Decisive Quotes

Temptation requires definite, decisive action. ~ Billy Graham

Faith is not an art. Faith is not an achievement. Faith is not a good work of which some may boast while others can excuse themselves with a shrug of the shoulders for not being capable of it. It is a decisive insight of faith itself that all of us are incapable of faith in ourselves, whether we think of its preparation, beginning, continuation, or completion. In this respect believers understand unbelievers, skeptics, and atheists better than they understand themselves. Unlike unbelievers, they regard the impossibility of faith as necessary, not accidental ... ~ Karl Barth

It [the Euro] is a decisive step towards ever closer political and institutional union in Europe. Above all, it is political. ~ Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

Creativity would not exist as successfully or efficiently without its social world. The social is not the by-product - it is the decisive mechanism by which cultural products and cultural producers are generated, evaluated and sent to the market. ~ Elizabeth Currid

The world, whatever we might think about it terrified by its vastness and by our helplessness in the face of it, embittered by its indifference to individual suffering - of people, animals, and perhaps also plants, for how can we be sure that plants are free of suffering; whatever we might think about its spaces pierced by the radiation of stars, stars around which we now have begun to discover planets, already dead? still dead? - we don't know; whatever we might think about this immense theater, to which we may have a ticket, but it is valid for a ridiculously brief time, limited by two decisive dates; whatever else we might think about this world - it is amazing. ~ Wislawa Szymborska

The decisive means for politics is violence. ~ Max Weber

World War II was a decisive time in our history and June 6, 1944, marked the decisive moment of the war. ~ Lane Evans

We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice. ~ Pope Paul VI

President Roosevelt and President Truman and President Eisenhower had the same experience, they all made the effort to get along with the Russians. But every time, finally it failed. And the reason it failed was because the Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States. ~ John F. Kennedy

Sometimes shows became almost obsessively obscure, as with the gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa) shows of nineteenth-century Britain, when workingmen in the industrial counties of northern England and the Midlands formed themselves into societies, constituted with presidents, secretaries, and stewards, for the purpose of running gooseberry shows - weight being the decisive factor. Quite why this fruit, always something of a minority taste, should become the subject of what only could be described as a cult remains a mystery. ~ Noel Kingsbury

No one holds a permanent speed advantage in the market due to the limits of human intelligence and vision. Your advantage comes from your ability to feel the change faster and take decisive action faster. ~ Guo Guangchang

I think that's the strength of photography - to decide the decisive moment, to click in the moment to come up with a picture that never comes back again. ~ Rene Burri

Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefore, everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interest of everyone hangs on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

It considers this Jesus as ultimately decisive, definitive, archetypal for man in these various dimensions of his. ~ Hans Kung

There is no doubt ISIS poses a clear, direct threat to the United States, and decisive action is badly needed. ~ Bradley Byrne

A skilful (commander) strikes a decisive blow, and stops. ~ Lao-Tzu

It was from him, and from this picture in particular, that Henri Cartier-Bresson had developed the ideal of the decisive moment. Photography seemed to me, as I stood there in the white gallery with its rows of pictures and its press of murmuring spectators, an uncanny art like no other. One moment, in all of history, was captured, but the moments before and after it disappeared into the onrush of time; only that selected moment itself was privileged, saved, for no other reason than its having been picked out by the camera's eye. ~ Teju Cole

The ability to be cool, confident, and decisive in crisis is not an inherited characteristic but is the direct result of how well the individual has prepared himself for the battle. ~ Richard M. Nixon

Religion is like wax. How anyone deals with it is decisive for how it will look like. ~ Ben Midland

An effort was made to spread this new materialist atheism with its Communist consequence "by the sword" (as the metaphor goes), that is, by the invasion of neighboring countries with consequent further massacres and the extension of the area of despotic Soviet control ... This armed attempt at expansion was checked by Catholic Poland, the most immediately exposed victim, in what has been called "one of the decisive battles of the world. ~ Hilaire Belloc

There's a big difference between a decisive manager and a tyrant. ~ Mary Kay Ash

I was brought up,' Freddy informed him, 'not to suffer anxiety about decisive initiative of all types. ~ Mark Helprin

Getting hold of the difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because if it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive as, for example, that from the alchemical to the chemical way of thinking. The new way of thinking is what is so hard to establish. Once the new way of thinking has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old garment. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

Become a worry-slapper. Treat frets like mosquitoes. Do you procrastinate when a bloodsucking bug lights on your skin? 'I'll take care of it in a moment.' Of course you don't! You give the critter the slap it deserves. Be equally decisive with anxiety. ~ Max Lucado

Anybody can be decisive during a panic; it takes a strong man to act during a boom. ~ V.S. Naipaul

This invisible and divine goodness, of which I only speak here because of its being one of the surest and nearest signs of the unceasing activity of our soul, this invisible and divine goodness ennobles, in decisive fashion, all that it has unconsciously touched. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

The most important fact of this century is not that Earth is threatened in many ways, It is that for the first time in all of its history a decisive means of protecting the home planet exists. It is by using space. ~ William E. Burrows

We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The "men-of-words"- priests, prophets, intellectuals- have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen. ~ Eric Hoffer

Clint Eastwood. Here's a guy who's been involved in so many movies, lots of them masterpieces, and now he's a director. I just like everything I know about him. He's very decisive, he makes up his mind real quick. ~ Bobby Farrelly

These principles with due regard to time and place, must, in accordance with Christian prudence, be applied to all schools, particularly in the most delicate and decisive period of formation, that, namely, of adolescence; and in gymnastic exercises and deportment special care must be had of Christian modesty in young women and girls which is so gravely impaired by any kind of exhibition in public. ~ Pope Pius XI

Atheism, I began to realize, rested on a less-than-satisfactory evidential basis. The arguments that had once seemed bold, decisive, and conclusive increasingly turned out to be circular, tentative, and uncertain. ~ Alister E. McGrath

Freedom is not having any standard outside one's own consciousness, but bearing all responsibility oneself. Freedom means that one can never again receive help. Joseph Conrad says this in Typhoon: The loneliness of command is that there is no help from anyone in heaven and earth. I've experienced that, in one single, decisive moment: no one could help me, I had to do everything myself, without aid or advice from anyone. It was an enormous loneliness, a moment of total loneliness between the stars and the earth. ~ Jens Bjorneboe

Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

The only woman to whom it has been given to touch what is decisive in the present world and to have a presentiment of the world of the future. ~ Margaret Fuller

The decisive butt-kicking he was about to give the Dalmeyer hose would constitute the end of FIRPO in the world, and all, including Ma, would have to bow down before him, saying, Wow wow wow, do we ever stand corrected in terms of you, how could someone FIRPO hatch and execute such a daring manly plan? The crowd was on its feet ~ George Saunders

I am courageous at the decisive moment. But I need a good deal of start-up time, and I try to take as much as possible into consideration beforehand. ~ Angela Merkel

As I think about anyone or anything
whether history or literature or my father or political organizations or a poem or a film
as I seek to evaluate the potentiality, the life-supportive commitment and possibilities of anyone or any thing, the decisive question is always where is the love? ~ June Jordan

Modern physics has changed nothing in the great classical disciplines of, for instance, mechanics, optics, and heat. Only the conception of hitherto unexplored regions, formed prematurely from a knowledge of only certain parts of the world, has undergone a decisive transformation. This conception, however, is always decisive for the future course of research. ~ Werner Heisenberg

Strength of character and inner fortitude, however, are decisive factors. The confidence of the man in the ranks rests upon a man's strength of character. ~ Erich Von Manstein

All the decisive blows are struck left-handed. ~ Walter Benjamin

I'm one that believes that Samuel Alito appointment on the Supreme Court is a pivotal appointment. And because he replace Sandra Day O'Connor and because she was the fifth vote on 148 cases, you well could be a very key and decisive vote. ~ Dianne Feinstein

our objective as moms and dads is to transform our sons from "immature and flighty youngsters into honest, caring men who will be respectful of women, loyal and faithful in marriage, keepers of commitments, strong and decisive leaders, good workers, and men who are secure in their masculinity. ~ James C. Dobson

We know what it is to get out of bed on a freezing morning in a room without a fire, and how the very vital principle within us protests against the ordeal. Probably most persons have lain on certain mornings for an hour at a time unable to brace themselves to the resolve. We think how late we shall be, how the duties of the day will suffer; we say, "I must get up, this is ignominious," etc.; but still the warm couch feels too delicious, the cold outside too cruel, and resolution faints away and postpones itself again and again just as it seemed on the verge of bursting the resistance and passing over into the decisive act. Now how do we ever get up under such circumstances? If I may generalize from my own experience, we more often than not get up without any struggle or decision at all. We suddenly find that we have got up. A fortunate lapse of consciousness occurs; we forget both the warmth and the cold; we fall into some revery connected with the day's life, in the course of which the idea flashes across us, "Hollo! I must lie here no longer" – an idea which at that lucky instant awakens no contradictory or paralyzing suggestions, and consequently produces immediately its appropriate motor effects. It was our acute consciousness of both the warmth and the cold during the period of struggle, which paralyzed our activity then and kept our idea of rising in the condition of wish and not of will. The moment these inhibitory ideas ceased, the original idea exerted its effects. ~ William James

During the past quarter of a century, most developing countries have liberalized trade to a huge degree. They were first pushed by the IMF and the World Bank in the aftermath of the Third World debt crisis of 1982. There was a further decisive impetus towards trade liberalization following the launch of the WTO in 1995. During the last decade or so, bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) have also proliferated.Unfortunately, during this period, developing countries have not done well at all, despite (or because of, in my view) massive trade liberalization, ~ Ha-Joon Chang

Striking in its insistence and durability is the quest or desire for a decisive criterion with which to differentiate humans from other animals as well as the human from the animal in human beings. ~ Dominick LaCapra

If you look at the record and the enviable record which Sandra Day O'Connor has written, you find she was the fifth and decisive vote to safeguard Americans' right to privacy, to require our courtrooms to grant access to the disabled, to allow the federal government to pass laws to protect the environment, to preserve the right of universities to use affirmative action, to ban the execution of children in America. ~ Dick Durbin

The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest-for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both-must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting, in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story. ~ Italo Calvino

Personel selection is decisive. People are our most valuable capital. ~ Joseph Stalin

Be decisive. A wrong decision is generally less disastrous than indecision. ~ Bernhard Langer

The U.S. might enjoy overwhelming military advantage, but its relative economic power, which in the long run is almost invariably decisive, is in decline. The interregnum after the Cold War, far from being the prelude to a new American age, was bearing the signs of what is now very visible: the emergence of a multipolar world. ~ Martin Jacques

In Paris, Julien's position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.

In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural. ~ Stendhal

Look at me. Please." It was more than a whisper but less than a shout. She got quieter. "Blake, please."
His green eyes found hers. She spoke as if they were alone.
"I made a mistake," Livia began. "I know you overheard me talking to my dad. I needed him to understand who you are, but I had to talk on his level. As a father he needed to know I was being decisive. I don't think you heard the last part when I told him you were the path I wanted to take."
A flicker. Was it hope? Livia smiled.
Blake's lips moved, and she knew he'd counted her smile.
"I'll make mistakes. I know I will," she continued. "I want to be perfect for you. But I'm human. I can only be me. That probably isn't enough for a soul as beautiful as yours. But if I hurt you by accident, can't we stay and hold hands until we fix it? Can't we fix it?" Livia now spoke louder than she wanted to, but she had to be heard over the cacophony.
Blake bit his lip. "You're perfect."
"No, sweetheart. I can't even pretend to be perfect. Look where we are right now. That's my fault, Blake."
Here. I need to tell him now. "Blake, I love you," Livia confessed quietly.
The tears in her eyes had nothing to do with smoke this time.Livia leaned toward Blake and tried again, louder still.
"Blake, I love you."
Livia shouted in the silence because now her soul was free. "I love you, Blake!"
She smiled as he mouthed the words back to her. ~ Debra Anastasia

A true leader is the one who leaves memorable footprints of nobility. A leader who is decisive enough and have all the guts to take bold and frank decisions regardless of the oppositions and the temporal adverse effect of such decision on the masses, knowing that in the end, the fruits of such decision will be sweeter enough to put joy on the faces of the masses and they shall remember such noble footprints and ponder in humility. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Here before you lies the memorial to St. Cefnogwr, though he is not buried here, of course." At her words, an uncanny knowing flushed through Katy and, crazy-of-crazy, transfixed her. "Why? Where is he?" Traci stepped forward, hand on her hip. A you're-right-on-cue look crossed the guide's face. She pointed to the ceiling. Traci scoffed. "I meant, where's the body?" Her American southern accent lent a strange contrast to her skepticism. Again, the tour guide's arthritic finger pointed upward, and a smile tugged at her lips, the smokers' wrinkles on her upper lip smoothing out. "That's the miracle that made him a saint, you see. Throughout the twelve hundreds, the Welsh struggled to maintain our independence from the English. During Madog's Rebellion in 1294, St. Cefnogwr, a noble Norman-English knight, turned against his liege lord and sided with the Welsh - " "Norman-English?" Katy frowned, her voice raspy in her dry throat. "Why would a Norman have a Welsh name and side with the Welsh?" She might be an American, but her years living in England had taught her that was unusual.

"The English nicknamed him. It means 'sympathizer' in Welsh. The knight was captured and, for his crime, sentenced to hang. As he swung, the rope creaking in the crowd's silence, an angel of mercy swooped down and - " She clapped her hands in one decisive smack, and everyone jumped. "The rope dangled empty, free of its burden. Proof, we say, of his noble cause. He's been venerated ever since ~ Angela Quarles

... one of the most decisive factors enduring a borderline situation is the WILL TO SURVIVE.
-Reinhold Messner ~ Bernadette McDonald

This high proportion of history's decisive campaigns, the significance of which is enhanced by the comparative rarity of the direct approach, enforces the conclusion that the indirect is by far the most hopeful and economic form of strategy. ~ B.H. Liddell Hart

Maybe lobsters, who are also without frontal lobes, are detached from the neurological-registration-of-injury-or-hazard we call pain in just the same way. There is, after all, a difference between (1) pain as a purely neurological event, and (2) actual suffering, which seems crucially to involved an emotional component, an awareness of pain as unpleasant, as something to fear/dislike/want to avoid. [ ... ] To my lay mind, the lobster's behavior in the kettle appears to be the expression of a preference; and it way well be that an ability to form preferences is the decisive criterion for real suffering. ~ David Foster Wallace

Skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Photographs offer more than decisive moments. They are not alone, they add and subtract and change with time. They are metaphors for our lives ... Even a static photograph can change in the blink of a day or decade. ~ Edmundo Desnoes

[Rogan] "I've been watching you, and you're more confident and decisive than any woman I've ever known. There's no pretense to you. No concern that what you're doing is the wrong thing, or that you're not doing it right."
"And you don't like those traits in a woman?"
"I do. I didn't know that until I found them. ~ Natalie J. Damschroder

Small does of advertising result in nothing, obviously. It's like giving a sick person half the medicine he needs. It just causes more suffering. Give the whole dose, and the cure will be certain and decisive. ~ P.T. Barnum

A man may be a Bah' in name only. If he is a Bah' in reality, his deeds and actions will be decisive proofs of it. What are the requirements? Love for mankind, sincerity toward all, reflecting the oneness of the world of humanity, philanthropy, becoming enkindled with the fire of the love of God, attainment to the knowledge of God and that which is conducive to human welfare. ~ Abdu'l- Baha

Decades of social science studies have confirmed what the Heidi/Howard case study so blatantly demonstrates: we evaluate people based on stereotypes (gender, race, nationality, and age, among others). Our stereotype of men holds that they are providers, decisive, and driven. Our stereotype of women holds that they are caregivers, sensitive, and communal. Because we characterize men and women in opposition to each other, professional achievement and all the traits associated with it get placed in the male column. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

We have never said that the fight against the Iranian aggression and against the expansionist Persian tendencies (which have been demonstrated by various means under successive regimes in Iran) is the decisive battle for the Arabs. What we have said, and still say, is that the fight against Zionism is the main decisive battle for the Arabs. This is a great objective reality, which cannot be denied or underestimated except by someone who would not only harm the Arab nation and its main causes, but would also overlook the main danger. ~ Saddam Hussein

You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer. ~ Sam Altman

What Jesus did and said was designed to give a decisive answer, in deeds as well as words, to the question, What would it look like if God was running things? ~ N. T. Wright

The problem for us was to move forward to a decisive victory, or our cause was lost. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

Though it were proved that there was never an Aryan race in the past, yet we desire that in the future there may be one. This is the decisive standpoint for men of action. ~ Houston Stewart Chamberlain

It doubtless seems highly paradoxical to assert that Time is unreal, and that all statements which involve its reality are erroneous. Such an assertion involves a far greater departure from the natural position of mankind than is involved in the assertion of the unreality of Space or of the unreality of Matter. So decisive a breach with that natural position is not to be lightly accepted. And yet in all ages the belief in the unreality of time has proved singularly attractive. ~ J.M.E. McTaggart

The initial position is decisive Zugzwang. ~ Jon Speelman

He did not want to die like a sick man. He did not want his sickness to be what it is so often, an attenuation, a transition to death. What he really wanted was the encounter between his life - a life filled with blood and health - and death. He stood, dragged a chair over to the window and sat down in it, huddling in his blankets. Through the thin curtains, in the places where the material did not fall in folds, he saw the stars. He breathed heavily for a long time, and gripped the arms of his chair to control his trembling hands. He would reconquer his lucidity if he could. "It could be done, " he was thinking. And he was thinking, too, that the gas was still on in the kitchen. "It could be done," he thought again. Lucidity too was a long patience. Everything could be won, earned, acquired. He struck his fist on the arm of the chair. A man is not born strong, weak, or decisive. He becomes strong, he becomes lucid. Fate is not in man but around him. Then he realized he was crying. A strange weakness, a kind of cowardice born of his sickness gave way to tears, to childishness. ~ Albert Camus

A month before the Treasure Fleet's maiden voyage, at the age of thirty-four, Zheng He commissioned an epitaph inscribed on a stone pillar over his father's grave in Yunnan province. He worshiped his father, who had died in battle. The epitaph, one of only three known testimonials from the admiral, described his father's character:

'He was content as an ordinary commoner, but he was brave and decisive in his ordinary life. There was no one in this community who did not look up to him. When he encountered the unfortunate, including widows, orphans, and others with no one to rely on, he routinely offered protection and aid. He cherished the bestowal of extraordinary favours. By nature, he was fond of doing good.'

This revelation of a softer version of manhood as the ideal in much of Asia provided another piece of the answer to the question of how Westerners came to perceive Asians as less masculine. ~ Alex Tizon

Sometimes a single battle decides everything and sometimes, too, the slightest circumstance decides the issue of a battle. There is a moment in every battle at which the least manoeuvre is decisive and gives superiority, as one drop of water causes overflow. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Our losses ... have reached an intolerable level. The enemy air force played a decisive role in inflicting these high losses. ~ Karl Donitz

Technology is neutral and sterile. Now, technology is the nature of modern man; it is our environment and our horizon. Of course, every work of man is a negation of nature, but at the same time, it is a bridge between nature and us. Technology changes nature in a more radical and decisive manner: it throws it out. ~ Octavio Paz

Power gets legitimated through schemas; if there is an underlying schema that says that men are more decisive than women, this schema will structure new situations in which men get to make the decisions, often accumulating resources by doing so, and thus will reproduce male power. ~ Wendy Griswold

No wonder that Churchill described this effort [the British codebreakers working at Bletchley Park] as "Britian"s secret weapon," a weapon far more effective than the buzz bombs and the rockets that Werner von Braun designed for a German victory, a weapon absolutely decisive, in the judgement of many, in winning the war for the Allies. ~ Peter Hilton

Rescuers tended to be decisive, fast-thinking, risk-taking, independent, adventurous, openhearted, rebellious, and unusually flexible - able to switch plans, abandon habits, or change ingrained routines at a moment's notice. They tended to be nonconformists, and though many rescuers held solemn principles worth dying for, they didn't regard themselves as heroic. ~ Diane Ackerman

No subject was more important in the 2014 elections than healthcare, and Republicans in Congress should waste no time in taking decisive action in response to the voters'€ demands. Obamacare has escalated costs, disrupted coverage, and introduced bad incentives throughout our healthcare system. Congress must repeal Obamacare and send the president a replacement package of reforms that protects freedom and focuses on the real problem with American healthcare -€" affordability. ~ Bobby Jindal

The universe had shifted, with a small, decisive click; he could still hear its echo in his bones. ~ Diana Gabaldon

I state in my book 'Become Your Own Matchmaker,' confidence is the key to any endeavor. Women don't realize that when they do things they love and are passionate about - their confidence soars. Men are attracted to women who feel happy and decisive about life. ~ Patti Stanger

She was in that highly-wrought state when the reasoning powers act with great rapidity: the state a man is in before a battle or a struggle, in danger, and at the decisive moments of life - those moments when a man shows once and for all what he is worth, that his past was not lived in vain but was a preparation for these moments. ~ Leo Tolstoy

How many people worldwide are victims of this type of slavery, in which the person is at the service of his or her work, while work should offer a service to people so they may have dignity. I ask my brothers and sisters in faith and all men and women of good will for a decisive choice to combat trafficking in persons, which includes "slave labor." ~ Pope Francis

You've got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confidence is the difference. ~ Chris Evert

Knowledge above the average can be crammed into the average man, but it remains dead, and in the last analysis sterile knowledge. The result is a man who may be a living dictionary but nevertheless falls down miserably in all special situations and decisive moments in life. ~ Adolf Hitler

In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS, - that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Aviation constituted a new and possibly decisive element in preventing or fighting a war, and I was in a unique position to observe European aviation - especially in its military aspects. ~ Charles Lindbergh

I always want to be as quick and decisive as I can be. ~ Rooney Mara

I'm not very good at dating. I'm very decisive. If I like someone, then they're my boyfriend. It's pretty straightforward. ~ Vinessa Shaw

It isn't the evil and indecent who are flung down into the depths, no! Oh, no! The evil and decisive fling down those who are moral, honest and noble but maladroit, hesitant and full of scruples. ~ Andrzej Sapkowski

The Christian church in the U.S. is still strong numerically, but it has lost its decisive influence both in American public life and in American culture as a whole, especially in the major elite institutions of society. ~ Os Guinness

Where absolute superiority is not attainable, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skillful use ofwhat you have. ~ Carl Von Clausewitz

Just as there are signs by which you can recognize violence with the naked eye, so is the spinning wheel to me a decisive sign of nonviolence. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The human mind can hardly remain entirely free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made. ~ H. P. Blavatsky

What is the difference between my view and the classical Christian perspective? I am convinced that there are not multiple comings and multiple returns of Christ, but only one decisive coming at the end of the world, which includes the resurrection, the rapture, and his appearance in the sky! ~ Eli Of Kittim

Presidents with strong nerves are decisive. They don't balk at unpopular decisions. They are willing to make people angry. Bush had strong nerves. Clinton, who passed up a chance to eliminate Osama bin Laden, did not. Obama is a people pleaser, a trait not normally associated with nerves of steel. ~ Fred Barnes

A defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent detachment. Those generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every point, while those who are better acquainted with their profession, having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater. ~ Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

The ancient priests had said, "Thus far and no farther. We set the limits to thought." The Greeks said, "All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set to thought." It is an extraordinary fact that by the time we have actual, documentary knowledge of the Greeks there is not a trace to be found of that domination over the mind by the priests which played such a decisive part in the ancient world. The priest plays no real part in either the history or the literature of Greece. ~ Edith Hamilton

A decisive cleansing of the conscience is a prerequisite for unhindered access to God ~ Michael L. Brown