“We don’t believe anything we don’t want to believe.”

Source: More Than Human (1953), Chapter 2 “Baby is Three”, p. 94
Context: That’s fairly common. We don’t believe anything we don’t want to believe.

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Do you have more details about the quote "We don’t believe anything we don’t want to believe." by Theodore Sturgeon?
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Theodore Sturgeon 44
American speculative fiction writer 1918–1985

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“When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.”

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This quotation actually comes from page 211 of Émile Cammaerts' book The Laughing Prophet : The Seven Virtues and G. K. Chesterton (1937) in which he quotes Chesterton as having Father Brown say, in "The Oracle of the Dog" (1923): "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense." Cammaerts then interposes his own analysis between further quotes from Father Brown: "'It's drowning all your old rationalism and scepticism, it's coming in like a sea; and the name of it is superstition.' The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything: 'And a dog is an omen and a cat is a mystery.'" Note that the remark about believing in anything is outside the quotation marks — it is Cammaerts. The correct attribution was reportedly first traced by Pasquale Accardo. http://www.chesterton.org/ceases-to-worship/ It was also credited to Nigel Rees (as cited in First Things, 1997). http://books.google.com/books?id=NuQnAAAAYAAJ&q=%22The+first+effect+of+not+believing+in+God+is+to+believe+in+anything%22&dq=%22The+first+effect+of+not+believing+in+God+is+to+believe+in+anything%22&hl=en&ei=PSzcTvewIefx0gHqmrj0DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ
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“I don’t want to believe, I want to know.”

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“When people say perhaps it’s cause they’re lying. Either they don’t believe the thing they’re saying, or they do believe it only they don’t want to admit they do.”

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Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 3.

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Billy the Kid's comment to a Las Vegas Gazette reporter (December, 1880)
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On his election to Académie Française (1955) Variant translation: Of course I believe in luck. How else does one explain the successes of one's enemies?

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“If you do what you believe in, you’re strong. It’s when you don’t do what you believe in that you’re weak. And we are strong.”

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I'll never forget what Jeremy Corbyn whispered in my ear at a campaign event last week http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-labour-manifesto-policies-what-was-in-whispered-in-my-ear-campaign-rally-a7738776.html, article by Harriet Williamson, in The Independent (16 May 2017).
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“Don’t kid yourself into believing that’s why we lost. It’s not. I’ll tell you openly. I'm not wrong.”

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“I don’t believe in the “supernatural,” I believe in the “supernormal.””

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When asked, "In your estimation, what does the supernatural genre tell us about ourselves as human beings?" in "He Is Legend" interview at <!-- OBSOLETE DEAD LINK --> Cinemaspy (2007); also quoted in [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/24/195317782/author-richard-matheson-i-am-legend-writer-dies-at-87 "Author Richard Matheson, 'I Am Legend' Writer, Dies At 87" at NPR (26 June 2013) http://www.cinemaspy.com/spotlight/interviews/
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