Richardson, the first woman to hold the post at the university, said students must be educated to "both embrace complexity and retain conviction", while daring "to disturb the universe", and to understand that "an Oxford education is not meant to be a comfortable experience".
It is hard to retain convictions when fashions change and those convictions are seen to be unbecoming, even when there is no threat of punishment or disgrace.
He has retained a conviction from childhood that art could transform lives.
The three women retained steely conviction about their actions, while the establishment – represented by a former RAF base commander and a former Conservative local councillor – still didn't quite know what to do with them.
Though the press made virulent and scurrilous attacks on Jefferson's conduct as President and on his morals as a man, he retained his conviction that the press's contribution to democracy was essential to its survival and must not be tampered with, whatever the provocation.
He retained his conviction, however, that a well-ordered soul is the prerequisite of the good life and that human beings need not only a careful moral education but also a well-regulated life.
Despite all appearances to the contrary, does he retain a conviction that the more benign forces of liberal democracy will prevail again – that western democracy can be brought back into balance, that the centre can be made to hold?
Persuade a customer or colleague on a conscious level, and he or she will retain that conviction only until a better counterargument comes along (to paraphrase my favorite blogger, Clif Reichard).
Despite body blows to the European Union over the past few years, France and Germany, the two dominant players, retain the conviction that their destinies involve something larger than national self-interest.
Personal debasement is not easy for white people (especially for white men), but to retain the conviction of their superiority to others especially to black people they are willing to risk contempt, and to be reviled by the mature, the sophisticated, and the strong.
In short, the market's near-term over-enthusiasm has abated, but it retains the conviction that "normal" prices above $80 a barrel will be sustained.
