Barbara Castle - John Updike - Franklin D Roosevelt - Sam Harris - Robert Ingersoll - Hannah Arendt - Friedrich Nietzsche - Winston Churchill - Louisa May Alcott - Thomas Carlyle - Mark Twain - Daniel Webster - Curt Siodmak - Lyndon B Johnson - Lord Bancroft - Scott Fitzgerald - Horace - Leigh Hunt - Bertrand Russell - Blaise Pascal - W B Yeats - John Steinbeck - Jane Austen -
I will fight for what I believe in until I drop dead. And that’s what keeps you alive. Barbara Castle, Labour politician
Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art. John Updike
We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon. Franklin D Roosevelt
People who harbour strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power. The only thing we should respect in a person’s faith is his desire for a better life in this world; we need never have respected his certainty that one awaits him in the next. Sam Harris
It is a blessed thing that in every age someone has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions. Robert Ingersoll
The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instil convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any. Hannah Arendt
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies. Friedrich Nietzsche
Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. Winston Churchill, speech Harrow School 29th October 1941
He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions. Louisa May Alcott
Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into action. Thomas Carlyle
Whatever you say, say it with conviction. Mark Twain
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. Daniel Webster
A man of conviction is often more to be desired than a man of experience. Curt Siodmak
What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t, you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you. Lyndon B Johnson
Conviction politicians certainly, conviction civil servants no. Lord Bancroft, 1922-1996, British civil servant
At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1940, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, 1920
The just man having a firm grasp of his intentions, neither the heated passions of his fellow men ordaining something awful, nor a tyrant staring him in the face, will shake in his convictions. Horace, Odes
Never lay yourself open to what is called conviction: you might as well open your waist-coat to receive a knock-down blow. Leigh Hunt, cited The Examiner 6th March 1808
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays, 1928
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. Blaise Pascal
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. William Butler Yeats
It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming. John Steinbeck
To yield readily – easily – to the persuasion of a friend is no merit ... To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either. Jane Austen