Francis Lieber Quotes

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.

More truly characteristic of dissent is a dignity, an elevation, of mood and thought and phrase. Deep conviction and warm feeling are saying their last say with knowledge that the cause is lost. The voice of the majority may be that of force triumphant, content with the plaudits of the hour, and recking little of the morrow. The dissenter speaks to the future, and his voice is pitched to a key that will carry through the years.

Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob. It is through the voice of one crying in the wilderness that the ways of the gods must be prepared.

He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousand people and tell them that twice two is four.

The problem is, if you really want the Truth, then you have to have God along with it.

Everyone can make a real difference. Your voice is needed in a global movement that can change their world.

We judge all things according to the divine truth.

Sometimes tradition and habit are just that, comfortable excuses to leave things be, even when they are unjust and unworthy. Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--the cranks and radicals turn out to be right. Sometimes Everyone is wrong.

Such debates [about the nature of Scripture], in my view, distract attention from the real point of what the Bible is there for. Squabbling over particular definitions of the qualities of the Bible is like a married couple squabbling over which of them loves the children more, when they should be getting on with bringing them up and setting them a good example. The Bible is there to enable God's people to be equipped to do God's work in God's world, not to give them an excuse to sit back smugly, knowing they possess all God's truth.

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

It means an educational system which does not simply equip the students to adjust to society, but which enables the student to challenge and to modify, and at times reject, if necessary, the received wisdom of his elders.

One honest voice is louder than a crowd.

Men and people will fight you down when you see the light. Let me tell you if you are not wrong than everything is all right.

It takes courage to recognize the real as opposed to the convenient.

It were not best that we should all think alike.

Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it. A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial influences which are at its disposal. The unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer's receptiveness of new truth.

Lives of great men all remind us, Greatness takes no easy way, All the heroes of tomorrow, Are the heretics of today. Socrates and Galileo, John Brown, Thoreau, Christ, and Debs, Heard the night cry "Down with traitors!" And the dawn shout "Up the rebs!"

I figured something out," he said aloud. "The future is unpredictable." Hassan said, "Sometimes the kafir likes to say massively obvious things in a really profound voice.

O truth divine! enlightened by thy ray, I grope and guess no more, but see my way.

There are good men everywhere. I only wish they had louder voices.

It would be positively boring if minds were in tune.

Having a Christian worldview means being utterly convinced that biblical principles are not only true but also work better in the grit and grime of the real world.

The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life.

Voices of the glorified urge us onward. They who have passed from the semblances of time to the realities of eternity call upon us to advance. The rest that awaits us invites us forward. We do not pine for our rest before God wills it. We long for no inglorious rest. We are thankful rather for the invaluable training of difficulty, the loving discipline of danger and strife. Yet in the midst of it all the prospect of rest invites us heavenward. Through all, and above all, God cries, "Go forward!" "Come up higher!