Claims Of Fact Quotes & Sayings

Nine out of ten Americans are actually monarchists at bottom. The fact is proved by their high suseptibility to political claims by president's sons and other relatives, usually nonentities. — H.L. Mencken

The Silver Key:
I.
In the first days
of his bondage
he had turned
to the gentle churchly
faith endeared to him
by the naive
trust of his fathers,
for thence stretched
mystic avenues
which seemed to promise
escape from life.
II.

Only on closer view
did he mark the starved
fancy and beauty, the
stale and prosy
triteness, and the
owlish gravity
and grotesque
claims of solid truth
which reigned bore somely
and overwhelmingly
among most
of its professors;
or feel
to the full
the awkwardness
with which
it sought to keep
alive as literal
fact the outgrown
fears and guesses
of a primal
race confronting — H.P. Lovecraft

The passion for naming things is an odd human trait. It is strange that men always feel so much more at ease when they have put appellations on the things around them and that a wild, new region almost seems familiar and subdued once enough names have been used on it, even though in fact it is not changed in the slightest. Or, on second thought, it is perhaps not really strange. The urge to name must be as old as the human race, as old as speech which is one of the really fundamental characteristics by which we rise above the brutes, and thus a basic and essential part of the human spirit or soul. The naming fallacy is common enough even in science. Many a scientist claims to have explained some phenomenon when in truth all he has done is to give it a name. — George Gaylord Simpson

It is a disturbing fact that Western civilization, which claims to have achieved the highest standard of health in history, finds itself compelled to spend ever-increasing sums for the control of disease. — Rene Dubos

In fact some Jews themselves even claim that there should be a statue to Adolf Hitler in Israel because he created the state of Israel ... which is absolutely true, without Adolf Hitler Israel woud not exist — Eustace Mullins

When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics. — Frank J. Tipler

The Koran claims for itself that it is "mubeen," or clear. But if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesnt make sense. Many Muslims and Orientalists will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible. — Gerd R. Puin

It is not sufficient to live, there must be a destiny that does not have to wait for death. It is therefore
justifiable to say that man has an idea of a better world than this. But better does not mean different, it
means unified. This passion which lifts the mind above the commonplaces of a dispersed world, from
which it nevertheless cannot free itself, is the passion for unity. It does not result in mediocre efforts to
escape, however, but in the most obstinate demands. Religion or crime, every human endeavor in fact,
finally obeys this unreasonable desire and claims to give life a form it does not have. The same impulse,
which can lead to the adoration of the heavens or the destruction of man, also leads to creative literature,
which derives its serious content from this source. — Albert Camus

If Christianity is true, this changes EVERYTHING. Christ's very last words to us in scripture were: "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5) I hope you remember that most moving line in the most moving movie ever made, The Passion Of The Christ, when Christ turns to His mother on the way to Calvary, explaining the need for the Cross and the blood and the agony: "See, Mother, I make all things new." I hope you remember that line with your tear ducts, which connect to the heart, as well as with your ears, which connect to the brain. Christ changed every human being he ever met. In fact, He changed history, splitting it open like a coconut and inserting eternity into the split between B.C. and A.D. If anyone claims to have met Him without being changed, he has not met Him at all. When you touch Him, you touch lightning. — Peter Kreeft

Had Christ not risen we could not believe Him to be what He declared Himself when He "made Himself equal with God." But He has risen in the confirmation of all His claims. By it alone, but by it thoroughly, is He manifested as the very Son of God, who has come into the world to reconcile the world to Himself. It is the fundamental fact in the Christian's unwavering confidence in "all the words of this life. — B. B. Warfield

Given the rest of the economic news, including the fact that GDP growth is positive, inflation is still low, jobless claims are still moving downward and temporary services are firming up, that means the recovery continues, and we hope it will continue in a more robust fashion, — Elaine Chao

If the law could be changed, man might have been saved without the sacrifice of Christ; but the fact that it was necessary for Christ to give his life for the fallen race, proves that the law of God will not release the sinner from its claims upon him. — Ellen G. White

There's the fact of her being a hundred and four years old. I keep saying that's her age, but actually I'm just guessing. We don't really know for sure how old she is, and she claims she doesn't remember, either. When you ask her, she says,
"Zuibun nagaku ikasarete itadaite orimasu ne."
... (footnote) Zuibun nagaku ikasarete itadaite orimasu ne
"I have been alive for a very long time, haven't I?" Totally impossible to translate, but the nuance is something like: "I have been caused to live by the deep conditions of the universe to which I am humbly and deeply grateful. P. Arai calls it the "gratitude tense," and says the beauty of this grammatical construction is that "there is no finger pointed to a source." She also says, "It is impossible to feel angry when using this tense. — Ruth Ozeki

If you've ever read one of those articles that asks notable people to list their favorite books, you may have been impressed or daunted to see them pick Proust or Thomas Mann or James Joyce. You might even feel sheepish about the fact that you reread Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings, or The Catcher in the Rye or Gone With the Wind every couple of years with some much pleasure. Perhaps, like me, you're even a little suspicious of their claims, because we all know that the books we've loved best are seldom the ones we esteem the most highly - or the ones we'd most like other people to think we read over and over again. — Laura Miller

Since religion has proved itself uniquely delinquent on the one subject where moral and ethical authority might be counted as universal and absolute, I think we are entitled to at least three provisional conclusions. The first is that religion and the churches are manufactured, and that this salient fact is too obvious to ignore. The second is that ethics and morality are quite independent of faith, and cannot be derived from it. The third is that religion is - because it claims a special divine exemption for its practices and beliefs - not just amoral but immoral. — Christopher Hitchens

My claims are not meant to be persuasive, but are used to make intangibility, concrete. I do not make claim for causing acts of God, I simply illustrate the coincidence and proximity of time between my words and acts of God and the exact date and time of said claims can never be changed because this data was recorded by International Press Releases. Being a scientist automatically makes me a reliable, objective and intellectual source but what gives me more credibility than the average scientist, is the fact that these claims are completely independent from myself for the fact they were recorded by an unbiased and independent third-party. Therefore, there is no possible debate regarding the validity of this information, unless of course the debate is over whether the world is flat or round. — Alejandro C. Estrada

The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that - whether from fear, careerism, or conviction - uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function. — Glenn Greenwald

It is a pity that ... the majority of feminists and their allies have stuck to the dead ground of "Me Decade" possessive individualism, an ideology that has more in common than it admits with the prehistoric right, which it claims to oppose but has in fact encouraged. — Christopher Hitchens

The road to the promised land runs past Sinai. The moral law may exist to be transcended: but there is no transcending it for those who have not first admitted its claims up on them, and then tried with all their strength to meet that claim, and fairly and squarely faced the fact of their failure. — C.S. Lewis

It requires an act of extreme arrogance to think that we can - through God or science - learn even the most fundamental secrets of the universe. To say as much claims that we are somehow greater than the universe in which we live, its masters, when in fact it is master of us. — Michel Templet

I know the South claims that it has spent millions for the education of the blacks, and that it has of its own free will shouldered this awful burden. It seems to be forgetful of the fact that these millions have been taken from the public tax funds for education, and that the law of political economy which recognizes the land owner as the one who really pays the taxes is not tenable. It would be just as reasonable for the relatively few land owners of Manhattan to complain that they had to stand the financial burden of the education of the thousands and thousands of children whose parents pay rent for tenements and flats. Let the millions of producing and consuming Negroes be taken out of the South, and it would be quickly seen how much less of public funds there would be to appropriate for education or any other purpose. — James Weldon Johnson

Faith is rather like a rhinoceros, in fact: it won't do much in the way of real work for you, and yet at close quarters it will make spectacular claims upon your attention. — Sam Harris

How do commercial interests usually protect themselves from liability claims? Through insurance. In fact, in our society, the litmus test for safety is insurance. You can be insured for almost anything if you pay enough for the premium, but if the insurance industry isn't willing to bet its money on the safety of [biotechnology], it means the risks are simply too high or too uncertain for them to take the gamble. — David Suzuki

[Vathek] has, in parts, been called, but to some judgments, never is, dull: it is certainly in parts, grotesque, extravagant and even nasty. But Beckford could plead sufficient "local colour" for it, and a contrast, again almost Shakespearean, between the flickering farce atrocities of the beginning and the sombre magnificence of the end. Beckford's claims, in fact, rest on the half-score or even half-dozen pages towards the end: but these pages are hard to parallel in the later literature of prose fiction. — William Thomas Beckford

A good scientific law or theory is falsifiable just because it makes definite claims about the world. For the falsificationist, If follows fairly readily from this that the more falsifiable a theory is the better, in some loose sense of more. The more a theory claims, the more potential opportunities there will be for showing that the world does not in fact behave in the way laid down by the theory. A very good theory will be one that makes very wide-ranging claims about the world, and which is consequently highly falsifiable, and is one that resists falsification whenever it is put to the test. — Alan F. Chalmers

Shame usually follows a pattern - a cycle of self-recrimination and lies that claims life after life. First, we experience an intensely painful event. Second, we believe the lie that our pain and failure is who we are - not just something we've done, or had done to us - and we experience shame. And finally, our feelings of shame trap us into thinking that we can never recover - that, in fact, we don't even deserve to. — Craig Groeschel

It is popular to call it a crisis of the Western world. It is in fact a crisis of the whole world. Communism, which claims to be a solution of the crisis, is itself a symptom and an irritant of the crisis. — Whittaker Chambers

One can believe that faith is mere credulous assent to unfounded premises, while reason consists in a pure obedience to empirical fact, only if one is largely ignorant of both. It should be enough, perhaps, to point to the long Christian philosophical tradition, with all its variety, creativity, and sophistication, and to the long and honorable tradition of Christianity's critical examination and reexamination of its own historical, spiritual, and metaphysical claims. But more important in some ways, it seems to me, is to stress how great an element of faith is present in the operations of even the most disinterested rationality. — David Bentley Hart

These pressures make it difficult for many Christians to draw lines. How many of us want to be classified with fundamentalist Muslims? Why not emphasize the communal and pragmatic values of our faith, in order to gain respect and avoid unnecessarily offending the people of our generation? Why not defend "the truth" merely as it appears to us? After all, that is in fact what we are doing, isn't it - defending the truth as it appears to us? So why make offensive claims about the universality of truth claims? Why draw lines? It is painful to do so; it also seems impolitic. Why alienate people? Why should it be thought necessary to draw lines, when drawing lines is rude? In these few pages, my concern is not how to proceed with the evangelistic task (see chap. 12), but to ponder briefly some of the reasons why drawing lines is utterly crucial at the moment. — D. A. Carson

It is only the cynic who claims "to speak the truth" at all times and in all places to all men in the same way, but who, in fact, displays nothing but a lifeless image of the truth ... He dons the halo of the fanatical devotee of truth who can make no allowance for human weaknesses; but, in fact, he is destroying the living truth between men. He wounds shame, desecrates mystery, breaks confidence, betrays the community in which he lives, and laughs arrogantly at the devastation he has wrought and at the human weakness which "cannot bear the truth. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Often it is hard. So hard, in fact, that Jesus' decree to love and pray for our opponents is regarded as one of the most breathtaking and gut-wrenching challenges of his entire Sermon on the Mount, a speech renowned for its outrageous claims. There was no record of any other spiritual leader ever having articulated such a clear-cut, unambiguous command for people to express compassion to those who are actively working against their best interests. — Lee Strobel

Some modern theologians have, quite rightly, protested against an excessively moralistic interpretation of Christianity. The Holiness of God is something more and other than moral perfection: His claim upon us is something more and other than the claims of moral duty. I do not deny it: But this conception, like that of corporate guilt, is very easily used as an evasion of the real issue. God may be more than moral goodness: He is not less. The road to the promised land runs past Sinai. The moral law may exist to be transcended, but there is no transcending it for those who have not first admitted its claims upon them, and then tried with all their strength to meet that claim, and fairly and squarely face the fact of their failure. — C.S. Lewis

There is an appearance of humility in the protestation that the truth is much greater than any one of us can grasp, but if this is used to invalidate all claims to discern the truth it is in fact an arrogant claim to a kind of knowledge which is superior to [all others] ... We have to ask: 'What is the [absolute] vantage ground from which you claim to be able to relativize all the absolute claims these different scriptures make? — Lesslie Newbigin

The climate's sensitivity to greenhouse gases is considerably lower than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims - so much lower, in fact, that the warming we would expect from doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be quite modest and offer very little risk. — Kenneth P. Green

Despite long-standing claims by elites that Blacks, women, Latinos, and other similarly derogated groups in the United States remain incapable of producing the type of interpretive, analytical thought that is labeled theory in the West, powerful knowledges of resistance that toppled former social structures of social inequality repudiate this view. Members of these groups do in fact theorize, and our critical social theory has been central to our political empowerment and search for justice. — Patricia Hill Collins

Then, too, I am constantly confronted by students, some of whom have already rejected all ways but the scientific to come to know the world, and who seek only a deeper, more dogmatic indoctrination in that faith (although the world is no longer in their vocabulary). Other students suspect that not even the entire collection of machines and instruments at MIT can significantly give meaning to their lives. They sense the presence of a dilemma in an education polarized around science and technology, an education that implicitly claims to open a privileges access-path to fact, but that cannot tell them how to decide what to count as fact. Even while they recognize the genuine importance of learning their craft, they rebel at working on projects that appear to address themselves neither to answering interesting questions of fact nor to solving problems in theory. — Joseph Weizenbaum

... man has an idea of a better world than this. But better does not mean different, it means unified ... Religion or crime, every human endeavor in fact, finally obeys this unreasonable desire and claims to give life a form it does not have. — Albert Camus

Sentimental Humanitarianism: A Dangerous Temptation Gregg argues that sentimental humanitarianism: Reduces most debates to exchanges of feelings. Common responses to disagreements are "you can't say that" or "that's hurtful" or "that offends me." But in quoting British novelist Ian McEwan, Gregg says there is nothing virtuous about being offended. Is naive of human nature. It assumes everyone is of good will. Rather, Gregg says we have to acknowledge that there are some groups of people in which rational conversation is not possible. Doesn't take free choice seriously. It claims all evil emanates from bad education and unjust structures, but this is hardly the full story. Evil is a free choice of each individual, and Gregg says it's not something that can be explained away by the fact that someone is wealthier than — Anonymous

Here's a little mote of wisdom: Not everyone who claims to be an expert, is indeed an expert. Please note: I have never claimed to be an expert on anything except perhaps making the perfect omelet, and if you don't like spicy, you'd probably argue with me on that one, too. In fact, anyone claiming to be an expert on anything, in my opinion, should immediately be viewed with suspicion, or be able to produce a PhD Diploma on the subject he or she is professing to be expert in. — Chris A. Jackson

For it is the fate of every myth to creep by degrees into the narrow limits of some alleged historical reality, and to be treated by some later generation as a unique fact with historical claims ... this is the way in which religions are wont to die out: under the stern, intelligent eyes of an orthodox dogmatism, the mythical premises of a religion are systematized as a sum total of historical events; one begins apprehensively to defend the credibility of the myths, while at the same time one opposes any continuation of their vitality and growth; the feeling for myth perishes, and its place is taken by the claim of religion to historical foundations. — Friedrich Nietzsche

'Mediocre' tends to mean 'undistinguished', while snobs enjoy their distinguishing hallmarks of style - how they wear clothes, use words, where they go and gather and gossip ... Whatever the circumstances the genius has put you into, the fact of individuality defends the soul against all class-action claims. No soul is mediocre, whatever your personal taste for conventionality, whatever your personal record of middling achievements. — James Hillman

Government is wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive by its very nature. To get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, government power has to be dealt with. Government's legitimacy has to be challenged. Its claims of success must be refuted. The people who desire peace and prosperity must accept the fact that government and the politicians never deliver peace or prosperity. — Ron Paul

Of course, it's always difficult to disentangle fact from fiction in relation to, e.g., the singularity project. Many scientists I know are dismissive of transhumanist claims, BUT the last 100 years has surely taught us never to underestimate the pace and scope of scientific progress. However, even if much of this turns out to be science-fiction, it also reveals a way of thinking about human life that I find deeply troubling. — George Pattison

There is an irreducible scandal, something traumatic and unexpected, in the encounter with another subject, in the fact that the subject (a self-consciousness) encounters outside itself, in front of it, another living being there in the world, among things, which also claims to be a subject (a self-consciousness). As a subject, I am by definition alone, a singularity opposed to the entire world of things, a punctuality to which all the world appears, and all the phenomenological descriptions of my being always "together-with" others cannot ultimately cover up the scandal of there being another such singularity. In the guise of a living being in front of me which also claims to be a self-consciousness, infinity assumes a determinate form"- Hegel, — Slavoj Zizek

CAIR is still trying to promote its strange claim that criticism of its ideology is racist....The ridiculous claims that criticism of Islam is an act of bigotry fail to take into account the fact that former Muslims like Bosch, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Firoozeh Bazrafkan have been some of the sharpest critics of the ideology. Did they also change races? — Daniel Greenfield

Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America. Particularly is this true of the American woman of the middle class. She not only considers herself the equal of man, but his superior, especially in her purity, goodness, and morality. Small wonder that the American suffragist claims for her vote the most miraculous powers. In her exalted conceit she does not see how truly enslaved she is, not so much by man, as by her own silly notions and traditions. Suffrage can not ameliorate that sad fact; it can only accentuate it, as indeed it does. — Emma Goldman

Victor claims these kinds of things don't go on in normal households, but I'm pretty sure this entire incident could be blamed on the fact that I have several real-life sleep disorders. This is not too surprising considering I collect neurological disorders like other people collect comic books. — Jenny Lawson

Once again, claims of moral superiority are used to justify extreme actions. Once again, the fact that some people are hurt is shrugged off because an abstract cause is said to be greater than any human consequences. Once — Michael Crichton

Don't tell me amino acids can be created by accident. Don't tell me about "billions and billions" of years for life to arise. Don't tell me about "countless" stars and planets in the universe. It all doesn't matter. Using simple concepts of number - exponents - one can expose as false claims that life arose by accident. You cannot seriously expect to get a specified protein of 75 linked amino acids in the history of the universe, except as a product of already existing life, even if you assume that everything in the universe is made up of amino acids and even if you assume that amino acids will freely combine into 75-unit chains.n Period. And there actually is no dispute about this fact. — Douglas Ell

The doctrine of original sin claims that all men sinned in Adam; but whether they did or whether it is merely a fact that all men sin does not basically affect the problem of suffering. — Walter Kaufmann

Throughout the past century there has always existed a significant minority of first-rate biologists who have never been able to bring themselves to accept the validity of Darwinian claims. In fact, the number of biologists who have expressed some degree of disillusionment is practically endless. — Michael Denton

It is a fact of history and of current events that human beings exaggerate, misinterpret, or wrongly remember events. They have also fabricated pious fraud. Most believers in a religion understand this when examining the claims of other religions. — Dan Barker

The problem was acutely described in 1909 in a penetrating essay by Adolf Schlatter: According to the sceptical position, it is true that the historian explains; he observes the New Testament neutrally. But in reality this is to begin at once with a determined struggle against it. The word with which the New Testament confronts us intends to be believed, and so rules out once and for all any sort of neutral treatment. As soon as the historian sets aside or brackets the question of faith, he is making his concern with the New Testament and his presentation of it into a radical and total polemic against it.... If he claims to be an observer, concerned solely with his object, then he is concealing what is really happening. As a matter of fact, he is always in possession of certain convictions, and these determine him not simply in the sense that his judgments derive from them, but also in that his perception and observation is molded by them.352 — Ellen F. Davis

In fact, the resistance to such claims may well come from the constant impulse to resist the Lordship of Jesus, the one through whom it is accomplished. Paul lived in a world where other 'lords' reigned supreme, and resented alternative candidates for their position. So do we. ROMANS — N. T. Wright

Buddhism is not a belief system. It's not about accepting certain tenets or believing a set of claims or principles. In fact, it's quite the opposite. It's about examining the world clearly and carefully, about testing everything and every idea. Buddhism is about seeing. It's about knowing rather than believing or hoping or wishing. It's also about not being afraid to examine anything and everything, including our own personal agendas. — Steve Hagen

I think we are entitled to at least three provisional conclusions. The first is that religion and the churches are manufactured, and that this salient fact is too obvious to ignore. The second is that ethics and morality are quite independent of faith, and cannot be derived from it. The third is that religion is - because it claims a special divine exemption for its practices and beliefs - not just amoral but immoral. The ignorant psychopath and or brute who mistreats his children must be punished but can be understood. Those who claim a heavenly warrant for the cruelty have been tainted by evil, and also constitute far more danger. — Christopher Hitchens

Remember this," Tyler said. "The people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life. "We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact," Tyler said. "So don't fuck with us. — Chuck Palahniuk

Every fact in this world, the God of the Bible claims, has His stamp indelibly engraved upon it. — Cornelius Van Til

In both his teaching and his very presence, Jesus of Nazareth presented the ultimate criticism of the royal consciousness. He has, in fact, dismantled the dominant culture and nullified its claims. The way of his ultimate criticism is his decisive solidarity with marginal people and the accompanying vulnerability required by that solidarity. The only solidarity worth affirming is solidarity characterized by the same helplessness they know and experience. — Walter Brueggemann

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

Although the church publicly claims that it will simply return funds to anyone who is dissatisfied, the reality of this policy is quite different. In fact, requesting a return of money from the church is classified as a Scientology "High Crime" or "Suppressive Act," which qualifies one to be declared a Suppressive Person. And in an even more bizarre twist, once the church declares you an SP, according to its policy you are no longer eligible for a return of your money. — Leah Remini

The importance of English word order is also the reason that the idea that you can't end a sentence with a preposition is utter hogwash. In fact, it would be utter hogwash anyway, and anyone who claims that you can't end a sentence with up, should be told to shut. It is, as Shakespeare put it, such stuff as dreams are made on, but it's one of those silly English beliefs that flesh is heir to. — Mark Forsyth

You are sauntering along the back streets of Avallon; you step into a tavern for a cup of wine. A great lummox claims that you have molested his wife; he takes up his cutlass and comes at you. So now! With your knife! Draw and throw! All in a single movement! You advance, pull your knife from the villain's neck, wipe it on his sleeve. If in fact you have molested the dead churl's wife, bid her begone! The episode has quite dampened your spirit. But you are attacked from another side by another husband. Quick! — Jack Vance

The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan, in spite of bold claims to the contrary that by now should sound familiar. — S. Jay Olshansky