Testimony Quotes - page 3
The existence of the medieval temple had long been firmly established. There was testimony upon testimony of Hindus bewailing and Muslims boasting of the replacement of the temple with a mosque; and of Hindus under Muslim rule coming as close as possible to the site in order to celebrate Rama's birthday every year in April, in continuation of the practice at the time when the temple stood. None of the written sources, whether Hindu, Muslim or European, contradicted the pre-existence of a Rama temple at the site.
Koenraad Elst
The unanimous and entirely coherent testimony that the wars in Hindustan were religious wars of Muslims against Kafirs is a different matter altogether: denying this testimony is not a matter of small adjustments, but of replacing the well-attested historical facts with their diametrical opposite.
Koenraad Elst
Many similarities of basic design among animal phyla, once so confidently attributed to convergence, and viewed as testimony to the power of natural selection to craft exquisite adaptation, demand the opposite interpretation that Mayr labeled as inconceivable: the similar features are homologies, or products of the same genes, inherited from a common ancestor and never altered enough by subsequent evolution to erase their comparable structure and function. The similarities record the constraining power of conserved history, not the architectural skills of natural selection independently pursuing an optimal design in separate lineages. Vertebrates are, in a certain sense, true brothers (or homologs) - not mere analogs - of worms and insects.
Stephen Jay Gould
Christopher Wren, the leading architect of London's reconstruction after the great fire of 1666, lies buried beneath the floor of his most famous building, St. Paul's cathedral. No elaborate sarcophagus adorns the site. Instead, we find only the famous epitaph written by his son and now inscribed into the floor: "si monumentum requiris, circumspice”-if you are searching for his monument, look around. A tad grandiose, perhaps, but I have never read a finer testimony to the central importance-one might even say sacredness - of actual places, rather than replicas, symbols, or other forms of vicarious resemblance.
Stephen Jay Gould
Your Honor, I think I can shorten this testimony. The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur at the Bible, but I will answer his question. I will answer it all at once, and I have no objection in the world. I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in a God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee to slur at it, and while it will require time, I am willing to take it.
William Jennings Bryan
So much of the uncanny-or the holy, for that matter-is inward experience. As such, testimony about it tends to be tainted. People lie. People delude themselves, or others. People are swayed or frightened or convinced they have seen things they have not. People are, frankly, sometimes simply mad.
Lois McMaster Bujold
The kingdom of God is now in process of rapid formation, as all those with forward-seeing vision and a realisation of the rapidly emerging beauty and divinity of man can bear testimony. We are passing through the transition period between the old age and the new, and the true mission of Christ, so deeply and frequently obscured by theological implications and disputations, embodies in itself the coming revelation. The development of humanity guarantees the recognition of Christ and His work and its participation, consciously, in the kingdom of God.
Alice Bailey
We have come to the holiest place in Ireland; holier to us even than the place where Patrick sleeps in Down. Patrick brought us life, but this man died for us. And though many before him and some since have died in testimony of the truth of Ireland's claim to nationhood, Wolfe Tone was the greatest of all that have made that testimony, the greatest of all that have died for Ireland whether in old times or in new. He was the greatest of Irish Nationalists; I believe he was the greatest of Irish men. And if I am right in this I am right in saying that we stand in the holiest place in Ireland, for it must be that the holiest sod of a nation's soil is the sod where the greatest of her dead lies buried.
Patrick Pearse
I am a lawyer. I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities, not only of every citizen, but particularly of lawyers, is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly, and it will be a very unhappy day for Anglo-Saxon justice when a man, even a man in public life, is too timid to state what he knows and what he has heard about a defendant in a criminal trial for fear that defendant might be convicted. That would to me be the ultimate timidity.
Adlai Stevenson II
Scientific investigation is rapidly putting at our disposal vast amounts of knowledge concerning materials and forces, which it is the business of the engineer to utilize for the benefit of the community. Well-designed plants and efficiency labor-saving devices, to be seen on every hand, bear testimony that he is doing at least a portion of his work well. When, however, it comes to the operation of these plants and the utilization of these labor-saving devices, the lack of co-operation between employer and employee, and the inefficient utilization of labor, very much impair their efficiency. The increase of this efficiency is essentially the problem of the manager, and the amount to which it can be increased by proper study is, in most cases, so great as to be almost incredible.
Henry Gantt
What has set the mass in motion for any length of time is then called great. It is given the name of a historical power. When, for example, the vulgar mob has appropriated or adapted to its needs some religious idea, has defended it stubbornly and dragged it along for centuries, then the originator of that idea is called great. There is the testimony of thousands of years for it, we are told. But this is Nietzsche's and Kierkegaard's idea the noblest and highest does not affect the masses at all, either at the moment or later. Therefore the historical success of a religion, its toughness and persistence, witness against its founder's greatness rather than for it.
Georg Brandes
We have no reason to fear lest a habit of conscientious inquiry should paralyse the actions of our daily life.
But because it is not enough to say, "It is wrong to believe on unworthy evidence," without saying also what evidence is worthy, we shall now go on to inquire under what circumstances it is lawful to believe on the testimony of others; and then, further, we shall inquire more generally when and why we may believe that which goes beyond our own experience, or even beyond the experience of mankind.
William Kingdon Clifford
Yes, beloved lords, Can you thus convert yourselves with all your hearts? Can you change your hearts and humble yourselves before God? Deny yourselves, seek and follow Christ and his righteousness? Renounce the world and flesh with all its lusts, as you have heard? Then you will become, true, spiritual kings, and priests; then you will possess your souls in peace, gain the victory and conquest over all the deadly enemies of your souls; you will live and die in grave; then you may in truth, without any hypocrisy, be called Christian kings and believing princes. The testimony of Peter to all Christians, I say to all Christians, is true, "Ye are a chosen generation, a holy nation, a peculiar people," 1 Pet. 2: 9.
Menno Simons
I am aware that this last statement may be disputed and individual testimony perhaps adduced to show that in ante-bellum days the ballot was as untrammelled in the south as in any section of the country; but in the face of any such contradiction I reassert the statement. The shot-gun was not resorted to. Masked men did not ride over the country at night intimidating voters; but there was a firm feeling that a class existed in every State with a sort of divine right to control public affairs. If they could not get this control by one means they must by another. The end justified the means. The coercion, if mild, was complete.
Ulysses S. Grant
It has come to be a legend, and I believe with more foundation of fact than most legends, that Howard University was the outgrowth of the inspiration of a prayer meeting. I hope it is true, and I shall choose to believe it, for it makes of this scene and this occasion a new testimony that prayers are answered. Here has been established a great university, a sort of educational laboratory for the production of intellectual and spiritual leadership among a people whose history, if you will examine it as it deserves, is one of the striking evidences of a soundness of our civilization.
Calvin Coolidge
