True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
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The pretensions of final truth are always partlyan effort to obscure a darkly felt consciousness of the limits of human knowledge.
Reinhold NiebuhrTrue glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
ciceroI have not come to seek place, nor to interfere with the business and calling of those men who have borne the burden since the death of Joseph. I throw myself at your feet, and wish to be one of your number, and be a mere member of the Church, and my mere asking to be baptized is an end to all pretensions to authority.
oliver cowderyI HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.
francis galtonTo a superior race of beings the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem equally ridiculous.
william hazlittShe looks so haughty that I should have thought her a princess at the very least, with a pedigree reaching as far back as the Deluge. But this lady was no better born than many other ladies who give themselves airs; and all sensible people laughed at her absurd pretensions.
william makepeace thackerayTrue glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
ciceroStripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.
freda adlerI give you a replica of liberator Simon Bolivar's sword. For you who, like Bolivar, took up arms to liberate your people. For you who, like Bolivar, are and will always be a true freedom fighter. [Mugabe] continues, alongside his people, to confront the pretensions of new imperialists.
hugo chávezFighting battles is like courting girls: those who make the most pretensions and are boldest usually win.
rutherford b. hayesTrue glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.
It is of no consequence what the principles of any party, or what their pretensions, are; the spirit which actuates all parties is the same; the spirit of ambition, of self-interest, of oppression, and treachery. This spirit entirely reverses all the principles which a benevolent nature has erected within us; all honesty, all equal justice, and even the ties of natural society, the natural affections.
I am sure that the immediate abolition of the slave trade is the first, the principal, the most indispensable act of policy, of dutyand of justice the legislature of this country has to take, if it is indeed their wish to secure those important objects? For we continue to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves, we continue it even yet, in spite of all our great and undeniable pretensions as civilisation.
Contemporary philosophers have exercised themselves with the problem of our knowledge of other minds. Enmeshed in the dogma of the ghost in the machine, they have found it impossible to discover any logically satisfactory evidence warranting one person in believing that there exist minds other than his own. I can witness what your body does, but I cannot witness what your mind does, and my pretensions to infer from what your body does to what your mind does all collapse, since the premises for such inferences are either inadequate or unknowable.
Gilbert RyleHypocrisy, double standards, and "but nots" are the price of universalist pretensions. Democracy is promoted, but not if it brings Islamic fundamentalists to power; nonproliferation is preached for Iran and Iraq, but not for Israel; free trade is the elixir of economic growth, but not for agriculture; human rights are an issue for China, but not with Saudi Arabia; aggression against oil-owning Kuwaitis is massively repulsed, but not against non-oil-owning Bosnians. Double standards in practice are the unavoidable price of universal standards of principle.
We dislike the IRA, most of us, and fear it.We are a peaceful and democratic people.But our history, our idealistic pretensions and our fatal ambivalence have stuck us with an ideology that is warlike and anti- democratic, and calls increasingly for further human sacrifice.
joyce carol oates