“There’s no point in believing in things that exist.”

— Terry Pratchett, book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

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Terry Pratchett796

English author 1948–2015

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“Although people cannot define existence and do use the term with some looseness, yet it is possible to give an extensive definition by pointing to the sorts of things that everyone believes to exist. It is still easier to point to the sort of entities that people agree in believing not to exist, and happily, this is really what concerns us most. People mean by saying that causation only applies to things that exist that it applies, if at all, to what can change; and they believe that, if anything can change, it is things like chairs and tables and minds, and not those like the propositions of Euclid and the multiplication table. What would be agreed then is that, if causal laws apply to anything it is to what can change in so far as it changes.”

C. D. Broad (1887–1971) English philosopher

Perception, Physics, and Reality : An Enquiry into the Information that Physical Science can Supply about the Real (1914), Ch. 2 : On Causation; and on the Arguments that have been used against Causal Laws

“Satan, who I believe exists as much as I believe Jesus exists, wants us to believe meaningless things for meaningless reasons.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

“She didn’t have to believe the technology existed. She only had to believe that people believed the technology existed. People, being stupid, believed all sorts of things.”

Adam Roberts book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer

Part 2, Chapter 4, “The Mystery of the Champagne Supernovae” (p. 128).
Jack Glass (2012)

“Some deny the existence of misery by pointing to the sun; he denies the existence of the sun by pointing to misery.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“The reason for the existence of a religion, from one point of view at least, is to be found precisely in those things wherein it differs from other religions.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions

The Transcendent Unity of Religions (1953; revised edition 1984)

“I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Article "The Worst Man in the World" in The Sunday Dispatch (2 July 1933); quoted in The Magical Revival (1972) by Kenneth Grant.
Context: Black magic is not a myth. It is a totally unscientific and emotional form of magic, but it does get results — of an extremely temporary nature. The recoil upon those who practice it is terrific.
It is like looking for an escape of gas with a lighted candle. As far as the search goes, there is little fear of failure!
To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.
I have been accused of being a "black magician." No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it.

“I just believe that the interesting time in a career is pre-success, what shaped things, how did you get to this point?”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

“Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions.”

André Breton book Manifestoes of Surrealism

Source: Manifestoes of Surrealism

“I am not saying that gas chambers did not exist. I did not see them myself. I haven't studied the questions specially. But I believe it is a minor point in the history of the Second World War.”

Jean-Marie Le Pen (1928) French right-wing and nationalist politician

Controversial statement on the Holocaust (13 September 1987), in which he referred to the Nazi gas chambers as a "minor point" [point de detail] in the history of the Second World War, as quoted in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (1993) http://books.google.com/books?id=b8IvAAAAYAAJ&q=%22But+I+believe+that+it+is+a+minor+point

“Even an atheist has to believe that the concept, at least, of "God" does exist, whether or not that concept is true or useful or the best way to approach things.”

Guy Consolmagno (1952) American Jesuit, Catholic Priest, research astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory.

God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion, 7, 9780787994662, Consolmagno, Guy, 2008 https://books.google.com/books?id=s276jyAQ5hcC&pg=PA7,

“There’s no point in believing in things that exist.”

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