The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Duty of Inquiry
Context: No man holding a strong belief on one side of a question, or even wishing to hold a belief on one side, can investigate it with such fairness and completeness as if he were really in doubt and unbiased; so that the existence of a belief not founded on fair inquiry unfits a man for the performance of this necessary duty.
Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it. He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart. If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. It goes to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action at every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that no part of it can be isolated from the rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of the whole. No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever.
Source: The Root of the Righteous (1955), Chapter 13.
Source: Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. 1975, p. 212
Aurea Dicta XX, p. 8.
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (1895)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 23.
“Personal beliefs are unarguable, even if the other side has all the facts.”
Nell Latimer in Ch. 6 : nell latimer’s book, p. 51
The Visitor (2002)
Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Detachment (1947), p. 258
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995, 2000)
Context: Global consciousness is not an objective belief that can be taught to anybody and everybody, but a subjective transformation in the interior structures that can hold belief in the first place, which itself is the product of a long line of inner consciousness development.
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation and Empire (1952), Chapter 13 “Lieutenant and Clown”
