“You touch on a disheartening truth. People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.”

— James Branch Cabell , book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 13 : Suggesting Themes of Universal Appeal

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James Branch Cabell 130

American author 1879–1958

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

“Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 69

“Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world.”

Jorge Luis Borges book The Theologians

The Theologians, translated by James E. Irby (1964)

“When you told me the first time that Valentine was your father, I didn't believe it. Not just because I didn't want it to be true, but because you weren't anything like him. I've never thought you're anything like him. But you are. You are.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Believe it, if you will, or otherwise, believe it not, I care not which of them you do, they are both alike to me. It shall be sufficient for my purpose to have told you the truth, and the truth I will tell you.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Third Book (1546), Chapter 52 : How a certain kind of Pantagruelion is of that nature that the fire is not able to consume it
Context: I have already related to you great and admirable things; but, if you might be induced to adventure upon the hazard of believing some other divinity of this sacred Pantagruelion, I very willingly would tell it you. Believe it, if you will, or otherwise, believe it not, I care not which of them you do, they are both alike to me. It shall be sufficient for my purpose to have told you the truth, and the truth I will tell you.

“To believe blindly is to degenerate the human soul. Be an atheist if you want, but do not believe in anything unquestioningly.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“She closed her eyes. "I didn't know that. i didn't know anything. It scares me the things I told myself. But I would have told myself almost anything, because I wanted to believe him."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to be with you.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

“To be true, you have to take the plunge, to touch bottom. But most people want to be in control. They fear the worst. You can’t control anything. What you have to do is let yourself be taken over... All the paintings I have made, I was compelled to make. You must never force yourself.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”

Clive Staples Lewis book A Grief Observed

A Grief Observed (1961)
Context: You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose that you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it? … Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.

“People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

“You touch on a disheartening truth. People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.”

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James Branch Cabell 130

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