Foundational Beliefs Quotes

An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else.

All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year. Those who forget WHY they were founded show up to the race every day to outdo someone else instead of to outdo themselves. The pursuit, for those who lose sight of WHY they are running the race, is for the medal or to beat someone else.

Principles are like seeds; they are little things which do much good, if the mind that receives them has the right attitudes.

No nation is better than its sacred book. In that book are expressed its highest ideals of life, and no nation rises above those ideals. No nation has a sacred book to be compared with ours. This American nation from its first settlement at Jamestown to the present hour is based upon and permeated by the principles of the Bible. The more this Bible enters into our national life the grander and purer and better will that life become.

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

We must consider both the ultimate end and all clear sensory evidence, to which we refer our opinions; for otherwise everything will be full of uncertainty and confusion.

I don't believe in philosophies. I believe in fundamentals.

A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decision we make.

our rights come from our Creator and it is impossible to define America if you do not talk in public about where your rights come from.

A philosophy can and must be worked out with the greatest rigour and discipline in the details, but can ultimately be founded on nothing but faith: and this is the reason, I suspect, why the novelties in philosophy are only in elaboration, and never in fundamentals.

We don't really know what we believe in or care about until what we believe in or care about is threatened, challenged, or measured.

To admit one's own presuppositions and to point out the presuppositions of others is therefore to maintain that all reasoning is, in the nature of the case, circular reasoning. The starting-point, the method, and the conclusion are always involved in one another.

...skepticism can never provide firm ground under a man's feet. And perhaps, after all, we need firm ground.

I did not imitate the skeptics who doubt only for doubting's sake, and pretend to be always undecided; on the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty, and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock or the clay beneath.

Let's all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.

I shall not convert you at the end of my argument. I think the argument is sound. I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else.

All organizations start with WHY, but only the great ones keep their WHY clear year after year.

Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. This charge is preposterous and we ought to boldly say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle's Politics are out of date.

Everybody's got a worldview. Everybody's betting their life on something. ... You just better know why you're betting what you're betting on.

The things a man believes most profoundly are rarely on the surface of his mind or tongue. Newly acquired notions, decisions based on expediency, the fashionable ideas of the moment are right on top of the pile, ready to be displayed in bright after dinner conversation. But the ideas that make up a man's philosophy of life are somewhere way down below.

My values stemmed from the family. Anything I have achieved in life has been rooted in my upbringing.

There's something in the Western mind that gets very nervous when you try to talk about the bedrock of ontology.

All knowledge, we feel, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs; and if these are rejected, nothing is left.

Values are the shields that you carry throughout life and it protects you from whatever life throws at you.

Every dogma has its day, but ideals are eternal.