Cause Quotes | Beyond Motive 4/6

top of page

Cause Quotes

"Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for."

Clarence Darrow, American Lawyer

Cause, Causes, Fighting, Worth

"The final causes, then, of compassion are to prevent and to relieve misery."

Joseph Butler, English Clergyman

Cause, Causes, Compassion, Misery

"Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good."

Thomas Browne, British Scientist

Cause, Constancy, Obstinacy

"Instead of causing us to remember the past like the old monuments, the new monuments seem to cause us to forget the future."

Robert Smithson, American Artist

Cause, Forget, Future, Monuments

"It is a poor cause which has to be lied for regularly."

Katherine Gerould, American Author

"For these cultures, getting rid of the pain without addressing the deeper cause would be like shutting off a fire alarm while the fire's still going."

David Foster Wallace, American Writer

Cause, Fire, Pain

"It is not the punishment but the cause that makes the martyr."

Saint Augustine, Algerian Saint

Cause, Martyr, Punishment

"To believe in a just law of cause and effect, carrying with it a punishment or a reward, is to believe in righteousness."

Ernest Holmes, American Theologian

Cause, Effect, Law, Punishment

"I would like to break out of this dark, brooding image, cause I'm actually not like that at all."

Gabriel Byrne, Irish Actor

"Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect."

Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher

Cause, Causes, Effect

"Do not suppress it - that would hurt you inside. Do not express it - this would not only hurt you inside, it would cause ripples in your surroundings. What you do is transform it."

Peace Pilgrim, American Activist

"It's clear to me now that we've got to reach out to the Arab Sunni community in particular in an effort to cause some moderate political activity to take place so they join the future of Iraq."

John Abizaid, American Soldier

Cause, Community, Effort, Future

"When it comes to the cause of justice, I take no prisoners and I don't believe in compromise."

Mary Frances Berry, American Writer

Cause, Compromise, Justice

"Southerners can never resist a losing cause."

Margaret Mitchell, American Novelist

"Cause I won't repeat myself, the way I dress and look."

Kelly Lynch, American Actress

"To win the cause we all believe in, the spread of true democracy all over the world, we need to win by example, not just with speeches but by example; not just with military might but by gaining the respect of the world."

Barbara Boxer, American Politician

Cause, Democracy, Example, Military

"You have to not listen to the nay sayers because there will be many and often they'll be much more qualified than you and cause you to sort of doubt yourself."

James Cameron, American Director

Cause, Doubt, Will

"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."

Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher

Cause, Opponents

"It's not about Obama, it's about the Democrats and their policies that cause consternation on the right."

Elizabeth A. Sherman, American Educator

Cause, Democrats, Right

"The enforcement of the law cannot depend on the justice of a cause or one man's conscience."

Harold H. Greene, American Judge

Cause, Conscience, Justice, Law

"If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other causes for prejudice by noon."

George Aiken, American Politician

Cause, Causes, Prejudice, Race

"After hearing the evidence, I will record a verdict of natural causes."

John Owen, English Theologian

Cause, Causes, Hearing, Will

"And I believe that it becomes a troubled continent because there are those who must always cause confusion so that we do not keep these natural resources."

Miriam Makeba, South African Musician

Cause, Confusion

"I've been reckless, but I'm not a rebel without a cause."

Angelina Jolie, American Actress

"I'm not going to fight in the physical with physical weapons, because it's not a physical fight. I'm going to fight with spiritual weapons, cause it's a spiritual fight."

Stephen Baldwin, American Actor

Cause, Fight, Spiritual, Weapons

"Are we interested in treating the symptoms of poverty and economic stagnation through income redistribution and class warfare, or do we want to go at the root causes of poverty and economic stagnation by promoting pro-growth policies that promote prosperity?"

Paul Ryan, American Politician

Cause, Causes, Class, Income, Poverty

"Talk about national interests: When we went in with Operation Iraqi Freedom, some of our allies, Turkey, for example, would not let us through. How much trouble did that cause us, because we were not able to go into Iraq through Turkey?"

Roger Wicker, American Politician

Cause, Example, Freedom, Iraq

"After all these years I had the privilege of naming my private part, cause we have nicknames. So I named my private part pride... it's not much but at least I have my pride."

Jay London, American Comedian

Cause, Pride, Privilege, Years

"If I am outspoken of the dangers of intemperance to members of our armed forces, it is because we are all especially concerned for the welfare of those who are risking their lives in the cause of freedom."

William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canadian Politician

Cause, Freedom, Intemperance, Welfare

"A mechanical encounter or other energy-exchange may cause tissue damage."

James J. Gibson, American Psychologist

Cause, Energy, May

"The Russian revolution was to an unprecedented degree the cause of the proletariat of the whole world becoming more revolutionary."

Karl Liebknecht, German Politician

Cause, Revolution, World

"My tears will keep no channel, know no laws to guide their streams, but like the waves, their cause, run with disturbance till they swallow me as a description of his misery."

John Cleveland, English Poet

Cause, Laws, Misery, Tears

"The second, and I think this is the much more overt and I think it is the main cause, I have been increasingly demonstrating or trying to demonstrate that every possible stance a critic, a scholar, a teacher can take towards a poem is itself inevitably and necessarily poetic."

Harold Bloom, American Critic

"I think the best president - because he changed the whole mood of the country, the whole economy of the country, and stood up to Communism... that was continuing its causes around the world, and backed them off and caused them to collapse - and that was Ronald Reagan."

Pat Boone, American Musician

Cause, Causes, Communism, Country, Economy

"Never let a day pass that you will have cause to say, I will do better tomorrow."

Brigham Young, American Leader

Cause, Day, Tomorrow, Will

"I think everyone holds back. I am always censoring myself and I'm sorry about it. But I always have to consider whether my remarks might cause someone pain."

John Hall, American Politician

"Heroism in a bad cause."

Karel Reisz, Czechoslovakian Director

"So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair."

Antonin Artaud, French Dramatist

Cause, Causes, Despair, Man, Right

"The cause ceasing, the effect ceases also."

Edward Coke, English Businessman

"In some causes silence is dangerous."

Saint Ambrose, Italian Saint

Cause, Causes, Silence

"As soon as by one's own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one's own right is laid."

Adolf Hitler, German Criminal

Cause, Propaganda, Right

"The kind of event on a conveyor belt that causes a fire occurs in a variety of industrial environments, not uniquely in coal environments."

Richard Price, American Writer

Cause, Causes, Fire, Variety

"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion."

Frederick Douglass, American Author

Cause, Causes, Rebellion

"Drugs, were a symptom - they weren't the cause of anything."

Wayne Kramer, American Musician

"Today we no longer regard the universe as the cause of our own undeserved troubles but perhaps, on the contrary, as the last refuge from the mismanagement of our earthly affairs."

Rudolf Arnheim, German Artist

Cause, Today, Universe

"Its very sort of spontaneous and organic, not a preconceived sort of jamming. Now we record everything, cause sometimes you'll forget, you know, 'what was that thing again?' So we record everything."

Chad Smith, American Musician

Cause, Forget, Now

"A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps."

Charles Goodyear, American Inventor

Cause, Man, Regret

"The chief cause of problems is solutions."

Eric Sevareid, American Journalist

Cause, Problems

"Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town."

George Carlin, American Comedian

"The automobile, both a cause and an effect of this decentralization, is ideally suited for our vast landscape and our generally confused and contrary commuting patterns."

Brock Yates, American Editor

bottom of page