Quotes about trust
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“Look at the men themselves who lead in this cause. Is there one among them with whom you would trust yourself in the dark? Can you have, I will not say, any confidence in their opinions and principles, but any doubt of the wickedness of their intentions? Look at them, at their characters, at their conduct. What is there more base, and more detestable, more at variance with all tact and decency, as well as all morality, truth, and honour? A cause so supported cannot be a good cause. They may use Burdett as an instrument for a time, and you also if you place yourself in their trammels, but depend upon it, if a convulsion follows their attempt to work upon the minds of the people, inflamed as they now are by distress, for which your reform will afford a very inadequate remedy, I shall not precede you many months on the scaffold, which you will have assisted in preparing for us both.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to General Sir Robert Thomas Wilson (October 1819) on the Radicals, quoted in M. R. Brock, Lord Liverpool and Liberal Toryism. 1820-1827 (Cambridge University Press, 1941), pp. 117-118.
1810s

Men, People, Truth, Confidence

“Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and, um, be faithful in what happens.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

CNN interview with Tucker Carlson (3 September 2003); later used in Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) by Michael Moore. CNN interview with Tucker Carlson http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/03/cnna.spears/ (3 September 2003)

Faith, Support, Thinking, Decision

“As a military professional, I knew that the most important element is trust- the vision had to be built on trust. The very basis for why soldiers fight the way they do is the trust they have in their teammates, their fellow soldiers. It's usually less dramatic off the battlefield but still equally important. Without trust in each other and trust in the institution, you will not be able to realize your vision.”

Ann E. Dunwoody (1953) U.S. Army, first four-star general in U.S. military history

Source: A Higher Standard (2015), p. 191

Way, Fight

“If you love our country, and love our children as much as you do, stand, and speak, and vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom, and to be faithful to the constitution.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

2010s, Speech at the Republican National Convention (July 20, 2016)

Love, Children, Faith, Freedom

“It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book II, Chapter III, p. 381.

People, Law

“The outlaw will often wonder whether asserting the right to know, to taste, to experience, to judge is not an act of arrogance. … To become an outlaw, I must decide that my personal experience rather than the mores of the tribe is the authority upon which I will base my judgments. In a bold act of self-love and self-trust, the outlaw proclaims that individual to be higher than the universal.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 130

Love, Universe, Personality

“Never trust a man who thinks his religion gives him all the answers.”

Charles Stross book Halting State

Source: Halting State (2007), Chapter 33, “Elaine: Gentlemen and Players” (p. 275)

Religion, Thinking

“Ziegler said, “You know the story in the Bible, the story of Abraham and Isaac?”
“Of course.”
“God instructs Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice. Isaac makes it as far as the chopping block before God changes his mind.”
Yes. Jacob had always imagined God a little appalled at Abraham’s willingness to cooperate.
Ziegler said, “What’s the moral of the story?”
“Faith.”
“Hardly,” Ziegler said. “Faith has nothing to do with it. Abraham never doubted the existence of God—how could he? The evidence was ample. His virtue wasn’t faith, it was fealty. He was so simplemindedly loyal that he would commit even this awful, terrible act. He was the perfect foot soldier. The ideal pawn. Abraham’s lesson: fealty is rewarded. Not morality. The fable makes morality contingent. Don’t go around killing innocent people, that is, unless you're absolutely certain God want you to. It’s a lunatic’s credo.
“Isaac, on the other hand, learns something much more interesting. He learns that neither God nor his own father can be trusted. Maybe it makes him a better man than Abraham. Suppose Isaac grows up and fathers a child of his own, and God approaches him and makes the same demand. One imagines Isaac saying, ’No. You can take him if you must, but I won’t slaughter my son for you.’ He’s not the good and faithful servant his father was. But he is, perhaps, a more wholesome human being.””

Robert Charles Wilson (1953) author

The Fields of Abraham (pp. 21-22)
The Perseids and Other Stories (2000)

God, People, Faith, Imagination

“"Who can I trust?" Arthur blurted out.
"Those who wish you well," said the Old One. "Not those who wish to use you well. Be a player, not a pawn. And that is three questions and all your time."”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Mister Monday (2003), p. 247.

Question, Time

“We are shocked when we see educators, timid before criticism and confused about first principles, betray their trust. And we wonder what can be that 'philosophy of education' which believes that young people can be trained to the duties of citizenship by wrapping their minds in cotton wool.”

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian

Who is Loyal to America? (1947)

People, Education, Training

“You are staking your own head by trusting the King. Never will I so stake mine, for he has deceived me too often. His favourite maxim is, haereticis non est servanda fides. I am now bald and Calvinist and in that faith will I die.”

William the Silent (1533–1584) stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, leader of the Dutch Revolt

William to a supporter of the King, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 92

Faith

“We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ollia’s father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers’ training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him… The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve.”

Lindsey Davis book Shadows in Bronze

Shadows in Bronze

Youth, Fear, School, Girl

“Lawsuits destroy community. They destroy trust. They would destroy all the goodwill we've built up over the years by being nice.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/2016-August/003580.html
2010s, 2017

Communication

“…. but I use the word (devotion) in a greater latitude so as to comprehend under it faith, hope, love, fear, trust, humility, submission, honour, reverence, adoration, thanksgiving in a word all that duty which we owe to God.”

John Norris (1657–1711) English theologian, philosopher and poet

Reason and Religion; or, The Grounds and Measures of Devotion. Part I, Introduction, Section VIII.

Love, God, Fear, Faith

“To do one's duty every day and trust in God for tomorrow.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Faire son devoir tous les jours et se fier à Dieu, pour le lendemain.
Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Mon cœur mis à nu (1864)

God

“In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me.' People and party are then no longer free to interfere in his business.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Source: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946), p. 42;

People, Democracy, Business

“The more you make yourselves humble and ask for forgiveness, the more your true exaltedness is seen. Humility is a sign of exaltedness. The preface of a spotlessly pure heart (Iman-Islam) is patience (sabur), contentment and gratitude (shakur), having trust in God (tawakkal), and praising Him for everything that happens to us, saying, “Al-hamdu lillah!” Therefore, without feeling shame, ask forgiveness whenever necessary. This will be good. Allah, the Lone One who rules and sustains (Allahu ta’ala Nayan), will protect you and me.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

God, Feeling, Forgiveness, Heart

“Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the lord.”

John Cheever book The Wapshot Chronicle

The Wapshot Chronicle (1957)

Love, World

“According to my experience, the only effective way to spread religion in India is for the King to proclaim by means of an edict to all his officials in India that he shall put trust only in those who will exert themselves to extend the reign of religion by every means in their power. The King must definitely order them to exert themselves with zeal to multiply the number of Christians in Cape Comorin [Kanyakumari] in order to attract to the faith of Jesus Christ the island of Ceylon, and to muster all the pious people, be they members of our Society [the Jesuits] or other that may seem fit for propagating religion…. If the King publishes such an edict and treats severely those who disobey it, a great number of natives will embrace the faith of Jesus Christ; otherwise no success can be expected.”

Francis Xavier (1506–1552) Navarrese Basque Roman Catholic saint and missionary

Letter dated 20th January 1548, to Fr. Simao Rodrigues. quoted from Goel, S. R. (1985). St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission.

People, Faith, Religion, Way

“I trust that I am honest with myself. I know that I am not very sociable and I expect to go on being so; a man capable of creative work has no time to spare for fools who would like to visit.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast

Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XXVI : The Keys to the City, p. 249

Fools, Time

“To trust God, as seen in the face of His Son, and to believe that He loves us, that is faith, that is what we must do to be saved. And to love God, as seen in the face of His Son, and to seek to testify our love by our whole life, — that is Christian duty; that is all we have to do.”

Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd (1825–1899) British writer and minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 233.

Love, Life, God, Faith

“The Japanese people, since the war, have undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history. With a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and marked capacity to understand, they have, from the ashes left in war's wake, erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the supremacy of individual liberty and personal dignity; and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice. Politically, economically, and socially Japan is now abreast of many free nations of the earth and will not again fail the universal trust… I sent all four of our occupation divisions to the Korean battlefront without the slightest qualms as to the effect of the resulting power vacuum upon Japan. The results fully justified my faith. I know of no nation more serene, orderly, and industrious, nor in which higher hopes can be entertained for future constructive service in the advance of the human race.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

1950s, Farewell address to Congress (1951)

War, People, Faith, Justice

“All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end it shall ripen into truth, and you shall know why you believe.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Intellect
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841)

Truth, Knowledge

“Do not trust to that; for these very persons would shout as much if you and I were going to be hanged.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

Response to John Lambert's remarks that he "was glad to see we had the nation on our side" as they were cheered by a crowd in June 1650; as quoted by Gilbert Burnet in History of My Own Time http://books.google.com/books?id=-iswAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;do+not+trust+to+that+for+these+very+persons+would+shout+as+much+if+you+and+I+were+going+to+be+hanged&quot;&pg=PA145#v=onepage (1683); also in in God's Englishman by Christopher Hill (1970), Ch. VII, p. 188

Personality

“To have a good memory the first thing you have to do is to trust your memory.”

Paul Sophus Epstein (1883–1966) Russian-American mathematician

Jesse W. M. DuMond, Paul Sophus Epstein http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=568&page=147, in Biographical Memoirs V.45, National Academy of Sciences (NAS), published by National Academies Press (1974), ISBN 0-309-02239-8, p. 140

Memory

“I can't trust the current government because of fabrications. The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”

Jared Lee Loughner (1988) Charged with 2011 Tucson shooting

Posted in internet video — Profile of suspect Jared Loughner: ‘I can't trust the current government’, MSNBC, NBC, January 9, 2011, 2011-01-11 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40980334/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/,

People

“Many people, no doubt, honestly believe that they are only giving away the interests of Czechoslovakia, whereas I fear we shall find that we have deeply compromised, and perhaps fatally endangered, the safety and even the independence of Great Britain and France. … You have to consider the character of the Nazi movement and the rule which it implies. The Prime Minister desires to see cordial relations between this country and Germany. There is no difficulty at all in having cordial relations with the German people. Our hearts go out to them. But they have no power. You must have diplomatic and correct relations, but there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi Power, that Power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That Power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy.”

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

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_370 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement The 1930s

Friendship, People, Pleasure, Fear

“Hitherto, the well-to-do have governed this country for their own interest; and I will do them this credit—they have achieved their object. Now I trust the time is approaching for those who work and have not. My aim in life is to make life pleasanter for this great majority; I do not care if it becomes in the process less pleasant for the well-to-do minority. Take America, for instance. Cultured persons complain that the society there is vulgar; less agreeable to the delicate tastes of delicately trained minds. But it is infinitely preferable to the ordinary worker.”

Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914) British businessman, politician, and statesman

Said to Beatrice Webb as recorded in her diary (12 January 1884), quoted in Webb, My Apprenticeship (Penguin, 1971), p. 141.
1880s

Life, Time, Personality, Training

“I will never leave China, unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei Says Blind Dissident’s Escape Will Inspire Chinese, 2012

People

“I had learned, after all, to trust neither religion nor politics and to put my faith in the realities of metal, wood and steam, in practical engineering, whose rules could neither be changed nor made the subject of morality, so why should I show reverence for mere antiquity?”

Michael Moorcock book The City in the Autumn Stars

Source: The City in the Autumn Stars (1986), Chapter 5 (p. 262)

Faith, Religion, Reality, Learning

“My coaches and teammates really trusted me and gave me a chance to improve. They would come to me after a game I didn't score and say, 'Hey, don't worry about it. Next game you'll score.' The guys were great. It's an unbelievable team. It feels like home for me.”

Alexander Ovechkin (1985) Russian ice hockey player

The Canadian Press (June 23, 2006) "Ovechkin captures Calder Trophy; Russian sniper picked over Cole Harbour's Crosby", The Chronicle Herald, p. C4.

Guy, Feeling, Home, Game

“It is a fundamental and deplorable error by which we in this country have confused education with the acquisition of knowledge…. Amount of knowledge is in itself not of first importance, but to make the best use of what we know. The easy assumption of our educationists that we have only to supply the mind with a smattering of facts in each department of knowledge and the mind can be trusted to develop itself and take its own suitable road is contrary to science, contrary to human experience…. Much as we have lost as a nation, we have always preserved our intellectual alertness, quickness and originality; but even this last gift is threatened by our University system, and if it goes, it will be the beginning of irretrievable degradation and final extinction.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Early 1900s, Centenary Edition of Sri Aurobindo's works (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1972) 3.125-127
India's Rebirth

Education, Error, Knowledge, Universe

“If they be dead, as I can no longer doubt, we must submit to the will of God and trust in His divine Providence, that He who has given the blood of His only Son to maintain His Church will do nothing but what will redound to the advancement of His glory and the preservation of His Church—however impossible it may appear. And though we all were to die, and all this poor people were massacred and driven out, we still must trust that God will not abandon his own.”

William the Silent (1533–1584) stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, leader of the Dutch Revolt

On the loss of some of his brothers, in a letter to his brother John, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 76

God, People, Appearance, Dead

“My only painful concern at times is that of the welfare of my family but I try even in this regard, in a spirit of trust and surrender to God's will as I see it, to say: "God will provide." It is inevitable that in working for Freedom some individuals and some families must take the lead and suffer: The Road to Freedom is via the CROSS.”

Albert Lutuli (1898–1967) South African politician

The Road to Freedom is via the Cross (1952)

God, Pain, Family, Freedom

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

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

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

People, World, Confidence, Freedom

“Faith is a simple trust in a personal Redeemer. The simpler our trust in Christ for all things, the surer our peace.”

William Adams (1706–1789) Fellow and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 224.

Peace, Faith, Christ, Personality

“Well, Mister President, with all due deference to you, I don't believe in natural-born generals except where they have had proper military training, and it seems to me the siege of Vicksburg is too important a matter to trust to anybody except a scientific military man; besides, if you take troops from Grant and Sherman to give them to McClernand, you will weaken the army.”

David Dixon Porter (1813–1891) United States Navy admiral

Source: 1880s, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), p. 123

Nature, Training

“When this intelligence reached the Amír, he considered it false, as being opposed to the usual habits of Jaipál; but after repeated accounts to the same effect were brought, when the curtain which obscured the truth was withdrawn, and he knew that God has set his seal upon Jaipál's heart, so that he might obtain the reward of his evil deeds, and placed a veil between it and rectitude, so that he might obtain punishment for his wickedness and infedelity. The Sultan therefore sharpened the sword of intention in order to make an incursion upon his kingdom, and cleanse it from impurity and from his rejection of Islam. So he departed with his valiant servants and allies, relying upon the one God, and trusting in the fulfilment of the promise of the victory; and he went on till he arrived with his troops in the country of Hind, and he killed everyone who, on the part of Jaipál, came out to oppose him.”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume II, p. 22. Translation of Tarikh-i-Yamini of al-Utbi.

God, Truth, Intelligence, Evil

“Lasker mouthed, “Trust him,” and Max sighed. Trust a lawyer? It flew in the face of his most cherished principles.”

Jack McDevitt book Ancient Shores

Source: Ancient Shores (1996), Chapter 8 (p. 78)

“Who are the greedy? Those who are not satisfied with what suffices for their own needs. Who are the robbers? Those who take for themselves what rightfully belongs to everyone. And you, are you not greedy? Are you not a robber? The things you received in trust as a stewardship, have you not appropriated them for yourself? Is not the person who strips another of clothing called a thief? And those who do not clothe the naked when they have the power to do so, should they not be called the same? The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: Social Justice, I Will Tear Down My Barns, p. 70

Shoe, Personality, Clothes

“Trust Christ! and a great benediction of tranquil repose comes down upon the calm mind and the tranquil heart.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 589.

Heart, Christ

“Fortune had done him few favors in the past, and he wasn’t sure he trusted it.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Axis

Source: Axis (2007), Chapter 7 (pp. 92-93)

Past

“the Legion of little Souls does exist, and they did become manifest in the Little Flower. True, they get on our nerves more than they edify us - precisely that awful Martin family with their pompous self-preoccupation, their insufferable family worship, a perpetual mutual admiration society - but, say what you will, such people really do have religion, in the strictest sense of the word - living contact, authentic conversation with God. They do live out of their trust in him, are honestly concerned with seeking and doing his will, they take pains about being kind to their neighbours, for his sake. Is this really not enough? To hell with all esoterics!”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1955-57.

God, Pain, People, Family

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

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

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

God, Faith, Confidence

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

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

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

People, Books, Confidence, Question

“We encircle the globe with a chain of love, faith and trust, knowing that He (God) is listening.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Additional remarks about the proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission, Address to the nation at the National Day of Prayer in Fiji combined church service http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/page_4615.shtml, Post Fiji Stadium, Suva, 15 May 2005

Love, God, Faith

“We lost -- we lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties -- and Sen. Obama -- passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust when we valued our power over our principles. We're going to change that.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

People, Change, Dependency

“Coming and going by the dance, I see
That what I am not is a part of me.
Dancing is all that I can ever trust,
The dance is all I am, the rest is dust.
I will believe my bones and live by what
Will go on dancing when my bones are not.”

Sydney Carter (1915–2004) British musician and poet

Written as an epitaph based upon his lyrics to "Lord of the Dance".

Dance, Parting

“Though acts of reception and of understanding are in some measure fictions of ordered intuition, myths of reason, this truth does not justify the denial of intentional conduct. It is as absurd to discard as mendacious, as anarchically opaque, the bearing of contextual probability and suggestion, as it is to invest in such probability any blind trust. The negations of post-structuralism and of certain varieties of deconstruction are precisely as dogmatic, as political as were the positivist equations of archival historicism. The "emptiness of meaning" postulate is no less a priori, no less a case of despotic reductionism than were, say, the axioms of economic and psycho-sociological causality in regard to the generation of meaning in literature and the arts in turn-of-the-century pragmatism and scientism.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Source: Real Presences (1989), III: Presences, Ch. 3 (pp. 174-175).

Truth, Art, Literature, Understanding

“Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war,
They would have never missed a Christmas,
No more ribbons on their door.
And when you trust your television,
What you get is what you got.
Because when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Waiting on the World to Change
Song lyrics, Continuum (2006)

War, Home, Christmas

“But while we put our trust not on force but on a reign of law and the administration of justice, yet we know that the maintenance of peace can not but to a large extent be dependent upon our sentiments and desires,. In spite of all the treaties we may make and all the tribunals we may establish, unless we maintain a public opinion devoted to peace we can not escape the ravages of war. A determination to do right will be more effective than all our treaties and courts, all our armies and fleets. A peaceful people will have peace, but a warlike people can not escape war.”

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

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

War, People, Peace, Justice

“The Trusts and Corporations stood for the larger part of the new power that had been created since 1840, and were obnoxious because of their vigorous and unscrupulous energy. They were revolutionary, troubling all the old conventions and values, as the screws of ocean steamers must trouble a school of herring. They tore society to pieces and trampled it under foot.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

School, Parting

“I do not trust any advice which is given in bad prose.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

“Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the domination of monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the partition of all the territories of the globe among the great capitalist powers has been completed.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter Seven

World

“I don’t trust valets, waiters — nobody. I don’t waste my time anymore trying to figure out who leaks things to the press.”

Nicole Richie (1981) American television personality, musician, actress, and author

Source: [Richie, Nicole, Nicole Richie, Excerpts from Nicole Richie’s UK Marie Claire interview, Richiefan (Nicole Richie fansite), 2008, http://www.richiefan.com/excerpts-from-nicole-richies-uk-marie-claire-interview/, html, 2008-03-06]

Time

“This sort of admission of error, of change, makes us trust a critic as nothing else but omniscience could…”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“B.H. Haggin”, p. 156
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)

Error, Change

“The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.”

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

Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d5aa24e-23a4-11de-996a-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1, Financial Times, 2009-04-07. Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world (2009)

People, Failure, Universe

“I don't really feel sexy when I do love scenes because when I kiss a girl or a guy I want to be the one to decide to do that. And if someone says "OK, kiss him!" and you are getting paid for it, what is your profession? I don't want to be a prostitute being told stuff like "Show us your boob!", you know. So for me it really is a very uncomfortable day whenever you shoot that stuff. And so what you really is someone that you trust and feel comfortable with and someone who you really think has your back as a friend.”

James Marsters (1962) American actor

James Marsters talks kissing Sarah and John at Phoenix Comic Con (May 29 '10) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAEH8t4-t7U&t=0s&list=PLC81dErieu1XuNMZ7LzXSB1LZmxGIpZif

Love, Guy, Feeling, Girl

“I can remember my Dad, god bless him, and he was telling me – when I was growing up – that machines would do everything. It would be great. There wouldn’t be any need to go to work because the machines would do everything. He thought that the working class would then be given a holiday, to Yarmouth or somewhere, forever. He was right except about the holiday to Yarmouth. He hadn’t really thought it through. He still trusted the society he was in. That he would be looked after. It turns out to have been a much more pragmatic relationship all along. I think we should have taken the clue when Thatcher said there is no such thing as society. What she meant was – just like the London-Liverpool thing – “we don’t need there to be a society anymore”. “We are getting what we want anyway, therefore we do not need your support. Therefore we do not need to maintain the illusion of society anymore.” -->”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

God, Support, Thinking, Holiday

“General impressions are never to be trusted. Unfortunately when they are of long standing they become fixed rules of life and assume a prescriptive right not to be questioned. Consequently those who are not accustomed to original inquiry entertain a hatred and horror of statistics. They cannot endure the idea of submitting sacred impressions to cold-blooded verification. But it is the triumph of scientific men to rise superior to such superstitions, to desire tests by which the value of beliefs may be ascertained, and to feel sufficiently masters of themselves to discard contemptuously whatever may be found untrue.”

Francis Galton (1822–1911) British polymath: geographer, statistician, pioneer in eugenics

Cited in Modgil, Sohan, and Celia Modgil, eds. Arthur Jensen: Consensus and Controversy. Vol. 4. Routledge, 1987.
Other works

Life, Men, Feeling, Idea

“Suppose, now, there is such a thing as an all-round inferior race. Is that any reason why we should propose to preserve it for ever…? Whether there is a race so inferior I do not know, but certainly there is no race so superior as to be trusted with human charges. The true answer to Aristotle’s plea for slavery, that there are “natural slaves,” lies in the fact that there are no “natural” masters… The true objection to slavery is not that it is unjust to the inferior but that it corrupts the superior. There is only one sane and logical thing to be done with a really inferior race, and that is to exterminate it. Now there are various ways of exterminating a race, and most of them are cruel. You may end it with fire and sword after the old Hebrew fashion; you may enslave it and work it to death, as the Spaniards did the Caribs; you may set it boundaries and then poison it slowly with deleterious commodities, as the Americans do with most of their Indians; you may incite it to wear clothing to which it is not accustomed and to live under new and strange conditions that will expose it to infectious diseases to which you yourselves are immune, as the missionaries do the Polynesians; you may resort to honest simple murder, as we English did with the Tasmanians; or you can maintain such conditions as conduce to “race suicide,” as the British administration does in Fiji. Suppose, then, for a moment, that there is an all-round inferior race… If any of the race did, after all, prove to be fit to survive, they would survive—they would be picked out with a sure and automatic justice from the over-ready condemnation of all their kind. Is there, however, an all-round inferior race in the world? Even the Australian black-fellow is, perhaps, not quite so entirely eligible for extinction as a good, wholesome, horse-racing, sheep-farming Australian white may think. These queer little races, the black-fellows, the Pigmies, the Bushmen, may have their little gifts, a greater keenness, a greater fineness of this sense or that, a quaintness of the imagination or what not, that may serve as their little unique addition to the totality of our Utopian civilisation. We are supposing that every individual alive on earth is alive in Utopia, and so all the surviving “black-fellows” are there. Every one of them in Utopia has had what none have had on earth, a fair education and fair treatment, justice, and opportunity…Some may be even prosperous and admired, may have married women of their own or some other race, and so may be transmitting that distinctive thin thread of excellence, to take its due place in the great synthesis of the future.”

H. G. Wells book A Modern Utopia

Source: A Modern Utopia (1905), Ch. 10, sect. 3

Death, Women, World, Education

“Trust me, all this fuss over freedoms would fade in a mushroom-cloud moment if there were another attack on our soil.”

Neil Cavuto (1958) American television presenter

Referring to the NSA wiretap controversy. "Protecting the Homeland and our Privacy" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195184,00.html, FoxNews.com, (May 11, 2006).

Freedom

“What has happened to the monastery? There it was planted in the hills, not merely looking after the spiritual needs of the people, but also their temporal needs…They have all gone. One of these parishes I find to-day with a tithe, and probably the land was owned by gentlemen who, when I was down there twenty years ago, was the anti-disestablishment candidate for that district. What is the good of talking about it? Whoever else has got a right to complain of Parliament not being authorised to deal with this trust; the present Establishment has no right, and the present House of Lords has no right. Property which was used for the sick, for the lame, for the poor, and for education, where has it gone to? …the bulk of it went to the founders of great families. It is one of the most disgraceful and discreditable records in the history of this country.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1912/may/16/second-reading-fourth-days-debate in the House of Commons (12 May 1912) on the Bill to disestablish the Anglican church in Wales Chancellor of the Exchequer

People, Education, Family, History

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

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

Source: Poustinia (1975), Ch. 12

Love, Faith, Hope, Way

“Young man, you’re living proof that our basic policy is right. I wouldn’t trust an ignoramus like you with the information required to cut his throat.”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The End of Summer, p. 23
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

“Should you revisit us
Stay a little longer
And get to know the place…
On local life we trust
The resident witness
Not the royal tourist.”

Kingsley Amis (1922–1995) English novelist, poet, critic, teacher

"New Approach Needed", about the Second Coming, (p. 27)
A Look Round the Estate: Poems, 1957–1967 (1968)

Life

“"Arise, take up thy bed and walk." You are on your bed now. You put yourself there by your own sin. You have kept yourself there by your own choice. Every sinner is a sinner because he chooses to be; and you are no exception. Jesus commands you to repent and trust Him and follow Him. The moment you are willing to obey, He gives you strength to obey.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 435.

“If most of us were wind up-toys, could we trust the few of us that weren't to wind us up when necessary? I think not. We would be a separate oppressed minority. Even if we were in the majority, it would still be that way. The ones that weren't wind-up toys would have the upper hand, and we would have to look out for each other, because they wouldn't.”

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

"Wind-Up Toys"
Lyrics, Real Men (1991)

Way, Thinking

“His meaning is to fasten it faithfully in our heart: for He willeth that it dwell with us in faith to our life’s end, and after in fulness of joy, desiring that we have ever steadfast trust in His blissful behest — knowing His Goodness.
For our faith is contraried in diverse manners by our own blindness, and our spiritual enemy, within and without; and therefore our precious Lover helpeth us with spiritual sight and true teaching in sundry manners within and without, whereby that we may know Him. And therefore in whatsoever manner He teacheth us, He willeth that we perceive Him wisely, receive Him sweetly, and keep us in Him faithfully. For above the Faith is no goodness kept in this life, as to my sight, and beneath the Faith is no help of soul; but in the Faith, there willeth the Lord that we keep us. For we have by His goodness and His own working to keep us in the Faith; and by His sufferance through ghostly enmity we are assayed in the Faith and made mighty. For if our faith had none enmity, it should deserve no meed, according to the understanding that I have in all our Lord’s teaching.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 70

Life, Faith, Soul, Lovers

“There is a distinction between belief in a set of propositions and a faith which enables us to put our trust in them.”

Karen Armstrong book A History of God

A History of God (1993)

Faith

“I lay too many Eggs in the hot Sands of this Wilderness, the World! with Ostrich Carelessness & Ostrich Oblivion. The greater part, I trust, are trod underfoot, & smashed; but yet no small number crawl forth into Life, some to furnish Feathers for the Caps of others, & still more to plume the Shafts in the Quivers of my Enemies, of them that lie in wait against my Soul.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Notebooks, September/early October 1802
Notebooks

Life, Lie, World, Soul

“I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly because they know they don't have to.”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

Message to Linux kernel mailing list, 2006-09-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2008-06-07 http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/22/319, 2000s, 2006

People, Thinking

“He who loves trusts the loved one unreservedly, and in all things.”

Alessandro Piccolomini (1508–1579) Italian writer and philosopher

Act III., Scene III. — (Cornelio).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 261.
L’Alessandro (1544)

Love

“First, on my list would be Good Governance. We must repair our house. Many of our institutions have been severely weakened. The trust and faith in the fairness of such critical institutions as the Comelec, the Dept. of Justice, the AFP-ISAPH, the PNP, the Sandigan aside from the chronically corrupt Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Faith, Justice, Housing

“I don't work for myself. I work for you. I've fought corruption, and it didn't matter if the culprits were Democrats or Republicans. They violated their public trust, and they had to be held accountable.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

“Our young people are faced by a series of different groups which believe different things and advocate different practices, and to each of which some trusted friend or relative may belong. So a girl's father may be a Presbyterian, an imperialist, a vegetarian, a teetotaller, with a strong literary preference for Edmund Burke, a believer in the open shop and a high tariff, who believes that women's place is in the home, that young girls should wear corsets, not roll their stockings, not smoke, nor go riding with young men in the evening. But her mother's father may be a Low Episcopalian, a believer in high living, a strong advocate of States' Rights and the Monroe Doctrine, who reads Rabelais, likes to go to musical shows and horse races…”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1920s, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), p. 161

Women, Men, People, Music

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

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

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

God, Faith, Confidence, Understanding

“Those of us in the military may have even underestimated the degree of support the American people still afforded the military, for a recent public opinion survey revealed that the military services are among the public institutions that the people trust most. For one looking back on thirty-six years of service in the United States Army, that is a rewarding thought. So, too, I am struck, upon reflection, by the unprecedented changes that occurred during those thirty-six years. From the World War I Stokes mortar and the Model 1897 French 75 artillery piece to sophisticated guided missiles; from the model 1902 rifle to the M-16; from carrier pigeons and Morse code telegraphy to walkie-talkies, computers, and sensors; from a private's pay of $21 a month and a second lieutenant's of $125 to today's private's pay of $344 a month and today's second lieutenant's of $634; through three wars and a number of police actions; from volunteer army back to volunteer army; and from isolationism to multiple international commitments. As one in the middle of the changes at various levels of command responsibility, I have always been impressed by the loyalty, flexibility, durability, and overall effectiveness of the United States Army. The traumatic experience of Vietnam was no exception.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 424.

War, People, World, Support

“Fool that I was to trust a Frenchman!”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Rattle of Bones" (1929)

Fools

“Without conflict, there can be no trust. Conflict exists to show us who is there for us unconditionally and who is just there for the benefits. No one trusts a yes-man.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 8, “The Importance of Saying No” (pp. 182-183)

“In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U. S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president.
I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability…
So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation's trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands.”

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

Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)

People, Secret, World, Law

“The rapid establishment of Christianity must therefore have been from the conviction which those who embraced it, had of its "Truth and power unto salvation." Christianity at first spread itself amongst the most enlightened nations of the earth - in those places where human learning was in its greatest perfection; and, by the force of the evidence which attended it, amongst such men it gained an establishment. It has been justly observed, that "it happened very providentially to the honour of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were t their height, and when there were men who made it the business of their lives to search after truth and lift the several opinions of the philosophers and wise men, concerning the duty, the end, and chief happiness of reasonable creatures." Both the learned and the ignorant alike embraced its doctrines; the learned were not likely to be deceived in the proofs which were offered; and the same cause undoubtedly operated to produce the effect upon each. But an immediate conversion of the bulk of mankind, can arise only from some proofs of a ddivine authority offering themselves immediately to the senses; the preaching of any new doctrine, if lest to operate only by its own force, would go but a very little way towards the immediate conversion of the gnorant, who have no principle of action but what arises from habit, and whose powers of reasoning are insufficient to correct their errors. When Mahomet was required by his followers to work a miracle for their conviction, he always declined it; he was too cautious to trust to an experiment, the success of which was scarcely whithin the bounds of probablity; he amused his followers with prtended visions, which with the aid afterwards of the civil and military powr; and as the accomplishment of that event was by a few obscure persons, who founded their pretentions upon authority from heaven, we are next to consider, what kind of proofs of their divine commission they offered to the world; and whether they themselves could have been deceived, or mankind could have been deludded by them.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 20; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA261," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 261-262

Men, Happiness, Truth, Age

“The sum of the whole matter is this — He who is one in will and heart with God is a Christian. He who loves God is one in will and heart with Him. He who trusts Christ loves God. That is Christianity in its ultimate purpose and result. That is Christianity in its means and working forces. That is Christianity in its starting-point and foundation.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 104.

Love, God, Heart, Christ

“It is a charmed ring—this emerald stone
Will be a sign, when thou art from me gone.
Mark if it changes; if a spot be seen
On the now spotless ground of lighted green,
Danger is round me; haste thou then to me,
Thou know'st how fearless is my trust in thee.”

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

The Golden Violet - The Child of the Sea
The Golden Violet (1827)

Art, Light, Change

“What is faith? Faith is trusting God for your problems and for your life.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

Life, God, Faith, Problem

“In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Concurring in New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).

War, Hope

“I think it will be felt by the community as a whole as if they had lost a relative. Certainly those who have been associated with him closely for years will feel a deep sense of personal bereavement. I have never met a great public figure since I have been in politics who so completely won the attachment and affection of the men who came into contact with him. He was not merely admired and respected; he was absolutely loved by us all. I really cannot trust myself to say more. The masses of the people of this country, especially the more unfortunate of them, have lost the best friend they ever had in the high places of the land. His sympathy in all suffering was real, deep, and unaffected. He was truly a great man—a great head and a great heart. He was absolutely the bravest man I ever met in politics. He was entirely free from fear. He was a man of supreme courage. Ireland has certainly lost one of her truest friends, and what is true of Ireland is true of every section of the community of this Empire which has a fight to maintain against powerful foes.”

Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

David Lloyd George upon Campbell-Bannerman's death, quoted in The Times (23 April 1908), p. 5.
About

Love, Men, People, Fear

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

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

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

People, World, Justice, Confidence

“Trump has no coherent organizing economic philosophy, spent decades acting like and supporting traditional liberal Democrats, has repeatedly shifted his positions on major issues and has little more trust from economists than he has earned among the general electorate.”

Brent Budowsky (1952) American journalist

In shock poll, Libertarian Johnson beats Trump among economists (August 23, 2016)

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