quotations about belief
Whether your beliefs are true or totally insane, if you accept them, then that's what your life will be about.
ROBERT ANTHONY
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Beyond Positive Thinking
It is easier to argue that something nobody believes in actually exists than it is to argue that something everybody believes in is unreal.
SAMUEL R. DELANY
Neverÿon
Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barriers of system.
GEORGE ELIOT
Silas Marner
He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary... but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything any more if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.
STEVE MARTIN
A Wild and Crazy Guy
The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed; each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Conquest of Happiness
Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather then by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called "education". This last is particularly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defencelessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practiced in greater or less degree in the schools of every civilised country.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Human Society in Ethics and Politics
A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything happen. This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those “truths” we once believed.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
"Truth Will Have No Other Gods Alongside It"
He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"Epigrams of a Cynic"
To learn a belief without belief is to sing a song without the tune.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Telling
Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Price of the Ticket
The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Celtic Twilight
Knowing what our beliefs are requires confronting ourselves, our fears, and our resistance to change. Once we know what our real beliefs are, we can allow them to evolve and change if they do not serve us.
PAT. B. ALLEN
Art Is a Way of Knowing
There are people who can believe anything they wish. What lucky creatures!
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg
False beliefs can be every bit as consoling as true ones, right up until the moment of disillusionment.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
An angel is a belief, with wings, and arms that can carry you. It's not to be afraid of, and if it can't hold you up, seek for something new.
TONY KUSHNER
Angels in America
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Androcles and the Lion
Human beings believe just as they breathe -- in order to survive.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Angel's Game