Quotes about determination
page 23

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham photo
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham photo

“I have the principles of an Englishman, and I utter them without apprehension or reserve…this is not the language of faction; let it be tried by that criterion, by which alone we can distinguish what is factious, from what is not—by the principles of the English constitution. I have been bred up in these principles, and I know that when the liberty of the subject is invaded, and all redress denied him, resistance is justifiable…the constitution has its political Bible, by which if it be fairly consulted, every political question may, and ought to be determined. Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights and the Bill of Rights, form that code which I call the Bible of the English constitution.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Had some of his Majesty's unhappy predecessors trusted less to the commentary of their Ministers, and been better read in the text itself, the glorious Revolution might have remained only possible in theory, and their fate would not now have stood upon record, a formidable example to all their successors.
Speech in the House of Lords (22 January 1770), quoted in William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), p. 98.

Samuel Alito photo
Samuel Alito photo
Robert Anton Wilson photo
Kamisese Mara photo

“Above all there is our fixed joint determination to build a strong and united Fiji, rich in diversity and pampered with tolerance, goodwill and understanding.”

Kamisese Mara (1920–2004) President of Fiji

(Attributed to Mara by his successor as President, Ratu Josefa Iloilo, 10 October 2005).
Independence Day address, 10 October 1970.

David Frawley photo
Ethan Allen photo
Abdullah Öcalan photo
Samuel Adams photo

“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.”

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

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.
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

Cesar Chavez photo

“We seek the support of all political groups and protection of the government, which is also our government, in our struggle. For too many years we have been treated like the lowest of the low. Our wages and working conditions have been determined from above, because irresponsible legislators who could have helped us, have supported the rancher's argument that the plight of the Farm Worker was a "special case."”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

They saw the obvious effects of an unjust system, starvation wages, contractors, day hauls, forced migration, sickness, illiteracy, camps and sub-human living conditions, and acted as if they were irremediable causes. The farm worker has been abandoned to his own fate — without representation, without power — subject to mercy and caprice of the rancher. We are tired of words, of betrayals, of indifference. To the politicians we say that the years are gone when the farm worker said nothing and did nothing to help himself. From this movement shall spring leaders who shall understand us, lead us, be faithful to us, and we shall elect them to represent us. We shall be heard.
The Plan of Delano (1965)

Potter Stewart photo
Karl Jaspers photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo
Thomas Hylland Eriksen photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Martin Heidegger photo
Victor Hugo photo
Learned Hand photo
Dana Arnold photo
Richard Epstein photo

“Legal intervention costs money; legal intervention opens up new avenues for abuse, including totalitarian excesses by government officials who seek to determine preferences on personal matters.”

Richard Epstein (1943) American legal scholar

[Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism, https://books.google.com/books?id=B36vxZZ4cLcC, June 2003, University of Chicago Press, 978-0-226-21304-0] (quote from p. 157)

“Facts are more insistent than theories, and in the last resort it is the nature of things which determine the course of our actions.”

Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer

p. 77 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89009314162&view=1up&seq=81
Determinism or Free-will? (1912)

Otto von Bismarck photo

“In the development of our tariff I am determined to oppose any modification in the direction of Free Trade, and to use my influence in favour of greater protection and of a higher revenue from frontier duties.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Speech to the Reichstag (28 March 1881), quoted in W. H. Dawson, Bismarck and State Socialism: An Exposition of the Social and Economic Legislation of Germany since 1870 (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891), p. 54
1880s

Ken Ham photo

“First, just because God took a rib from Adam to make Eve would not mean that all of Adam's male descendants would have one less rib. Remember, it's our genes that determine how many ribs a person will have... Second, remember from your biology that ribs "regenerate."”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

In other words, Adam would've had his missing rib back quite quickly.
2000s, Did Adam have a Bellybutton?: And other tough questions about the Bible (2000)

Max Müller photo

“It is quite clear that we cannot fix a terminum a quo, whether the Vedic hymns were composed 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years BC, no power on earth will ever determine.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Max Muller (Collected Works, Vol.II, p.91). Quoted in https://talageri.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-recorded-history-of-indo-european_27.html

Karl Kautsky photo

“The choice of methods and weapons to be used by the champions of democracy will not depend upon our wishes but will be determined by political and social conditions. and especially by the methods and weapons of the enemy.”

Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician

Chap. V, The Period of Dictatorship
"Hitlerism and Social Democracy" (1934) https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1934/hitler/index.htm

William Lane Craig photo
Richard D. Wolff photo

“A worker-coop based economy—where workers democratically run enterprises, deciding what, how and where to produce, and what to do with any profits—could, and likely would, put social needs and goals (like proper preparation for pandemics) ahead of profits. Workers are the majority in all capitalist societies; their interests are those of the majority. Employers are always a small minority; theirs are the "special interests" of that minority. Capitalism gives that minority the position, profits and power to determine how the society as a whole lives or dies. That's why all employees now wonder and worry about how long our jobs, incomes, homes and bank accounts will last—if we still have them. A minority (employers) decides all those questions and excludes the majority (employees) from making those decisions, even though that majority must live with their results. Of course, the top priority now is to put public health and safety first. To that end, employees across the country are now thinking about refusing to obey orders to work in unsafe job conditions. U.S. capitalism has thus placed a general strike on today's social agenda. A close second priority is to learn from capitalism's failure in the face of the pandemic. We must not suffer such a dangerous and unnecessary social breakdown again. Thus system change is now also moving onto today's social agenda.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Arun Shourie photo

“Caste is real. The working class is real. Being a Naga is real. But ‘India is just a geographical expression!’ Similarly, being a Muslim of course is real – Islam must be seen and talked of as one block of granite – ... But Hinduism? Why, there is no such thing: it is just an aggregation, a pile of assorted beliefs and practices – ... And anyone who maintains anything to the contrary is a fascist out to insinuate a unity, indeed to impose a uniformity, where there has been none. That is what our progressive ideologues declaim, as we have seen. In a word, the parts alone are real. The whole is just a construct. India has never been one, these ideologues insist – disparate peoples and regions were knocked together by the Aryans, by the Mughals, by the British for purposes of empire. Anyone who wants to use that construct – India – as the benchmark for determining the sort of structure under which we should live has a secret agenda – of enforcing Hindu hegemony.
This is the continuance of, in a sense the culmination of, the Macaulay-Missionary technique. The British calculated that to subjugate India and hold it, they must undermine the essence of the people: this was Hinduism, and everything which flowed from it. Hence the doggedness with which they set about to undermine the faith and regard of the people for five entities: the gods and goddesses the Hindus revered; the temples and idols in which they were enshrined; the texts they held sacred; the language in which those texts and everything sacred in that tradition was enshrined and which was even in mid-nineteenth-century the lingua franca – that is, Sanskrit; and the group whose special duty it had been over aeons to preserve that way of life – the Brahmins. The other component of the same exercise was to prop up the parts – the non-Hindus, the regional languages, the castes and groups which they calculated would be the most accessible to the missionaries and the empire – the innocent tribals, the untouchables.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998)

Arun Shourie photo
Lois McMaster Bujold photo
Marianne Williamson photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Hendrik Willem Mesdag photo

“..the art-reviews on my work in the French and English magazines.. ..[are] enough to claim that I already have reached a prominent position among today's marine painters. I would also like to take this fact into consideration when determining my prices.”

Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831–1915) painter from the Northern Netherlands

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek

(original Dutch: citaat van Hendrik Willem Mesdag's brief, in het Nederlands:) ..de critieken op mijn werk in de Fransche, Engelsche bladen [zijn].. ..voldoende om te kunen beweren dat ik reeds nu onder de tegenwoordige marine schilders een voorname plaats inneem. Dit wil ik ook bij het stellen [bepalen] mijner prijzen in aanmerking genomen hebben.

In a letter to art-sellers Goupil in The Hague, 1870's; as cited in De Copieboeken of De Wording van de Haagsche School, Johan Poort; Mesdag Documentatie Centrum, Wassenaar, 1996, pp. 89-90
before 1880

Benjamin Creme photo
Rita Moreno photo

“I think that some people are genetically just strong. I really believe that my mom was like that. On the other hand, maybe you're forced to be that way because you realize you're either going to sink or swim, and the choice you make determines the kind of person you become…”

Rita Moreno (1931) Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress

On strength and perseverance in “Rita Moreno Is Unbreakable” https://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/a26432578/rita-moreno-one-day-at-a-time-interview/ in Elle Magazine (2019 Feb 22)

Masanobu Fukuoka photo
Narendra Modi photo

“I won’t bother to offer explanations because the media is determined to distort all I say.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

quoted in Madhu Purnima Kishwar: Modi, Muslims and Media. Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, Manushi Publications, Delhi 2014.
2014

“Interestingly enough an academic conflict is going on between those who do not wish to tamper with facts (Mohammad Habib, S.S.A. Rizvi) and those who are determined to give a benign face to Islam.”

Mohammad Mujeeb (1902–1985)

I.H. Qureshi, Mohammad Mujeeb, Ashgahar Ali Engineer

Lal, K. S. (2002). Return to roots: Emancipation of Indian Muslims. New Delhi: Radha.(9)

Albert Ho photo

“We are going to veto it to show our determination that we are not going to accept this fake democracy.”

Albert Ho (1951) Hong Kong politician

September 3, 2014 Democracy isn't dead, say Hong Kong's Occupy Central activists https://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/03/world/asia/hong-kong-democracy-occupy-central/index.html

“Desire, Dedication, Determination.”

Dennis Green (1949–2016) American football coach

describing his coaching philosophy

Milton Friedman photo
Harry Gordon Selfridge photo
Harry Gordon Selfridge photo
J.B. Priestley photo
Dorothy Thompson photo
John F. Kennedy photo
John F. Kennedy photo
John F. Kennedy photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“We have been informed lately that ours will be the lot of Genoa, and Venice, and Holland. But...there is a great difference between the condition of England and those... We have during ages of prosperity created a nation of 34 millions—a nation who are enjoying, and have long enjoyed, the two greatest blessings of civil life—justice and liberty... [A] nation of that character is more calculated to create empires than to give them up, and I feel confident if England is true to herself; if the English people prove themselves worthy of their ancestors; if they possess still the courage and the determination of their forefathers, their honour will never be tarnished and their power will never diminish.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in the Guildhall, London (10 November 1878), quoted in The Times (11 November 1878), p. 10. William Gladstone had written in The North American Review: "It is [America] alone who, at a coming time, can, and probably will, wrest from us that commercial primacy...We have no more title against her than Venice, or Genoa, or Holland, has had against us" ('Kin beyond Sea', The North American Review Vol. 127, No. 264 (Sep. - Oct., 1878), p. 180)

Ramsay MacDonald photo

“We are going to Geneva determined, by persuasion, by arguments, by appeals to what has been written, appeals to measures already taken, appeals to history, appeals to common sense, to get the nations of the world to join in and reduce this enormous, disgraceful burden of armaments which we are now bearing from one end of the world to the other.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Source: Speech in the Royal Albert Hall, London, in support of the aims of the Disarmament Conference in Geneva (11 July 1931), quoted in The Times (13 July 1931), p. 14

Annie Besant photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Adin Ballou photo
Isaac Mashman photo
Leopold I of Belgium photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Martin Heidegger photo
Mary Ruwart photo

“I was always determined to find just the right book for that one child who maybe was a reluctant reader. I knew there was a book to turn him on to reading. I just had to find it. I do have a special place in my heart for kids who maybe have trouble reading or who just don't want to for various reasons. It's always my goal to write books that will somehow entice them to want to read.”

Debbie Dadey (1959) American children's writer

Children's author Debbie Dadey visiting downtown library to sign books, brainstorm. https://lancasteronline.com/features/entertainment/children-s-author-debbie-dadey-visiting-downtown-library-to-sign/article_bf6e4607-f0ba-5e73-a88f-64c9cb876bb2.html (July 29, 2013)

Robert Menzies photo
Felix Adler photo

“The right for the right's sake is the motto which everyone should take for his own life. With that as a standard of value we can descend into our hearts, appraise ourselves, and determine in how far we already are moral beings, in how far not yet.”

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

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Life and Destiny (1913)

Richard Crossman photo
Gregory Benford photo

“Wars don’t determine who’s right, only who’s left.”

Gregory Benford (1941) Science fiction author and astrophysicist

Source: Short fiction, Vortex, p. 110

Attila photo

“Never appoint an arbitrator; it is the third person determining your destiny. Such a choice would benefit the weak”

Attila (406–453) King of the Hunnic Empire

Turkish Wikipedia
https://quotestats.com/topic/attila-hun-quotes/

Alan Turing photo
Aristotle photo
Anthony Robbins photo
Frithjof Schuon photo

“Sanctity is essentially contemplativity: it is the intuition of the spiritual nature of things; profound intuition which determines the entire soul, hence the entire being of man.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 13, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual path, Holiness

Matt Ridley photo

“Determinism looks backwards to the causes of the present state, not forward to the consequences.”

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 22 “Free Will” (p. 307)

Earl Browder photo

“We are determined to save our country from the hell of capitalism.”

Earl Browder (1891–1973) American political activist (1891-1973)

Source: What is Communism? (1934), p. 18

Peter F. Drucker photo

“The large industrial enterprise is... the representative institution of an industrial society. It determines the individual's view of his society.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Under section header: The Enterprise as Society's Mirror
1930s- 1950s, The New Society (1950)

Adolf Hitler photo

“God helps only those who are prepared and determined to help themselves.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech in Weimar http://der-fuehrer.org/reden/english/38-11-06.htm, 6 November 1938
1930s

Prevale photo

“Constance and determination: the winning ingredients for every action.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Costanza e determinazione: gli ingredienti vincenti per ogni azione.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Always rely on the power of your actions. They will determine the course of your days.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Affidati sempre al potere delle tue azioni. Saranno loro a determinare il corso delle tue giornate.
Source: prevale.net

Donald Grant Mitchell photo

“The early Christians compared the human mind to a constantly grinding millstone; it is up to the miller to determine what it will grind: good wheat or worthless weeds. Our minds are always grinding, but it is up to us to choose what to feed them.”

Martin Dada Abejide Olorunmolu (1948) Nigerian catholic priest

Engage in constructive forms of communication – Bishop Martin Olorunmolu https://www.nationalupdate.com.ng/engage-in-constructive-forms-of-communication-bishop-martin-olorunmolu/ (30 May 2017)

Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo
Edmund Dene Morel photo

“I was filled with determination, to do my best to expose and destroy what i then knew to be a legalized infamy, responsible for a vast destruction of human life.”

Edmund Dene Morel (1873–1924) British politician (1873-1924)

King Leopold's ghost. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/kingleopoldsghost History of the CRA, 1904, FF.

Edward Teller photo
Sarah Jones (stage actress) photo

“But every time I look at myself and think, oh, my body's not OK or my worth in value are determined by my appearance and my marketability, I'm kind of engaging in one form of this same narrative. So writing this work has been really cathartic and humbling for me.”

Sarah Jones (stage actress) (1973) African-American actress, playwright, and poet from the United States

On identifying with various characters in Sell/Buy/Date in “Playwright Sarah Jones Takes On The Sex Industry In 'Sell/Buy/Date'” https://www.npr.org/2018/10/13/657200487/playwright-sarah-jones-takes-on-the-sex-industry-in-sell-buy-date in NPR (2018 Oct 13)

Matt Ridley photo
Matt Ridley photo

“Yet the myth persists that genetic determinism is a more implacable kind of fate than social determinism.”

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 22 “Free Will” (p. 308)

Matt Ridley photo
Éric Zemmour photo

“Demography determines our destiny.”

Éric Zemmour (1958) French essayist

Will Eric Zemmour become France's Trump? https://www.wyniasweek.nl/wordt-eric-zemmour-de-franse-trump/

Vajiralongkorn photo

“I invite everyone here and all Thai people to share my determination and work together, each according to his status and duty, with the nation’s prosperity and the people’s happiness as the ultimate goals.”

Vajiralongkorn (1952) King of Thailand

Source: "'I shall reign with righteousness': Thailand crowns king in ornate ceremonies" in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-thailand-king-coronation/i-shall-reign-with-righteousness-thailand-crowns-king-in-ornate-ceremonies-idUSKCN1S924H (3 May 2019)

Marcus Aurelius photo

“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

Hays translation
II, 11
Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book II

Aleksandar Vučić photo

“The most important thing is that we show determination to continue the dialogue and that we will always try to solve everything by talking. I want to believe that it is possible.”

Aleksandar Vučić (1970) President of Serbia

Source: "Excerpts of Address" https://www.predsednik.rs/en/press-center/news/address-by-the-president-of-the-republic-of-serbia-on-16th-june-2021 (16 June 2021)