Assertions Quotes & Sayings

We make assertions and denials of what is next to [the Divine Nature], but never of It, for It is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of Its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial. — Pope Dionysius

Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians have insisted for centuries that God does not exist and that there is 'nothing' out there; in making these assertions, their aim was not to deny the reality of God but to safeguard God's transcendence. — Karen Armstrong

All sweeping assertions are erroneous. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value the may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. — Carl Sagan

Complexity assertions have to be part of the interface — Alexander Stepanov

Groups give us power when we are enthusiastic, speak up, make bold assertions, and express an interest in others. Our capacity to influence rises when we practice kindness, express appreciation, cooperate, and dignify what others say and do. We are more likely to make a difference in the world when we are focused, articulate clear purposes and courses of action, and keep others on task. We rise in power when we provide calm and remind people of broader perspectives during times of stress, tell stories that calm during times of tension, and practice kind speech. Our opportunity for influence increases when we are open and ask great questions, listen to others with receptive minds, and offer playful ideas and novel perspectives. The — Dacher Keltner

Assertions that the modern homosexual and modern gay subculture are significantly different from the past are based primarily upon ignorance of that past. — Rictor Norton

After hearing about the Caracas experiment, the benefits of exposure to animals and farm dirt, and the protective qualities in raw milk, it became clear to me that Cody's assertions had some good scientific backing. Each of these factors played a role in raising resilient animals (and humans). Interestingly, the dirt, the worms, and the farm milk all worked in a similar way: In rare instances they caused illness, but more often they protected against diseases by boosting the host's innate immunity and dampening the host's inflammatory response to allergens and other foreign substances. — Daphne Miller

The promising young poets, the hopefuls? I'd name Richard Wilbur, Peter Viereck, Karl Shapiro, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, John Ciardi...Leonard Bacon...but it is still too early to assertions. They're all 'in the field.' It remains to be seen how many will cross the finish line. — Robert Frost

Male supremacy is fused into the language, so that every sentence both heralds and affirms it. Thought, experienced primarily as language, is permeated by the linguistic and perceptual values developed expressly to subordinate women. Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name. No transcendence of the male system is possible as long as men have the power of naming ... As Prometheus stole fire from the gods, so feminists will have to steal the power of naming from men, hopefully to better effect. — Andrea Dworkin

For it is essential to opinion that we assent to one of two opposite assertions with fear of the other, so that our adhesion is not firm: to science it is essential to have firm adhesion with intellectual vision, for science possesses certitude which results from the understanding of principles: while faith holds a middle place, for it surpasses opinion in so far as its adhesion is firm, but falls short of science in so far as it lacks vision. — Thomas Aquinas

I think that there have been a lot of fear-based assertions that feminism is about aggression, and that is incorrect and untrue. Feminism is about equality; that's what it's about. — Jenny Slate

The fate of the physiology of the brain is independent of the truth and falsity of my assertions relative to the laws of the organization of the nervous system, in general, and of the brain in particular, just as the knowledge of the functions of a sense is independent of the knowledge of the structure of its apparatus. — Franz Joseph Gall

I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem. Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It's not that we need more food. It's that we need to manage our food system better. — Bill Nye

I'm not a proper anything. Majoring in philosophy kind of turns positive assertions into maybes. — Kevin Hearne

Buffon found himself threatened with excommunication for expressing it. A practical man, he apologized at once for his thoughtless heresy, then cheerfully repeated the assertions throughout his subsequent writings. — Bill Bryson

One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies. — Thomas Sowell

Look at your hand. Its structure does not match the structure of assertions, the structure of facts. Your hand is continuous. Assertions and facts are discontinuous ... You lift your index finger half an inch; it passes through a million facts. Look at the way your hand goes on and on, while the clock ticks, and the sun moves a little further across the sky. — Michael Frayn

And he'd laughed a lot as he'd helped improve her proposal. It felt good to work with someone who respected her opinion. She could see now that her earlier drafts were juvenile, full of wishful thinking, but Quentin forced her to dig deeper and work harder. Every paragraph of this document was dense with solid reasoning, including the numbers to back her assertions. — Elizabeth Camden

The initial small step is simple: Rather than making a sweeping determination to tackle the Great Books (all of them), decide to begin on one of the reading lists in Part II. As you read each book, you'll follow the pattern of the trivium. First you'll try to understand the book's basic structure and argument; next, you'll evaluate the book's assertions; finally, you'll form an opinion about the book's ideas. You'll have to exercise these three skills of reading - understanding, analysis, and evaluation - differently for each kind of book. — Susan Wise Bauer

Listen to your heart and not your ego. Your ego prompts you to boast of vain assertions to obtain the glory of this world. Turn away from vanity and seek Him in the recesses of your heart and soul — Abdul-Qadir Gilani

Lakoff's idea is that most of our thought is guided by underlying conceptual mappings between two domains that share some content, that overlap in the sets of their attributes ... Contrary to the assertions of Lakoff and some of the cognitive metaphor theorists, people can read through to an underlying mapping, but only when the surface metaphor is new to them. — Don Paterson

A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Gail didn't want me commenting on the opinion pages. I was hired by the news department and, despite the rabid assertions of the Times' enemies and detractors, the two really have nothing to do with each other. — Daniel Okrent

But into the first decades of the twentieth century, even at the New York Times, it was uncommon for journalists to see a sharp divide between facts and values. Yet the belief in objectivity is just this: the belief that one can and should separate facts from values. Facts, in this view, are assertions about the world open to independent validation. They stand beyond the distorting influences of any individual's personal preferences. Values, in this view, are an individual's conscious or unconscious preferences for what the world should be; they are seen as ultimately subjective and so without legitimate claim on other people. The belief in objectivity is a faith in "facts," a distrust of "values," and a commitment to their segregation. — Michael Schudson

Sometimes in conversation the sound of our own voice distracts us and misleads us into making assertions that in no way express our true opinions. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When all the media assertions were put together, the police appeared to be hunting for a psychotic lesbian who had joined a cult of Satanists that propagandized for S&M sex and hated society in general and men in particular. Because Salander had been abroad for the past year, there might be international connections too. — Stieg Larsson

Never let yourself be goaded into taking seriously problems about words and their meanings. What must be taken seriously are questions of fact, and assertions about facts: theories and hypotheses; the problems they solve; and the problems they raise. — Karl R. Popper

Negative self assertions are like weeds in the garden of your life. Cleanse your garden of any such weeds. — Sanchita Pandey

If reading becomes a bore, mental death is on the way. Children taught to read by tedious mechanical means rapidly learn to skim over the dull text without bothering to delve into its implications
which in time will make them prey to propaganda and to assertions based on scanty evidence, or none. — Joan Aiken

A presumption becomes a self-refuting assertion".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] — R. Alan Woods

The motive for criticizing myth, that is, its objectifying representations, is present in myth itself, insofar as its real intention to talk about a transcendent power to which both we and the world are subject is hampered and obscured by the objectifying character of its assertions. — Rudolf Bultmann

In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and mislead to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions. — Friedrich Nietzsche

To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another. To accomplish this, one must achieve a certain distance from the words themselves, which is, in fact, encouraged by the isolated and impersonal text. That is why a good reader does not cheer an apt sentence or pause to applaud even an inspired paragraph. Analytic thought is too busy for that, and too detached. — Neil Postman

No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous, but it is symptomatic of our overpoliticized climate that such assertions are given instant credence by gay activists and their media partisans. I think what gay men are remembering is that they were born different. — Camille Paglia

What we (U.S.) have done, is undertaken diplomacy through public assertions that tend to alienate everyone. — John Prendergast

The Holy Spirit is no Skeptic, & the things He has written in our hearts are not doubts or opinions, but assertions - surer & more certain than sense & life itself. — Martin Luther

It is sweet to see how soon a spring becomes a rill, and a rill runs on into a rivulet, and a rivulet swells into a brook; and before one has time to say 'what are you at?' - before the first tree it ever spoke to is a dummy, or the first hill it ever ran down has turned blue, here we all have airs and graces, demands and assertions of a full grown river. — R.D. Blackmore

Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries. — Colin Powell

While having one's assertions challenged might be bad for an unintelligent man's ego; it sure is good for his intellect. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified. — Benjamin Tucker

If we accept that there is no such thing as 'zero risk' then we should not spin the meaning of words with assertions such as 'all accidents are preventable'. — Rob Long

The media has told you for decades that the key to a leaner body is a low-fat diet and that saturated fats are the cause of heart disease. Both of those assertions are wrong. Fat, including saturated fat, is essential to your health and, as it turns out, to building a lean, strong body. To access the fat stored in your body for energy, you need to consume fat in your meals, so your body can then burn stored fat for energy. Dietary fat is also crucial in helping your body absorb fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamins A, S, E, and K. And — Melissa Joulwan

I am not here to answer your questions. To answer would imply that we conceded some slight possibility of truth to your assertions of innocence, and we do not concede that. Truth is something which is to be had from us, not from you. Ours is the most remarkable government in the history of mankind; because we, and only we, have accepted as a working principle what every sage has taught and every government has feigned to accept: the power of the truth. And because we do, we rule as no other government has ever ruled. You have often asked me what your crime is, why we detain you. It is because we know you are lying - do you understand what I am telling you? — Gene Wolfe

A letter is not a dialogue or even an omniscient exposition. It is a fabric of surfaces, a mask, a form as well suited to affectations as to the affections. The letter is, by its natural shape, self-justifying; it is one's own evidence, deposition, a self-serving testimony. In a letter the writer holds all the cards, controls everything about himself and about those assertions he wishes to make concerning events or the worth of others. For completely self-centered characters, the letter form is a complex and rewarding activity. — Elizabeth Hardwick

No-knock police raids destroy Americans' right to privacy and safety. People's lives are being ruined or ended as a result of unsubstantiated assertions by anonymous government informants ... Unfortunately, no-knock raids are becoming more common as federal, state, and local politicians and law enforcement agencies decide that the war on drugs justified nullifying the Fourth Amendment ... No-knock raids in response to alleged narcotics violations presume that the government should have practically unlimited power to endanger some people's lives in order to control what others ingest. — James Bovard

Assertions that Russia has undermined efforts to strengthen partnerships on the European continent do not correspond to the facts. — Sergei Lavrov

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true. [ ... ] Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true. People who have been puzzled by the beginnings of mathematics will, I hope, find comfort in this definition, and will probably agree that it is accurate. — Bertrand Russell

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans
anything except reason. — Thomas Sowell

The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking - that I KNOW what thinking is. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Proof, she knew, was a conclusion built on a pyramid of facts, a broad base of accepted information on which more specific assertions were made. Remove all the base assumptions. Start again. — Dan Brown

Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority ... There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations. Since no one knows molecular evolution by direct experience, and since there is no authority on which to base claims of knowledge, it can truly be said that ... the assertion of Darwinian molecular evolution is merely bluster. — Michael Behe

The assertion fallacy ... is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of particular words occurring in certain assertions. — John Searle

The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts. The president does this at a high rate and at a fast pace. One attempt during the 2016 campaign to track his utterances found that 78 percent of his factual claims were false. This proportion is so high that it makes the correct assertions seem like unintended oversights on the path toward total fiction. Demeaning the world as it is begins the creation of a fictional counterworld. The — Timothy Snyder

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that, in short, the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret whispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that a thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the 'still, small voice' of reason. — William Hazlitt

*Nothing is free* asserts two things. Both assertions are true. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Back of ninety-nine out of one-hundred assertions that a thing cannot be done is nothing, but the unwillingness to do it. — William Feather

The God Delusion is a rather disorganized collage of arguments and pastiche of assertions which cannot be said to advance those ideas or enhance their critical edge, but rather harnesses them in the service of the advocacy of atheism. — Alister E. McGrath

It is one of an astoundingly large and plentiful number of human misconceptions that time is linear. That is to say, that there was a beginning, then there is a middle, then there is an end. This stems from the human desire to make everything about them, and the ridiculous human trait of being completely unable to see things from a perspective outside their own. Time is so much more infinitely complex than this that it is an insult to time to even suggest it is only capable of going in one direction. Even the idea of time going in one direction at all is disgustingly simplistic. To suggest that you can only go forwards and/or backwards in time may be one of the most ridiculous assertions of all time. Literally. — Zack Mitchell

The partisan when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions. — Socrates

Ordinary people do not question the commonly accepted version of reality. They conform to the standard values of subduing enemies and cherishing friends and family. Materialism, ambition and mundane achievements are the worldly hallmarks of success. We experience the phenomenal world and our minds as solid and truly existent. Very few people doubt these assertions and question their solidity. Yet, the process of disbelief is the first step on the spiritual path. — Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche

The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens. — William Graham Sumner

Notwithstanding our boastful assertions to the world, for nearly a century, that our government was based on the consent of the people, it rests upon force, as much as any government that ever existed. - Robert E. Lee — William C. Davis

The aim of this step is threefold: (1) to recognize and appreciate the unknown and unknowable, (2) to become sensitive to overconfident assertions of certainty in ourselves and other people, and (3) to make ourselves aware of the numinous mystery of each human being we encounter during the day. First, — Karen Armstrong

That metre itself forms an essential part of all true poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish. — H.P. Lovecraft

The vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence. — Ayn Rand

Mr. Dawkins' assertions are self-refuting- ie. Actual infinity vs. potential infinity easily makes the most reasonable argument for theism and a Deity. Now, the argument for the Creator God of Christianity requires much more time, energy, and logical effort."


~R. Alan Woods [2007] — R. Alan Woods

To explain the matter I will employ a simile, which yet, I confess is very dissimilar; but its dissimilitude is greatly in favour of my sentiments. A rich man bestows, on a poor and famishing beggar, alms by which he may be able to maintain himself and his family. Does it cease to be a pure gift, because the beggar extends his hand to receive it? Can it be said with propriety, that 'the alms depended partly on THE LIBERALITY of the Donor, and partly on THE LIBERTY of the Receiver,' though the latter would not have possessed the alms unless he had received it by stretching out his hand? Can it be correctly said, BECAUSE THE BEGGAR IS ALWAYS PREPARED TO RECEIVE, that 'he can have the alms, or not have it, just as he pleases?' If these assertions cannot be truly made about a beggar who receives alms, how much less can they be made about the gift of faith, for the receiving of which far more acts of Divine Grace are required! — James Arminius

Rights have to be asserted. Animals cannot make such assertions. We have to make representations to ourselves on their behalf. — Christopher Hitchens

Her professors were astonished by her leaps of thought, by the finesse and elegance of her insights. She arrived at hypotheses by sheer intuition and with what eventually one of her mentors described as an almost alarming speed; she was like a dancer, he said, out in the cosmos springing weightlessly from star to star. Drones, merely brilliant, crawled along behind with laborious proofs that supported her assertions. — Deborah Eisenberg

According to your holy book, every single Buddhist, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, follower of various minor traditions or sects, those who do not affiliate themselves with a religious tradition and the approximately 2.74 billion humans who have never had the 'privilege' of hearing the word of your Messiah will be sentenced to eternal damnation in a lake of fire - regardless of moral standings or positive worldly accomplishments. If this sounds like a fair proposition to you, then I bite my tongue - but I honestly believe that the majority of Christians do not agree with these doctrinal assertions, and instead categorize themselves as 'Christians' out of cultural familiarity or perhaps out of complete ignorance in regards to the topic. — David G. McAfee

I have come to the conclusion that Tony Blair has finally gone mad ... he made assertions that are so jaw-droppingly and breathtakingly at variance with reality that he surely needs professional psychiatric help. — Boris Johnson

Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream. — Eric Hoffer

The argument by the anti-gay-marriage crowd is so absurd, so internally contradictory, and so awash in unproven assertions that it is difficult to take it as anything more than a construct cobbled together by people who just don't like those people. — Kurt Eichenwald

Religion, like science, is only noteworthy when it emphasizes a matter of what is true rather than whose belief is greater or lesser or which deity works for whom. Sincere religion and tested science are similar in that their assertions can be argued logically and objectively; otherwise, we get false cults and babble. — Criss Jami

Liminality may perhaps be regarded as the Nay to all positive structural assertions, but as in some sense the source of them all, and, more than that, as a realm of pure possibility whence novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise — Victor Turner

My prescription for women entering the war zone of the professions: study football ... Women who want to remake the future should look for guidance not to substitute parent figures but to the brash assertions of pagan sport. — Camille Paglia

He handed Mae a piece of paper, on which he'd written, in crude all capitals, a list of assertions under the headline "The Rights of Humans in a Digital Age." Mae scanned it, catching passages: "We must all have the right to anonymity." "Not every human activity can be measured." "The ceaseless pursuit of data to quantify the value of any endeavour is catastrophic to true understanding." "The barrier between public and private must remain unbreachable." At the end she found one line, written in red ink: "We must all have the right to disappear. — Dave Eggers

Sure one could argue the naturalist's case that the mind experiences an external reality in which it participates. But how can this account really satisfy us, Olga? One could equally well argue that all experiences is highly subjective, that the only thing we really have is the image, the smell, the taste, and all of our assertions about the universe are constructions of the human mind. — Janna Levin

You cannot manifest thin from thoughts of I hate being fat. You cannot manifest purity from I despise being an addict. You cannot manifest health from I abhor being sick. In each of the above assertions of what you dislike, you are giving of your thoughts to creating more and more of the same. Since you become what you think about all day long, once again, the solutions involve a different level of energy to any of these and similar circumstances. — Wayne W. Dyer

We can refute assertions, but who can refute silence? — Charles Dickens

Be not afraid! In admitting a creator, refuse not to examine his creation; and take not the assertions of creatures like yourselves, in place of the evidence of your senses and the conviction of your understanding. — Frances Wright

Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name. — Andrea Dworkin

Beware of the manipulativeness of rich students who were neglected by their parents. They love to turn the campus into hysterical psychodramas of sexual transgression, followed by assertions of parental authority and concern. And don't look for sexual enlightenment from academe, which spews out mountains of books but never looks at life directly. — Camille Paglia

If we are honest - and scientists have to be - we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. — Paul Dirac

Salvation, then, is not "going to heaven" but "being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth." But as soon as we put it like this we realize that the New Testament is full of hints, indications, and downright assertions that this salvation isn't just something we have to wait for in the long-distance future. We can enjoy it here and now (always partially, of course, since we all still have to die), genuinely anticipating in the present what is to come in the future. "We were saved," says Paul in Romans 8:24, "in hope." The verb "we were saved" indicates a past action, something that has already taken place, referring obviously to the complex of faith and baptism of which Paul has been speaking in the letter so far. But this remains "in hope" because we still look forward to the ultimate future salvation of which he speaks in (for instance) Romans 5:9, 10. — N. T. Wright

The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse ... By misuse, I mean that people who have never glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or they argue against it, as if they knew what it is they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Nietzsche's famous statmeent "God is dead. — Eckhart Tolle

Hence intellect[ual perception] is both a beginning and an end, for the demonstrations arise from these, and concern them. As a result, one ought to pay attention to the undemonstrated assertions and opinions of experienced and older people, or of the prudent, no less than to demonstrations, for, because the have an experienced eye, they see correctly. — Aristotle.

Divinity for the sake of the simple-minded is beautiful. Those theological assertions you write, say, or live by that you later feel foolish about, it means God still lives in you enough to tell you that they were indeed foolish. By mistakes you know you are alive. — Criss Jami

Let us be cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in permitting linguistic forms.
[Carnap's famous plea for tolerance to which W.V. Quine took exception.] — Rudolf Carnap

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning. — Winston S. Churchill

The problem is, is the White House and this administration have created a war against police officers in this country, with their allegations and false assertions that there's widespread and pervasive racism in the United States of America that lives in the heart and minds of the men and women in blue. This is a false narrative. It is dangerous. It is reckless. It has resulted in the loss of lives. They are not being held accountable. — Kimberly Guilfoyle

Of all false assertions that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail armor of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

If the Bible is accurate in its assertions (a generous statement on our part), then we must also observe that anyone who ultimately comes to God does so because God made it happen. But this seems to imply that God makes it happen for some but doesn't make it happen for others. Why? Is this fair? Is this good? Is this justice? Is this love? — Michael Vito Tosto

The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Yasunari Kawabata wrote: "When speaking of those who take their own lives, it is always most dignified to use silence or at least restrained language, for the ones left most vulnerable and most deeply hurt by such an occurrence can feel oppressed by the louder assertions of understanding, wisdom and depth of remorse foisted upon them by others. One must ask: Who is best served by speculation? Who is really able to comprehend? Perhaps we must, as human beings, continue to try and comprehend, but we will fall short. And the falling short will deepen our sense of emptiness. — Howard Norman

If I want to define myself, I first have to say, "I am a woman"; all other assertions will arise from this basic truth. A man never begins by positing himself as an individual of a certain sex: that he is a man is obvious. — Simone De Beauvoir

The U.S. must differentiate between controversial assertions of power, like those in the South China Sea, and fair reflections of China's growing contribution to the world, such as the new banks. — Evan Osnos

Truth is one of the realities covered in the eclectic religion of our fathers by the idea of God. Awe very properly hangs about it, since it is the immovable standard and silent witness of all our memories and assertions; and the past and the future, which in our anxious life are so differently interesting and so differently dark, are one seamless garment for the truth, shining like the sun. — George Santayana

Part of this myth related to assertions about the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) - assertions promoted by liberal Zionists in both the US and Israel and shared with the rest of the political forces in Israel. The allegation is that the PLO - inside and outside of Palestine - was conducting a war of terror for the sake of terror. Unfortunately, this demonization is still very prevalent in the West and has been accentuated after 2001 by the attempt to equate Islam, terrorism, and Palestine. — Noam Chomsky