Good Grounds Quotes & Sayings

Most people, if they know they have done wrong, foolishly suppose they can conceal their error by defending it, and finding a justification for it; but in my belief there is only one medicine for an evil deed, and that is for the guilty man to admit his guilt and show that he is sorry for it. Such an admission will make the consequences easier for the victim to bear, and the guilty man himself, by plainly showing his distress at former transgressions, will find good grounds of hope for avoiding similar transgressions in the future. — Arrian

I am a democrat [proponent of democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man.
I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government.
The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true ... I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation ...
The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. — C.S. Lewis

He'd never played in Wrigley Field - the Cubs had still been out at old West Side Grounds when he came through as a catcher for the Cardinals before the First World War. But seeing the ballpark in ruins brought the reality of this war home to him like a kick in the teeth. Sometimes big things would do that, sometimes little ones; he remembered a doughboy breaking down and sobbing like a baby when he found some French kid's dolly with its head blown off. Muldoon's eyes slid over toward Wrigley for a moment. "Gonna be a long time before the Cubs win another pennant," he said, as good an epitaph as any for the park - and the city. — Harry Turtledove

Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it. — William Kingdon Clifford

His hand reached for her boob over her shirt and pawed at it, his palm still while his fingers moved around. I wondered if that felt good. Didn't seem like it would, but I decided to forgive Isaac on the grounds that he was going blind. The senses must feast while there is yet hunger and whatever.
"I think he's hurting her boob," I said.
"Yes, it's difficult to ascertain whether he is trying to arouse her or perform a breast exam. — John Green

New York has made me so paranoid, too. Whenever I visit another city, I always act like I'm from there, so the cab driver doesn't rip me off. I'm always like, "Yeah, it's good to be back home. Back here where I grew up. Yeah. Here in Tokyo ... Uh, driver, I need to go to my old stomping grounds. That would be the Holiday Inn. And the address appears to be the pound sign." — Jim Gaffigan

The pitch we used to convince companies to spend $50 million bucks for one of our planes was that it wasn't simply a means of transportation; oh no - it was 'a productivity tool'. It allowed an executive to make good use of his travel time and a relaxed and refreshed executive could seal the deal much more effectively than his travel-worn counterpart. Yeah, right. You can always justify any obscene luxury on the grounds of productivity... — Joseph Finder

Eternity puts loss in its place. Losses are temporary. Every setback and defeat is put in its place because of eternity. And then add to that the realization that the work of the Redeemer takes every bad situation and works it for our good. So not only is every loss temporary, it is actually reversed in its effect to become a blessing and even grounds for personal promotion and gain. And all of that pertains to loss. This is why every believer is able to live with constant hope. — Bill Johnson

It is understandable that there has been a good deal of joking about purely learned works of this type. Their actual value for the future of scholarship and for the people as a whole cannot be demonstrated. Nevertheless, scholarship, as was true for art in the olden days, must indeed have far-flung grazing grounds, and in pursuit of a subject which interests no one but himself a scholar can accumulate knowledge which provides colleagues with information as valuable as that stored in a dictionary or an archive. — Hermann Hesse

No sensitive Christian can be satisfied with a distinction between righteousness and unrighteousness drawn only between communities, with each individual belonging unambiguously on one or the other side of the line. The behavior of "the righteous" is often very disappointing, while "the unrighteous" regularly perform in a manner that is much better than our theology might lead us to expect of them. Thus the need for a perspective that allows for both a rather slow process of sanctification in the Christian life and some sort of divine restraint on the power of sin in the unbelieving community. These theological adjustments to a religious perspective that might otherwise betray strong Manichean tones provide us with yet another reason for openness to a broad-ranging dialogue: Christians have good grounds for believing that their own weakness can be corrected by encountering the strengths of others. — Richard J. Mouw

We who have the luxury of living in the West have an obligation to stand up for liberal principles. Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture's intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women's rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. And we need to say unambiguously to Muslims living in the West: if you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional. They are the foundations of our way of life; of our civilization - a civilization that learned, slowly and painfully, not to burn heretics, but to honor them. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old. — Winston S. Churchill

When there are rational grounds for an opinion, people are content to set them forth and wait for them to operate. In such cases, people do not hold their opinions with passion; they hold them calmly, and set forth their reasons quietly. The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. — Bertrand Russell

It is difficult for a proud man ever to forgive a person who has found him at fault, and who has good grounds for complaining of him; his pride is not assuaged till he has regained the advantages he lost and put the other person in the wrong. — Jean De La Bruyere

Now, Woolf calls her fictional bastion of male privilege Oxbridge, so I'll call mine Yarvard. Even though she cannot attend Yarvard because she is a woman, Judith cheerfully applies for admission at, let's call it, Smithcliff, a prestigious women's college. She is denied admission on the grounds that
the dorms and classrooms can't
accommodate wheelchairs, that her speech pattern would interfere with her elocution lessons, and that her presence would upset the other students. There is also the suggestion that she is not good marriage material for the men at the elite college to which Smithcliff is a bride-supplying "sister school." The letter inquires as to why she hasn't been institutionalized.
When she goes to the administration building to protest the decision, she can't get up the flight of marble steps on the Greek Revival building. This edifice was designed to evoke a connection to the Classical world, which practiced infanticide of disabled newborns. — Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture's intolerance. If we do in fact support diversity, women's rights, and gay rights, then we cannot in good conscience give Islam a free pass on the grounds of multicultural sensitivity. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A Frenchman is self-assured because he considers himself personally, in mind as well as body, irresistibly enchanting for men as well as women. An Englishman is self-assured on the grounds that he is a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore, as an Englishman, he always knows what he must do, and knows that everything he does as an Englishman is unquestionably good. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and others. A Russian is self-assured precisely because he does not know anything and does not want to know anything, because he does not believe it possible to know anything fully. A German is self-assured worst of all, and most firmly of all, and most disgustingly of all, because he imagines that he knows the truth, science, which he has invented himself, but which for him is the absolute truth. — Leo Tolstoy

Cultural pessimism is always fashionable, and since we are human, there are always grounds for it. It has the negative consequence of depressing the level of aspiration, the sense of the possible... it is easy to forget that there are always as good grounds for optimism as for pessimism--exactly the same grounds, in fact--that is, because we are human. We still have every potential for good we have ever had, and the same presumptive claim to respect, our own respect and one another's. We are still creatures of singular interest and value, agile of soul as we have always been and as we will continue to be even despite our errors and depredations, for as long as we abide on this earth. — Marilynne Robinson

In an age when young people are encouraged to maximize self-interest and self-advancement, the grounds for altruism or even good behavior become obscured. Short of reverting to religious authority - itself on occasion corrosive of secular institutions - what can furnish a younger generation with a sense of purpose beyond its own short-term advantage? — Tony Judt

I've been a fan of Mads since the "Casino Royale" movie. I really sat up and paid attention to him. I was like, "Who is this motherf**ker?" Even his work in something as sort of popcorn as "Clash of the Titans," he brings a kind of danger and reality and he grounds it in such a way that you think, yes, I'm good to work with this guy. I should come back, just stay behind him. (Laughs) Our working relationship has been fantastic. — Laurence Fishburne

It dishonors the deaths of our loved ones to shut out happiness. We throw away what we could have been and waste our opportunities. We each have a purpose, a destiny, and to realize it, we must reach beyond what we think we are capable of ... A wise woman once told me that I needed to learn the lesson of the lotus flower: All of our human experience, both the good and the bad, grounds us like the sludge in a river. We may be rooted in pain or suffering but our job is to rise above it, find the sun, and bloom. Only then can you brighten the world for others. — Colleen Houck

During the season, fans tend to observe, in as many complicated ways and with as much detail as we can come up with, only that a winning team is very good, and a losing team is hopeless. My mother or Prince Charles or probably a Martian could make the same observation, but their views would be discounted on the grounds of ignorance. — Nick Hornby

We must leave our pets at home, when we go into the street, and meet men on broad grounds of good meaning and good sense. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love is a form of prejudice. You love what you need, you love what makes you feel good, you love what is convenient. How can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? But you'll never meet them. All right, so we do the best we can. Granted. But we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter. Most people make too much of it. On these grounds a good fuck is not to be entirely scorned. But that's the result of a chance meeting too. You're damned right. Drink up. We'll have another. — Charles Bukowski

Now, 'tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and lay open the soul of the doer. Burlingame declared the difference 'twixt sour pessimist and proper gentleman lies just here: that one will judge good deeds by a morality of the motive and ill by a morality of deed, and so condemn the twain together, whereas your gentleman doth the reverse, and hath always grounds to pardon his wayward fellows. — John Barth

A very good case can be made, on moral as well as economic grounds, for a system in which the individual is required to stand on his own feet, not to lean on the state for handouts. Character, resourcefulness, capacity are formed and developed in struggle with obstacles, not in waiting passively for benefits from outside. — William Henry Chamberlin

Strictly speaking, the mass, as a psychological fact, can be defined without waiting for individuals to appear in mass formation. In the presence of one individual we can decide whether he is "mass" or not. The mass is all that which sets no value on itself good or ill based on specific grounds, but which feels itself "just like everybody," and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

You can cause earthquakes?"
He sighed, a playful look in his eyes. "There's such a delicious joke there, but I'm going to be good and hold back. With the amount of sexual tension permeating these grounds, even a bad 'rock your world' line is liable to ignite something. — Elizabeth Hunter

Traditionally, a fault divorce was the only means for a married couple to get divorced. It means that one of the spouses it at fault having committed one or more of: cruelty(mental, emotional, physical) , adultery, or deserted the other spouse for no good reason, impotence, among other grounds. No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. It became passed into family/divorce laws in various western nations in 1960s and 1970s. One would imagine that the fault or no-fault of a husband should have an implication on the maintenance amount he can be asked to pay to wife. Unfortunately, things are not that straightforward. — Vivek Deveshwar

Because the gospel is news, good news ... it is to be announced; that is what one does with news. The essential heraldic element in preaching is bound up with the fact that the core message is not a code of ethics to be debated, still less a list of aphorisms to be admired and pondered, and certainly not a systematic theology to be outlined and schematized. Though it properly grounds ethics, aphorisms, and systematics, it is none of these three: it is news, good news, and therefore must be publicly announced2. — Timothy Keller

Be Reserved, but not Sour; Grave, but not Formal; Bold, but not Rash; Humble, but not Servile; Patient, not Insensible; Constant, not Obstinate; Chearful, not Light; Rather Sweet than Familiar; Familiar, than Intimate; and Intimate with very few, and upon very good Grounds. — Various

No matter the good news anywhere else, these nuke-hungry rogue states will provide grounds for bad-mouthing Bush foreign policy. — Rich Lowry

My week at school would be good or bad depending on whether Balmain won. I have such fond memories of those suburban grounds, and everything was so undiluted. The players weren't censored, and for me it was a wonderful period of my life when everything was simple and pure. For me, that resonated with rugby league. — Matthew Nable

Sean lay back and listened, watching her with a smile playing over his mouth.

"it's a really good thing I don't have self-esteem issues," he told her when her spasms of hilarity started to die down. "Also, it's a good thing I hear your sex sound first, You have no grounds to ridicule me, woman. — Jennifer Bernard

Baby smuggling is a serious crime,' he said. 'There were thirty-six babies on that plane. We could charge you with thirty-six counts of kidnapping.'
That, at least, got Second to look back at Mr. Reardon.
'Does FBI mean Federal Bureau of Idiots?' he asked. 'If any of you were any good at analyzing footprints, you would know that I fell when I was trying to sneak into the airport grounds, not out.'
'And why would you do that?' Mr. Reardon asked, hunching forward over a notepad.
'It was a dare, all right?' Second snarled. 'I was with my friends and we were talking about what it would be like to stand on a runway when a plane was landing and ... we decided to try it out.'
'That's a crime too,' Mr. Reardon said.
Second shrugged. 'It ain't thirty-six counts of kidnapping,' he said. — Margaret Peterson Haddix

But lack of evidence, if indeed evidence is lacking, is no grounds for atheism. No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism. — Alvin Plantinga

Yet I do seriously and on good grounds affirm it possible to make a flying chariot in which a man may sit and give such a motion unto it as shall convey him through the air. And this perhaps might be made large enough to carry divers men at the same time, together with food for their viaticum and commodities for traffic. — John Wilkins

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. — Winston S. Churchill

I really should not be so willing to interpret my own books as I seem to be this evening. But the blessing Ames gives Jack is an act of recognition that blesses Ames, too. He is profoundly moved that he has had the occasion to do it, that Jack accepted it, wanted it. I really do believe that all blessing is mutual, and that the moment of blessing is when people rise to the very beautiful seriousness of what they are. I feel that we ought to value ourselves and one another far more than we do, and I'm speaking theologically here, but also with an awareness that always haunts me, that we are the wonder of the universe, incomparably complex, brilliant, poignant - and perverse, of course. Our own overwhelming problem. But there are good grounds for awe in any human encounter. If we came anywhere near respecting the richness of this improbable life - hopes would flourish and blossom as they have never done before. — Marilynne Robinson

It is no good to tell an atheist that he is an atheist; or to charge a denier of immortality with the infamy of denying it; or to imagine that one can force an opponent to admit he is wrong, by proving that he is wrong on somebody else's principles, but not on his own. After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours. — G.K. Chesterton

Nobody ever got anything from God on the grounds that he deserved it. Haven fallen, man deserves only punishment and death. So if God answers prayer it's because God is good. From His goodness, His lovingkindness, His good-natured benevolence, God does it! That's the source of everything. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

It's too early for there to be any coffee. I stare dully at the empty pot in the common room, while Sam picks up a jar of instant grounds.
"Don't," I warn him.
He scoops up a heaping spoonful and, heedlessly, shovels it into his mouth. It crunches horribly. Then his eyes go wide.
"Dry," he croaks. "Tongue ... shriveling."
I shake my head, picking up the jar. "It's dehydrated. You're supposed to add water. Good thing you're mostly made of water."
He tries to say something. Brown powder dusts his shirt.
"Also," I tell him, "that's decaf. — Holly Black

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. — Bertrand Russell

The mass is all which sets no value on itself--good or ill--based on specific grounds, but which feels itself "just like everything" ... The mass crushes beneath it everything which is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Never praise or blame people on common grounds; look to their judgements exclusively. Because that is the determining factor, which makes everyone's actions either good or bad. — Epictetus

Imagine a society's discovering a vaccine against a deadly disease that has been ravaging its people and continues to ravage people in neighboring societies, where the cause of the disease is incorrectly attributed to improper diet. What would be the judgment on such a society if it withheld its vaccine on the grounds that it would be ethnocentric to try to instruct members of another culture that their medical ideas are incorrect, and to induce them to adopt the effective treatment? If one accepts that one has the good fortune to be in possession of the true religion and thereby has access to the most valuable possible rewards, is one not similarly obligated to spread this blessing to those less fortunate? — Rodney Stark

It took me a good thirty minutes to find Cal. That was actually a good thing, because it gave me plenty of time to come up with something to say to him that wasn't just a string of four-letter words.
There are a lot of freaky things witches and warlocks do, obviously, but the arranged marriage thing was one of the grossest. When a witch is thirteen, her parents hook her up with an available warlock, based on things like compatible powers and family alliances. The entire thing is so eighteenth century.
As I stomped across school grounds, all I could see was Cal sitting with my dad in some manly room with leather chairs and dead animals on the wall, chomping on cigars as Dad formally signed me away to him.They probably even high-fived.
Okay,so it's not like either of them are exactly the cigar-and-high-fives type, but still. — Rachel Hawkins

I wish I got a little bit more time at home. I am away a lot and being around my loved ones and friends is good for me. It grounds me. It's something I need to make more time for. I think I need a little more balance. — Katherine Jenkins

The atmosphere generated by the fans in Celtic's stadium for our visit was the most impressive I've ever witnessed. The grounds of Liverpool and Manchester United are good and the hostile feeling of playing against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu is also excellent, but the atmosphere against Celtic was the best. — Xavi

Ought not a Minister to have, First, a good understanding, a clear apprehension, a sound judgment, and a capacity of reasoning with some closeness ... Is not some acquaintance with what has been termed the second part of logic, (metaphysics), if not so necessary as [logic itself], yet highly expedient? Should not a Minister be acquainted with at least the general grounds of natural philosophy? JOHN WESLEY, ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY — J.P. Moreland

The university grounds are really beautiful. Universities always try that bullshit. They want you to think wonderful things are going on inside of them because the grounds are beautiful. In general, it is good to be suspicious of monetary displays. Large swaths of bright green well-watered grass
a thing like that is a huge lie. — Jesse Ball

On scientific grounds this big bang assumption is much less the palatable of the two. For it is an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms ... On philosophical grounds too I cannot see any good reason for preferring the big bang idea. Indeed it seems to me in the philosophical sense to be a distinctly unsatisfactory notion, since it puts the basic assumption out of sight where it can never be challenged by a direct appeal to observation. — Fred Hoyle

Long after this wonderful event in the Earth's history, when the human species was spread over a good deal of Asia, Europe, and Africa, migration to the American continents began in attempts to find new feeding grounds and unoccupied areas for hunting and fishing. — Harry Johnston

He has no interest in pursuing an abstract argument to demonstrate a purely theoretical truth. His practical reason is ethical. Its first principle could be stated thus: Do no evil, Take up what is good, Purify the mind - This is the teaching of buddhas.11 In seeing conditioned arising as a "ground," Gotama implies that insight into conditionality provides "grounds" on which to act. — Stephen Batchelor

There is (gentle reader) nothing (the works of God only set apart) which so much beautifies and adorns the soul and mind of man as does knowledge of the good arts and sciences . Many arts there are which beautify the mind of man; but of all none do more garnish and beautify it than those arts which are called mathematical , unto the knowledge of which no man can attain, without perfect knowledge and instruction of the principles, grounds, and Elements of Geometry. — John Dee

On the other hand, if God's moral judgement differs from ours so that our 'black' may be His 'white', we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say 'God is good', while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say 'God is we know not what'. And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) 'good' we shall obey, if at all, only through fear - and should be equally ready to obey omnipotent Fiend. The doctrine of Total Depravity - when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is worth simply nothing - may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship.
- The Problem of Pain, pp. 28 - 29 — C.S. Lewis

When a Christian, Sharon, for instance, tries to present objectively good reasons for a position and is greeted with a claim of disqualification on the grounds of bias, the proper response is this: Tell the other person that she has changed the subject from the issue to the messenger, that while the Christian appreciates the attention and focus on her inner drives and motives, she thinks that the dialogue should get refocused on the strength of the case just presented. Perhaps at another time they could talk about each other's personal motivations and drives, but for now, a case, a set of arguments has been presented and a response to those arguments is required. — J.P. Moreland

If a man felt hostility and aversion, but saw that he had poor or no grounds for his feeling, the remedy was to look for good or at least better grounds
a search hid predisposing thoughts would help him in. — James Gould Cozzens

If it is to be established that there is a God, then we have to have good grounds for believing that this is indeed so. Until and unless some such grounds are produced we have literally no reason at all for believing; and in that situation the only reasonable posture must be that of either the negative atheist or the agnostic. So the onus of proof has to rest on the proposition of theism. — Antony Flew