Quotes about believer
page 7

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Ronald Reagan photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo

“We humans are willing to believe anything rather than the truth.”

Variant: We are willing to believe anything other than the truth.
Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Albert Einstein photo

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As Quote Investigator explains, allegories about animals doing impossible things have been incredibly popular in the past century. But no, this one isn't from Einstein. (Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/.)
Misattributed
Variant: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Nora Roberts photo
William James photo

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

"Is Life Worth Living?"
Variant: Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
Source: 1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Charles Bukowski photo

“I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

Virginia Woolf photo

“One can only believe entirely, perhaps, in what one cannot see.”

Ch. 4
Source: Something, perhaps, we must believe in, and as Orlando, we have said, had no belief in the usual divinities she bestowed her credulity upon great men — yet with a distinction. Admirals, soldiers, statesmen, moved her not at all. But the very thought of a great writer stirred her to such a pitch of belief that she almost believed him to be invisible. Her instinct was a sound one. One can only believe entirely, perhaps, in what one cannot see.

Mark Twain photo
John Owen photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Jean De La Fontaine photo

“Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

As quoted in Subcontact : Slap the Face of Fear and Wake Up Your Subconscious‎ (2001) by Dian Benson, p. 149
Variant: Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Nora Roberts photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“I believe in God, only I spell it "Nature."”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

As quoted in Quote magazine (14 August 1966)
Source: Truth Against the World: Frank Lloyd Wright Speaks for an Organic Architecture

Cassandra Clare photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Bill Hybels photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Marilynne Robinson photo
Ken Robinson photo
Roger Scruton photo

“A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is 'merely relative,' is asking you not to believe him. So don't.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"The Nature of Philosophy" (p. 6)
Modern Philosophy (1995)
Source: Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey

Max Frisch photo
Michael Crichton photo
Byron Katie photo

“I love what I think, and I'm never tempted to believe it.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Source: A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are

Norman Vincent Peale photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Tennessee Williams photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo

“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Quotes from Bill Maher show website, quotes of the show, Google searches showing poor results before February 4th (pages which were updated since their original, pre-feb. 4th posting date).
Why would-be engineers end up as English majors, May 21, 2011 http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/17/education.stem.graduation/index.html,
Skeptic Blog: "Reality Check", April 20, 2011 http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/04/20/reality-check/,
Google Search for quote prior to Feb. 4th, only results are from pages which were updated after the "posted" date https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+good+thing+about+science+is+that+it%E2%80%99s+true+whether+or+not+you+believe+in+it.%22&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&sa=X&ei=m8AwU9KKNc_8oASnhYCoAg&ved=0CBoQpwUoBjgU&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A2%2F3%2F2011&tbm=,
2010s

Joel Osteen photo

“What you receive is directly connected to what you believe”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Hayao Miyazaki photo
John Lennon photo
Jim Butcher photo
Hayao Miyazaki photo
René Girard photo

“But an absolute value is not proven by logic or metaphysical arguments; it is accepted, believed (even when not discussed), and hedged about with taboos to protect it.”

René Girard (1923–2015) French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science

Source: I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

Barack Obama photo
Gene Simmons photo

“Believe me, the library is the temple of God. Education is the most sacred religion of all.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Terence McKenna photo

“If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" in Pine Cones, Vol. 1, No. 6 (October 1919)
Fiction

Bram Stoker photo

“I want you to believe… to believe in things that you cannot.”

Source: Dracula

Galileo Galilei photo

“It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer
Mike Resnick photo
Frank Herbert photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Not that you lied to me but that I no longer believe you has shaken me.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Variant: I am not upset that you lied to me, I am upset that from now on I cannot believe you.

R.L. Stine photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, Unpopular Essays (1950)

Thomas Paine photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Lewis Carroll photo

“Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through the land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast -
And half believe it true.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Graham Hancock photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Voice of America broadcast (11 November 1951)

“When you meet someone who is truly great, he makes you believe you can be great, too.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Terry Pratchett photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Jacques Derrida photo
John Lennon photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Do you really believe that the moon isn’t there when nobody looks?”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Charles Fort photo
Whoopi Goldberg photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“I cannot believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt
Source: letter to Harry Truman, 22 March 1948

Paul Valéry photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Response to the question "Suppose Lord Russell, this film were to be looked at by our descendants, like a dead sea scroll in a thousand years time. What would you think it's worth telling that generation about the life you've lived and the lessons you've learned from it?" in a BBC interview on "Face to Face" (1959) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3aPkzHpT8M
1950s
Context: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.
Context: I should like to say two things. One intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: "When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts." That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say. The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple; I should say: "Love is wise – Hatred is foolish." In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact, that some people say things we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital, to the continuation of human life on this planet.

Michel De Montaigne photo

“Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book III, Ch. 8
Attributed

Jonathan Maberry photo
Mark Twain photo
Sadhguru photo
A.A. Milne photo

“You are stronger than you seem,
Braver than you believe,
and smarter than you think you are.”

Variant: You are braver than you believe,
Stronger than you seem,
And smarter than you think(:
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Richard Dawkins photo

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)
Source: Part 1: "The God Delusion"

Raymond Carver photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Though written in contemporary idiomatic English, this has been recently cited on the Internet on various "quotations" websites (and elsewhere) as having being written by Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland [sic]. However, it does not appear within the text of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass. It was actually a line spoken by a character named Jefferson in Once Upon a Time (TV series) in a 2012 episode entitled "Hat Trick," in which the literary character The Mad Hatter appears. – Ref: Internet Movie Database (IMDb), quotes from Once upon a Time, "Hat Trick" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2104520/quotes.
Misattributed

Robinson Jeffers photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Robert Byrne photo
Franz Kafka photo

“By believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Attributed to Kafka in Ambiguous Spaces (2008) by NaJa & deOstos (Nannette Jackowski and Ricardo de Ostos), p. 7, and a couple other publications since, this is actually from Report to Greco (1965) by Nikos Kazantzakis, p. 434
Misattributed

Oscar Wilde photo
Malcolm X photo
Tamora Pierce photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Emil M. Cioran photo

“The poor maidservant who used to say that she only believed in God when she had a toothache puts all theologians to shame.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Tears and Saints (1937)

Michael Moorcock photo

“There is less danger, gentlemen, in living according to a set of high moral principles than most politicians believe.”

Book 1, Chapter 6 “A Haven of Civilization” (p. 214)
The Land Leviathan (1974)