Quotes about believer (10000 quotes, page 75)

“Luis Miguel had the pride of the devil and a feeling of absolute superiority that was justified in many things. He had said so long that he was the best that he really believed it. He had to believe it to go on. It was not just something he believed. It was his belief.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Luis Miguel Dominguin was another famous bullfighter and friend of Hemingway's.
Source: The Dangerous Summer (1985), Ch. 10

Feeling

“It is said that great leaders are born, not made. The saying is true to this degree, that no man can persuade people to do what he wants them to do, unless he genuinely likes people, and believes that what he wants them to do is to their own advantage.”

Bruce Fairchild Barton book The Man Nobody Knows

Source: The Man Nobody Knows (1924), Ch. 4 : His Method

People

“I am, each day,
typing out the God
my typewriter believes in.
Very quick. Very intense,
like a wolf at a live heart.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

"Frenzy"
The Awful Rowing Toward God (1975)

God , Wolf , Heart

“One of the important functions of prayer, I believe, is to act as a stimulus to creative ideas. Within the mind are all the resources required for successful living. Ideas are present in the consciousness, which when released and given scope to grow and take shape, can lead to successful events. God, our Creator, has stored within our minds and personalities, great potential strength and ability. Prayer helps to tap and develop these powers.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 32.

God , Idea , Success , Help

““HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”
That’s the question you should always ask believers when they make unsupported assertions, ranging from “God is loving” to “Our souls live on after death.” The answer will always be one of two things: “The Bible says so,” or “I just know it to be true.” Neither of those are rational answers, but they satisfy the religious.
It is in fact the “how-do-you-know-that” query that really distinguishes New Atheism from Old. While atheists have always decried the lack of evidence for theism, it is the infusion of scientists and science-friendly people into atheism, starting with Carl Sagan and continuing on to Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Pinker, and Dennett, that has made us realize that religious dogmas are in fact hypotheses, and you need reasons and evidence for accepting them. If you have none, then you have no reason to believe in God.
Nevertheless, religious dogma does change, but not because theology has found better reasons. It’s because a.) science has shown the dogma to be false (Genesis, Adam and Eve, creation, the Exodus, etc.) or b.) secular morality has shown that the tenets of religious belief are no longer supportable”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

hell as a place of fire, limbo, discrimination against gays, the Mormons’ refusal to let blacks be priests, etc.
" Catholic official says that angels exist but are wingless http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/catholic-official-says-that-angels-exist-but-are-wingless/" December 21, 2013

Love , Death , God , People

“We want everybody to have the best facilities in which to work, but we do not believe in posh and impressive private offices.”

Akio Morita (1921–1999) Japanese businessman

Source: Made in Japan (1986), p. 182.

“We would have fulfilled our duty to our blood and our people and to the freedom of the peoples, if we had exterminated the most cunning intellect of all the human intellects alive today. For that is what I said to Streicher, what I have always preached: we are fighting an enemy who, through many many thousands of years of schooling, is intellectually superior to us. Was it yesterday or the day before, or a year ago, I don't know, I heard or read: even before the Romans had their state, before Rome had even been founded, the Jews there were able to write. This is an understatement. They should have said, aeons before the Romans erected their state, aeons before the very founding of Rome itself, they were able to write. Look at the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Look at a race that today has recourse to, may I just say, six thousand years of written history, a race that has been making laws for let us say five thousand years or six thousand years - and I am not wrong, I believe, when I estimate a seventh millennium. The fact that the Christian church today makes use of this lawmaking is very depressing for me. But it tells me that this must be a race of the first order of magnitude, since lawmakers have always been great. And because of these realizations I fought against this enemy.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Argentina Audiotapes (1957)

People , School , Law , History

“Aiyar wants the public to believe that the Kashmiri Pandits are so unintelligent that they left their comfortable homes and beautiful Valley at the instance of a pied piper called Jagmohan, and not by the militants' strategy of 'killing one and frightening one thousand'. He ignores the hard fact that eminent Kashmiri Pandits had been butchered before I took over.”

Jagmohan

Setting the recored straight, Sunday, 7.11.1993, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 57

Beauty , Home

“Some, in their curiosity, will say, "But you Mormons have another Bible! Do you believe in the Old and New Testaments?" I answer we do believe in the Old and New Testaments, and we have also another book, called the Book of Mormon. What are the doctrines of the Book of Mormon? The same as those of the Bible…"What good does it do you, Latter-day Saints?" It proves that the Bible is true. What do the infidel world say about the Bible? They say that the Bible is nothing better than last year's almanack; it is nothing but a fable and priestcraft, and it is good for nothing. The Book of Mormon, however, declares that the Bible is true, and it proves it; and the two prove each other true. The Old and New Testaments are the stick of Judah. You recollect that the tribe of Judah tarried in Jerusalem and the Lord blessed Judah, and the result was the writings of the Old and New Testaments. But where is the stick of Joseph? Can you tell where it is? Yes. It was the children of Joseph who came across the waters to this continent, and this land was filled with people, and the Book of Mormon or the stick of Joseph contains their writings, and they are in the hands of Ephraim. Where are the Ephraimites? They are mixed through all the nations of the earth. God is calling upon them to gather out, and He is uniting them, and they are giving the Gospel to the whole world. Is there any harm or any false doctrine in that? A great many say there is. If there is, it is all in the Bible.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 13:174-175 (May 29, 1870)
1870s

God , Children , People , Books

“She was temptable—which, if you believe in an all-powerful God, means God intentionally put temptation into Eve. Which seems like a dirty trick, if you ask me.”

John Scalzi book The Ghost Brigades

Source: The Ghost Brigades (2006), Chapter 13 (p. 288)

God

“There can be no benefit of an exorcism. It’s not like there could ever be an instance where an actual demon is involved, and a priest would be helpless even in that situation if there were any reality to that. Even if there were some placebo effect to the ritual, it still encourages belief in things that would still persist in the imagination and thus never be fully cured even in the mind of believers. And if the problem stems from any sort of actual mental disorder, then the ritual only postpones or replaces actual medical attention.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Satanic Panic and Exorcism in Schools? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/09/21/satanic-panic-and-exorcism-in-schools/ (September 21, 2016)

Imagination , Problem , Reality

“I've made use of the beautiful weather to sketch and paint outside. I had been staying away from color for such a long time that it had become something quite foreign to me. Working in color was always a great joy to me. And now it is a great joy again. Still, I have to battle with it, wrestle with it, with all my strength. And one must be victorious. But if it weren't for the fight, all the beauty of it wouldn't exist at all, would it? I'm writing this mostly for Mother who, I believe, thinks my whole life is one constant act of egoistic ecstasy. But devotion to art also involves something unselfish.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

In a letter to her parents, from Worpswede, 10 September 1899; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 199
1899

Life , Beauty , Art , Color

“Not that I don't think irreverent humor and someone being filthy is funny, I just do what I do. Any comedian would admit throwing an f-bomb in there would help get a reaction. … I'm not on a Puritanical pursuit, but when I would curse in a joke, I believe I'm not done writing it.”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

Tim Brouk (September 6, 2007) "Jim Gaffigan returns to his old stomping grounds, Purdue", Journal and Courier, pp. 1, 2D.

Thinking , Help

“Reporter: Would a reasonable observer say that you are potentially vulnerable to blackmail by Russia or by its intelligence agencies?
Trump: Lemme just tell you what I do. When I leave our country, I’m a very high-profile person, would you say? I am extremely careful. I’m surrounded by bodyguards. I’m surrounded by people. And I always tell them — anywhere, but I always tell them if I’m leaving this country, “Be very careful, because in your hotel rooms and no matter where you go, you’re gonna probably have cameras.” I’m not referring just to Russia, but I would certainly put them in that category. And number one, “I hope you’re gonna be good anyway. But in those rooms, you have cameras in the strangest places. Cameras that are so small with modern technology, you can’t see them and you won’t know. You better be careful, or you’ll be watching yourself on nightly television.” I tell this to people all the time. I was in Russia years ago, with the Miss Universe contest, which did very well — Moscow, the Moscow area did very, very well. And I told many people, “Be careful, because you don’t wanna see yourself on television. Cameras all over the place.”
And again, not just Russia, all over. Does anyone really believe that story? I’m also very much of a germaphobe, by the way, believe me.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump Press Conference at Trump Tower https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/us/politics/trump-press-conference-transcript.html,Donald (11 January 2017)
2010s, 2017, January

People , Hope , Way , Intelligence

“I believe that people believe what they believe they believe.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Good Intentions (1942), Seeing Eye to Eye is Believing

People

“Do any of us believe in what we are doing here? I doubt it. Her NCO husband least of all. We are given an old racetrack and a quantity of barbed wire and told to effect a change in men's souls. Not being experts on the soul but assuming cautiously that it has some connection with the body, we set our captives to doing pushups and marching back and forth.”

J.M. Coetzee book Life & Times of Michael K

Life & Times of Michael K (1983)

Men , Soul , Change

“I believe in a political revolution, without the aid of the military. I would rather win a man’s mind than compel his obedience.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 3 (p. 59).

“Our mission is to advance a Culture of Life where everyone is welcomed in life and defended in law. Our objectives to that end are to reverse Roe and defeat Planned Parenthood. I believe both of these goals are achievable in our lifetime if we remain committed, focused, optimistic and strategic. Although of course, in the end, the battle is not ours -- our duty is to remain faithful to the calling before us. As you rightly say, we have to oppose the lie… and the best weapon in that effort is the light of truth.”

Charmaine Yoest (1964) American anti-abortion activist

Interview with AUL Action's Charmaine Yoest on 'Open Letter to Barack Obama' http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=30332 (October 31, 2008)

Life , Truth , Lie , Faith

“Few artists were ever fully well, so it is no great trick to prove them ill. There are commentators who can't get interested in Caravaggio until they find out he killed someone. They are only one step from believing that every killer is Caravaggio.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Georg Christoph Lichtenberg', p. 395
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)

“To believe that new monsters will arise as vicious as the old, to believe that the great Pandora's Box of human frailty, once opened, will never show a diminution of its ugly swarm, is to help, by just that much, to make it so forever.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Book VII, Ch. 47: Ecclesiasticus
You Can't Go Home Again (1940)

Help , Box

“There are certain things you should expect from a President. I ought to care more about you than I do about me… I ought to care more about what's right than I do about what's popular. I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in.”

Gary Ross (1956) American film director

Dave (1993)

“I have always believed that conservation is not a liability to industries. Instead, if done properly, it can be an asset.”

Sukanto Tanoto (1949) Indonesian businessman

Interview, China Economic Herald, Nov 30, 2007. http://www.rgei.com/files/media_releases/ceh_301107.pdf
2007

“Taxes. Everyone desires a reduction of taxes, and there is a great preponderance of sentiment in favor of taxation reform. When I approved the present tax law, I stated publicly that I did so in spite of certain provisions which I believed unwise and harmful. One of the most glaring of these was the making public of the amounts assessed against different income-tax payers. Although that damage has now been done, I believe its continuation to be detrimental To the public welfare and bound to decrease public revenues, so that it ought to be repealed.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Law

“One of the most obvious facts about grown-ups, to a child, is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child. The child has not yet had the chance to know what it is like to be a grownup; he believes, even, that being a grownup is a mistake he will never make—when he grows up he will keep on being a child, a big child with power. So the child and grownup live in mutual love, misunderstanding, and distaste. Children shout and play and cry and want candy; grownups say Ssh! and work and scold and want steak. There is no disputing tastes as contradictory as these. It is not just Mowgli who was raised by a couple of wolves; any child is raised by a couple of grownups. Father and Mother may be nearer and dearer than anyone will ever be again—still, they are members of a different species. God is, I suppose, what our parents were; certainly the ogre of the stories is so huge, so powerful, and so stupid because that is the way a grownup looks to a child.
Grownups forget or cannot believe that they seem even more unreasonable to children than children seem to them.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“An Unread Book’, pp. 51–52
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

Love , God , Children , Stupidity

“If an international treaty outlawing war is negotiated, there is every reason to believe that the United States would join the League of Nations without further delay.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

An American Peace Policy (1925)

War

“79: A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.”

Alan Perlis Epigrams on Programming

Epigrams on Programming, 1982

God , Intelligence

“My recollection of meeting him [ Jackson Pollock ] outside of this one incident, was at a show that John Graham did at the MacMillin Gallery [1942]. He invited someone called Jackson Pollock and myself, and, I believe, de Kooning. There were three unknown Americans put into that show and it turned out we were the three and it was through that source, my trying to track down the other unknown American who was painting abstractly at that point, as though I knew them all in New York City.... and I promptly went up to Pollock's studio and that's when I say I met Pollock for the first time.... And then, you see, after I saw Pollock, met him, saw the work, I said, "I understand the third painter is de Kooning," and he said he didn't know de Kooning and I said, "Well, I do and I'll take you over and introduce you."”

Lee Krasner (1908–1984) American artist

So I brought Pollock up to de Kooning's studio. De Kooning was in a loft at that time because he was something, and that is how Pollock met De Kooning.
n.p.
Oral history interview with Lee Krasner, 1964 Nov. 2 - 1968 Apr. 11

Understanding , Time , Painting

“Our Constitution has raised certain barriers against too hasty change. I believe such provision is wise. I doubt if there has been any change that has ever really been desired by the people which they have not been able to secure. Stability of government is a very important asset. If amendment be made easy, both revolution and reaction, as well as orderly progress, also become easy. The nation has lost little, but has gained much, through the necessity of due deliberation. The pressing need of the present day is not to change our constitutional rights, but to observe our constitutional rights.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

People , Change

“The future of poetry should be, must be, in the hearts of children, lifting them above mean desires and helping them to believe, with Socrates, that they who have the fewest wants are nearest to the gods.”

Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) American writer and poet

On poetry

God , Children , Future , Help

“I disagreed with the grand jury on [Tawana] Brawley. I believed there was enough evidence to go to trial. The grand jury said there wasn’t. OK, fine. Do I have a right to disagree with the grand jury? Many Americans believe O. J. Simpson was guilty. A jury said he wasn’t. So I have as much right to question a jury as they do. Does it make somebody a racist? No! They just disagreed with the jury. So did I.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

Interview by David Shankbone (3 December 2007).[citation needed]

Question

“To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honourable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions which beget further war.”

Ralph Bunche (1904–1971) American diplomat

Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time (1950)

War , World , Peace , Effort

“To trust God, as seen in the face of His Son, and to believe that He loves us, that is faith, that is what we must do to be saved. And to love God, as seen in the face of His Son, and to seek to testify our love by our whole life, — that is Christian duty; that is all we have to do.”

Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd (1825–1899) British writer and minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 233.

Love , Life , God , Faith

“Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely minute part of a globe which itself is only an imperceptible point in the immense whole, believes that the universe is made for himself.”

Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789) French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist

La Système de la nature; quoted by Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment p. 220 (paperback edition)

Universe , Sun , Parting

“What language did these Macedones speak? The name itself is Greek in root and in ethnic termination. It probably means highlanders, and it is comparable to Greek tribal names such as `Orestai' and `Oreitai', meaning 'mountain-men'. A reputedly earlier variant, `Maketai', has the same root, which means `high', as in the Greek adjective makednos or the noun mekos. The genealogy of eponymous ancestors which Hesiod recorded […] has a bearing on the question of Greek speech. First, Hesiod made Macedon a brother of Magnes; as we know from inscriptions that the Magnetes spoke the Aeolic dialect of the Greek language, we have a predisposition to suppose that the Macedones spoke the Aeolic dialect. Secondly, Hesiod made Macedon and Magnes first cousins of Hellen's three sons - Dorus, Xouthus, and Aeolus-who were the founders of three dialects of Greek speech, namely Doric, Ionic, and Aeolic. Hesiod would not have recorded this relationship, unless he had believed, probably in the seventh century, that the Macedones were a Greek speaking people. The next evidence comes from Persia. At the turn of the sixth century the Persians described the tribute-paying peoples of their province in Europe, and one of them was the `yauna takabara', which meant `Greeks wearing the hat'. There were Greeks in Greek city-states here and there in the province, but they were of various origins and not distinguished by a common hat. However, the Macedonians wore a distinctive hat, the kausia. We conclude that the Persians believed the Macedonians to be speakers of Greek. Finally, in the latter part of the fifth century a Greek historian, Hellanicus, visited Macedonia and modified Hesiod's genealogy by making Macedon not a cousin, but a son of Aeolus, thus bringing Macedon and his descendants firmly into the Aeolic branch of the Greek-speaking family. Hesiod, Persia, and Hellanicus had no motive for making a false statement about the language of the Macedonians, who were then an obscure and not a powerful people. Their independent testimonies should be accepted as conclusive.”

N. G. L. Hammond (1907–2001) British classical scholar

"The Macedonian State" p.12-13)

Men , People , Family , Mountain

“DR JAMES DOBSON: George, you think you ought to lecture me on what a Christian is all about? You know, I think -I think I'll stand by the things I have said. Patrick Leahy has been in opposition to most of the things that I believe. He is the one that took the reference to God out of the oath.”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

2004

God , Thinking

“I've been looking into the issue for more than thirty years, and I have never seen a hint of genuine evidence of species-to-species transitional forms in the fossil record. The theory stands or falls on the supposed links between species. Even if you came up with what you believe is evidence, time would prove it to be another hoax, as it has so often in the past.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Time , Past

“I believe that life begins at conception. And abortion under no circumstances. … No, it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue. … The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Piers Morgan Tonight
Television
2011-11-19
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1110/19/pmt.01.html, quoted in * The pro-life candidate who’s pro-choice
Political Animal
2011-10-20
Steve
Benen
Washington Monthly
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_10/the_prolife_candidate_whos_pro032941.php
2011-10-23
on abortion

Life , People , Family , Decision

“Because wisdom in action in our Western democracies rests squarely upon public understanding, I have long believed that our schools have a key role to play. Peace could, I believe, be advanced through careful study of all the factors which have gone into the various incidents now historical that have marked the breakdown of peace in the past. As an initial procedure our schools, at least our colleges but preferably our senior high schools, as we call them, should have courses which not merely instruct our budding citizens in the historical sequence of events of the past, but which treat with almost scientific accuracy the circumstances which have marked the breakdown of peace and have led to the disruption of life and the horrors of war.”

George Marshall (1880–1959) US military leader, Army Chief of Staff

Essentials to Peace (1953)

Life , Wisdom , War , School

“I believe in justice, not revenge.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Interview with Matt Lauer http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/40073863#40074234 (2010), aired 8 November 2010.
2010s, 2010, Interview with Matt Lauer (November 2010)

Justice , Revenge

“Vegetarians and vegans are not morally superior to everyone else. We're simply healthier, and a hell of a lot better for the environment around us. Of course, just because we're not morally superior doesn't mean we're not on the side of the angels. I believe we are. After all, we're practitioners of a diet that's better for people, better for animals, and better for the environment.”

Howard F. Lyman (1938) American activist

Source: No More Bull! (2005), Ch. 5: Message for My Meat-Eating Friends, p. 78

People , Angels , Hell , Animals

“Donald Trump (clip): I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding.
Meredith Vieira (clip): You have people now, down there searching—
Trump (clip): Absolutely.
Vieira (clip): I mean, in Hawaii?
Trump (clip): Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they're finding.
Wolf Blitzer: All right, tell us what your people who were investigating in Hawaii, what they found.
Trump: Oh, we don't have to go into old news. That's old news.
Blitzer: Well, what did they find?
Trump: There's been plenty found. You can call many people. You can read many, many articles on the authenticity of the certificate. You can read many articles from just recently as to what the publisher printed in a brochure as to what Obama told him, as to where his place of birth is. And that's fine, Wolf.
Now, it's appropriate, I think, that we get to the subject of hand, which is — at hand, which is jobs, which is the economy, which is how our country is not doing well at all under this leadership, which is how are we going to do something about energy, which is really that things that I wanted to talk to you about, but you like to keep going back to the place of birth.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

The Situation Room
CNN
2012-05-29, quoted in * 2012-05-29
Wolf Blitzer Spars With Donald Trump Over Obama's Birth Certificate
Elizabeth Flock
US News & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/05/29/wolf-blitzer-spars-with-donald-trump-over-obamas-birth-certificate
Referring to a 1991 promotional booklet by literary agency Acton & Dystel with bios of 89 authors, that erroneously described Barack Obama as "born in Kenya". http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/booklet.asp
2010s, 2012

People , Search , Birth , Thinking

“Well, I always believe that when you fail, you get up and try again and again. It's whether that what we have been doing is worthwhile or not”

Najib Razak (1953) Malaysian politician

Quoted on Malaysia Kini (February 16, 2016), "Dr M: No surrender in battle against Najib" http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/330557

“All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end it shall ripen into truth, and you shall know why you believe.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Intellect
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841)

Truth , Knowledge

“If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two sentences: In the first place, to fulfil a solemn international obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated. I say, secondly, we are fighting to vindicate the principle which, in these days when force, material force, sometimes seems to be the dominant influence and factor in the development of mankind, we are fighting to vindicate the principle that small nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith, by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power. I do not believe any nation ever entered into a great controversy – and this is one of the greatest history will ever know – with a clearer conscience and a stronger conviction that it is fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own selfish interest, but that it is fighting in defence of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilisation of the world.”

H. H. Asquith (1852–1928) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Address to the House of Commons on the declaration of war with Germany; see [Asquith, 6 August 1914, http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/asquithspeechtoparliament.htm, British Prime Minister's Address to Parliament]

Life , World , Faith , Law

“I departed from parental paths significantly and abruptly one Sunday morning when, sitting in the family pew of the Hyde Park United Church and idly twisting a loose button on the cushion beside me, I said to myself, "I do not believe in God." Some months previously… when our minister fell back on St. Anselm's ontological argument to prove the existence of God, he entirely failed to convince me. Quite the contrary, the argument struck me as an abuse of language. Though I duly submitted to the ritual of confirmation… Horton's unconvincing argument had sown doubt in my mind; and for that reason I can assign, on that morning, listening to his more emotional, hortatory rhetoric… the balance tipped, committing me to a secret, personal rejection of the Christian piety my parents held dear.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

The Pursuit of Truth: A Historian's Memoir (2005)

God , Secret , Family , Parent

“If I go out of public life with one feeling, with one conviction, it is this : a deep regret for many bitter words I have used in my life, deep sincere repentance for my violence of language. But I hope they will be forgiven me by God and man, because not once in all my life have I attacked anybody unjustly from my point of view, and without believing it was my duty to do so.”

Henri Bourassa (1868–1952) Canadian politician

Henri Bourassa, Fiery Politician, Dies, The Globe and Mail, September 1, 1952, page A1.

Life , God , Hope , Feeling

“Nor do I propose to defend the right to talk on a mobile while driving a car, though I don't believe that is necessarily any more dangerous than the many other risky things that people do with their free hands while driving - nose-picking, reading the paper, studying the A-Z, beating the children, and so on.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

"To the lady who berated me, I say: on your bike", Daily Telegraph, 1 August 2002, p. 21.
2000s, 2002

Children , People , Cars , Study

“We humans are foolish in many ways: we want to conquer all as if we had all time, as if our lives did not have any end. Thus, our real time passes too quickly, and often when one believes that they are working only for themselves, they are in fact working for unworthy or ungrateful successors.”

Frederick II of Prussia book Anti-Machiavel

Source: Anti-Machiavel, Ch. 5 : How It Is Necessary To Control The Cities, Or The Principalities, Which Are Controlled By Their Own Laws Before They Were Conquered

Way , Time

“Basically, too many other people made important decisions for us and we just wrote songs and worried about clothes and girls. In the early days he came round once with this girl who had convinced him that I was just a weirdo and that we had an unhealthy relationship. He sat me down and said, “Maybe we shouldn’t see so much of each other? Maybe we should knock the band on the head? It’s not really going anywhere, is it?" I was desperate for us to stick together and see it through because I never stopped believing. When we got signed, Carl was shocked. I had prepared myself and had been reading the NME since I was 16. Carl wasn’t like that.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Mail On Sunday, September 2008
Carl Barat

People , Girl , Decision , Reading

“I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life… Of course, secularists are desperate to find life in outer space, as they believe that would provide evidence that life can evolve in different locations and given the supposed right conditions! The search for extraterrestrial life is really driven by man’s rebellion against God in a desperate attempt to supposedly prove evolution!… And I do believe there can’t be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel. You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but because they are not Adam’s descendants, they can’t have salvation. One day, the whole universe will be judged by fire, and there will be a new heavens and earth. God’s Son stepped into history to be Jesus Christ, the “Godman,” to be our relative, and to be the perfect sacrifice for sin—the Savior of mankind. Jesus did not become the “GodKlingon” or the “GodMartian”! Only descendants of Adam can be saved. God’s Son remains the “Godman” as our Savior. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that we see the Father through the Son (and we see the Son through His Word). To suggest that aliens could respond to the gospel is just totally wrong. An understanding of the gospel makes it clear that salvation through Christ is only for the Adamic race—human beings who are all descendants of Adam.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

"We'll find a new Earth within 20 years" http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2014/07/20/well-find-a-new-earth-within-20-years/, Around the World with Ken Ham (July 20, 2014)
Around the World with Ken Ham (May 2005 - Ongoing)

Life , God , History , Search

“These are three concrete steps that, I believe, can readily be taken. Protect the material and strengthen verification. Control the fuel cycle. Accelerate disarmament efforts.
But that is not enough. The hard part is: how do we create an environment in which nuclear weapons — like slavery or genocide — are regarded as a taboo and a historical anomaly?”

Mohamed ElBaradei (1942) Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Nobel …

Nobel lecture (2005)

Effort , Parting

“Our units were tired. There were many whining pessimists in the army. I threw these panicky people out of the army right away and set to work. I told our men we could not retreat beyond the Volga… I believe that nowhere else in this war was there such bloody hand-to-hand combat. Nowhere else were bayonets and hand grenades used so widely as in Stalingrad…Lieutenant General Rodimtzev's division was first to arrive there and received the fierce German blow. Rodimtzev told me: 'We will fight to the last man, but we shall not leave the city.”

Vasily Chuikov (1900–1982) Soviet military commander

...Our soldiers had only one idea. Stalin had ordered us not to retreat.
Quoted in "They Shall Not Sleep" - Page 318 - by Leland Stowe - 1944

Men , War , People , Idea

“I must say that the Pagan movement will have a lot to do. The opposing forces are very powerful, and they have a long tradition of using force and repression. But I believe that a new spirit is rising and once the Pagans begin to speak, they are going to be heard.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Of Hindus, Pagans and The Return of The Gods Hinuism Today https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=868

“Mr. Trump has said very clearly for months now a policy that's been ignored, which is that he believes that we need to have a temporary suspension to stop refugees from coming in from countries where terrorist activities are rampant or in a war. That's the issue, not the Khan family loss which we all regret, not the loss of many other American families which we all regret. The issue is how to protect the homeland. And the second part of the issue which is being ignored is the cause of these losses, because it forced our American military to go back into Iraq, to go into Syria and that cause was the policies that were put together in January of 2009 by President Clinton and Secretary Obama that caused ISIS to rise.”

Paul Manafort (1949) American political consultant

Interview on NBC News' Meet The Press (July 31, 2016)

War , Family , Loss , Parting

“That I grow sour, who only lack delight;
That I descend to sneer, who only grieve:
That from my depth I should contemn your height;
That with my blame my mockery you receive;
Huntress and splendour of the woodland night,
Diana of this world, do not believe.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"Sonnet: Do not believe when lovely lips report"
To Lady Diana Cooper. See her memoir, The Light of Common Day (Boston: Houghton, 1959), pp. 27–28
Sonnets and Verse (1938)

World , Night

“Decision Points is based primarily on my recollections. With help from researchers, I have confirmed my account with government documents, contemporaneous notes, personal interviews, news reports, and other sources, some of which remain classified. There were instances in which I had to rely on memory alone. If there are inaccuracies in this book, the responsibility is mine. In the pages that follow, I have done my best to write about the decisions I got right, those I got wrong, and what I would do differently if given the chance. Of course, in the presidency, there are no do-overs. You have to do what you believe is right and accept the consequences. I tried to do that every day of my eight years in office. Serving as president was the honor of a lifetime, and I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to share my story.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. xii

Books , Decision , Memory , Chance

“Hitler was very upset by the heavy losses suffered by the parachute units, and came to the conclusion that their surprise value had passed. After that he often said to me: "The day of parachute troops is over." He would not believe reports that the British and Americans were developing airborne forces. The fact that none were used in the St. Nazaire and Dieppe raids confirmed his opinion. He said to me: 'There, you see! They are not raising such forces. I was right.' He only changed his mind after the Allied conquest of Sicily in 1943. Impressed by the way the Allies had used them there, he ordered an expansion of our own airborne forces. But that change of mind came too late - because by then you had command of the air, and airborne troops could not be effectively used in face of a superior air force.”

Kurt Student (1890–1978) German Luftwaffe general during World War II

Quoted in "The Other Side of the Hill" - Page 168 - by Basil Henry Liddell Hart - History - 1948.

Way , Suffering , Change , Loss

“There are two things which make it impossible to believe that this world is the successful work of an all-wise, all-good, and, at the same time, all-powerful Being; firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

"On the Sufferings of the World"
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Studies in Pessimism

World , Time , Success

“You see, I have made a great discovery. I no longer believe in anything. Objects don't exist for me except in so far as a rapport exists between them or between them and myself. When one attains this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual non-existence — what I can only describe as a sense of peace, which makes everything possible and right. Life then becomes a perpetual revelation. That is true poetry.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

Quote from The Power of Mystery (7 December 1957), a London Observer interview with John Richardson, as quoted in Braque: The Late Works (1997), by John Golding, Introduction, p. 10
unsourced variant translation: I made a great discovery. I don't believe in anything anymore. Objects do not exist for me, except that there is a harmonious relationship among them, and also between them and myself. When one reaches this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual void. This was everything becomes possible, everything becomes legitimate, and life is a perpetual revelation. This is true song.
1946 - 1963

Life , Peace , Sense

“Scripture points out this difference between believers and unbelievers; the latter, as old slaves of their incurable perversity, cannot endure the rod; but the former, like children of noble birth, profit by repentance and correction.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 57.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Children , Birth

“She'd always believed that people come in two varieties: those who look out the windshield and those who stare in the rearview mirror. She'd always been the windshield type: Gotta focus on the future, not the past, because that's the only part that's still up for grabs.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Julie Barenson, Chapter 26, p. 270
2000s, The Guardian (2003)

People , Past , Future , Parting

“There was a comfort in the thought, a strange sort of personal comfort in being able to believe that some intelligence might have solved the riddle of that mysterious equation of the universe. And how, perhaps, that mysterious equation might tie in with the spiritual force that was idealistic brother to time and space and all those other elemental factors that held the universe together.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 30

Intelligence , Universe , Time , Personality

“"But there are two things that different kinds of people believe that are the worst, most dangerous, wrongest of all. Some people believe that the best way to solve a problem is with violence; they beat up or kill anyone who disagrees with them."
… "But what's the other worst kind of bad thinking?"
"Pacifism," she said. "That's just the opposite of the first kind of bad thinking. Pacificists believe that you should never lift a hand against another human being, no matter what he has done or what you know he's going to do." … "Some pacificists are cowards in disguise, but some really believe it's right to permit the murder of an innocent person rather than kill to stop it. They're wrong because by not fighting evil, they've become part of it."”

Dean Koontz book Lightning

Part II, Chapter 5.1; conversation between Laura and her son Chris
Lightning (1988)

People , Way , Problem , Thinking

“Now that the provost has instructed me on the criminal speech laws he apparently believes I have a proclivity (to break), despite knowing nothing about my speech, I see that he is guilty of promoting hatred against an identifiable group: conservatives. The provost simply believes and is publicizing his belief that conservatives are more likely to commit hate crimes in their speeches. Not only does this promote hatred against conservatives, but it promotes violence against conservatives.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

Response to a letter from University of Ottawa provost Francois Houle to use "restraint, respect and consideration" in her planned address there (21 March 2010), as quoted in "Coulter: Canadian U Provost Guilty of Hate Crimes" at Newsmax (23 March 2010) http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/coulter-canada-provost-hate/2010/03/23/id/353652.
2010

Hate , Law

“Parties do not maintain themselves. They are maintained by effort. The government is not self-existent. It is maintained by the effort of those who believe in it. The people of America believe in American institutions, the American form of government and the American method of transacting business.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

As quoted in Manuscripts: speeches and messages of Calvin Coolidge, 1895–1924, the Massachusetts State Library, George Fingold Library, Boston.
1920s, Speech to the the Republican Commercial Travelers' Club (1920)

People , Business , Effort

“The essence of any great achievement is to believe in your purpose.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

p 75
21 Yaks And A Speedo (2013)

“Some Englishmen, of whom Kitchener was chief, believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey. Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. So they allowed it to begin…”

T. E. Lawrence book Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Introduction: Foundations of Revolt
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)

People , Nature , Knowledge , Thinking

“We mean a lot to each other as musicians and people, but sometimes we start believing what people write about us: The band is just one guy or two guys. That can be harsh for the soul.”

Joe Trohman (1984) American musician

On the lack of attention he and Andy Hurley get
My Heart Will Always Be The B-Side To My Tongue (2004), Rolling Stone Interview

People , Guy , Soul

“There is no reason to believe that the Holy Spirit ever leaves awakened sinners, only as they leave the truth of God for some error or sin.”

Ichabod Spencer (1798–1854) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 319.

God , Truth , Error

“It is true, I believe I state but the common sentiment, when I declare my earnest desire that the border States should join us. The differences of opinion that existed among us anterior to secession, related more to the policy in securing that result by co-operation than from any difference upon the ultimate security we all looked to in common.”

Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) Vice President of the Confederate States (in office from 1861 to 1865)

The Cornerstone Speech (1861)

“I do my best to hide this low-down feelin'.
I try to make believe there's nothing wrong.
But they're always askin me about you, darlin
And it hurts me so to tell 'em that you're gone.
If they ask me I guess I'd be denyin' that I've been unhappy all alone.
But if they heard my heart, they'd hear it cryin'
Where's my darling, when's she comin home?”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

So Doggone Lonesome
Song lyrics, Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar (1957)

Home , Heart , Hurt

“I testify that it is possible for believers to be so filled with the Holy Ghost that they can live many years on the earth conscious every day of a meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light, and of no shrinking back, because of a felt need of further inward cleansing, from an instant translation into the society of the holy angels and into the presence of the holy God.”

Daniel Steele (1824–1914) American Methodist pastor

Daniel Steele, Boston, March, 1888 in Forty Witnesses (1888) edited by S. Olin Garrison

God , Angels , Light

“I am glad that you admit that a bad God is worse than no God. If so, the atheist is far better than the believer in Jehovah, and far better than the believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ—because I am perfectly satisfied that none but a bad God would threaten to say to any human soul, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” So that, before any Christian can be better than an atheist, he must reform his God.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Answer to Lyman Abbott (unfinished), responding to Abbott, Lyman. "Flaws in Ingersollism." The North American Review 150, no. 401 (1890): 446-457.

God , Angels , Soul , Christ

“There is something radically wrong, [the anarchist] declares, in a system of society that functions and maintains its existence by the impetus of violence and force. He sees nothing praiseworthy in political society which has recourse to periodic wars, or need of jails, gallows and bludgeons--and it is because he is aware that these brutal weapons are the instruments of every government and State that he works for their destruction. … Unlike the politician, he does not regard dishonesty, brutality and avariciousness as natural characteristics of human nature, but as the inevitable consequences of coercion and frustration engendered by artificial law, he believes that these social evils are best eradicated not by greater penalties and further legislation, but by the free development of the latent forces of solidarity and sympathetic understanding which government and law so ruthlessly suppress. … Freedom will be possible when people understand and desire it--for man can only rule where others subserviently obey. Where none obey, none has power to rule.”

George Nicholson (1760–1825) British anarchist and author

"The simplicity of anarchism" in Freedom, 1955. Reprinted in What Is Anarchism?: An Introduction by Donald Rooum, ed. (London: Freedom Press, 1992, 1995) pp. 39-40.

War , People , Law , Penalty

“Politics is a dirty business, a ruse, an ideological cul-de-sac, a vast looter of intellectual and financial resources, a lie that corrupts, a deceiver, a means of unleashing vast evil in the world of the most unexpected and undetected sort and the greatest diverter of human productivity ever concocted by those who do not believe in authentic social and economic progress.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Lie , World , Business , Evil

“Taste was his world. Rilke behaved as if art were taste elevated to the highest possible degree. The armigerous chatelaines who played hostess were happy to believe it, since the idea made them artists too.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Sergei Diaghilev, p. 172
Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)

World , Art , Idea , Happiness

“Many people, no doubt, honestly believe that they are only giving away the interests of Czechoslovakia, whereas I fear we shall find that we have deeply compromised, and perhaps fatally endangered, the safety and even the independence of Great Britain and France. … You have to consider the character of the Nazi movement and the rule which it implies. The Prime Minister desires to see cordial relations between this country and Germany. There is no difficulty at all in having cordial relations with the German people. Our hearts go out to them. But they have no power. You must have diplomatic and correct relations, but there can never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi Power, that Power which spurns Christian ethics, which cheers its onward course by a barbarous paganism, which vaunts the spirit of aggression and conquest, which derives strength and perverted pleasure from persecution, and uses, as we have seen, with pitiless brutality the threat of murderous force. That Power cannot ever be the trusted friend of the British democracy.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1938/oct/05/policy-of-his-majestys-government#column_370 in the House of Commons (5 October 1938) against the Munich Agreement
The 1930s

Friendship , People , Pleasure , Fear

“Everyone knows how compromised the idea of bureaucracy as a meritocratic system is. The first criterion of loyalty to any organization is therefore complicity. Career advancement is not based on merit but on a willingness to play along with the fiction that career advancement is based on merit, or with the fiction that rules and regulations apply to everyone equally, when in fact they are often deployed as an instrument of arbitrary personal power. … As whole societies have come to represent themselves as giant credentialized meritocracies, rather than as systems of predatory extraction, we bustle about, trying to curry favor by pretending we actually believe it to be true.”

David Graeber book The Utopia of Rules

The Utopia of Rules (2015)

Idea , Personality , Loyalty

“I don't believe in twisting yourself into knots of excuses and explanations over the food you make. … Maybe the cat has fallen into the stew, or the lettuce has frozen, or the cake has collapsed—eh bien, tant pis! Usually one's cooking is better than one thinks it is. And if the food is truly vile … then the cook must simply grit her teeth and bear it with a smile—and learn from her mistakes.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

My Life In France: Le Cordon Bleu, p. 71

Food , Smile , Cats , Thinking

“Let us face the inevitable truth. There can be no Americanization from the top down or in the mass. It will not come from the court that grants a citizenship certificate; nor from the school that teaches English; nor from the speakers that talk patriotism; nor from the patriotic society that prints platitudes. It will come from basic conditions being right, and none is more vital than industrial relations. It will live as we shorten the distance between the Constitution and the shop. It will be believed in as we square every act in the shops of America with every utterance in public print.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

Truth , School

“World Encyclopaedia. -- Behind these lies another prospect of greater and more permanent importance; that of an attempt at a comprehensive and continually revised presentation of the whole of science in its social context, an idea most persuasively put forward by H. G. Wells in his appeal for a World Encyclopaedia of which he has already given us a foretaste in his celebrated outlines. The encyclopaedic movement was a great rallying point of the liberal revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The real encyclopaedia should not be what the Encyclopaedia Britannica has degenerated into, a mere mass of unrelated knowledge sold by high-pressure salesmanship, but a coherent expression of the living and changing body of thought; it should sum up what is for the moment the spirit of the age…
The original French Encyclopaedia which did attempt these things was, however, made in the period of relative quiet when the forces of liberation were gathering ready to break their bonds. We have already entered the second period of revolutionary struggle and the quiet thought necessary to make such an effort will not be easy to find, but some effort is worth making because the combined assault on science and humanity by the forces of barbarism has against it, as yet, no general and coherent statement on the part of those who believe in democracy and the need for the people of the world to take over the active control of production and administration for their own safety and welfare.”

John Desmond Bernal (1901–1971) British scientist

Source: The Social Function of Science (1939), p. 306-307. Chapter SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION. The Function of Scientific Publication. See also World Brain

People , Age , World , Democracy

“I hear today's college women are 'prodigious.'"
"Prodigious? Is that what you heard?"
"Well, I read it in a magazine. It was something I wanted to believe."
"The Jayster. Always a dreamer.”

Bret Easton Ellis book Lunar Park

Lunar Park (2005)

Women , Reading

“Humans lived for several million years as fully wild beings: only in the last 10, 000 did we invent agriculture; only in the last couple of centuries did we invent industry. We are a species that has spent 99 per cent of its history as hunter-gatherers. We haven't had time for our unconscious minds and our unconscious needs to have changed. If you like, our souls have not changed, and this is true whether or not we believe that we have them.”

Simon Barnes (1951) British journalist

How To Be Wild (2007)

Soul , History , Change , Time

“Yes, I believe I had a part in it insofar as for years I have written that any further mixture of German blood with Jewish blood must be avoided. I have written such articles again and again; and in my articles I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Jews should serve as an example to every race, for they created the racial law for themselves - the law of Moses, which says, "If you come into a foreign land you shall not take unto yourself foreign women." And that, Gentlemen, is of tremendous importance in judging the Nuremberg Laws. These laws of the Jews were taken as a model for these laws. When after centuries, the Jewish lawgiver Ezra demonstrated that notwithstanding many Jews had married non-Jewish women, these marriages were dissolved. That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries, while all other races and civilizations have perished.”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

After Streicher was asked about his participation in the Nuremberg Race laws of 1935. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945 - 1 October 1946, Volume 12, Secretariat of the Tribunal, Nuremberg, Germany, page 315

Women , Marriage , Law , Parting

“Feign then what's by a decent tact believed
And act that state is only so conceived,
And build an edifice of form
For house where phantoms may keep warm.”

William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet

Source: This Last Pain' (1930), Line 29.

Housing

“When jumping with a parachute, everyone is afraid. Do not believe those who say that they were not afraid. It is not true, and it would be unnatural”

Stanisław Sosabowski (1892–1967) Polish general

Stanisław Sosabowski (1957) Najkrótszą drogą (Through the shortest way) London : Committe of Polish Parachutists.

“Society did not recognize philosophy or the right of philosophizing. There was no harmony between philosophy and society. The philosophers were very far from being exponents of society or of parties. They defended the interests of philosophy and of nothing else. In doing this, they believed indeed that they were defending the highest interests of mankind. The exoteric teaching was needed for protecting philosophy. It was the armor in which philosophy had to appear. It was needed for political reasons. It was the form in which philosophy became visible to the political community. It was the political aspect of philosophy. It was "political" philosophy.”

Leo Strauss book Persecution and the Art of Writing

Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), Introduction

Communication , Appearance

“Do you believe in God, Andrei? No. Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know. What do you mean? Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do—then, I know they don't believe in life. Why? Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

We The Living (1936)
Source: We The Living Part One Chapter 9

Life , God , People , Dreams

“After the fall of Vicksburg I did incline very much to an immediate move on Mobile. I believed then the place could be taken with but little effort, and with the rivers debouching there, in our possession, we would have such a base to opperate from on the very center of the Confederacy as would make them abandon entirely the states bound West by the Miss. I see however the importance of a movement into Texas just at this time.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1860s, Letter to Abraham Lincoln (1863)

Effort , Time

“Always believe in your dreams, because if you don't, you'll still have hope.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Young India (23 March 1924)
1920s

Dreams , Hope

“The true realist is he who believes in both God and the Devil, and is prepared to attempt, with humility, to sort out some corner of the extraordinary tangle of their works which is our world. He cannot use his feeling alone, he must use his intellect.”

Robertson Davies book A Voice from the Attic

A Voice from the Attic (1960)

God , World , Feeling

“We are living in times that I believe God will judge each of us for what we do and do not do. And if it's not God, it will at least be historians. I will go back to say what I said at the beginning of the year: There is great and powerful evil but there is great and powerful light as well. Get into the light and stand in it because evil is growing rapidly.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2011-03-14
Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
Beck: "Evil Is Growing Rapidly"
Media Matters for America
2011-03-14
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201103140043
2011-03-19
2010s, 2011

God , Light , Evil , Time

“Danger! Mushbrains and believers at work!”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" New Mexico, with input from science and public, doesn’t water down its science standards https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/new-mexico-with-input-from-science-and-public-doesnt-water-down-its-science-standards/" October 19, 2017

“I believe the most important decision taken anywhere by anyone in the 20th century was the decision about where to locate the Princeton Graduate College. President of the University Thomas Woodrow Wilson wanted it down on the campus, integrated with the undergraduate college. His nemesis, Dean Andrew Fleming West, wanted it where it now is, up on a little hill overlooking the Princeton golf course. President Woodrow Wilson had one of his characteristic snits, resigned as president, went into politics and ruined the 20th century.”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Remarks at the Disinvitation Dinner http://www.buckleyprogram.com/#!Transcript-of-George-Wills-Remarks-at-the-Disinvitation-Dinner/c18lp/i8sxengw20, William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale (15 April 2015). Of his quip, Will remarked, "I simplify a bit and exaggerate somewhat."
2010s

Decision , Universe

“Pantagruel was telling me that he believed the queen had given the symbolic word used among her subjects to denote sovereign good cheer, when she said to her tabachins, A panacea.”

Francois Rabelais book Gargantua and Pantagruel

Source: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–1564), Fifth Book (1564), Chapter 20 : How the Quintessence cured the sick with a song

“I was listening to the wind that walks in the hour;
I never would have heard in the candlelight
I was hoping… would you shelter me from showers?
I believe every word in the candlelight…”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Islands (1987)

Hope

“You simply cannot invent any conspiracy theory so ridiculous and obviously satirical that some people somewhere don't already believe it.”

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

Introduction, p. 16
Everything Is Under Control (1998)

People

“You got to believe in the ball, and throw your self. (Not Another Teen Movie)”

Mr. T (1952) American actor and retired professional wrestler

Quotes from acting

“Upon completion of the centennial of your birth – and this time only – we have come to address some remarks at your graveside. We report to you, Rosh Betar, that Jerusalem, the city that has become bound together, the eternal capital of Israel and of the Land of Israel, shall not be subjected to any division and is our liberated and indivisible capital and so it shall remain from generation to generation.
The western part of the Land of Israel is entirely under our control and it shall not be partitioned anymore. No part of this land shall be given over to a foreign administration, to foreign sovereignty.
We believe that a day will come when the two parts of the Land of Israel shall establish, peacefully, in agreement and understanding a covenant of alliance, a free confederation, for the purpose of join cooperation”

Menachem Begin (1913–1992) Israeli politician and Prime Minister

Prime Minister Menachem Begin Speech At The Grave Of His Boss Ze’ev Jabotinsky http://www.jewocity.com/blog/prime-minister-menachem-begin-speech-at-the-grave-of-his-boss-zeev-jabotinsky-never-before-published/4566
For the New Year: Words at the Grave of Jabotinsky http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12196

Birth , Understanding , Time , Parting

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

in John 20:30-31 as quoted in www.ewtn.com http://www.ewtn.com/ewtn/bible/search_bible.asp#ixzz2yvGxUYR6
Gospel of John

Life , God , Books , Christ

Quotes about believer page 75

Quotes about believer
page 75