Sincerity Quotes - Page 24

• Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly towards an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them,--that it was a vain endeavor?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Trying, Heroism

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.357, Penguin

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• The sincerity of feeling that is possible between a writer and a reader is one of the finest things I know.

  Willa Cather

  Feelings, Finest, Reader

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• One of my pet theories is that readers have built-in BS detectors that enable them to recognize insincerity in writers. David [Halberstam] was sincerity to the core. He believed in what he wrote, and that conviction conveyed itself to readers.

  Jonathan Yardley

  Pet, Conviction, Theory

  "David Halberstam". The Washington Post Live Q&As, www.washingtonpost.com. April 24, 2007.

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• Consider, I pray, whether you are not renouncing all shame and sincerity to advance such principles. Because a comet appears in a group of stars which the ancients thought fit to call the Virgin, therefore, shall our women be barren, or have frequent miscarriages, or die old maids. I know of nothing which hangs so ill together! To offer such things in seriousness, shows the greatest contempt of mankind, and the most scandalous lying impunity.

  Pierre Bayle

  Stars, Lying, Miscarriage

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• When I became thoroughly acquainted with the Greek and Roman authors, I thought it incumbent upon me to do something towards the honor of the place of my nativity, and to vindicate the rhetoric of this ancient forum of our Metropolis from the aspersions of the illiterate by composing A Treatise of the Alercation of the Ancients; wherein I have demonstrated that the purity, sincerity, and simplicity of their diction is nowhere so well preserved as amongst my neighbourhood.

  John Arbuthnot

  Simplicity, Greek, Honor

  George Atherton Aitken, John Arbuthnot (1892). “The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, M.D.: Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians”

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• When a man talks with absolute sincerity and freedom he goes on a voyage of discovery. The whole company has shares in the enterprise.

  John Jay Chapman

  Men, Discovery, Goes On

  John Jay Chapman (1899). “Causes and Consequences”

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• Crystal sincerity hath found no shelter but in a fool's cap.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Shelter, Fool, Crystals

  1864 'Floris in Italy'. Collected in H House and G Storey (eds) The Journals and Papers of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1959), p.42.

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• What you learn from bad habits and in bad society, you will never forget, and it will be a lasting pang to you. I tell you in all sincerity, not as in the excitement of speech, but as I would confess and have confessed before God, I would give my right hand if I could forget that which I have learned in bad society.

  John Bartholomew Gough

  Hands, Giving, Speech

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert (p. 217), 1895.

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• When an artist begins to count strokes instead of regarding nature he is lost. This preoccupation with technique, at the expense of truth and sincerity, is the principal fault I find in much of the work of modern painters.

  Joaquin Sorolla

  Artist, Technique, Faults

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• On this hapless earth There 's small sincerity of mirth, And laughter oft is but an art To drown the outcry of the heart.

  Hartley Coleridge

  Art, Laughter, Mirth

  Hartley Coleridge, Derwent Coleridge (1851). “Poems”, p.124

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• There is such a thing as righteous judgment, but it seems that lately the word 'judgment' has become a curse word, period. The issue isn't whether or not we're insightful enough to avoid being judgmental, but whether or not we're secure enough to accept being judged. It is inevitable for every conscious human being to judge. It may spring from insight and experience and sincerity, and in such cases, it is quite beneficial on the receiving end.

  Criss Jami

  Spring, Issues, Judging

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.63, Criss Jami

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• All the martyrs in the history of the world are not sufficient to establish the correctness of an opinion. Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, - never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Truth, Errors, Religion

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.774, Library of Alexandria

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• You seem to be going in for sincerity today. It isn't becoming to you, really — except as an obvious pose. Be as artificial as you are, I advise. There's a sort of sincerity in that, you know. And, after all, you must confess you like that better.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Today, Becoming, Obvious

  Eugene O'Neill (2014). “The Hairy Ape”, p.20, The Floating Press

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• Sincerity is the prime requisite in every approach to the God who ... hates all hypocrisy, falsehood, and deceit.

  Geoffrey B. Wilson

  Prayer, Hate, Hypocrisy

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• Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks and the cursing are palpable, and this appeals to those who rank "sincerity" very high. Nabokov is more like a master swordsmith making a fine blade; nothing is amiss, nothing is too much, there is no fuss, and the finished product must be handled with great care, or it will cut you badly.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, Cutting, Care

  Review of Nabokov's Lolita, 1958.

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• With all his sincerity and devotion, the authentic, absolute atheist is after all only an abortive saint, and at the same time, a mistaken revolutionist.

  Jacques Maritain

  Atheist, Saint, Devotion

  Jacques Maritain (1966). “A Maritain Reader: Selected Writings”

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• Inspire people very selectively with sincerity and with respect. You want to increase your energy? Then want, inside your heart, to inspire others. It will lift you tremendously.

  Frederick Lenz

  Heart, People, Inspire

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• Heartbreak is our indication of sincerity: in a love relationship, in a work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in the attempt to shape a better more generous self. Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and is just as much an essence and emblem of care as the spiritual athlete's quick but abstract ability to let go... But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.

  David Whyte

  Letting Go, Spiritual, Athlete

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• 'Alms in secret extinguish the wrath of the Lord' means you are so immersed in sincerity and in preserving that sincerity that you have no pleasure in giving alms.

  Shams Tabrizi

  Mean, Wrath, Giving

  "Me and Rumi: The Autobiography of Shams-I Tabrizi". Book by Shams Tabrizi, translated by William C. Chittick, 2004.

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• It isn't necessary to be socialists in order to love Pertini. Whatever he says or does, smells of cleanliness, of loyalty and of sincerity.

  Indro Montanelli

  Loyalty, Order, Smell

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• Through love and sincerity continuously beautify your inner life in every way, by daily looking into the mirror of introspection.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Mirrors, Way, Introspection

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• I want them (the North Korean delegation) to understand that it would be difficult to see progress of the normalization talks unless we see their sincerity over the abduction, nuclear and missile issues.

  Koichi Haraguchi

  Issues, Progress, Would Be

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• If the North Korean side shows no sincerity in solving the nuclear weapon, abduction and missile issues, then the likelihood of normalization of diplomatic relations is very slim.

  Koichi Haraguchi

  Issues, Nuclear, Diplomatic Relations

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• I still feel that sincerity and realism are avant-garde, or can be, just as I did when I started out.

  Edmund White

  Avant Garde, Realism, Feels

  "A Conversation with Edmond White By Edmond White". The Review of Contemporary Fiction Interview, www.dalkeyarchive.com. Fall 1996.

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• I say, of the Congress, then, this - that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the methods it has chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; - in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Men, Leader, Spirit

  "New Lamps for Old". Nine articles by Sri Aurobindo in the "Indu Prakash" (a Bombay daily newspaper), August 28, 1893.

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