Quotes about belief
page 5

“Your thoughts and beliefs of the past have created this moment, and all the moments up to this moment. What you are now choosing to believe and think and say will create the next moment and the next day and the next month and the next year.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Thinking, Past

“Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.”

Andrew Solomon book Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Source: Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Love, People, Drawing

“We believe in the wrong things, that's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Reading

“One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

“The nice thing about having a friend who is crazier than you are is that she bolsters your belief in your own sanity.”

Julie Powell (1973) American blogger

Source: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

God

“It is comfortable to live in the belief that you are great, though your greatness is latent.”

Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience

È un modo comodo di vivere quello di credersi grande di una grandezza latente.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 10; p. 12.
Source: Zeno's Conscience

“Your religious beliefs are your business. They are not and should not be the basis for law. If you use them as justification to discriminate against others, don’t be upset when others decide you’re an asshole."

[]”

Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer

Law, Business

“Our beliefs about what we are and what we can be precisely determine what we can be”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

“Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing -- faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: Leap

World, Faith

“When our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove these beliefs from us.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Living Buddha, Living Christ

Reality

“It has always been my belief that people are remembered for the sum of their accomplishments but defined by their singular failure.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

Source: I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains

People, Failure

“Like me, he has a searing belief that books are sacred. They might not be to other people, but when you have a passion, you hold on to it. You defend it. You dont pretend it isn't important at the risk of offending others." -Carrie.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

People, Books, Passion

“I personally subscribe to the belief that normal is just a setting on the dryer.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Personality

“Achamian tossed his hands skyward in dismay. “Foolish boy! How many faiths are there? How many competing beliefs? And you would murder another on the slender hope that yours is somehow the only one?”

R. Scott Bakker (1967) Canadian writer

Faith, Hope, Boy

“Mother, who has an absolute belief that it is not the cards that one is dealt in life, it is how one plays them, is, by far, the highest card I was dealt.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Life

“For dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“it's the belief, not the words, that mean everything. it's the floating.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Nothing binds you except your thoughts; nothing limits you except your fear; and nothing controls you except your beliefs.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Fear

“The Alchemists’ beliefs are my beliefs,” I say quickly.

She arched an eyebrow. “Are they? I would hope your beliefs would be your beliefs.”

I’d never thought about it that way before, but I suddenly hoped desperately that her words were true.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Hope, Way

“People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attention of bright, curious, intelligent people is to belittle or condescend or to show arrogance toward their beliefs.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

People, Stupidity, Way, Intelligence

“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922)

Faith

“Have you any other objection than your belief of my indifference?"

- Elizabeth Bennet”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Indifference

“All of us have our own inner fears, beliefs, opinions. These inner assumptions rule and govern our lives. A suggestion has no power in and of itself. its power arises from the fact that you accept it mentally.”

Joseph Murphy The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Source: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Fear

“What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue it after failure?”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Faith, Failure

“I surrendered my beliefs
and found myself at the tree of life
injecting my story into the veins of leaves
only to find that stories like forests
are subject to seasons”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Source: , said the shotgun to the head.

Life, Tree, Season

“At college, and perhaps for a year afterwards, they had believed in literature, had believed in Beauty and in personal expression as an absolute end. When they lost this belief, they lost everything.”

Nathanael West (1903–1940) American writer

Source: Miss Lonelyhearts and A Cool Million

Beauty, Literature, Personality

“What do you mean, Araluen? Death?"
Halt made a careless gesture. "The usual, I suppose: the sudden cessation of life. The end of it all. Departure for a happier place. Or oblivion, depending upon your personal beliefs.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

Life, Death, Departure, Dependency

“belief is the death of intelligence.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Source: Cosmic Trigger: Die letzten Geheimnisse der Illuminaten oder An den Grenzen des erweiterten Bewusstseins

Death, Intelligence

“And maybe she had certain beliefs that if you love somebody, [you're] gonna like them too. And that isn't necessarily true.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

Love

“I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Thinking

“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

William James, "Is Life Worth Living?," The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897).
Misattributed

Life, Help, Inspirational, Depressing

“Ever, if I’ve learned nothing else in my six hundred years of living, it’s that people hate change almost as much as they hate for their beliefs to be challenged.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Night Star

Hate, People, Learning, Change

“There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious — painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour — but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Robert Walton in "Letter 2"
Source: Frankenstein (1818)

Love, Men, Soul, Understanding

“Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Pain, Feeling, Perfection

“I was too busy fighting the river to worry about adjusting my beliefs in accordance to reality.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Business, Reality, Fight

“Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.”

Michael Shermer (1954) American science writer

People

“Nobody dares to solve the problems-because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.”

Michael Crichton book State of Fear

Source: State of Fear

People, World, Problem

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Hurt

“The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Behavior

“There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot'.”

Larry Niven (1938) American writer

“There’s a belief that to take care of someone else, or to let someone else take care of you—that both are inherently unfeminist. I don’t agree. There’s no shame in devoting yourself to another person, as long as he devotes himself to you in return.”

Curtis Sittenfeld book Eligible

Source: Eligible

Personality

“Belief?"
"Yes," Sazed said. "Tell me, Mistress. What is it that you believe?"
Vin frowned. "What kind of question is that?"
"The most important kind, I think.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Question, Thinking

“Teach her to question language. Language is the repository of our prejudices, our beliefs, our assumptions.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Source: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Question

“Your beliefs become your thoughts
Your thoughts become your words
Your words become your actions
Your actions become your destiny.

Mahatma Ghandi,” he said. “There’s more, but I can’t remember it all.”

Louise Penny book A Fatal Grace

Source: A Fatal Grace

“Belief in one’s identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one’s immortality…and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.”

Dan Simmons book Hyperion

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 3 (p. 186)

Pain, Youth

“Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief. Faith is believing an unshakable God when everything in me trembles and quakes.”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

Source: Praying God's Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds

God, Faith

“It is odd how, when you have a secret belief of your own which you do not wish to acknowledge, the voicing of it by someone else will rouse you to a fury of denial.”

Agatha Christie book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Source: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Secret

“Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather
it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: John F. Kennedy 1917-63: Chronology-documents-bibliographical aids

“I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human being.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

“I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

Source: Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

Life, Religion, Law

“If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Dogs, Personality

“And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Life, People, Thinking

“We were not a hugging people. In terms of emotional comfort it was our belief that no amount of physical contact could match the healing powers of a well made cocktail.”

David Sedaris Naked

Source: Naked

People

“If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior… you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

People, Behavior, Communication, Change

“Knowledge is something which you can use.
Belief is something which uses you.”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

Knowledge

“Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

When asked how the world had changed following the September 11, 2001 attacks <br class="br"> Has the world changed? http://books.guardian.co.uk/writersreflections/story/0,1367,567546,00.html, The Guardian (October 11, 2001)

People, Faith, Religion, Confidence

“When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

God, Happiness, Suffering

“The faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Faith, Religion

“One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Soul, Universe, Animals

“The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

“Never confuse faith, or belief — of any kind — with something even remotely intellectual.”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), ch. 9

Faith

“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Source: Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

Smile, Beauty

“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: The Wisdom of the Heart (1951), "The Alcoholic Veteran with the Washboard Cranium", p. 122

Way

“This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.”

Alberto Moravia book The Woman of Rome

Source: The Woman of Rome

Men

“The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Men, Knowledge

“Apocalypse is a frame of mind." [Nicodemus] said then. "A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

Death, Hope, Future, Despair

“She had no images of this love. She could offer no anecdotes. It was a belief rather than a memory.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Love, Memory

“Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Universe

“Question: What is the opposite of faith?

Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself is a kind of belief.

Doubt.”

Salman Rushdie book The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

Faith, Question

“And that leaves me with the belief that miracles, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Nature

“The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

World

“My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Art

“Faith in faith' he answered himself. 'It isn't necessary to have something to believe in. It's only necessary to believe that somewhere there's something worthy of belief.”

Alfred Bester book The Stars My Destination

Source: The Stars My Destination

Faith

“A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

God, People, Law, Thinking

“Your beliefs shape your attitudes!”

Andy Stanley (1958) American Christian minister

“It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Time

“It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”

Jane Wagner (1935) Playwright, actress

"Trudy"
Unsourced variants: I personally think we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.
Man invented language to satisfy his deep inner need to complain.
Source: The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)

“And he saw it in her eyes. Still. The belief that there could be someone other than herself. You, he wanted to shout. You. No one but you.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“At the foundation of moral thinking lie beliefs in statements the truth of which no further reason can be given.”

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929) Scottish philosopher

Source: After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory

Truth, Lie, Thinking

“I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life…”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Life

“I want to question my belief, so that what is left after I have questioned it, will be even stronger.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Question

“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: 1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 14 "Types of Men" - 3 : The Believer
Source: Prejudices: Third Series

Faith

“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Section 56
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Source: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Context: It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.
Context: The readiness for self-sacrifice is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life.... For self-sacrifice is an unreasonable act.... All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world.... by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it.... To rely on the evidence of senses and of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.

“This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

People, Thinking, Heart, Personality

“I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish - and that is the belief that moves mountains.”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

Mountain

“When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.”

Michel Houellebecq book Atomised

Source: The Elementary Particles

Way, Thinking, Chance, Past

“What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief.”

Meghan O'Rourke (1976) American writer

Life, Personality

“It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.”

Joseph Conrad Lord Jim

Source: Lord Jim

Art, Understanding, Knowledge

“They are not mad. They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”

Frank Herbert book Dune Messiah

Source: Dune Messiah

Knowledge, Training, Madness

“Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Variant: That everyone is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn't necessarily perverse.
Source: Infinite Jest (1996)

Secret, Way

“He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

“For, dear me, why abandon a belief,
Merely because it ceases to be true,
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt,
It will turn true again, for so it goes.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost

“To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

World, Fear, Sense, Change

“The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Time, Past

“Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?”

Michael Crichton book State of Fear

Source: State of Fear

Thinking

“The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don't mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed.”

Sarah Vowell The Wordy Shipmates

Source: The Wordy Shipmates

People, Idea

“Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Vol. 1, pt. 1.
Panegyric (1989)
Source: Society of the Spectacle

“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: How to Argue and Win Every Time (1995), Ch. 6 : The Power of Prejudice : Examining the Garment, Bleaching the Stain, p. 98
Source: How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday

Faith

Quotes about belief page 5

Quotes about belief
page 5