“If you believe that life is worth living then your belief will create the fact.”
William James, "Is Life Worth Living?," The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897).
Misattributed
"Is Life Worth Living?"
Variant: Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
Source: 1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
“Beliefs do not change facts. Facts, if one is rational, should change beliefs.”
Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 6.
“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy.”
Source: Awaken the Giant Within (1992), p. 75
Context: Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.
“Facts do not convey truth. That's a mistake. Facts create norms, but truth creates illumination.”
“Judaism stands or falls with its belief in the historic actuality of the revelation at Sinai.”
Additional notes to Exodus (p. 402)
The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (one-volume edition, 1937, ISBN 0-900689-21-8
