Certitudes Quotes & Sayings

The illusion of being superior engenders the need to prove it; and so oppression is born. A bishop in Africa told me that, even though there were few Christians in the area, he had built his cathedral bigger than the local mosque. All this to prove that Christianity was a better, more powerful religion than Islam. So we build walls around our group and cultivate our certitudes. Prejudice grows on such walls. How did we, the human race, get to this position where we judge it natural not just to band ourselves into groups, but to set ourselves group against group, neighbour against neighbour, in order to establish some ephemeral sense of superiority? One of the fundamental issues for people to examine is how to break down these walls that separate us one from another; how to open up one to another; how to create trust and places of dialogue. — Jean Vanier

The Theatre of the Absurd ... can be seen as the reflection of what seems to be the attitude most genuinely representative of our own time. The hallmark of this attitude is its sense that the certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away, that they have been tested and found wanting, that they have been discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions. — Martin Esslin

When feet doesn't want to hold you, you climb with your head. Maybe it isn't the natural order of things, but isn't it better to walk with your head than to think with your feet, as it happens so frequently? — Rene Daumal

Securities, certitudes and peace do not lead to discoveries. — Carl Jung

When the mind is full of established biases, it will not be able to graft Sufism on top of them. — Idries Shah

We laugh at inferior or ugly individuals, because we feel a joy at feeling superior to them. — Aristotle.

The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories ... Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration. — Igor Stravinsky

One must count ones riches by the means one has to satisfy his desires. — Antoine Francois Prevost D'Exiles

People have moved beyond apathy, beyond skepticism into deep cynicism. — Elliot Richardson

Any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious. — Julian Huxley

The right of personal freedom recedes before the duty to preserve the race. — Adolf Hitler

Twitter does not allow others to understand your deep thoughts and broad perspective. It only allows others to confirm how stupid they already think you are. — Nicholas Epley

Better to keep a good conscience with an empty purse, than to get a bad opinion of myself, with a full one. — David Crockett

I don't think I'll ever escape the fact that I don't belong anywhere in particular. I've often dreamed about going back to Nigeria, but that's a very romantic notion. It's a hideous country to go to in reality. — Hugo Weaving

Thank you," she murmured, hoping he knew it wasn't just for helping her up the tree and through the window. Hoping he knew it was for everything. The thrills, the laughs, the secrets he'd shared. — Marissa Meyer

To try is to risk failure. But risks need to be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel change, grow, love and live. Chained by their certitudes, they are a slave; they have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is free. - Leo Buscaglia — John O'Sullivan

Something among dusty shelves of ordered certitudes long divorced from reality, desiccating peacefully, as if a breath of that air which sees injustice done — William Faulkner

Moreover, our certitudes were closely bound to a given set of symbols. Change the well defined Latin term for an undefined Greek one and every bishop and every priest found himself at a loss. We knew the catechism by heart; mention catechesis and we are no longer sure who made us and why. We could manage a dogmatic sermon all right but just listen to our homilies! We were absolutely firm about confession and contrition; all our firmness vanished at the one word METANOIA. We knew exactly what the Mass was; the Eucharist is hazy. Even the Consecration and the Real Presence have been engulfed in the mist of ANAMNESIS. All this is patently true, is undeniable. We had received a solid theological training in our seminaries. It did not stand the test. It collapsed overnight without leaving track or trace. — Bryan Houghton

Courage consists, however, in agreeing to flee rather than live tranquilly and hypocritically in false refuges. Values, morals, homelands, religions, and these private certitudes that our vanity and our complacency bestow generously on us, have many deceptive sojourns as the world arranges for those who think they are standing straight and at ease, among stable things — Gilles Deleuze

As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around. — John C. Danforth

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday. — John Wayne

This is your life and the afterlife merged together in one perfect, endless existence. — Drew Magary

Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work
hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss
loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us. — Jean Vanier