Quotes about trial (527 quotes, page 3)

“Although I am not as strict a vegetarian as I once was, I do continue to choose to eat more like a vegetarian than not. I would call myself a "conscious eater". It all started with my desire to be as lean and healthy as possible as a teenager around 17-years-old. With more education, as well as trial and error, it also turned into an expression of my attempt to show compassion for all living things.”

Charlene Wong (1966) Canadian figure skater

" Charlene Wong: Everything is okay in the end and if it's not okay, it's not the end", in Lifeskate.com (15 December 2008) http://www.lifeskate.com/skate/2008/12/charlene-wong-everything-is-okay-in-the-end-and-if-its-not-okay-its-not-the-end.html

Education , Error

“We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

1986 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/23/us-singapore-leekuanyew-idUSKBN0MI08Y20150323
1980s

People , Country

“How could we bear, nursed as we have been in a free atmosphere, to be gagged and muzzled; to have spies, eavesdroppers and delators at every corner; to have even private conversations caught up and used against us by the Secret Police and all their agents and creatures; to be arrested and interned without trial; or to be tried by political or Party courts for crimes hitherto unknown to civil law. How could we bear to be treated like schoolboys when we are grown-up men; to be turned out on parade by tens of thousands to march and cheer for this slogan or for that; to see philosophers, teachers and authors bullied and toiled to death in concentration camps; to be forced every hour to conceal the natural workings of the human intellect and the pulsations of the human heart? Why, I say that rather than submit to such oppression, there is no length we would not go to.”

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

Speech at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris (24 September 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 788
The 1930s

Death , Men , Secret , Law

“Judge and prosecutor had hammered it home that Lady Chatterly was an immoral woman, that she had had sexual relations before marriage, that she had committed adultery under her husband's roof; as if these charges somehow disqualified her from participation in serious literature. Indeed, there were long periods of the trial during which an outsider might well have assumed that a divorce case was being heard.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

"Lady Chatterly's Trial (The Old Bailey, 20 October - 2 November 1960)", p. 409
Tynan Right and Left (1967)

Marriage , Home , Literature

“I believe people can solve complex problems eventually. By repeated trial and error they will get there; but they need a long time. At this point I agree with Herbert Simon. People do not learn immediately, as those rational expectations models seem to imply. I don't believe that.
The statement that assumptions do not matter is nonsense. It is funny. Yes, I assume people are consistent in their behavior. I assume that not because I believe everybody actually is, but because I believe, on the average, you do not get too far from it.”

Franco Modigliani (1918–2003) Italian-American economist

Conversations with Economists (1983)

People , Behavior , Error , Problem

“That is why a criminal trial is not a search for truth. Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

[Alan, Dershowitz, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303544604576429783247016492.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop, Casey Anthony: The System Worked, The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2011, July 7, 2011] published 2011-07-07

Truth , Search

“And the court did not, at all, make any distinction between whether or not a person is Shi’ite or Sunni. They are reviewing a crime, and a procedure, and a trial, and a sentence, and carrying out the sentence.”

Mohammad bin Salman (1985) Saudi crown prince and minister of defense

2016-01-06, on the execution of Nimr Baqir al-Nimr. Interview with Muhammad bin Salman, The Economist

Personality

“The notion that there might be any need for, or possibility of, profound changes in the institutions that shape American life work, family, technology, the primacy of the car and the single-family house — is foreign to the mainstream media that define our common sense. And so conflicts that cannot be addressed politically have expressed themselves by other means. From public psychodramas like the O. J. Simpson trial, the Lewinsky scandal and Columbine to disaster movies, talk shows and "reality TV," popular culture carries the burden of our emotions about race, feminism, sexual morality, youth culture, wealth, competition, exclusion, a physical and social environment that feels out of control.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Dreaming of War," The Nation (15 October 2001)

Life , Youth , Family , Cars

“At this moment, God is watching your life and at some point in this trial, He will say enough. You don’t need to falter.”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 109

Life , God

“The faculty of moral will, developed in the child, is a new element of his nature. It is a new power brought upon the scene, and a ruling power, delegated from Heaven. Never was a human being sunk so low that he had not, by God's gift, the power to rise. Because God commands him to rise. it is certain that he ran rise. Every man has the power, and should use it, to make all situations, trials, and temptations instruments to promote his virtue and happiness; and is so far from being the creature of circumstances, 'that he creates and controls them, making them to be all that they are, of evil or of good, to him as a moral being.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 192

God , Nature , Evil , Happiness

“Now after the time of their preparatory trial is over, they are parted into four classes; and so far are the juniors inferior to the seniors, that if the seniors should be touched by the juniors, they must wash themselves, as if they had intermixed themselves with the company of a foreigner. They are long-lived also, insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means of the regular course of life they observe also. They contemn the miseries of life, and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind. And as for death, if it will be for their glory, they esteem it better than living always; and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

Life , Death , Pain , War

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

§ 7
1780s, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785)

“When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the disorder of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace.”

John M. Mason (1770–1829) American Doctor of Divinity

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 150.

Life , God , Fear , Peace

“Whether by trials of circumstance or by disciplines of choice, we cannot escape our calling to suffer with Christ.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

Suffering , Christ

“The Patriot Act […] makes a mockery of the Sixth Amendment, which protects your right to a speedy and public trial, and your right to the assistance of counsel for your defense.”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

Source: Good to be King (2004)

“Ben, the ethics of sex is a thorny problem. Each of us is forced to grope for a solution he can live with — in the face of a preposterous, unworkable, and evil code of so-called "morals." Most of us know the code is wrong; almost everybody breaks it. But we pay Danegeld by feeling guilty and giving lip service. Willy-nilly, the code rides us, dead and stinking, an albatross around the neck.
You, too, Ben. You fancy yourself a free soul — and break that evil code. But faced with a problem in sexual ethics new to you, you tested it against that same Judeo-Christian code… so automatically your stomach did flip-flops… and you think that proves you're right and they're wrong. Faugh! I'd as lief use trial by ordeal.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

"Jubal Harshaw"
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961; 1991)

Sex , Feeling , Soul , Problem

“If you are with God in truth and faith, whatever comes as a blessing or trial will be what God allows. If you are called by God, from beginning to the end, your journey has been documented. Nothing outside your documentary will happen without God’s knowledge.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

Answering a question on challenges via Facebook - "TB Joshua Answers Questions On Marriage, Deliverance And Anointing Through Facebook" http://www.nigeriadailynews.news/news/89320-t-b-joshua-answers-questions-on-marriage-deliverance-anointing-through-facebook.html Nigeria Daily News (January 13 2014)

God , Truth , Faith , Knowledge

“There's an ideological fervor about this prosecution that's almost religious in its intensity, because let's be clear, this is a heresy trial by any other name. They can't refute Mr. Wilders' statements, so instead they've resorted to the kind of cheap legal stunt we'd expect from the likes of Mugabe to shut their opponent up. They've accused him of being divisive and inflammatory, and yes, sometimes the truth can be divisive and inflammatory if it has been suppressed for long enough and has become sufficiently taboo, as it clearly has in the Netherlands, because according to the prosecution it doesn't even matter that what he says is true; what matters is that it's illegal. Well, when the truth is against the law, then there's something seriously wrong with the law, because when the truth is no defence, there is no defence, and the law has no anchor, so it will drift wherever the wind of political expedience blows, and this week it blew straight into a crooked courtroom in Amsterdam, where justice will now be made to fight for its life, starved of the oxygen of truth that gives it life.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

On the trial of Geert Wilders, "The crooked judges of Amsterdam" (5 February 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=96ZUZ9CPZII
2010

Life , Truth , Justice , Law

“How cruel the Penal Laws are which exclude me from a fair trial with men whom I look upon as so much my inferiors…”

Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847) Irish political leader

O’Connell’s Correspondence, Letter No 700, Vol II

Men , Law

“Reporter: The “Protocols” trial is on today. I’ve been assigned to report on it for my paper.
Reporter 2: What’s your hurry Carl? The Jewish community’s lawyer is trying to show the damage done by the “Protocols of Zion” book.
Lawyer: Your honor, we have demonstrated that the “Protocols” is ‘’’smut…’’’ I would conclude by exhibiting evidence of its influence on public opinion as a fraud.
Judge: You may proceed!
Lawyer: Since its first publication in Russia by Dr. Nilus in 1905, four printings have been distributed there!
In 1919, type script copies were distributed to delegated at the Versailles peace conference by white Russians.
In England Victor Marsden translated the “protocols” into English in 1922.
In 1920, the first polish language edition was brought into the United States and South America by Polish immigrants.
In 1921, the first Arabic and the first Italian copies appeared!
In 1921, “The Times” of London published its famous expose of this false document!
And because of his fame, Henry Ford’s work deserves recounting.
Lawyer: In 1920, Henry ford the American auto magnate, bought a small newspaper, the “Dearborn Independent.” He began a series, “The International Jew,” made up of borrowings from the “Protocols of the Elders on Zion.”
Later, in 1922, it was published in sxteen language for a world-wide distribution. It sold over a ‘’’half million’’’ copies in America alone!
Reporter: Actually, Ford recanted in 1926 when he was threatened with a libel suit.

Reporter 2: Really?
Reporter 3: What did he say?
Reporter: He said in part, “…To my great regret I learn that in the ‘Dearborn Independent’ there appeared articles which induced the Jews to regard me as their enemy promoting anti-Semitism!”
HE WENT ON TO SAY, “…I am…mortified that this Journal…is giving currency to ‘The Protocols of the wise men of Zion,’ which I learn to be gross forgeries…I deem it my duty…to make amends for the wrong done to the Jews as fellow men and brothers by asking their forgiveness.
HE GOES ON BY RECITING SOME OF THE MORE “evil ingredients” in the “Protocols” AND HE REFERS TO IT AS AN “infamous forgery.”
Reporter 3: DID HIS APOLOGY CHANGE ANYTHING?? HENRY FORD WAS FAMOUS the world over…his apology must have had influence!
Reporter: Not very much. In fact publication increased all over the globe.
Reporter 3: Look! Here I have two French translations of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” that were published in ‘’’France,’’’ dated 1934. Later they had many printings!
Judge: …I hope to see the day when nobody will be able to understand why otherwise sane and reasonable men should torment their brains for fourteen days over the authenticity or fabrication of the “Protocols of Zion”’’’…I regard the “protocols” as ridiculous nonsense!
Reporter: Good news! …judge Meyer found against the Nazis and imposed a fine on them…

Publisher: We will publish the judge’s decision!
Reporter: This should put an end to the “Protocols” at last!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp. 102-107

Men , Books , World , Peace

“Spirits incarnate themselves as men or as women, because they are of no sex and, as it is necessary for them to develop themselves in every direction, both sexes, as well as every variety of social position. furnish them with special trials and duties, and with the opportunity of acquiring experience. A spirit who had always incarnated itself as a man would be only known by men, and vice versa.”

Allan Kardec (1804–1869) systematizer of Spiritism

Source: The Spirits' Book, p. 131.

Women , Men , Sex

“While we could study any of the world’s dictators to see how they gained control over their people, Hitler is probably the best known and most well documented example. I believe his persecution of the Jews was Satan's trial run for the end time events coming upon us soon including the 3½ years of “great tribulation” (4D). Hitler's method of getting Germans to hate and then kill the Jews should be studied carefully. I am convinced similar methods will be used to bring persecution against any who will not go along with Satan’s plans for his New World Order, especially Christians and anyone else who won’t take the mark”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Revelation 13-14
Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 138

Hate , People , World , Study

“Most merciful and gracious God, who hast preserved me unto this hour, I most humbly acknowledge Thee as the guide and companion of my youth. Thou hast protected me through the dangers of infancy and childhood, and in my youth Thou didst bless me with the full enjoyment, the happy intimacy, of the best of fathers. Be as gracious and merciful then as Thou hast hitherto been, now that I am about to enter a new stage of existence. Teach me, I beseech Thee, to strengthen in my soul the cultivation of Thy truth, the recollection of the uncertainty of life, the greatness of the objects for which I was created. Revive those delightful religious impressions which in early days I felt more strongly than now; and as Thou hast been pleased lately to permit me to look to a way of life to which formerly I dared not to do, let the leisure I shall enjoy enlarge my warmth of heart towards Thee. Make every branch of study which I may pursue strengthen my confidence in Thy ever-ruling providence, that, undeceived by views of false philosophy, I may ever in singleness of heart elevate my mind from Thy works unto Thy divine essence. Keep from me a vain and overbearing spirit; let me- ever have a thorough sense of my own ignorance and weakness; and keep me through all the trials and troubles of a transitory state in body and soul unto everlasting life, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.”

James David Forbes (1809–1868) Scottish physicist and glaciologist

"Completing my Twenty-first Year" (1839), a prayer written by Forbes on April 20th, 1830. Life and letters of James David Forbes p. 450.

Life , God , Truth , Youth

“Immediate luminousness, in short, philosophical reasonableness and moral helpfulness are the only available criteria. Saint Teresa might have had the nervous system of the placidest cow, and it would not now save her theology, if the trial of the theology by these other tests should show it to be contemptible. And conversely if her theology can stand these other tests, it will make no difference how hysterical or nervously off balance Saint Teresa may have been when she was with us here below.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture I, "Religion and Neurology"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

Help

“Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.”

William Whewell (1794–1866) English philosopher & historian of science

Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England, Lecture 7. (1852).

Truth , Error , Failure , Success

“On the second Michael Jackson trial, speaking on "Larry King Live," CNN, Feb. 21, 2003: "But I'm telling you, this boy, two-thirds of this can be corroborated by other people. So why would he lie about the molestation part? It is in graphic detail. It just seems true… I think Michael Jackson walks. And I think it's a disgrace. He's guilty."”

Nancy Grace (1959) American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor

"Larry King Live", CNN (Feb. 21, 2003), reported in " Jacko Not Guilty: Past Predictions https://web.archive.org/web/20061115152018/http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/court_cases/jacko_not_guilty_past_predictions_22555.asp", TVNewser.com (June 14, 2006).

People , Lie , Boy , Thinking

“After years of trial and error Franz [Kafka] has at last found the only diet that suits him, the vegetarian one. For years he suffered from his stomach; now he is as healthy and as fit as I have ever known him. Then along come his parents, of course, and in the name of love try to force him back into eating meat and being ill—it is just the same with his sleeping habits. At last he has found what suits him best, he can sleep, can do his duty in that senseless office, and get on with his literary work. But then his parents… This really makes me bitter.”

Max Brod (1884–1968) author, composer, and journalist

Letter to Felice Bauer (22 November 1912), in Letters to Felice by Franz Kafka, translated by James Stern and Elizabeth Duckworth (New York: Shocken Books, 2016), p. 57 https://books.google.it/books?id=EwVSqTfHdEAC&pg=PA57.

Love , Error , Parent , Sleep

“Only a very foolish lawyer will dare guess the outcome of a jury trial.”

Jerome Frank (1889–1957) American jurist

Page 186.
Law and the Modern Mind (1930)

“I have fought a long battle with slavery; and I confess my solicitude when I see any thing that looks like concession to it. It is not enough to show me that a measure is expedient: you must show me also that it is right. Ah, sir, can any thing be expedient which is not right? From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned. I insist that this shall cease. The country needs repose after all its trials: it deserves repose. And repose can only be found in everlasting principles. It cannot be found by inserting in your constitution the disfranchisement of a race.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

Final speech in the U.S. Senate on Constitutional Amendment (9 March 1866)

History , Affliction , Country

“Here in this country, although our political divisions were deep, in time of need we were able to transcend them in the interests of the whole community. Throughout the British Commonwealth and Empire there were immense diversities of race, colour, creed, and degrees of civilization, yet the links that united all together, though often intangible, proved strong as steel in the day of trial. This was because, despite many shortcomings and failures to implement fully the ideals which we held, the British Commonwealth and Empire had stood for freedom and justice, and because we had learnt through long centuries the lesson of how to live together without attempting to exact regimented uniformity.”

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

Speech in Carmarthen, Wales (3 September 1943), quoted in The Times (4 September 1943), p. 2.
1940s

Justice , Communication , Failure , Freedom

“Multiculturalism in Europe is dead in the water, as every recent election has shown. Even the politicians are admitting it now. Some people cling to the illusion of it still, the way the Soviets clung to the illusion of Communism, but it's over, and these show trials and violent street attacks are symptoms of its death throes. They're the desperate acts of desperate people who've totally lost their way. Criminalizing opinion is an open admission that lawmakers have lost control, and created a situation they can't handle. But that's what happens when the people are never asked for their opinion, and, when they give it, it's ignored.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Free speech in Europe" (10 November 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=bWw7H4m389o
2010

Death , People , Way , Communication

“If a totally new image is to come into being however, there must be sensitivity to internal messages, the image itself must be sensitive to change, must be unstable, and it must include a value image which places high value on trials, experiments, and the trying of new things.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1950s, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society, 1956, p. 94 as cited in: Richard Arena, Agnés Festrè, Nathalie Lazaric (2012) Handbook of Economics and Knowledge. p. 138

Change

“Thus, in a crucial way, the Kansas hearings repeat the pattern set by the Scopes Trial, which has been repeated many times since, namely, evolutionists escaped critical scrutiny by not having to undergo cross-examination. In this case, they accomplished the feat by boycotting the hearings. I therefore await the day when the hearings are not voluntary but involve subpoenas that compel evolutionists to be deposed and interrogated at length on their views.”

William A. Dembski (1960) American intelligent design advocate

The Vise Strategy: Squeezing the Truth out of Darwinists
Uncommon Descent
2005-05-11
http://www.uncommondescent.com/evolution/the-vise-strategy-squeezing-the-truth-out-of-darwinists/
2011-10-23
2000s

Way , Time

“M. Révérony said immediately: "Most Holy Father, this is a child who wants to enter Carmel at fifteen, but the superiors are considering the matter at this moment." (The good pope is so old that one would say he is dead; I would never have pictured him like this.) The Holy Father said simply:"If God wills it, you will enter." [-]I was crying a lot when writing this letter; my heart is heavy. However, God cannot give me trials that are above my strength. He has given me the courage to bear this trial. I am the Child Jesus' little ball; if He wishes to break His toy, He is free. Yes, I will all that He wills.”

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) French Discalced Carmelite nun

Thérèse's account of the papal audience, November 20,1887
General Correspondence

God , Courage , Heart , Cry

“The time is getting closer for you to be coming [to Paula, in Paris]. Now I must ask you for your sake and mine, please spare both of us this time of trial. Let me go, Otto Otto Modersohn. I do not want you as my husband.... accept this fact; don't torture yourself any longer.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

Quote in ‎her Journal, Paris, 3 September, 1906; as quoted in Günter Busch, ‎Liselotte von Reinken (1998) Paula Modersohn-Becker, the Letters and Journals p. 278; as quoted in Stephanie D'Alessandro, ‎Milwaukee Art Museum (2003) German Expressionist Prints, p. 198
1906 + 1907

Time

“God has been always working, evolving, in His quiet power, from the seeming, the real, from the false, the true. Not for nothing blazed the martyr's fires — not for nothing toiled brave sufferers up successive hills of shame. God's purpose doth not languish. The torture and the trial of the past have been the stern ploughers in His service who never suspended their husbandry, and who have made long their furrows. Into those furrows the imperishable seed hath fallen. The heedless world hath trodden it in; tears and blood have watered it; the patient sun hath warmed and cheered it to its ripening; and it shall be ready soon.”

William Morley Punshon (1824–1881) English Nonconformist minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 216.

God , World , Tear , Suffering

“Science progresses by trial and error, by conjectures and refutations. Only the fittest theories survive.”

Alan Chalmers book What Is This Thing Called Science?

Source: What Is This Thing Called Science? (Third Edition; 1999), Chapter 5, Introducing falsification, p. 60.

Error , Science

“Comrades, it always affords me much gratification to meet my old comrades in arms of ten or fourteen years ago, and to live over again in memory the trials and hardships of those days. Hardships imposed for the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions. We believed then, and believe now, that we had a good government, worth fighting for, and, if need be, dying for. How many of our comrades of those days paid the latter price for our preserved Union! Let their heroism and sacrifices be ever green and in our memory. Let not the results of their sacrifices be destroyed. The Union and the free institutions for which they fell, should be held more dear for their sacrifices.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1870s, Speech to the Society of the Army of Tennessee (1875)

Memory , Fight

“[I am] A Subject and born to obey laws…The trial of all laws only consisteth in honest and probable witness.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Source: Letter to Henry VIII (30 June 1540), quoted in Roger Bigelow Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Volume II: Letters from 1536, Notes, Index (1902), p. 273

Law

“I disagree with the followers of Marx and those of Adam Smith: the reason free markets work is because they allow people to be lucky, thanks to aggressive trial and error, not by giving rewards or "incentives" for skill.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. xxi

People , Error

“The science [of painting], although it is not absolutely necessary, never hurts. It obviates much experimentation by trial and error, but one must, above all, not confuse it with skill. The first can be taught; the second [= skill] must not be, and must even be combatted... What will necessarily happen to manual skill is.. if one neglects it, it becomes all the more clumsy and personal.”

Paul Sérusier (1864–1927) French painter

from: 'A letter to Maurice Denis

Error , Science , Hurt , Painting

“Every discoverer of a new truth, or inventor of the method which evolves it, makes a dozen, perhaps fifty, useless combinations, experiments, or trials for one successful one. In the realm of electricity or of mechanics there is no objection to this. But when such rejected failures involve a torture of animals, sometimes fearful in its character, there is a distinct objection to it.”

Henry Jacob Bigelow (1818–1890) American surgeon

Source: Surgical Anaesthesia (1894), pp. 369-370

Truth , Fear , Failure , Success

“We live in an age that makes truth pass for treason, and as I dare not say anything against it, so the ears of those that are about me will probably be found too tender to hear it. This my trial and condemnation do sufficiently evidence.”

Algernon Sidney (1623–1683) British politician and political theorist

Scaffold speech (1683)

Truth , Age

“I invite even the school of violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a trial. It will not fail through its inherent weakness. It may fail because of poverty of response. Then will be one time for real danger. The high-souled men, who are unable to suffer national humiliation any longer, will want to vent their wrath. They will take to violence.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

1920s, The Doctrine Of The Sword (1920)

Men , School , Peace , Soul

“People are slaves to the world, and as long as they live favorable and comfortable lives, they are loyal to religious principles. However, at hard times, the times of trials, true religious people are scarce.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 117
General Quotes

People , World , Time

“I thank God humbly and sincerely. God, who has visited us with many trials, and led us like the Israelites of old from place to place without any certain abode, bless, we beseech Thee, our return home, and mercifully grant that the afflictions and anxieties of that long probation may bear fruit in a more self-denying and godly life; and that we may have our hearts fixed on a yet more abiding resting-place, eternal in the heavens, for Jesus Christ's sake.”

James David Forbes (1809–1868) Scottish physicist and glaciologist

Excerpt of Forbes' journal. September 1854. As quoted in Life and letters of James David Forbes p. 369.

Life , God , Home , Affliction

“Those who think the information brought out at a criminal trial is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth are fools. Prosecuting or defending a case is nothing more than getting to those people who will talk for your side, who will say what you want said.”

F. Lee Bailey (1933) American lawyer

New York Times, 20 September 1970.

People , Truth , Fools , Thinking

“It was to take seven more years before the Constituent Assembly became a reality. This was a period which saw dramatic developments not merely in India but throughout the world. In India, our Freedom Struggle was at its peak in 1942 during the historic Quit India Movement. Internationally, there was a fundamental transformation in the geo-political situation after the Second World War. The world was in a state of flux when our peaceful and non-violent struggle attained success. It was a struggle led by women and men of character, leaders who had braved the trials and tribulations of colonial rule and had undergone tremendous suffering and hardship.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

Address By Dr. Shanker Dayal Sharma President Of India On The Occasion Of The 50th Anniversary Of The First Sitting Of The Constituent Assembly

Women , Men , War , World

“"Groping" and "muddling through" is usually described as a solution by trial and error…. a series of trials, each of which attempts to correct the error committed by the preceding and, on the whole, the errors diminished as we proceed and the successive trials come closer and closer to the desired final result…. we may wish a better characterization…"successive trials" or "successive corrections" or "successive approximations."… You use successive approximations when… looking for a word in the dictionary… A mathematician may apply the term… to a highly sophisticated procedure… to treat some very advanced problem… that he cannot treat otherwise. The term even applies to science as a whole; the scientific theories which succeed each other, each claiming a better explanation… may appear as successive approximations to the truth.
Therefore, the teacher should not discourage his students from using trial and error—on the contrary, he should encourage the intelligent use of the fundamental method of successive approximations. Yet he should convincingly show that for… many… situations, straightforward algebra is more efficient than successive approximations.”

George Pólya (1887–1985) Hungarian mathematician

George Pólya, Mathematical Discovery: On Understanding, Learning, and Teaching Problem Solving (1962)

Truth , Error , Intelligence , Problem

“That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man bath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Article 8
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

Men , Law , Nature

“Two faiths were on trial. Human societies, like human beings, live by faith and die when faith dies… At heart, the Great Case was this critical conflict of faiths; that is why it was a great case.”

Whittaker Chambers Witness

Source: Witness (1952), p. 4

Faith , Heart

“And so it went until the alarm was struck in the famous Missouri debate. Then wise men remembered what Washington had said, 'Resist with care the spirit of innovation upon the principles of the Constitution'. They saw that the letting alone was all on one side, that the unfortunate anomaly was deeply scheming to become the rule, and they roused the country. The old American love of liberty flamed out again. Meetings were everywhere held. The lips of young orators burned with the eloquence of freedom. The spirit of John Knox and of Hugh Peters thundered and lightened in the pulpits, and men were not called political preachers because they preached that we are all equal children of God. The legislatures of the free States instructed their representatives to stand fast for liberty. Daniel Webster, speaking for the merchants of Boston, said that it was a question essentially involving the perpetuity of the blessings of liberty for which the Constitution itself was formed. Daniel Webster, speaking for humanity at Plymouth, described the future of the slave as 'a widespread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death'. The land was loud with the debate, and Rufus King stated its substance in saying that it was a question of slave or free policy in the national government. Slavery hissed disunion; liberty smiled disdain. The moment of final trial came. Pinckney exulted. John Quincy Adams shook his head. Slavery triumphed and, with Southern chivalry, politely called victory compromise.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Love , Death , Men , God

“Now begins the true pilgrimage: Parsifal with the lance in hand! Here begins the symbol of renunciation! The renunciation lies, symbolically expressed, in the words, with the lance in hand! A renunciation is first, then, a renunciation in the true sense of the word, when one does not do something that one has recognized as desirable and has wished to do. The sojourn of Parsifal with the lance in hand corresponds to the 40 days that Christ shall have spent in the wastelands. It corresponds to the trials and tribulations which all candidates of all the old religions, of all mystical secret societies etc. had to undergo, before they could become initiates. This sojourn also corresponds therefore, to the 40 days of the fast and abstention, which yet today the initiates of a mystical society impose on their candidates as a test before they are left to study the mystical secret, salvational — teachings.”

Theodor Reuss (1855–1923) German singer

II. Main Part : The Unveiling of the Secret.
Parsifal and the Secret of the Graal Unveiled (1914)

Secret , Religion , Sense , Study

“Even before computers existed, we already knew that natural selection can, -and often will- produce results which look like trial-and-error experiments, including elements of seemingly-intentional fine tuning. But for all the implications of apparent design, there is never any indication of any intended goal or final product, nor any hint of infallibility on the part of the designer. In fact, so many errors of so many types are known that even if there was an unnatural architect using miraculous means instead of natural ones, then it seems that entity must either be blind and barely competent, or there are whole teams of designers working on separate lines competing against each other.”

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

"7th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Q2Db17v5U, Youtube (February 27, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Error , Nature , Parting

“Compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us with firm and cheerful trust endure all trials, discharge all duties, accept all sacrifices, fulf1ll the law of universal and impartial love, and adopt as our own that cause of truth, righteousness, humanity, liberty, and holiness, — which being the cause of the All-Good, cannot but triumph over all powers of evil. Let us rise into blest assurance that everywhere and forever we are enfolded, penetrated, guarded, guided, kept by the power of the Father and Friend, who can never forsake us; and that all spirits who have begun to seek, know, love, and serve the All-Perfect One on earth shall be reunited in a celestial home, and be welcomed together into the freedom of the universe, and the perpetual light of His presence.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 17

Love , Truth , Law , Home

“Everything is overshadowed by the impending trial of will-power which is developing in Europe. I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very little doubt what the decision will be.”

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

Letter to David Lloyd George (13 August 1938), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 962
The 1930s

War , Thinking , Decision

“There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trials with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has known. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.”

Will Durant book The Story of Civilization

Source: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), III - Caesar and Christ (1944), Chapter 30, part 1, p. 652.

Hope , History , Success , Christ

“And I'll pursue, as always, strange
Adventures, battles fought for love
When virtue prospered long ago
And ladies fair and barons bold
Faced trials in forests or by streams,
As Turpin in his book reveals.
I only ask, as I pursue,
That hearing may bring joy to you.”

Matteo Maria Boiardo book Orlando Innamorato

E seguirovi, sì come io suoliva,
Strane aventure e battaglie amorose,
Quando virtute al bon tempo fioriva
Tra cavallieri e dame grazïose,
Facendo prove in boschi ed ogni riva,
Come Turpino al suo libro ce espose.
Ciò vo' seguire, e sol chiedo di graccia
Che con diletto lo ascoltar vi piaccia.
Bk. 3, Canto 1, st. 4
Orlando Innamorato

Love , Books , Joy

“I was very much involved in the resistance movement in the 1960's. In fact, I was just barely -- the only reason I missed a long jail sentence is because the Tet Offensive came along and the trials were called off.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2004, 25th Anniversary of Coalition for Peace Action, 2004

“Not that there weren't real communists in the labor unions, and real spies in Washington, but these had nothing to do with the show that was being put on for us, which seemed entirely designed to Make Us Take This Thing Seriously. From abroad, where I was for much of the time, it looked as if the United States were trying to act like a superpower by holding its very own show trials.”

Wilfrid Sheed (1930–2011) English-American novelist and essayist

"Program Notes," p. xiv
Essays in Disguise (1990)

Time

“Because the fluctuations in the composition of the deck as it is dependent over successive (and dependent) trials, it is intuitively apparent that altering decisions or the magnitude of the wager or both in accordance with the fluctuations should prove advantageous to the player.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Seven, Blackjack, p. 231

Decision , Success , Dependency

“In my essay I refuted the Hayek-Robbins argument by showing how a market mechanism could be established in a socialist economy which would lead to the solution of the simultaneous equations by means of an empirical procedure of trial and error. […] Were I to rewrite my essay today my task would be much simpler. My answer to Hayek and Robbins would be: so what’s the trouble?
Let us put the simultaneous equations on an electronic computer and we shall obtain the solution in less than a second. The market process with its cumbersome tatonnements appears old-fashioned. Indeed, it may be considered as a computing device of the preelectronic age.”

Oskar R. Lange (1904–1965) Polish economist

"The computer and the market" (1967)

Age , Error , Fashion , Appearance

“There is today almost no scientific theory which was held when, say, the Industrial Revolution began about 1760. Most often today's theories flatly contradict those of 1760; many contradict those of 1900. In cosmology, in quantum mechanics, in genetics, in the social sciences, who now holds the beliefs that seemed firm sixty years ago? Yet the society of scientists has survived these changes without a revolution, and honors the men whose beliefs it no longer shares. No one has recanted abjectly at a trial before his colleagues. The whole structure of science has been changed and no one has been either disgraced or deposed. Through all the changes of science, the society of scientists is flexible and single-minded together, and evolves and rights itself. In the language of science, it is a stable society.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

as quoted in American Journal of Physics, 44(2), p176, 1976-02
unsorted
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)

Men , Science , Change

“"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials." --December 2003”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/26/elec04.prez.dean.bin.laden/

People , Fashion

“I bought a copy of the Nashville Tennessean out of a metal box, just to see what was happening in the world. The principal story indicated that the state legislature, in one of those moments of enlightenment with which the southern states often strive to distinguish themselves, was in the process of passing a law forbidding schools from teaching evolution. Instead they were to be required to instruct that that the earth was created by God, in seven days, sometime, oh, before the turn of the century. The article reminded us that this was not a new issue in Tennessee. The little town of Dayton—not far from where Katz and I now sat, as it happened—was the scene of the famous Scopes trial in 1925, when the state prosecuted a schoolteacher named John Thomas Scopes for rashly promulgating Darwinian hogwash. As nearly everyone knows, Clarence Darrow, for the defense, roundly humiliated William Jennings Bryan, for the prosecution, but what most people don’t realize is that Darrow lost the case. Scopes was convicted, and the law wasn’t overturned in Tennessee until 1967. And now the state was about to bring the law back, proving conclusively that the danger for Tennesseans isn’t so much that they may be descended from apes as overtaken by them.”

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods (1997), Chapter 8 (pp. 107-108)

God , People , World , School

“We cannot use Western models of protocols for research and development. We should guard against being bogged down with clinical trials.”

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (1940–2009) South African politician

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=333154&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/

“I say that such qualities were never more needed in the word. Let us hold on to what we are; let us not try to be like anybody else…With our pertinacity, our love of freedom, our love of ordered freedom, our respect for law, our respect for the individual and our power of combining in service; indeed, in our strength and in our weakness, I believe, from my heart, that our people are fitted to pass through whatever trials may be before us, and to emerge—if they are true to their own best traditions—a greater people in the future than they have been in the past.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast from London (25 September 1933), quoted in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 14.
1933

Love , People , Law , Freedom

“Without dynamic conquering spirit, even devotion to a divine cause will be of little avail In this hard world which is an arena for trial of strength with brute forces, mere goodness or noble virtues will not hold the field for a single moment. That is why we find that in spite of all the piety, goodness and devotion to God all through the past thousand years, we were trampled under the feet by foreign aggressors who, though total strangers to goodness and virtue, had a passion for heroic action and organised effort.”

M. S. Golwalkar book Bunch of Thoughts

M.S. Golwalkar : ‘Bunch of Thoughts’, third edition, 1996, p. 92 Quoted from Talreja, K. M. (2000). Holy Vedas and holy Bible: A comparative study. New Delhi: Rashtriya Chetana Sangathan.
Bunch of Thoughts

God , World , Effort , Passion

“The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the Union emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict purified and made stronger for all the beneficent purposes of good government.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Inaugural address (1881)

War

“He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)

People , World , Clothes , Dead

“Since the Nazi era need never have happened, to say that he prophesised it is actually a belittlement of his creative achievement, and only one step up from saying that he caused the whole thing. But nobody could now read The Trial without thinking of the Soviet show trials, or the short works Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony without thinking of the death camps.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Franz Kafka', p. 344
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)

Death , Thinking , Reading

“Is the Minister aware that many people regard the present system of juryless trials at the Crumlin road court as outrageous? It would be appropriate for him to pay a visit to see the way in which trials take place, with no jury, where the decision is made solely on the word of a supergrass witness who stands to benefit from giving evidence, and where only the judge makes the decision. How much money has been paid in the last four years to supergrass witnesses for their evidence in such circumstances?”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Question http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/jun/13/crumlin-road-court-trial in the House of Commons (13 June 1985).
1980s

Money , People , Way , Decision

“When Bonner writes that “natural selection for optimal feeding is then presumed to be the cause of non-motility in all forms,” I can't help suspecting that some plants might do even better if they could walk from shade to sun—but the inherited constraints of design never permitted a trial of this intriguing option.”

Stephen Jay Gould book An Urchin in the Storm

"The Ghost of Protagoras", p. 67
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)

Optimism , Nature , Sun , Help

“Perhaps it is true that the trials of life always teach us something, but it is undeniable that we are not always so eager to learn.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

Life , Learning

“Women fell into that category of fantasies and dreams that worked well when unfulfilled but presented all kinds of problems when brought out into the real world of trial and failure.”

Karen Lord (1968) Barbadian novelist and sociologist of religion

Source: Redemption in Indigo (2010), Chapter 10 “Paama Among the Sisters, and Alton the Poet Finds His Muse” (p. 82)

Women , World , Dreams , Failure

“The man must learn to know his dog as a personality, not a formula. I have no objection to a grouse dog swinging on his cast and coming in from behind me – a misdemeanor by trial standards. Grouse terrain is such that if it can best be covered by the dog’s working in an unorthodox manner, I consider him intelligent if he does so.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

Troubles with Bird Dogs (1975)

Dogs , Intelligence , Learning , Personality

“Aside from the humanitarian aspects, it is well known that, under excruciating torture, a prisoner will admit almost any suggested crime. Such confessions are, of course, not admissible in trials in civilized nations. The primary goal of torture or the threat of torture is not to obtain convictions for crimes, but to engender and maintain fear. Some of our leaders have found that it is easy to forgo human rights for those who are considered to be subhuman, or "enemy combatants."”

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

Page 129
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Fear

“People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: Civilisation (1969), Ch. 1: The Skin of Our Teeth

People

“I was filled with joy when studying quantum physics at the university as a means to understand the universe. But at the same time, I was preoccupied with the oppressive conditions in my country and the tyranny suffered by our universities, intellectuals, and the media. Like many others in our universities, I felt compelled to join the struggle for freedom. What we experience is a decades-old tyranny, that cannot tolerate freedom of speech and thought. In the name of religion, it restricts and punishes science, intellect, and even love. It labels as a threat to national security and toxic to society whatever is not compatible with its political and economic interests. It considers punishing unwelcome ideas as a positive thing. It does not tolerate differences of opinion; it responds to logic not by logic, discussion or dialog, but by suppression. By tyranny I mean a ruling power that tries to make only one voice—the voice of a ruling minority in Iran—dominant, with no regard for pluralism in the society. By tyranny I mean a judiciary that disregards even the Islamic Republic’s own constitution, and sentences intellectuals, writers, journalists, and political and civil activists to long prison terms, without due process and trial in a court of law. … By tyranny I mean power-holders who believe they stand above the law and who disregard justice and the urgent demands of the human conscience.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Love , Religion , Justice , Law

“Brethren, let me close with a note of buoyant optimism and also a word of caution that masonry is not always on trial, but we, as Masons, are perpetually on trial. Let us remind ourselves that Masonry represents Manhood at its best and let me venture to express the hope that in building the City of Fraternity or what W. M Mallaradya more appropriately calls it, the Ideal Temple of Humanity and in fostering its growth, we shall be able to qualify ourselves to be men of true enlightenment, character, integrity, gentility and sympathetic understanding and Masons with a burning desire to dedicate ourselves to the service of humanity in our own limited sphere of activity.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

In his address to the members of the Masonic Fraternity on the occassion of his joining as member of the Masonic Lodge. quoted in "Article # 14 Initiate responds to his Toast R.W.Bro. Jaya Chamaraja Wadeyar".

Men , Hope , Optimism , Understanding

“Many of you share the burden of this knowledge tonight with me. But there is a difference. For finally I must be the one to order our guns to fire, against all the most inward pulls of my desire. For we have children to teach, and we have sick to be cured, and we have men to be freed. There are poor to be lifted up, and there are cities to be built, and there is a world to be helped. Yet we do what we must. I am hopeful, and I will try as best I can, with everything I have got, to end this battle and to return our sons to their desires. Yet as long as others will challenge America's security and test the clearness of our beliefs with fire and steel, then we must stand or see the promise of two centuries tremble. I believe tonight that you do not want me to try that risk. And from that belief your President summons his strength for the trials that lie ahead in the days to come. The work must be our work now. Scarred by the weaknesses of man, with whatever guidance God may offer us, we must nevertheless and alone with our mortality, strive to ennoble the life of man on earth. Thank you, and goodnight.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Life , Men , God , Children

“But he did want to see to it that loyal slave owners were not expropriated by his emancipation policy. But he couldn't get the Congress to adopt it. He couldn't get any Representatives, and people from Kentucky, or Missouri, or the border states to vote for it, and so he failed. This is the message to Congress which ended with those wonderful words, “Gentlemen of the Congress, we cannot escape history. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of Earth.””

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

Well, it failed.
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A

People , Hope , History , Light

“Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Robert Gould Shaw: Oration upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument
1910s, Memories and Studies (1911)

People , Democracy

“"But I was never put on trial, never convicted!"
"You are not entitled to a trial."
"Anybody's entitled to a trial, damn you!"
"That is absolutely true. But you see you are not anybody. You are nobody.”

John Brunner The Shockwave Rider

Bk. 1, Ch. "The Conviction of His Courage"  (His record having been erased from government computers.)
The Shockwave Rider (1975)

“So now, surely this world has turned its back and announced its departure while the next world has appeared forward and proclaimed its approach. Today is the day of preparation while tomorrow is the day of race. The place to proceed to is Paradise while the place of doom is Hell. Is there no one to offer repentance over his faults before his death? Or is there no one to perform virtuous acts before the day of trial?”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Death , World , Departure , Hell

“Brutality!' cried Tristam. The class was at last interested. 'Beatings-up. Secret police. Torture in brightly lighted cellars. Condemnation without trial. Finger-nails pulled out with pincers. The rack. The cold-water treatment. The gouging out of eyes. The firing squad in the cold dawn. And all this because of disappointment. The Interphase.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Wanting Seed (1962)

Secret , Disappointment , Light , Water

“Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist.”

Pope Pius X (1835–1914) Catholic Pope and saint

As quoted in Quotable Saints (2003) by Ronda Chervin, p. 79

Life , Children , Way

“The management science approach to organizational decision making is the analog to the rational approach by individual managers. Management science came into being during World War II. At that time, mathematical and statistical techniques were applied to urgent, large-scale military problems that were beyond the ability of individual decision makers. Mathematicians, physicists, and operations researchers used systems analysis to develop artillery trajectories, antisubmarine strategies, and bombing strategies such as salvoing (discharging multiple shells simultaneously). Consider the problem of a battleship trying to sink an enemy ship several miles away. The calculation for aiming the battleship's guns should consider distance, wind speed, shell size, speed and direction of both ships, pitch and roll of the firing ship, and curvature of the earth. Methods for performing such calculations using trial and error and intuition are not accurate, take far too long, and may never achieve success.
This is where management science came in. Analysts were able to identify the relevant variables involved in aiming a ship's guns and could model them with the use of mathematical equations. Distance, speed, pitch, roll, shell size, and so on could be calculated and entered into the equations. The answer was immediate, and the guns could begin firing. Factors such as pitch and roll were soon measured mechanically and fed directly into the targeting mechanism. Today, the human element is completely removed from the targeting process. Radar picks up the target, and the entire sequence is computed automatically.”

Richard L. Daft (1964) American sociologist

Source: Organization Theory and Design, 2007-2010, p. 500

War , World , Error , Mathematics

“The Helsinki Treaty confirms yet again the principle of freedom of conscience. However, a stern and relentless struggle will have to be carried on if the contents of this treaty are to be given reality. In the Soviet Union today many thousands of people are persecuted because of their convictions, both by judicial and by non-judicial organs, for the sake of their religious beliefs and for their desire to bring their children up in the spirit of religion, for reading and disseminating - often only to a few acquaintances - literature which is unwelcome to the State, but which in accordance with ordinary democratic practice is absolutely legitimate, e. g. religious literature, and for attempts to leave the country. On the moral plane the persecution of persons who have defended other victims of unjust treatment, who have worked to publish and in particular to distribute information regarding the persecution and trials of persons with deviant opinions, and of conditions in places of internment, is particularly important.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Nobel Peace Prize Speech (1975)

Children , People , Religion , Literature

“People expect Byzantine, Machiavellian logic from politicians. But the truth is simple. Trial lawyers learn a good rule: 'Don't decide what you don't have to decide.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

That's not evasion, it's wisdom.
As quoted in The Quotable Politician (2003) by William B. Whitman, p. 25

Wisdom , People , Truth , Learning

“Why have I nominated you, lady, to bear up beneath this most terrible of trials, you and your sisters of the Three Hundred? Because you can.”

Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire

Leonides p. 427
Gates of Fire (1998)

Sister

“This question of yours, Sir, about my being a house painter — or rather, not a question, you simply made a statement — is typical of the whole character of this trial that is being foisted on me. You may object that it is not a trial at all; you are quite right, for it is only a trial if I recognize it as such. But for the moment I do recognize it, on grounds of compassion, as it were. One can't regard it except with compassion, if one is to regard it at all. I do not say that your procedure is contemptible, but I should like to present that epithet to you for your private consumption.”

Franz Kafka book The Trial

Josef K. in Ch. 2
Variant translation: Your question, Mr. Examining Magistrate, as to whether I am a house-painter — although you did not ask a question at all, you made a statement — typifies exactly the kind of proceedings that are being instituted against me.
The Trial (1920)

Question , Housing

“Has not experience demonstrated quite recently that Jack the Ripper performed his exploits under the eye of the London police — a most active force — and that he only left off killing when the population of Whitechapel itself began to give chase to him?
And in our every-day relations with our fellow-citizens, do you think that it is really judges, gaolers, and police that hinder anti-social acts from multiplying? The judge, ever ferocious, because he is a maniac of law, the accuser, the informer, the police spy, all those interlopers that live from hand to mouth around the Law Courts, do they not scatter demoralization far and wide into society? Read the trials, glance behind the scenes, push your analysis further than the exterior facade of law courts, and you will come out sickened.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)

Law , Thinking , Reading

“From a high tower I have looked to the four points of the horizon.
I will go and lift up the dead on the battlefield.
I will stretch out their contorted arms and legs.
I will close their cold eyelids on their fixed pupils.
I cannot bear to see eyes if I do not receive any words.
Invisible life entrusts us with sad tasks,
I look back to my years, and the pains I have suffered
are not enough.
Soon there will be clashings of men and horrible clanging sounds.
And people hunted, pushed, wrenched.
Also I will find myself in the midst of the madness of war.
I will open pure words, orders of thought, fraternal acts.
In the meantime they will bring forward the man
condemned to death and they will tell him to dig his own grave.
He will look up at the still hills and the sky.
Some distant sounds of life will still reach him.
He will not have time to think back to his many days –
to the voices of his dear people, and the close relationships.
Not even will he be able to look ahead,
to come to terms with what is happening now.
And when the shots will be fired, with the flash a cry will go up
The human cry which is too late, and it’s lost.
To free, to free as soon as possible.
They will ask me: why don’t you come to fight with us?
They will not understand, they will carry on with the war.
I loved to be with other people, as the light of the day.
It is so good to work together, in trust, in mutual help.
To lose myself in the crowd in modest clothes.
In a circle of equals to listen and to speak.
And now nobody wants to listen, and yet they are all people.
I have become a stranger, the others do not know that I am there.
The abrupt reply, the friend who looks the other way.
It would be easy to join them in earnest action.
Forgetting the deeper unity, beyond the war?
I remain here, isolated from everybody,
working for a deeper togetherness.
Everything was only a trial, reality must yet begin.
Every being was partaking of another reality yet he did not know.
But now this reality is becoming clear,
and it matters only what opens us to it.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Love , Life , Death , Men

“I felt this coming. I tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Hitler in 1945. I am not concerned with jurisdiction of the court as Hess or others are. History will show the trials to be necessary.”

Albert Speer (1905–1981) German architect, Minister of Armaments and War Production for Nazi Germany

To Leon Goldensohn, April 14, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - (2004)

History

“At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess — an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.
While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, The Assault on Reason (2007)

War , Peace , Justice , Departure

“In representing criminal defendants—especially guilty ones—it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct. In law, as in sports, the best defense is often a good offense.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Law , Sport

“I believe that our people’s traditional belief in the right of trial by jury is in perilous decline. That decline is bound to be confirmed, and indeed accelerated, by the repeated spectacle of a man’s going to his death because a judge found that an aggravating factor existed. We cannot preserve our veneration for the protection of the jury in criminal cases if we render ourselves callous to the need for that protection by regularly imposing the death penalty without it.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Ring v. Arizona (2006) (concurring).
2000s

Death , People , Penalty

“[The Community's] crosses and trials give me confidence. But I derive my hope above all, and most especially, from our utter incapacity, for it is always upon nothingness that God is pleased to rear His works. If at any day we accomplish some good here, the glory will certainly be His alone, since He has employed for this end instruments more capable of spoiling everything than of making it succeed.”

Théodore Guérin (1798–1856) Catholic saint and nun from France

Letter to the Very Reverend A. Martin, V.G., Logansport, 1841-10-19.

God , Hope , Confidence , Communication

“As you know I have been preaching along with El Duce and Sickie Wifebeater for many years against homosexuality in rock and it's time to take revenge on people that try to stop rock. The real rock, hetero rock. There for Bowie is going on trial within Rock Kourt.”

Steve Broy (1958) American musician

Mentors Heathen Scum Rock Kourt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWg1EuUPmrk by Dr. Heathen Scum at Dr. Heathen Scum's channel http://www.youtube.com/user/sbroy at YouTube

People , Revenge , Time

Quotes about trial page 3

Quotes about trial
page 3