Firm Quotes - page 25
Two people sat talking in a small room for several weeks, and things started happening. They began thinking about each other; one would dream about the other; they copied each other's mannerisms. What was it really all about? She liked to think she had a firm hold on the reins at all times, but the truth was that often she was just along for the ride.
Lisa Alther
Therefore, no one should misunderstand Me. By Avatarically Revealing and Confessing My Divine Status to one and all and All, I am not indulging in self-appointment, or in illusions of grandiose Divinity. I am not claiming the "Status" of the "Creator-God" of exoteric (or public, and social, and idealistically pious) religion. Rather, by Standing Firm in the Divine Position (As I Am)-and (Thus and Thereby) Refusing to be approached as a mere man, or as a "cult"-figure, or as a "cult"-leader, or to be in any sense defined (and, thereby, trapped, and abused, or mocked) as the "man in the middle"-I Am Demonstrating the Most Perfect Fulfillment (and the Most Perfect Integrity, and the Most Perfect Fullness) of the Esoteric (and Most Perfectly Non-Dual) Realization of Reality.
Adi Da
Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
Patrick Henry
I think that it is a fallacy to suppose that helpful cooperation in the future will be assured by the attempted compulsion of an inflexible rule. Rather will such cooperation depend upon the fostering of firm friendships springing from an appreciation of community ideals, interests, and purposes, and such friendships are more likely to be promoted by freedom of conference than by the effort to create hard and fast engagements.
Charles Evans Hughes
Do not quibble or quarrel over trivialities but stand firm as the rock of Gibraltar on matters of principle. That is, do not argue vociferously over a referee's decision or a difference in the size of dessert but stand solid and unflinching when it is a question of absolute honesty, truthfulness, kindliness, compassion, (or) thoughtfulness.
Nile Kinnick
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea 'cruising' it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
Sterling Hayden
Do not be cross with the child; you cannot afford it. If you are cultivating a plant, developing it into something finer and nobler, you must love it, not hate it; be gentle with it, not abusive; be firm, never harsh. I give the plants upon which I am at work in a test, whether a single one or a hundred thousand, the best possible environment. So should it be with a child, if you want to develop it in right ways. Let the children have music, let them have pictures, let them have laughter, let them have a good time; not an idle time but one full of cheerful occupation. Surround them with all the beautiful things you can. Plants should be given sun and air and the blue sky; give them to your boys and girls. ...for all the years. We cannot treat a plant tenderly one day and harshly the next; they cannot stand it. Remember that you are training not only for to-day, but for all the future, for all posterity.
Luther Burbank
We do not desire that the unanimity of a jury should be the result of anything but the unanimity of conviction. It is true that a single juryman, or two or three constituting a small minority, may, if their own convictions are not strong and deeply rooted, think themselves justified in giving way to the majority. If is very true, if jurymen have only doubts or weak convictions, they may yield to the stronger and more determined view of their fellows; but I hold it to be of the essence of a juryman's duty, if he has a firm and deeply rooted conviction, either in the affirmative or the negative of the issue he has to try, not to give up that conviction, although the majority may be against him, from any desire to purchase his freedom from confinement or constraint, or the various other inconveniences to which jurors are subject.
Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet
It was too late to take risks now. I asked Tenzing to belay me strongly, and I started cutting a cautious line of steps up the ridge. Peering from side to side and thrusting with my ice axe, I tried to discover a possible cornice, but everything seemed solid and firm. I waved Tenzing up to me. A few more whacks of the ice–ax, a few very weary steps, and we were on the summit of Everest.
Edmund Hillary
My own feeling in the matter is due to my very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins, or to use it in any kindred manner, not only does not good but does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence which comes dangerously close to sacrilege. A beautiful and solemn sentence such as the one in question should be treated and uttered only with that fine reverence which necessarily implies a certain exaltation of spirit.
Theodore Roosevelt
Justice august and pure, the abstract idea of all that would be perfect in the spirits and the inspirations of men where the mind rises where the heart expands where the countenance is ever placid and benign where her favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate to hear their cry and to help them to rescue and relieve to succor and save majestic, from its mercy venerable, from its Lutility uplifted, without pride firm without obduracy beneficent in each preference lovely, though in her frown.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference ... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm.
Jane Austen
The heart of God through his creation stirs, We thrill to feel it, trembling as the flowers That die to live again, his messengers, To keep faith firm in these sad souls of ours. The waves of Time may devastate our lives, The frosts of age may check our failing breath, They shall not touch the spirit that survives Triumphant over doubt and pain and death.
Celia Thaxter
