Quotes about triumph
page 5

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo

“Civilisational triumph is thus not a zero-sum enterprise that favours one geo-cultural domain over another.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.213

Philo photo
Hilaire Belloc photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Abraham Cahan photo
Adlai Stevenson photo

“The great aristocrat, the beloved leader, the profound historian, the gifted painter, the superb politician, the lord of language, the orator, the wit—yes, and the dedicated bricklayer—behind all of them was a simple man of faith, steadfast in defeat, generous in victory, resigned in age, trusting in a loving providence, and committing his achievements and his triumphs to a higher power.”

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

Eulogizing Winston Churchill, Washington, D.C. (28 January 1965); as quoted in "Stevenson Delivers Eulogy to Churchill; 'Simple Faith in God' Cited" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ZmQwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mWwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4314%2C3973257 by the Associated Press, in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (29 January 1965); reproduced in Adlai Stevenson (1966) by Lillian Ross, p. 47

Alex Salmond photo
Edward Snowden photo

“And history also shows that seemingly ordinary people who are sufficiently resolute about justice can triumph over the most formidable adversaries.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Penguin Books 2015 edition, page 46.
No Place to Hide (2014)

MS Dhoni photo

“MS Dhoni has done a pretty good job for the team. Leading a team to such a triumph just after taking over as captain is a great achievement.”

MS Dhoni (1981) Indian cricket player

Ricky Ponting https://www.scoopwhoop.com/sports/dhoni-quotes/

Will Eisner photo
E.M. Forster photo

“Charles Péguy, stubborn rancours and mishaps and all, is one of the great souls, one of the great prophetic intelligences of the 20th century. I offer my poem as my homage to the triumph of his 'defeat.”

Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) English poet and professor

Notes on The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy, in Collected Poems Penguin Books 1985
Poetry

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
John Updike photo
Enver Hoxha photo
Alan Keyes photo
Adlai Stevenson photo
John Cheever photo

“Art is the triumph over chaos.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

The Stories of John Cheever Knopf (1978).

Anna Akhmatova photo
Louis Brandeis photo
Ernest Renan photo
Robert Solow photo
Scott Lynch photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“There is a very great thrill to be had from the memories of the American Revolution, but the American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation, and the duty laid upon us by that beginning is the duty of bringing the things then begun to a noble triumph of completion.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“On the Spirit of America” http://books.google.com/books?id=w0IOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA122, Address to Daughters of the American Revoltion (11 October 1915)
1910s

Brian Leiter photo
Dennis Skinner photo
Tim Buck photo

“I am proud that I have devoted all my life to the struggle for the triumph of Leninism.”

Tim Buck (1891–1973) Canadian politician

Tim Buck A Conscience for Canada

Simone Weil photo

“We believe we are rising because while keeping the same base inclinations (for instance: the desire to triumph over others) we have given them a noble object. We should, on the contrary, rise by attaching noble inclinations to lowly objects.”

Croire qu’on s’élève parce qu’en gardant les mêmes bas penchants (exemple : désir de l’emporter sur autrui) on leur a donné des objets élevés. On s’élèverait au contraire en attachant à des objets bas des penchants élevés.
La pesanteur et la grâce (1948), p. 61
Source: Gravity and Grace (1947), p. 48 (1972 edition)

Frederick Douglass photo
James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance photo
William Hazlitt photo
Harold Nicolson photo

“Dr Johnson is the only conversationalist who triumphs over time.”

Harold Nicolson (1886–1968) British diplomat, author, diarist and politician

Diary,31st Jan.1934. Fontana books pub. 1969. Page 158.

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo
Basil Hume photo

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

Basil Hume (1923–1999) Catholic cardinal

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

Francis Galton photo
James Hamilton photo
Jean Baptiste Massillon photo
Anthony Watts photo
Rutherford B. Hayes photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Sri Aurobindo photo
Michael Moorcock photo

“The conqueror always assumes that his moral superiority—rather than his ferocious greed—is what has allowed him to triumph.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 3, Chapter 5 “The Coming of the Air Fleets” (p. 121)
The Warlord of the Air (1971)

Pope Benedict XVI photo

“How many questions arise in this place! Constantly the question comes up: Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil? … We must continue to cry out humbly yet insistently to God: Rouse yourself! Do not forget mankind, your creature!”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

On visited the former concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland, on May 28, 2006. Quoted in The Watchtower magazine, in the article: “Why, Lord, Did You Remain Silent?”, (15 May 2007)
2007

Indro Montanelli photo

“Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Oggi, 11 October 2000.
2000s - 2010s

Julia Ward Howe photo

“Charity is an unending self-discipline which always looks and leads towards the eternal affection. Therefore, its triumph shall be lasting and everlasting.”

Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American abolitionist, social activist, and poet

23 July 1875.
The Walk With God (1919)

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi photo
Mel Brooks photo

“Dark Helmet : So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Spaceballs

Geert Wilders photo
Andrew Johnson photo
Evelyn Waugh photo

“A typical triumph of modern science to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Source: Diary entry (March 1964), after hearing that doctors had removed a benign tumor from Randolph Churchill, quoted in The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie (1976), p. 792

Jack Johnson (boxer) photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo
W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Ranjit Singh photo

“That's not good, that's triumph.”

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

Remalna's Children (Crown & Court 2.5, 2011)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Harry Turtledove photo
Sarvajna photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Newton Lee photo
William Wilberforce photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Jacques de Molay photo
Stuart Kauffman photo

“It would be a triumph to find universal laws of organization for life, ecosystems, and biospheres. The candidate criticality law is emergent and not reducible to physics alone.”

Stuart Kauffman (1939) American biophysicist

Stuart A. Kauffman (2010) Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. p.40

James A. Garfield photo

“After nearly a quarter of a century of prosperity under the Constitution, the spirit of slavery so far triumphed over the early principles and practices of the government that, in 1812, South Carolina and her followers in Congress succeeded in inserting the word 'white' in the suffrage clause of the act establishing a territorial government for Missouri. One by one the Slave States, and many of the free States, gave way before the crusade of slavery against negro citizenship. In 1817, Connecticut caught the infection, and in her constitution she excluded the negro from the ballot-box. In every other New England State his ancient right of suffrage has remained and still remains undisturbed. Free negroes voted in Maryland till 1833; in North Carolina, till 1835; in ennsylvania, till 1838. It was the boast of Cave Johnson of Tennessee that he owed his election to Congress in 1828 to the free negroes who worked in his mills. They were denied the suffrage in 1834, under the new constitution of Tennessee, by a vote of thirty-three to twenty-three. As new States were formed, their constitutions for the most part excluded the negro from citizenship. Then followed the shameful catalogue of black laws; expatriation and ostracism in every form, which have so deeply disgraced the record of legislation in many of the States.”

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

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

David Korten photo

“In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy and the market economy.”

David Korten (1937) writer, sustainability advocate

The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism (2012)

Stewart Lee photo

“Remember all that's required for Jeremy Clarkson to triumph is that Richard Hammond do nothing.”

Stewart Lee (1968) English stand-up comedian, writer, director and musician

Carpet Remnant World

Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet photo
David Attenborough photo

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

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

Stanisław Lem photo
Alex Salmond photo

“Our national story has its full share of grief and pain as well as triumph and expectation. But through it all, hope remains and dreams do not die.”

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

Third Session of Parliament (June 30, 2007)

Frederick William Robertson photo
Huey P. Newton photo
William Golding photo
Benito Juárez photo

“The government of the republic will fulfill its duty to defend its independence, to repel foreign aggression, and accept the struggle to which it has been provoked, counting on the unanimous spirit of the Mexicans and on the fact that sooner or later the cause of rights and justice will triumph.”

Benito Juárez (1806–1872) President of Mexico during XIX century

Proclamation to the Mexican people, shortly before the Battle of Puebla of 5 May 1862 (which is commemorated by the "Cinco de Mayo" celebrations).

Paul Bourget photo
Eric Hobsbawm photo
Karl Rove photo

“Once again the powers of light and good have triumphed over the media!”

Karl Rove (1950) American political consultant and policy advisor

Journeys with George documentary on unspecified date during 2000 Bush Campaign

Robert P. George photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Nathaniel Hawthorne photo
Vālmīki photo
Bram Stoker photo
Roger Ebert photo

“In retrospect, our triumphs could as easily have happened to someone else; but our defeats are uniquely our own.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Tom Rath photo