An irresistible passion that would induce me to believe in innate ideas and the truth of prophecy has decided my career. I have always loved liberty with the enthusiasm which actuates the religious man with the passion of a lover and with the conviction of a geometrician.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favor of the belief which he finds in himself.

In the age-old contest between popularity and principle, only those willing to lose for their convictions are deserving of posterity’s approval.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money but him who does it for love of it.

To play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable.

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out.

Pleasure without joy is as hollow as passion without tenderness.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Why has government been instituted? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason & justice without constraint.

Every civilization is, among other things, an arrangement for domesticating the passions and setting them to do useful work.