Contending Quotes

• Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.

  George Washington

  Patriotic, Liberty, World

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson (1776). “The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799”, p.212

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Quincy Adams

  Religious, Business, 4th Of July

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  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

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• Great necessities call out great virtues.

  Abigail Adams

  Inspirational, Retirement, Women

  Letter to John Quincy Adams, 19 Jan. 1780

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• Just as the roots of trees take firmer hold when they are contending with the wind; so faith takes firmer hold when it struggles with adverse appearances.

  Robert Murray M'Cheyne

  Christian, Struggle, Wind

  Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1847). “Additional Remains of the Rev. Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Late Minister of St. Peter's Church, Dundee: Consisting of Various Sermons and Lectures Delivered by Him in the Course of His Ministry”, p.470

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• These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.

  Abigail Adams

  Character, Wish, Endurance

  Letter to John Quincy Adams, 19 Jan. 1780

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• If we are indeed contending for truth and righteousness, let us not tarry till we have talent, or wealth, or any other form of visible power at our disposal; but with such stones as we find in the brook, and with our own usual sling, let us run to meet the enemy.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Running, Wisdom, Enemy

  Charles Spurgeon (2015). “Daily Devotion - 365 Days With Jesus”, p.55, Editora Dracaena

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• We must wrestle earnestly in prayer, like men contending with a deadly enemy for life.

  J. C. Ryle

  Prayer, Men, Enemy

  J.C. Ryle (2015). “Bible commentary - The gospel of John”, p.100, Editora Dracaena

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• The American president increasingly used his influence to create conflicts, intensify existing conflicts, and, above all, to keep conflicts from being resolved peacefully. For years this man looked for a dispute anywhere in the world, but preferably in Europe, that he could use to create political entanglements with American economic obligations to one of the contending sides, which would then steadily involve America in the conflict and thus divert attention from his own confused domestic economic policies.

  Adolf Hitler

  Confused, Men, Years

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• I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honor and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour.

  Hannibal

  War, Yield, Honor

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• There are flood and drought over the eyes and in the mouth, dead water and dead sand contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil gapes at the vanity of toil, laughs without mirth. This is the death of the earth.

  T. S. Eliot

  Death, Eye, Hands

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• Salvation and justice are not to be found in revolution, but in evolution through concord. Violence has ever achieved only destruction, not construction; the kindling of passions, not their pacification; the accumulation of hate and destruction, not the reconciliation of the contending parties; and it has reduced men and parties to the difficult task of building slowly after sad experience on the ruins of discord.

  Pope Pius XII

  Hate, Party, Passion

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• Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull. The primitive audience was an audience of shock-heads, gaping around the camp-fire, fatigued with contending against the mammoth or wooly-rhinoceros, and only kept awake by suspense. What would happen next? The novelist droned on, and as soon as the audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him.

  E. M. Forster

  Men, Editors, Skulls

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• The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.

  John William Draper

  Faith, Science, Discovery

  John William Draper (1875). “History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science: By John William Draper ...”, p.6, New York, D. Appleton

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• By faith ponder on this, that though thou art no way able in or by thyself to get the conquest over thy distemper, though thou art even weary of contending, and art utterly ready to faint, yet that there is enough in Jesus Christ to yield thee relief.

  John Owen

  Jesus, Art, Yield

  John Owen (2001). “Temptation and Sin”, p.79, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• Pride is self contending with God for preeminence.

  Stephen Charnock

  Pride, Self

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• Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.

  Angela Davis

  Views, Addiction, Drug

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• To the extent that I come from a deeply religious tradition and have been contending with those beginnings all of my life - that constitutes the subject of much of my early fiction.

  Chaim Potok

  Religious, Fiction, Tradition

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• The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interest, where any chosen emphasis supports some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial, or national or sexual.

  Howard Zinn

  Justice, Political, Support

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.8, Routledge

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• Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification. That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride—to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification, contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive

  C. J. Mahaney

  Pride, Self, Proud Person

  C.J. Mahaney (2008). “Humility: True Greatness”, p.22, Multnomah

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• Power is the great evil with which we are contending. We have divided power between three branches of government and erected checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. However, where is the check on the power of the judiciary? If we fail to check the power of the judiciary, I predict that we will eventually live under judicial tyranny.

  Patrick Henry

  Government, Evil, Abuse

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• Is there a more pitiable spectacle than that of a wife contending with others for that charm in her husband's sight which no philters and no prayers can renew when once it has fled forever?
  Women are so unwise. Love is like a bird's song beautiful and eloquent when heard in forest freedom, harsh and worthless in repetition when sung from behind prison bars.
  You cannot secure love by vigilance, by environment, by captivity. What use is it to keep the person of a man beside you if his soul be truant from you?

  Ouida

  Beautiful, Song, Prayer

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• It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox,) virtually and substantially a monarchy.

  Alexander Fraser Tytler

  Men, Self, Perfect

  " Universal History: From the Creation of the World to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century, Vol. I" by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Petridge and Company, (p. 216), 1854.

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• While we remember that we are contending against brothers and fellow subjects, we must also remember that we are contending in this crisis for the fate of the British Empire.

  John Burgoyne

  Brother, Fate, History

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• While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the conscience of others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to Him only in this case are they answerable.

  George Washington

  Religious, Freedom, Heart

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.376

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