assure you, be the very last to criticize the annoyed. I myself find many-- even most-- things objectionable. Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one's home. I do not like aftershave lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation and putting up signs. In private I avoid such people; in public they have the run of the place. I stay at home as much as possible, and so should they. When it is necessary, however, to go out of the house, they must be prepared, as I am, to deal with the unpleasant personal habits of others. That is what "public" means.”

Fran Lebowitz book Social Studies

"When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes...Shut Them".
Social Studies (1981)

Children, People, Home, Understanding

“We've come to this moment through patience and resolve and focused action. And that is our strategy moving forward. The war on terror is a different kind of war, waged capture by capture, cell by cell, and victory by victory. Our security is assured by our perseverance and by our sure belief in the success of liberty. And the United States of America will not relent until this war is won. May God bless the people of Iraq, and may God bless America. Thank you.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)

God, War, People, Success

“Here is a Civil War movie that Trent Lott might enjoy. Less enlightened than Gone with the Wind, obsessed with military strategy, impartial between South and North, religiously devout, it waits 70 minutes before introducing the first of its two speaking roles for African Americans; "Stonewall" Jackson assures his black cook that the South will free him, and the cook looks cautiously optimistic. If World War II were handled this way, there'd be hell to pay.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gods-and-generals-2003 of Gods and Generals (21 February 2003) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

War, World, Way, Hell

“You know, friends, so many people have wished me congratulations on a 67-year career in baseball, and they've wished me a wonderful retirement with my family, and now, all I can do is tell you what I wish for you. May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow; for every tear, a smile; for every care, a promise; and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life seems, a faithful friend to share; for every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know, in my heart, I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me, and I'll miss our time together more than I can say. But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball. So, this is Vin Scully wishing you a pleasant good afternoon, wherever you may be.”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

Scully's final sign-off as a Dodger broadcaster.

Life, God, People, Family

“The search for the curvature K indicates that, after making all known corrections, the number N seems to increase faster with d than the third power, which would be expected in a Euclidean space, hence K is positive. The space implied thereby is therefore bounded, of finite total volume, and of a present "radius of curvature" R = \frac{1}{K^\frac{1}{2}} which is found to be of the order of 500 million light years. Other observations, on the "red shift" of light from these distant objects, enable us to conclude with perhaps more assurance that this radius is increasing…”

Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

Search, Light, Distant

“The will is not fundamentally right, as the practical ones would like very much to assure us; one may not pass over the desire for knowledge in order to stand immediately in the will, but knowledge perfects itself to will when it desensualizes itself and creates itself as a spirit "which builds its own body."”

Max Stirner book The False Principle of our Education

Source: The False Principle of our Education (1842), p. 21

Knowledge, Perfection

“Let me remind you that science is not necessarily wisdom. To know, is not the sole nor even the highest office of the intellect; and it loses all its glory unless it act in furtherance of the great end of man's life. That end is, as both reason and revelation unite in telling us, to acquire the feelings and habits that will lead us to love and seek what is good in all its forms, and guide us by following its traces to the first Great Cause of all, where only we find it pure and unclouded.
If science be cultivated in congruity with this, it is the most precious possession we can have— the most divine endowment. But if it be perverted to minister to any wicked or ignoble purpose — if it even be permitted to take too absolute a hold of the mind, or overshadow that which should be paramount over all, the perception of right, the sense of Duty — if it does not increase in us the consciousness of an Almighty and All-beneficent presence, — it lowers instead of raising us in the great scale of existence.
This, however, it can never do but by our fault. All its tendencies are heavenward; every new fact which it reveals is a ray from the origin of light, which leads us to its source. If any think otherwise, their knowledge is imperfect, or their understanding warped, or darkened by their passions. The book of nature is, like that of revelation, written by God, and therefore cannot contradict it; both we are unable to read through all their extent, and therefore should neither wonder nor be alarmed if at times we miss the pages which reconcile any seeming inconsistence. In both, too, we may fail to interpret rightly that which is recorded; but be assured, if we search them in quest of truth alone, each will bear witness to the other, — and physical knowledge, instead of being hostile to religion, will be found its most powerful ally, its most useful servant. Many, I know, think otherwise; and because attempts have occasionally been made to draw from astronomy, from geology, from the modes of the growth and formation of animals and plants, arguments against the divine origin of the sacred Scripture, or even to substitute for the creative will of an intelligent first cause the blind and casual evolution of some agency of a material system, they would reject their study as fraught with danger. In this I must express my deep conviction that they do injury to that very cause which they think they are serving.
Time will not let me touch further on the cavils and errors in question; and besides they have been often fully answered. I will only say, that I am here surrounded by many, matchless in the sciences which are supposed so dangerous, and not less conspicuous for truth and piety. If they find no discord between faith and knowledge, why should you or any suppose it to exist? On the contrary, they cannot be well separated. We must know that God is, before we can confess Him; we must know that He is wise and powerful before we can trust in Him, — that He is good before we can love Him. All these attributes, the study of His works had made known before He gave that more perfect knowledge of himself with which we are blessed. Among the Semitic tribes his names betoken exalted nature and resistless power; among the Hellenic races they denote his wisdom; but that which we inherit from our northern ancestors denotes his goodness. All these the more perfect researches of modern science bring out in ever-increasing splendour, and I cannot conceive anything that more effectually brings home to the mind the absolute omnipresence of the Deity than high physical knowledge. I fear I have too long trespassed on your patience, yet let me point out to you a few examples.
What can fill us with an overwhelming sense of His infinite wisdom like the telescope? As you sound with it the fathomless abyss of stars, till all measure of distances seems to fail and imagination alone gauges the distance; yet even there as here is the same divine harmony of forces, the same perfect conservation of systems, which the being able to trace in the pages of Newton or Laplace makes us feel as if we were more than men. If it is such a triumph of intellect to trace this law of the universe, how transcendent must that Greatest over all be, in which it and many like it, have their existence! That instrument tells us that the globe which we inhabit is but a speck, the existence of which cannot be perceived beyond our system. Can we then hope that in this immensity of worlds we shall not be overlooked? The microscope will answer. If the telescope lead to one verge of infinity, it brings us to the other; and shows us that down in the very twilight of visibility the living points which it discloses are fashioned with the most finished perfection, — that the most marvellous contrivances minister to their preservation and their enjoyment, — that as nothing is too vast for the Creator's control, so nothing is too minute or trifling for His care. At every turn the philosopher meets facts which show that man's Creator is also his Father, — things which seem to contain a special provision for his use and his happiness : but I will take only two, from their special relation to this very district. Is it possible to consider the properties which distinguish iron from other metals without a conviction that those qualities were given to it that it might be useful to man, whatever other purposes might be answered by them. That it should. be ductile and plastic while influenced by heat, capable of being welded, and yet by a slight chemical change capable of adamantine hardness, — and that the metal which alone possesses properties so precious should be the most abundant of all, — must seem, as it is, a miracle of bounty. And not less marvellous is the prescient kindness which stored up in your coalfields the exuberant vegetation of the ancient world, under circumstances which preserved this precious magazine of wealth and power, not merely till He had placed on earth beings who would use it, but even to a late period of their existence, lest the element that was to develope to the utmost their civilization and energy migbt be wasted or abused.
But I must conclude with this summary of all which I would wish to impress on your minds—* that the more we know His works the nearer we are to Him. Such knowledge pleases Him; it is bright and holy, it is our purest happiness here, and will assuredly follow us into another life if rightly sought in this. May He guide us in its pursuit; and in particular, may this meeting which I have attempted to open in His name, be successful and prosperous, so that in future years they who follow me in this high office may refer to it as one to be remembered with unmixed satisfaction.”

Thomas Romney Robinson

Robinson in his 1849 adress, as quoted in the Report of the Nineteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science https://archive.org/stream/report36sciegoog#page/n50/mode/2up, London, 1850.

Love, Life, Wisdom, Men

“Let me assure my countrymen of the Southern States that it is my earnest desire to regard and promote their truest interest — the interests of the white and of the colored people both and equally — and to put forth my best efforts in behalf of a civil policy which will forever wipe out in our political affairs the color line and the distinction between North and South, to the end that we may have not merely a united North or a united South, but a united country.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Inaugural Address (5 March 1877)

People, Color, Effort, Country

“Last month, at the grave of her husband, Michael, a CIA officer and Marine who died in Mazur-e-Sharif, Shannon Spann said these words of farewell, 'Semper Fi, my love'. Shannon is with us tonight. Shannon, I assure you and all who have lost a loved one that our cause is just, and our country will never forget the debt we owe Michael and all who gave their lives for freedom.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Love, Freedom, Country, Forgetting

“In the year 1910 we were beset by an accumulation of grave issues—rapidly becoming graver. … It was becoming evident to discerning eyes that the Party and Parliamentary system was unequal to coping with them. … The shadow of unemployment was rising ominously above the horizon. Our international rivals were forging ahead at a great rate and jeopardising our hold on the foreign trade which had contributed to the phenomenal prosperity of the previous half-century, and of which we had made such a muddled and selfish use. Our working population, crushed into dingy and mean streets, with no assurance that they would not be deprived of their daily bread by ill-health or trade fluctuations, were becoming sullen with discontent. Whilst we were growing more dependent on overseas supplies for our food, our soil was gradually going out of cultivation. The life of the countryside was wilting away and we were becoming dangerously over-industrialised. Excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks was undermining the health and efficiency of a considerable section of the population. The Irish controversy was poisoning our relations with the United States of America. A great Constitutional struggle over the House of Lords threatened revolution at home, another threatened civil war at our doors in Ireland. Great nations were arming feverishly for an apprehended struggle into which we might be drawn by some visible or invisible ties, interests, or sympathies. Were we prepared for all the terrifying contingencies?”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

War Memoirs: Volume I (London: Odhams, 1938), p. 21.
War Memoirs

Life, War, Health, Alcohol

““The hope of the real and lasting improvement of this present world by our moral endeavour. With lack of this, there would be moral discouragement, and the chief use of this life would be merely to find the means of departing out of it; righteousness could only be "in heaven," — in "the hereafter." This added essential to moral effort Personal Idealism supplies, with assurance of hope, in its indivisible union of the eternal and the temporal worlds; a union in which the eternal is the unitary and governing whole, and the temporal the potentially governed part.””

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Appendix B: The System in its Ethical Necessity and its Practical Bearings, p.402

Life, World, Hope, Effort

“I beg to propose to you that toast which is the first to which honour is done in every society of Englishmen, I mean "the Health of Her Majesty the Queen" — a toast which embodies the expression of that which is the deepest and warmest feeling of every Englishman… It could not be expected that man would pursue with diligence and success the pursuits of industry if he were not assured that he would reap in security the fruits which that industry might produce, and I am happy to say that our Army, our Navy, our Militia, and our Volunteers do afford to the people of these realms that security which human arrangements can provide for them. We are happily now at peace with all foreign Powers; but the continuance of that peace is not likely to be less certain when it is known to all foreign nations that the Army, the Navy, the Militia, and the Volunteers of England are in a state of perfect efficiency, and ready if called upon to defend the interests and to maintain the honour and dignity of their country against all who might think fit to assail them.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech to the Agricultural Association at Romsey, quoted in "Lord Palmerston At Romsey," The Times (16 December 1864), p. 12.
1860s

People, Health, Peace, Feeling

Quotes about assurance page 6

Quotes about assurance
page 6