Belief famous quotes

Americans have been remarkably devoted to the capacity for belief, to idealism. That's why we get into trouble all the time. We're always viewed as naive.
-- A. Bartlett Giamatti

#Belief #Trouble #Capacity

Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.
-- A. E. Housman

#Poison #Body #Belief

I'm boring. My beliefs are neither here nor there.
-- A. N. Wilson

#Belief #Boring

Theism is so confused and the sentences in which "God" appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible.
-- A.J. Ayer

#Confused #Atheism #Belief

We live alone in our cluttered psyches, possessed by our entrenched beliefs, our fatuous desires, our endless contradictions - and like it or not we have to put up with this in one another.
-- A.S.A. Harrison

#Psych #Desire #Belief

Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth.
-- Aaron Hill

#Belief #Moral #Birth

Your belief system saturates the space around you.
-- Aaron Huey

#Space #Belief #Belief Systems

Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do not believe as individuals.
-- Abba Eban

#Believe #People #Belief

I'm a huge horror movie fan. Beyond belief.
-- Abigail Breslin

#Fans #Belief #Horror

I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it be probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me
-- Abraham Lincoln

#Might #Belief #Duty

I have always believed that a good laugh was good for both the mental and physical digestion.
-- Abraham Lincoln

#Laughing #Digestion #Belief

All money is a matter of belief.
-- Adam Smith

#Believe #Matter #Belief

There is only God. REALITY is God and has never required your belief. This reality no "one" survives. In Ultimate Reality no "one" is saved either - there is simply nothing to save you "from" : you have not emerged from any "other" and there is no place else for "you" to disappear into. Ever.
-- Adi Da

#Reality #Belief #Disappear

I never lost my belief, in the midst of setbacks which were not spared me during my period of struggle. Providence has had the last word and brought me success.
-- Adolf Hitler

#Struggle #Lasts #Belief

The biggest barrier to awakening is the belief that it is something rare.
-- Adyashanti

#Awakening #Belief #Barriers

The Way of Liberation is not a belief system; it is something to be put into practice.
-- Adyashanti

#Practice #Way #Belief

Freedom of belief and worship is the most important guarantee of social peace.
-- Ahmet Necdet Sezer

#Important #Guarantees #Belief

I think that everyone has something about themselves that they feel is their weakness... their 'disability.' And I'm certain we all have one, because I think of a disability as being anything which undermines our belief and confidence in our own abilities.
-- Aimee Mullins

#Thinking #Weakness #Belief

It is my deep personal conviction that abortion is wrong. I hope that some day we will see the current outrageously large number of abortions drop sharply...let me assure you that I share youR belief that innocent human life must be protected.
-- Al Gore

#Numbers #Abortion #Belief

It is easier for a libertarian to attack the science of global warming than to alter one's core libertarian beliefs.
-- Al Seckel

#Libertarian #Belief #Global Warming

I'm a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, 'Everything changes, don't take it personally.'
-- Alan Ball

#Buddhist #Belief

It is always hard when reality intrudes on belief.
-- Alan Dean Foster

#Reality #Statistics #Belief

Evolution is an organizing principle and when we call it a theory, we mean it's a theory, we don't mean that it's a belief that someone holds.
-- Alan I. Leshner

#Mean #Principles #Belief

The biggest problem we have as human beings is that we confuse our beliefs with reality.
-- Alan Kay

#Reality #Belief #Problem

It is my belief that the only power which can resist the power of fear is the power of love.
-- Alan Paton

#Fear #Belief #Power Of Love

And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.
-- Alan Watts

#Attitude #Opposites #Belief

I have a strong belief that there is a god or a higher power. I think that if you have a strong belief in that, then you won't feel alone in life and you will feel you can get through anything.
-- Alana Stewart

#Strong #Thinking #Belief

Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief assuredly spawns failure.
-- Albert Bandura

#Self #Doe #Belief

Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations.
-- Albert Bandura

#Self #Belief #Action

People’s beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities.
-- Albert Bandura

#People #Profound #Belief

Thinking of the future, establishing aims for oneself, having preferences-all this presupposes a belief in freedom, even if one occasionally ascertains that one doesn't feel it.
-- Albert Camus

#Freedom #Thinking #Belief

That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.
-- Albert Einstein

#Inspirational #Secret #Belief

Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.
-- Albert Ellis

#Real #World #Belief

I am not wrong in the belief that its public funds are more secure than those of all the European powers.
-- Albert Gallatin

#Country #Belief #Fund

My belief in a day of reckoning keeps me on the straight and narrow.
-- Albert Gubay

#Belief #Reckoning

When I joined the Communist movement in 1935 it was based upon the belief that mankind's future was to be found there. Certainly, millions who joined it the world over, like myself, didn't join it for profit.
-- Albert Maltz

#Movement #World #Belief

Convictions are not merely beliefs we hold; they are those beliefs that hold us in their grip.
-- Albert Mohler

#Belief #Conviction

Masonry is not a religion. He who makes of it a religious belief, falsifies and denaturalizes it.
-- Albert Pike

#Religious #Belief #Masonry

A writer survives in spite of his beliefs.
-- Alberto Moravia

#Belief #Spite

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.
-- Alberto Moravia

#Men #Alive #Belief

One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.
-- Aldous Huxley

#Believe #Belief

Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief.
-- Aldous Huxley

#Giving #Belief #Dear God

Belief and delusion are incestuous siblings.
-- Aleksandar Hemon

#Sibling #Belief #Delusion

Very few of us are capable of being Free Thinkers, needing neither to adore nor to insult God, the insult often being an act of faith more profound than adoration.
-- Alexandra David-Neel

#Profound #Being Free #Belief

I wanted to write about how people's beliefs shift.
-- Alexei Sayle

#Writing #People #Belief

But as in all cults, what's central to the Communist Party is the belief system and the elimination of nuance. From there you're very slowly led down the road to fanaticism and mass murder.
-- Alexei Sayle

#Party #Nuance #Belief

If you don't have solid beliefs, you cannot build a stable life. Beliefs are like the foundation of a building, and they are the foundation to build your life upon.
-- Alfred Armand Montapert

#Believe #Foundation #Belief

Faith in faith' he answered himself. 'It isn't necessary to have something to believe in. It's only necessary to believe that somewhere there's something worthy of belief
-- Alfred Bester

#Believe #Belief #Worthy

Second order effects, such as belief in belief, makes fanaticism.
-- Alfred Korzybski

#Faith #Order #Belief

There is something about the South that accepts the supernatural. If you don't accept it and you're having a conversation with someone who does, it's just one of those polite things where you don't question their belief in ghosts. You just go, 'Oh, yeah, okay.' It's amazing to be able to have conversations like that.
-- Alice Englert

#Doe #Able #Belief

All the higher forms of life have evolved from some one's ideal of justice, liberty or beauty; and the belief that nothing is too good to be true.
-- Alice Hegan Rice

#Justice #Liberty #Belief

I've always believed in the adage that the secret of eternal youth is arrested development.
-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth

#Secret #Development #Belief

The hallmark of intelligence is not whether one believes in God or not, but the quality of the processes that underlie one’s beliefs.
-- Alister E. McGrath

#Believe #Quality #Belief

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidiest and most pernicious illusion.
-- Allan Bloom

#Belief #Illusion #Reason

I'm still trying to express my truth, my place in the world, my belief.
-- Amanda Palmer

#Trying #World #Belief

Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
-- Ambrose Bierce

#Belief #Opinion #Absurdity

RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.
-- Ambrose Bierce

#Maids #Ruins #Belief

PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
-- Ambrose Bierce

#Mind #Belief #Preference

BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.
-- Ambrose Bierce

#Belief #Given #Earnestness

When you find a burden in belief or apparel, cast it off.
-- Amelia Bloomer

#Belief #Burden #Apparel

Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.
-- Amin Maalouf

#Country #Sea #Belief

If what we worship fail us, still the fire burns on, and it is much to have believed.
-- Amy Lowell

#Fire #Belief #Worship

Christ...an anarchist who succeeded. That's all.
-- Andre Malraux

#Superstitions #Belief #Anarchist

Both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.
-- Andrei Sakharov

#Strength #Spirit #Belief

Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.
-- Andrew Solomon

#People #Needs #Belief

Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated.
-- Andy Rooney

#Atheist #Belief #Born

Your beliefs shape your attitudes!
-- Andy Stanley

#Attitude #Shapes #Belief

Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.
-- Anita Brookner

#Strong #Belief #Satire

I'm at my strongest when I'm able to let go, when I suspend my beliefs as well as disbeliefs, and leave myself open to all possibilities. That also seems to be when I'm able to experience the most internal clarity and synchronicities.
-- Anita Moorjani

#Letting Go #Able #Belief

No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence.
-- Ann Landers

#Humanity #Belief #Empirical Evidence

The best doctrine may become the worst, if imperfectly understood, erroneously interpreted, or superstitiously followed.
-- Anna Leonowens

#Doctrine #May #Belief

It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.
-- Anne Fadiman

#Long #Library #Belief

Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.
-- Annie Dillard

#Gears #Belief #Desks

Rome's just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare.
-- Anthony Burgess

#Rome #Cities #Belief

I am obliged to believe certain opinions myself. No man's belief will save me except my own.
-- Anthony Collins

#Believe #Men #Belief

Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.
-- Anthony Storr

#Numbers #People #Belief

Idiosyncratic belief systems which are shared by only a few adherents are likely to be regarded as delusional. Belief systems which may be just as irrational but which are shared by millions are called world religions.
-- Anthony Storr

#World #May #Belief

Any positive thinker is compelled to see everything in the light of his own convictions.
-- Antoinette Brown Blackwell

#Light #Principles #Belief

When I believe in nothing I do not want to meet you when you believe in nothing.
-- Antonio Porchia

#Believe #Want #Belief

Not believing has a sickness which is believing a little.
-- Antonio Porchia

#Believe #Littles #Belief

We are as great as our belief in human liberty - no greater. And our belief in human liberty is only ours when it is larger than ourselves.
-- Archibald MacLeish

#Liberty #Belief #Humans

Opinion involves belief (for without belief in what we opine we cannot have an opinion), and in the brutes though we often find imagination we never find belief.
-- Aristotle

#Imagination #Soul #Belief

All wrong doing is done in the sincere belief that it is the best thing to do.
-- Arnold Bennett

#Done #Belief #Sincere

The equation of religion with belief is rather recent.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee

#Religion #Belief #Equations

The power of authority is never more subtle and effective than when it produces a psychological atmosphere or climate favorable to the life of certain modes of belief, unfavorable, and even fatal, to the life of others.
-- Arthur Balfour

#Atmosphere #Climate #Belief

The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.
-- Arthur C. Brooks

#Data #Income #Belief

An official man is always an official man, and he has a wild belief in the value of reports.
-- Arthur Helps

#Men #Belief #Bureaucracy

Action will furnish belief,-but will that belief be the true one? This is the point, you know.
-- Arthur Hugh Clough

#Statistics #Belief #Action

The orthodox environmental theories [of heredity] have been accepted not because they have stood up under proper scientific investigations, but because they harmonize so well with our democratic belief in human equality.
-- Arthur Jensen

#Environmental #Belief #Accepted

A disbelief in God does not result in a belief in nothing; disbelief in God usuallyresults in a belief in anything.
-- Arthur Lynch

#Atheism #Doe #Belief

Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness of a belief.
-- Arthur Schnitzler

#Liberty #Belief #Proof

When an Englishman has professed his belief in the supremacy of Shakespeare amongst all poets, he feels himself excused from the general study of literature. He also feels himself excused from the particular study of Shakespeare.
-- Aubrey Beardsley

#Literature #Belief #Study

Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.
-- August Wilson

#Belief #Bigger #Disbelief

A climate in which belief may flourish
-- Austin Farrer

#Climate #May #Belief

In a universe that defies description, all systems of belief can only be false.
-- Austin Osman Spare

#Belief #Description #Universe

No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think that's what the West is all about.
-- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#Thinking #West #Belief

I'd like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.
-- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

#Looks #Belief

In battle, one must adhere to one's beliefs.
-- Azai Nagamasa

#Battle #Belief

Honesty is the cornerstone of character.
-- B. C. Forbes

#Honesty #Character #Belief

It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off ... since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.
-- B. H. Liddell Hart

#Military #Demand #Belief