C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Positiveness
Every one of his opinions appears to himself to be written with sunbeams.
Watts.
Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat.
Sterne.
The most positive men are the most credulous, since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer and worst enemy—their own self-love.
Pope.
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because whoever would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude will convince others the more, as he appears convinced himself.
Swift.