Espouse Quotes

“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.”

— Emma Goldman

“These fools who haven't the slightest idea how to live the morals they espouse. These fools who proclaim themselves men of God, yet show not the slightest reverance to His word ... Is it any different from a drunkard preaching temperance? A whore preaching modesty?”

— Seth Grahame-Smith

“As free persons, citizens recognize one another as having the moral power to have a conception of the good. This means that they do not view themselves as inevitably tied to the pursuit of the particular conception of the good and its final ends which they espouse at any given time.”

— John Rawls

“Americans, being a moral people, want their foreign policy to reflect the values we espouse as a nation. But Americans, being a practical people, also want their foreign policy to be effective.”

— George Shultz

“Everybody should espouse three or four harmless crank theories for the pure pleasure of having something harmless to be cranky about. And when a theory of this sort proves correct, it is a true moment for celebration.”

— Alexei Panshin

“Don't live life as a spectator. Always examine life: Espouse new ideas, long for
new things, constantly discovering new interests, escaping from boring
routines. Engage life with enthusiasm; grasping life aggressively and squeezing
from it every drop of excitement, satisfaction, and joy. The key to unleashing life's potential is attitude. The person who approaches
life with a child-like wonder is best prepared to defy the limitations of time, is
more "alive," more of a participant in life than the person who remains a
spectator.”

— Felix Baumgartner

“Hakeem: A wise man once said that suffering produces perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Andre: Since when did spouting masochism make one wise? And the sacraments of a bitter existence? Who deemed that a vaunted prize? Nihilistic philosophy only births more pain. It's fruitless to espouse folly, repackage it as wisdom, and spew it in a wise man's name.”

— Booker T. Mattison

“There is a reason why we admire certain people. They espouse something that strikes a chord within us. Be it their innate talent, drive, wisdom, or attitude, there is a reason we find certain individuals fascinating, and if we can harness that same spark that made them great, perhaps we can achieve greatness as well.”

— Ryan Blair

“I realize that violence is not more prevalent today than in previous periods of human history, but there is a difference. We have seen visionary standards adopted by the global community that espouse peace and human rights, and the globalization of information ensures that the violation of these principles of nonviolence by a powerful and admired democracy tends to resonate throughout the world community. We should have advanced much further in the realization of women's rights, given these international commitments to peace and the rule of law.”

— Jimmy Carter

“That is the secret of poetry. We burn in the woman we adore, we burn in the thought we espouse, we burn in the landscape that moves us”

— Milan Kundera

“I dislike guilt." the Morrigan said." it is regret and recrimination and despair over that which cannot be changed. It is like eating ashes for breakfast. It is the whip that clerics use on the laity, making the sheep slaves to whatever moral code the shepherds espouse. it is a catalyst for suicide and untold other acts of selfishness and stupidity. I cannot think of a more poisonous emotion!"
...
"Why do you bother to feel it?"
Atticus:
"Because an inability to feel guilt points to sociopathic tendencies.”

— Kevin Hearne

“I do not espouse the unitarian position. President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions.”

— Elena Kagan

“Hinduism as a faith might espouse tolerance, this does not necessarily mean that all Hindus behave tolerantly.”

— Shashi Tharoor

“We are, all of us, nothing but impostors to our cause, because the cause we espouse is nothing more than the blind we raise to hide our own ambitions.”

— Steven Erikson

“Each of us is an individual. Each of us is different. There must be respect for those differences ... We must work harder to build mutual respect, an attitude of forbearance, with tolerance one for another regardless of the doctrines and philosophies which we may espouse. Concerning these you and I may disagree. But we can do so with respect and civility.”

— Gordon B. Hinckley

“There's room in the Republican Party for anyone who wants to be a part of the values that we espouse when it comes to the role of government, free enterprise, free markets.”

— Michael Steele

“If you look at great human civilizations, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, you will see that most do not fail simply due to external threats but because of internal weakness, corruption, or a failure to manifest the values and ideals they espouse.”

— Cory Booker

“Try paying the bills with love. The idea I am trying to espouse is that you can have both love and money, and be rich and generous.”

— T. Harv Eker

“Political people give speeches and espouse positions declaring that America is the best and strongest nation in the world.”

— Mike Barnicle

“Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth, and contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in 'A Few Good Men', I CAN handle the truth.”

— Michael J. Fox

“Romney has adopted almost every position conservatives want their candidate to espouse: He's pro-life, he wants to repeal ObamaCare, he wants to cut taxes and cut the federal budget, and he wants an unapologetic foreign policy dedicated to the proposition that this too will be the American century.”

— John Podhoretz

“Nothing can be proposed so wild or so absurd as not to find a party, and often a very large party to espouse it.”

— Richard Cecil

“The individual comes face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind has not come to a realisation of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.”

— J. Edgar Hoover

“Eventually, I came to understand that a group of people who wield enormous power happen, oddly enough, to espouse some of the very same ideals imparted to me by people in Africa and central Asia who have no power at all. The reason for this, in my view, is that members of the armed forces have worked on the ground-in many cases, during three or four tours of duty-on a level that very few diplomats, academicians, journalists, or policy makers can match. And among other things, this experience has imbued soldiers with the gift of empathy.”

— Greg Mortenson

“We should ... be able to see that our interest would be best served not by asking the state to promulgate our values but by forbidding the state to promulgate any values at all. If the state can espouse some value that we love, it can, with equal justice, espouse others we do not love.”

— Richard Mitchell

“The Western societies which espouse free market capitalism survive by the pursuit of greed and, in their own way, like Communism, throw into leadership men and women (mostly men) who know how to gain, exert and manipulate power.”

— Davis McCaughey

“What we should be looking for is fresh ideas of how we make moral decisions about our dealings with one another, economic, social, cultural. Economic determinism is an objectionable creed where men and women espouse it in its communist or capitalist form because it treats human beings as economic units and not as responsible persons.”

— Davis McCaughey

“The question isn't whether or not to censor artists who espouse misogynistic views. The question is whether or not we support them as listeners and consumers.”

— Dessa Darling

“Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

“Being up on something is a way of dismissing it. To espouse any point of view is a danger - it might leave us stuck with last year's cause. Prized for their novelty alone, ideas, gimmicks, trends become equivalent, interchangeable.”

— Edmund White

“It is beyond belief that someone could come to the launch of a report on antisemitism in the Labour Party and espouse such vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people.”

— Ruth Smeeth

“Freedom of expression has a responsibility by those people who espouse it in the West, in particular non-Muslims.”

— Anjem Choudary

“The continuous disasters of man's history are mainly due to his excessive capacity and urge to become identified with a tribe, nation, church or cause, and to espouse its credo uncritically and enthusiastically, even if its tenets are contrary to reason, devoid of self-interest and detrimental to the claims of self-preservation.We are thus driven to the unfashionable conclusion that the trouble with our species is not an excess of aggression, but an excess capacity for fanatical devotion.”

— Arthur Koestler

“Hollywood loves to pat itself on the back and espouse their rhetorically liberal points of view while they continue to be the 1 percent and point the finger at the other guy.”

— Harry Lennix

“I have no respect for the right-to-life position. But when you legislate personal belief, you're in violation of freedom of religion. The Catholic Church may espouse its opinion on abortion to the members of its congregation. But they are in violation of separation of church and state when they try to proselytize their abortion politics on people who are not Catholics.”

— John Irving

“A lady, that is an enlightened, cultivated, liberal lady - the only kind to be in a time of increasing classlessness - could espouse any cause: wayward girls, social diseases, unmarried mothers, and/or birth control with impunity. But never by so much as the shadow of a look should she acknowledge her own experience with the Facts of Life.”

— Virgilia Peterson

“Only on the assumption of belief in the validity of values is the attempt to espouse value-judgments meaningful. However, to judge the validity of such values is a matter of faith .”

— Max Weber

“One must espouse some pursuit, taking it kindly at heart and with enthusiasm.”

— Amos Bronson Alcott

“There is one view of the subject which ought to have its influence on those who espouse doctrines which strike at the authoritative origin and efficacious operation of the Government of the United States. The Government of the U.S. like all Governments free in their principles, rests on compact; a compact, not between the Government & the parties who formed & live under it; but among the parties themselves, and the strongest of Governments are those in which the compacts were most fairly formed and most faithfully executed.”

— James Madison

“I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

“It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. If they did so, they couldn't be reelected.”

— Jimmy Carter

“Noble causes have a deplorable effect on the morals of the persons who espouse them.”

— Barbara Mertz

“Any kind of dictatorship, I'm uneasy. I just don't like dictators. I don't like crowds. I don't like hordes, and I don't like other people telling me what to do. This is probably a reaction against people telling me what to do when I was a kid. I won't join any group, espouse a cause against some other people.”

— Frank Capra

“Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service.”

— Joseph Addison

“Make Jesus Christ your theme! I have seen preachers espouse causes and champion movements, and when the cause died and the movement collapsed, the preacher vanished too. But the man who glories in Christ never grows stale.”

— Vance Havner

“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn't enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong. The spectacle is nearly always comic.”

— Lewis H. Lapham

“The laughter in response to my question unmasked the double standard our deconstructionists espouse. And that is precisely the double standard of atheism! It is possible to dress up and romanticize our bizarre experiments in social restructuring while disavowing truth or absolutes. But one dares not play such deadly games with the foundations of good thinking.”

— Ravi Zacharias

“Having killed God, the atheist is left with no reason for being, no morality to espouse, no meaning to life, and no hope beyond the grave.”

— Ravi Zacharias

“Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause ... True courage and manhood come from the consciousness of the right attitude toward the world, the faith in one's purpose, and the sufficiency of one's own approval as a justification for one's own acts.”

— Clarence Darrow

“There are only two distinct classes of people on this earth, those who espouse enthusiasm and those who despise it.”

— Madame De Stael