Triumphalism Quotes & Sayings

On the other hand when you are someone who records their own songs you are basically stuck writing for one voice and for one style that can stifle you a bit. It's a real trade off. — Cynthia Weil

What is history? Any thoughts, Webster?'
'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied, a little too quickly.
'Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated ...
'Finn?'
'"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." (quoting Patrick Lagrange) — Julian Barnes

Always beware your moment of triumphalism: such emotions are a poor steer on the future. — Martin Jacques

...a useful coorective to the triumphalism of some scientists. For example, Maddox went out of his way to emphasise the provisional nature of much physics - he referred to black holes as 'putative' only, to the search for theories of everything as 'the embodiment of a belief, even a hope' and stated that the reason why the quantum gravity project is 'becalmed' right now is because 'the problem to be solved is not yet fully understood' and that the idea that the universe began with a Big Bang 'will be found to be false'. — Peter Watson

I don't like the triumphalism of the American narrative, this kind of "chosen people" complex that American people have, so it's inspiring to see people snub their noses at the American empire and succeed. — Ian Svenonius

Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'T is of no use to show us more planets and systems. We know already what matter is, and more or less of it does not signify. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every father expects his boy to do the things he wouldn't do when he was young. — Kin Hubbard

The making of money, the accumulation of material power, is not all there is to living ... and the man who misses this truth misses the greatest joy and satisfaction that can come into his life
service for others. — Edward Bok

There is also this great sense of triumphalism, that just as we defeated the Soviet Union, we can do this. And out of this sense of desperation and pathological religion, there develops an all-encompassing drive to harm and hurt, without regard for the innocent and the uninvolved, which was the case in New York. — Edward Said

Jerry Falwell knows who caused the terrorist attack on America: the ACLU. "The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this," he declared on the 700 Club, because, he explained, the ACLU, abetted by the federal courts is responsible for "throwing God out of the public square (and) the public schools."This is a familiar charge and a false one. God is still present in the public schools, where students are free to pray, alone or in groups, so long as their prayers aren't officially sponsored and don't infringe on anyone's freedom not to pray. — Wendy Kaminer

It's as if he can no longer acknowledge the love he felt or the pain I am in. I have been dismissed. I don't think I was smarter or as beautiful as the other girls he did this to. It's just that I was me. It was all I had. — Emma Forrest

To me, it's important to preserve proximity to the people. I wouldn't do anything pretentious, and nothing that hurts the people who voted for me. Triumphalism isn't my thing. — Francois Hollande

But just as legal segregation in the South was a huge national horror hidden in plain view, so too the massive desolation of the intellect and spirits and the human futures of these millions of young people in their neighborhoods of poverty is yet another national horror hidden in plain view; and it is so enormous and it has its ganglia implanted so profoundly in the culture as we know it, that we're going to have to build another movement if we hope to make it visible." Choosing his words deliberately, Wilkins spoke of what he termed the "small-minded triumphalism" of contemporary political leaders who grew up in "isolated worlds of white male privilege" and have, as a result, "inadequate education for the responsibilities they hold. — Jonathan Kozol

This is a point that our generation cannot afford to ignore. Why is it that we constantly parade Christian athletes, media personalities, and pop singers? Why should we think that their opinions or their experiences of grace are of any more significance than those of any other believer? When we tell outsiders about people in our church, do we instantly think of the despised and the lowly who have become Christians, or do we love to impress people with the importance of the men and women who have become Christians? Modern Western evangelicalism is deeply infected with the virus of triumphalism, and the resulting illness destroys humility, minimizes grace, and offers far too much homage to the money and influence and "wisdom" of our day. Paul — D. A. Carson

It is okay to date and experience all the excitement, thrills, and passion that romance offers, but let the love of your life be yourself. — Jenna Alatari

My first album is a lot of my personal experiences. I wanted people to relate to what I've been through. — Rebecca Ferguson

Things just happen, one after another. They don't care who knows. But history ... ah, history is different. History has to be observed. Otherwise it's not history. It's just ... well, things happening one after another. — Terry Pratchett

I don't respond well to the Olympic noise, which is the noise of nationalistic triumphalism. — Tom Stoppard

The Nazis were tedious in their self-righteousness and triumphalism. They were like a winning soccer team at the after-match party, getting drunker and more boring and refusing to go home. He was sick of them. Some people might say that the USSR was similar, with its secret police, its rigid orthodoxy, and its puritan attitudes to such pleasures as abstract painting and fashion. They were wrong. Communism was a work in progress, with mistakes being made on the road to a fair society. The NKVD with its torture chambers was an aberration, a cancer in the body of Communism. One day it would be surgically removed. But probably not in wartime. — Ken Follett

Taken together, New Labour policies have helped to build a series of overlapping chav caricatures: the feckless, the non-aspirational, the scrounger, the dysfunctional and the disorderly. To hear this sort of rhetoric from Labour, rather than the Tories, has confirmed the stereotypes and prejudices many middle-class people have about working-class communities and individuals. But it can be far subtler than outright attacks. Many of New Labour's underlying philosophies were steeped in middle-class triumphalism. They were based on the assumption that the tattered remnants of the working-class were are on the wrong side of history - and must be made to join 'Middle England' like the rest of us. — Owen Jones

I don't know the real answer, my answer to anything which is essentially human relations is education. Whatever the answer is, education must be its measured component and if you try to educate with generosity not with triumphalism I think sometimes it works, especially young people, that's why I teach, I've been teaching all my life. — Elie Wiesel

One human life, a human heart freely given
it's the greatest gift anyone can give. — Stacey Jay

They had been there. I had seen my mother's anxious face, desperate to catch my eye and give me a warm smile. I had tried to smile back, but I had not known how. That old curse again. How to smile. If I smiled too broadly it might look like triumphalism; if I smiled too weakly it might look like a feeble bid for sympathy. If I smiled somewhere in between it would, I knew, look, as always, like plain smugness. Somehow I managed to bare my teeth in a manner that expressed, I hope, sorrow, gratitude, determination, shame, remorse and resolve. — Stephen Fry

Cultural relativism has used this deceit to gain power. The absolute relativists want to assert their sincere desire for dialogue UNTIL they become a majority. Then they often want to settle issues by either exclusion or coercion. They first argue for democratic fairness, but when they acquire their majority, they are tempted to turn immediately to a triumphalism that assumes that liberal justice has triumphed. From then on, dialogue about truth is forbidden, and about absolute truth is absolutely forbidden. — Thomas C. Oden

What was ridiculous about Christianity, from the perspective of a cultivated pagan, was not only its language - the crude style of the Gospels' Greek resting on the barbarous otherness of Hebrew and Aramaic - but also its exaltation of divine humiliation and pain conjoined with an arrogant triumphalism. — Stephen Greenblatt

The only antidote to religious triumphalism is the readiness of communities of faith to permit doubt and self-criticism to play a vital role in the life of Faith. — Douglas John Hall

My actinic keratosis is a result of the triumphalism of the beach. The sun exacerbates it. — John Updike

Seeing oneself as a prophetic minority does not mean retreat, and it certainly does not mean victim status. It also does not confer faithfulness. Marginalization can strip away from us the besetting sins of a majoritarian viewpoint, but it can bring others as well. We must remember our smallness but also our connectedness to a global, and indeed cosmic, reality. The kingdom of God is vast and tiny, universal and exclusive. Our story is that of a little flock and of an army, awesome with banners. Our legacy is a Christianity of persecution and proliferation, of catacombs and cathedrals. If we see ourselves as only a minority, we will be tempted to isolation. If we see ourselves only as a kingdom, we will be tempted toward triumphalism. We are, instead, a church. We are a minority with a message and a mission. — Russell D. Moore

The major mark of justified believers is joy, especially joy in God himself. We should be the most positive people in the world. For the new community of Jesus Christ is characterized not by a self-centered triumphalism but by a God-centered worship. — John Stott

Irreverence is our only sacred cow. — Paul Krassner

The personification of philistine triumphalism — Salman Rushdie

In 1945, at the beginning of the Cold War, our leaders led us astray. We need to think of the Cold War as an aberration, a wrong turn. As such, we need to go back to where we were in 1945 - before we took the road to a permanent war economy, a national security state and a foreign policy based on unilateralism and cowboy triumphalism. — Kai Bird

Good words - that triumphalism of positivity- but life will claw and eat you - chew you over and over - if you carry such a small knife ... — John Geddes