Quotes about trust
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“We should add that it is a privilege to be the recipient of a sulk: it means the other person respects and trusts us enough to think we should understand their unspoken hurt. It is one of the odder gifts of love. Eventually”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Course of Love

Love, Understanding, Thinking, Hurt

“The truth is you can be orphaned again and again and again. The truth is, you will be. And the secret is, this will hurt less and less each time until you can't feel a thing. Trust me on this.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Truth, Secret, Feeling, Time

“The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn't trust "Mothers of Borogravia!" and that was from the government. And if you couldn't trust the government, who could you trust?
Very nearly everyone, come to think of it…”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

Thinking

“you have to trust a TRUE compliment as muc as a critique.”

Diego Rivera (1886–1957) Mexican painter, muralist, Communist

“I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust: to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

Love, Fear, Fish, Fight

“Never trust a species that grins all the time. It’s up to something.”

Terry Pratchett book Pyramids

Source: Pyramids

Time

“Trust allows you to give. Giving is abundant. As you give so it shall be given to you. If you give with judgment, limitation and stinginess, that is what you will create in your life - judgment, limitation, and stinginess.”

Gary Zukav (1942) American writer and revivalist

Life

“Trust, but Verify.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

This was a signature phrase of Ronald Reagan — he used it dozens of times in public, although he was not the first person known to use it. When Reagan used this phrase, he was usually discussing relations with the Soviet Union and he almost always presented it as a translation of the Russian proverb "doveriai, no proveriai". See also Trust, but verify at Wikipedia.
Misattributed
Variant: Trust, but Verify.

“I looked up in the sky and trusted in God.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

God

“Remember when you tried to convince me to feed a poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?"

"They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Variant: Time has taught me not to loose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either
Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Hope, Time

“He uses our problems for His miracles. This was my first lesson in learning to trust Him completely…”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Source: Tramp for the Lord

Problem, Learning

“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Training

“Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing, a trust in the universal laws which is unwavering, and a strength which is rock-like. But because it is so deep we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it.”

Paul Brunton (1898–1981) British philosopher

Source: The Notebooks of Paul Brunton

Law, Universe, Heart, Patience

“Never trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Girl

“For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

World, Beauty, Change

“Trust no friend without faults, and love a maiden, but no angel.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 499
Misattributed

Love, Angels

“No. That's Clary; shes's my best friend." Simon pocketed his phone. "And she has a boyfriend. Like, really, really, really has a boyfriend. The nuclear bomb of boyfriends. Trust me on this one.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. But it still remains broken.”

Harlan Coben Hold Tight

Source: Hold Tight

“Never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Secret, Girl

“No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.”

Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970) German novelist

Chance

“To those who have given up on love: I say, "Trust life a little bit.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love, Life

“He raised his hand in a peaceful gesture. "You need to relax a bit, dove. Like Mouse over there. You trust me, don't you, Mouse?"
"Nope!"
"Ahhh, I'm hurt. Nobody likes me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Peace, Hurt

“When children are loved, they live off trust; their bides and hearts open up to those who respect and love them, who understand and listen to them.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Becoming Human

Love, Children, Understanding, Heart

“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism

Thinking, Sense, Future, Dependency

“Don't trust the person who has broken faith once.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Faith, Personality

“To feel. To trust the feeling. I long for that”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Source: Face to Face: A Film

Feeling

“She feels lonely all the time, she wants to be accepted, by anyone, on any terms, but she feels apart. As if nobody who really got to know her would trust her.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Feeling, Time

“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Age

“If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

Art, Color, Wealth

“I understand pain. I've lived with pain my entire life. But pain is nothing compared to betrayal. And betrayal is nothing compared to knowing that the javelin in your back was rammed there by the one person in your life you actually trusted.”

Brad Meltzer book The Book of Lies

Source: The Book of Lies

Life, Pain, Understanding, Betrayal

“Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

People

“Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.”

Erik H. Erikson (1902–1994) American German-born psychoanalyst & essayist

Life, Hope, Confidence

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Variant: Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backwards.

Love, Star, Heart, Sea

“Don't sign your name
between worlds,

surmount
the manifold of meanings,

trust the tearstain,
learn to live.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

Source: Glottal Stop

World, Learning

“May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Love, God, Peace, Faith

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Way, Relationship

“If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Love, Hate, Fear, Fools

“Never trust he who trusts everyone.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

“Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"”

Robert Browning Rabbi ben Ezra

Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 1.
Context: Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

God, Youth, Time

“It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Suffering, Cheating

“But here's some advice, boy. Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions.”

Terry Pratchett book Night Watch

Source: Night Watch

Boy

“Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Love, Hope

“Stanley:
Delicate piece she is.
Stella:
She is. She was. You didn't know Blanche as a girl. Nobody, nobody, was tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

People, Girl, Change

“Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it- memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 42, “Beneath the Uduntree” (p. 718).
Context: “Never make your home in a place,” the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. “Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.” Morgenes had grinned. “That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You’ll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course...”

Love, Way, Home, Learning

“For trust not him that hath once broken faith”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Source: King Henry VI, Part 3

Faith

“I wouldn't trust you with a bucket of water if my knickers were on fire!”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

Source: Making Money

Water

“Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too-even when you are in the dark. Even when you're falling.”

Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist

People, Feeling

“Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Faith

“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1950s
Context: In matters concerning truth and justice there can be no distinction between big problems and small; for the general principles which determine the conduct of men are indivisible. Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.

(1955) as quoted in Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (1997) ed. , p. 388, from The Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem (1979)

Truth

“Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise Physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires. Let us trust his skill and thank him for his prescription.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

“Never trust a mechanic who drives new cars. They're either charging too much money for their work, or they can't keep an old car running - maybe both.”

Patricia Briggs book Blood Bound

Source: Blood Bound

Money, Cars

“See?" he said, with an unholy amount of glee. "I hardly broke any laws at all. I should drive more often."
"No. Trust me, you shouldn't," Eve said. "Think of all the little old people and the children.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

Children, People, Law, Thinking

“Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Faith

“This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Bird, Flying

“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, Unpopular Essays (1950)

en.wikiquote.org - Bertrand Russell / Quotes / 1950s / Unpopular Essays (1950)

Fear, Thinking

“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us.”

Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) American translator

God, Faith, Personality

“In such doubtful matters, where you have to work as a pioneer, you must be able to put some trust in your intuition and follow your feeling even at the risk of going wrong.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Feeling

“I let out a battle cry. Sure, a lot of people might have mistaken it for a sudden yelp of unmanly fear, but trust me. It was a battle cry.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

Source: My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

People, Fear, Cry

“Trust is good, control is better.”

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

“And let our despite go to those who work and fight and our hate to those who hope and trust.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 248
The Book of Disquiet
Original: E seja o nosso desprezo para os que trabalham e lutam e o nosso ódio para os que esperam e confiam.

Hate, Hope, Fight

“And rising inequality and declining mobility are also bad for our families and social cohesion -- not just because we tend to trust our institutions less, but studies show we actually tend to trust each other less when there’s greater inequality. And greater inequality is associated with less mobility between generations. That means it’s not just temporary; the effects last. It creates a vicious cycle. For example, by the time she turns three years old, a child born into a low-income home hears 30 million fewer words than a child from a well-off family, which means by the time she starts school she’s already behind, and that deficit can compound itself over time.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)

School, Family, Home, Study

“I don't trust or love anyone. Because people are all creepy. Creepy creepy creeps. Creeping around. Creeping here and creeping there. Creeping everywhere. Crippity crappity creepies.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Grand Royal Interview

Love, People

“No days you can borrow, no time you can buy.
No trust in tomorrow. It's a lie.”

Don McLean (1945) American Singer and songwriter

Dreidel
Song lyrics, Don McLean (1972)

Lie, Time

“Man has nothing else to do but surrender — in deep trust, in deep love. Don’t be a doer, just surrender. Let there be a let-go.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

The Art of Dying ( osho.com http://www.osho.com/online-library-allow-silences-joke-5f0b06d0-61e.aspx; retrieved August 2012), Chapter 6, 14. <br class="br">The Art of Dying

Love

“Those who trusted at the wrong time and place will in turn mistrust at the wrong time and place.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Der am unrechten Orte vertraute, wird dafür am unrechten Orte mißtrauen.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 29.

Time

“If Congress alters the law and directs me to replace on the coins the sentence in question the direction will be immediately put into effect; but I very earnestly trust that the religious sentiment of the country, the sprit of reverence in this country, will prevent any such action being taken.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

Law, Question, Country

“Trust no friend without faults, and love a maiden, but no angel.”

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) writer, philosopher, publicist, and art critic

As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 499

Love, Angels

“I trust in Nature for the stable laws
Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant
And Autumn garner to the end of time.
I trust in God,—the right shall be the right
And other than the wrong, while he endures.
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive
The outward and the inward,—Nature's good
And God's.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

A Soul's Tragedy (1846), Act. i.

God, Law, Beauty, Soul

“I repeat that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.”

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

Book VI, Chapter 7.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

People, Exercises, Spring

“Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
To love his fellow-men sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and Heaven securely.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

"Four Things," Poems, vol. 1 (vol. 9 of The Works of Henry Van Dyke) (1920).

Love, Men, God, Motivation

“The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.”

Henry L. Stimson (1867–1950) United States Secretary of War

The Bomb and the Opportunity (March 1946)

Way

“There are good people who, being discontented with present-day conditions, think that these conditions can be cured by a return to what they call the “principles of the fathers.” […] But to go back to the governmental theories of a hundred years ago would accomplish nothing whatever; for it was under the conditions of unrestricted individualism and freedom from Government interference, countenanced by those theories, that the trusts grew up, and private fortunes, enormous far beyond the deserts of the accumulators were gathered. […] It may be that, in the past development of our country, complete freedom from all restrictions, and the consequent unlimited encouragement and reward given to the most successful industrial leaders, played a part in which the beneﬁts outweighed the disadvantages. But nowadays such is not the case.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

People, Thinking, Freedom, Success

“Most important, you learn never to trust a man, even if he seems honest and sincere. You learn how men deceive themselves and how impossible it is to help them without injuring yourself.”

Jack Abbott book In the Belly of the Beast

In the Belly of the Beast (1981)

Men, Learning, Help, Sincerity

“Have you ever fed a lover
With just your hands?
Close your eyes and trust it, just trust it.
Have you ever thrown
A fist full of glitter in the air?
Have you ever looked fear in the face,
And said I just don't care?”

Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter

Glitter in the Air, written by Pink, Billy Mann and Michele Mears
Song lyrics, Funhouse (2008)

Fear, Lovers

“How came the king by a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, which needs checking, be from God; yet the provision, which the constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist. But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a felo de se; for as the greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others, or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavors will be ineffectual; the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it wants in speed is supplied by time.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

God, People, Way, Time

“In the face of the recent institutional breakdown of trust in business, managers are losing legitimacy. To regain public trust, management needs to become a true profession in much the way medicine and law have…”

Rakesh Khurana (1967) American business academic

Rakesh Khurana and Nitin Nohria. "It's time to make management a true profession." Harvard business review 86.10 (2008). p. 70. Introduction

Law, Way, Business

“Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Second Inaugural Address (1865)

Hope, Appearance, Future, Dependency

“[Intelligence services] are poor pigs suffering from two mental illnesses: The one disease is because they never get public recognition for what they actually do. This is inevitable, as they have to work in secret. This deformes the soul. The other disease bases on the fact that they have the tendency to believe they understood the national interests of their own country much better than their own government. This latter disease is the reason that I do not trust them.”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

DIE ZEIT, 30. August 2007, Zeit.de http://www.zeit.de/2007/36/Interview-Helmut-Schmidt?page=all

Secret, Disease, Soul, Intelligence

“The only way out of today's misery is for people to become worthy of each other's trust.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Reverence for Life (1969)

People, Way

“I have come to enhance dialogues, expand common ground, deepen mutual trust and cooperation, and to promote the all-around growth of constructive and cooperative China-U. S. relations in the 21st century.”

Hu Jintao (1942) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

2000s, White House speech (2006)

“Can you by humble faith look to Jesus and say: "My substitute, my refuge, ray shield; Thou art my rock, my trust; in Thee do I confide? "Then, beloved, to you I have nothing to say, except this: " Never be afraid when you see God's power; for now that you are forgiven and accepted, now that by faith you have fled to Christ for refuge, the power of God need no more terrify you than the shield and sword of the warrior need terrify his wife and child."”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 591.

God, Faith, Art, Confidence

“But surely you trust God! Do you think He would let you come to harm? To be afraid is to distrust.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

To a girl who was frightened of traveling by train
Quoted in Beatrice Hatch, "Lewis Carroll", Strand Magazine (April 1898), p. 421

God, Thinking

“I say, of the Congress, then, this — that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the methods it has chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; — in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed.”

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

28 August 1893
New Lamps for Old (1893)

Men, Sincerity

“When the question of the new coinage came up we looked into the law and found there was no warrant therein for putting 'In God We Trust' on the coins. As the custom, although without legal warrant, had grown up, however, I might have felt at liberty to keep the inscription had I had approved of its being on the coinage. But as I did not approve of it, I did not direct that it should again be put on. Of course the matter of the law is absolutely in the hands of Congress, and any direction of Congress in the matter will be immediately obeyed. At present, as I have said, there is no warrant in law for the inscription.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

God, Law, Question

“I trust to luck and do nothing but work, hoping that all will end well.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

3 February 1944
(1942 - 1944)

Hope

“No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)

Men

“People live in a very ignorant way, they’re so taken by their quiet senses that they never realize the action going on in the universe around them, and this is only because they trust their senses that only show them a very tight spectrum of the occurring events”

Ali Al-Wardi (1913–1995) Iraqi sociologist

People, Way, Sense, Universe

“The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

General Order (9 July 1776) George Washington Papers http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwhome.html at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799: Series 3g Varick Transcripts <br class="br">1770s

Hope, Country

“The first thing [in credit] is character … before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it.… A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom. I think that is the fundamental basis of business.”

J. P. Morgan (1837–1913) American financier, banker, philanthropist and art collector

Testimony to the Pujo Committee (1912)
Untermyer: Is not commercial credit based primarily upon money or property?
Morgan: No, sir; the first thing is character.
Testimony to the Pujo Committee (1912)

Money, Business, Thinking

“It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Eight (12 August 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

Life, Fate, Sadness, Way

“"In God We Trust." Now then, after that legend had remained there forty years or so, unchallenged and doing no harm to anybody, the President suddenly "threw a fit" the other day, as the popular expression goes, and ordered that remark to be removed from our coinage.
Mr. Carnegie granted that the matter was not of consequence, that a coin had just exactly the same value without the legend as with it, and he said he had no fault to find with Mr. Roosevelt's action but only with his expressed reasons for the act. The President had ordered the suppression of that motto because a coin carried the name of God into improper places, and this was a profanation of the Holy Name. Carnegie said the name of God is used to being carried into improper places everywhere and all the time, and that he thought the President's reasoning rather weak and poor.
I thought the same, and said, "But that is just like the President. If you will notice, he is very much in the habit of furnishing a poor reason for his acts while there is an excellent reason staring him in the face, which he overlooks. There was a good reason for removing that motto; there was, indeed, an unassailably good reason — in the fact that the motto stated a lie. If this nation has ever trusted in God, that time has gone by; for nearly half a century almost its entire trust has been in the Republican party and the dollar–mainly the dollar. I recognize that I am only making an assertion and furnishing no proof; I am sorry, but this is a habit of mine; sorry also that I am not alone in it; everybody seems to have this disease.
Take an instance: the removal of the motto fetched out a clamor from the pulpit; little groups and small conventions of clergymen gathered themselves together all over the country, and one of these little groups, consisting of twenty-two ministers, put up a prodigious assertion unbacked by any quoted statistics and passed it unanimously in the form of a resolution: the assertion, to wit, that this is a Christian country. Why, Carnegie, so is hell. Those clergymen know that, inasmuch as "Strait is the way and narrow is the gate, and few — few — are they that enter in thereat" has had the natural effect of making hell the only really prominent Christian community in any of the worlds; but we don't brag of this and certainly it is not proper to brag and boast that America is a Christian country when we all know that certainly five-sixths of our population could not enter in at the narrow gate.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Statements (c. December 1907), in Mark Twain In Eruption : Hitherto Unpublished Pages About Men And Events (1940) edited by Bernard Augustine De Voto

God, Lie, World, Disease

“To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous without being bold; to show trust and cheerful resignation without fatalism — this is the art of living.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

As quoted in From Grandmother with Love (2005) by Becky Kelly and Patrick Regan, p. 53.

Art, Courage

“Nababan: You mentioned about people to people…many Indonesians have high expectation that the US under your leadership is successful implementing the two-state solution today Israel-Palestinian conflict, is this a realistic expectation?
Obama: Well, it is gonna be very hard. Obviously, it's been the issue for 60 years through Democratic and Republic administrations through different governments of Israel. It is a…It is a…very difficult conflict, But I, I am going to work as hard as I can while I'm president, to make sure that we arrive to two-state solution, where Israel is secure as living side by side by a prosperous and successful Palestinian nation, and everybody in the region understands that this is the right thing to do, the question is how do we breakdown the barrier of trust, or the barrier of distrust, that exist between these countries…”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Interview with Putra Nababan in the White House https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38sFgxBhpkU (March 2010) <br class="br">2010

People, Understanding, Question, Success

“We have brought a peace, and we trust we have brought a peace with honour, and I trust that that will now be followed by the prosperity of the country.”

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

Source: Speech at Dover, England after arriving from the Congress of Berlin (16 July 1878), quoted in 'Return Of Lord Beaconsfield And Lord Salisbury', The Times (17 July 1878), p. 5.

Peace, Country

“The U. S. military has performed valiantly and brilliantly in Iraq. Our troops have done all that we have asked them to do and more. But no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else's civil war, nor settle the grievances in the hearts of the combatants.
It is my firm belief that the responsible course of action - for the United States, for Iraq, and for our troops - is to oppose this reckless escalation and to pursue a new policy. This policy that I've laid out is consistent with what I have advocated for well over a year, with many of the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and with what the American people demanded in the November election.
When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience, is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried and failed policy opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and many of the Iraqis themselves.
It is time for us to fundamentally change our policy. It is time to give Iraqis their country back. And it is time to refocus America's efforts on the challenges we face at home and the wider struggle against terror yet to be won.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Floor Statement on Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007 (30 January 2007)
2007

War, People, Home, Effort