Quotes about believer
page 84

“The gods were fighting over her children but she could not seek the help of any of them. And she had so much choice. She had grown up a Buddhist, her ex-husband was alleged a Moslem when he died, her own sister was a Christian - so many options for salvation. […] Chelsea would have settled for solace through prayer. But she did not believe that there was an invisible hand behind the farce that was her life's play. At the very least she did not believe in a benevolent God. […] Surely it was better to lay the blame for the machinations of fate at the door of chance?”

Shamini Flint book Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Cap 13

Life, God, Fate, Children

“But my reasons for taking this less-traveled road were many. One is the inevitable thrill of discovery when you wander into new areas. More importantly, you also avoid the danger of being too comfortable in too narrow a niche. I truly believe the sayings that there is no hope for the satisfied man and that without fear there is no learning. Entering a new field with a degree in another is not unlike Lewis and Clark walking into the camp of the Mandans. You are not one of them. They distrust you. Your degree means nothing and your name is not recognized. You have to learn it all from scratch, earn their respect, and learn a lot on your own. But I also think that many of the most significant discoveries in science will be found not in but between the rigid boundaries of the disciplines: the terra incognita where much remains to be learned. It's not a place that's hidebound by practice and ritual. I have always tried to keep moving between fields of study and it shows up, I think, in my vitae.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Fear, Hope, Travel, Thinking

“I’ve always said there’s no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams but in order to that we do need to have friends. We need those who believe in us. Friends are those who believe in us and who want to help us whatever it is that we are trying to achieve.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech (2013)

Dreams, Hope, Help

“She did not really want to know; she believed she understood already.”

Philip K. Dick book Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Source: Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said (1974), Chapter 5 (p. 53)

“[Abraham Lincoln believed that] [t]he only reason people do not succeed in a capitalist environment is because they are improvident, they are lazy, they are good for nothing, or they experience some incredible turn of bad luck—that’s why "better luck next time." That may seem like vanishingly small consolation to people who’ve just come through a depression, but for Lincoln, that kind of hardship paled beside slavery. Slavery says that there is a category of people that can never be allowed to rise, that cannot improve themselves no matter how hard they try because they will always be slaves. It’s very much the classic disjuncture between the Enlightenment and feudalism. Feudalism talks about people being born with status, and everyone comes into this world equipped with a status. This status is either free or slave, serf or nobility, elect or damned, whatever. For the Enlightenment people come into this world armed with rights, and the ideal political system is the system that allows them to realize those rights, to use those rights in the freest and most natural fashion possible.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)

Bad luck, People, World, Fashion

“What kind of man would live where there is no danger? I don't believe in taking foolish chances. But nothing can be accomplished by not taking a chance at all.”

Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist

As quoted in Lindbergh: Flight's Enigmatic Hero (2002) by Von Hardesty

Chance

“I believe that we must look outwards, not inwards, to test our true economic potential - measuring ourselves against our international competitors.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Scotland in the World Forum (February 4, 2008)

“Even then, though, I cared about people, not theories. I had no wish to spin individual cases into some grandiose, ideologically driven legal theory. I no longer believed in utopian solutions, or the cynical politicians who used them to sucker voters, claiming to care about the poor while actually exploiting them. Not only was I sure that such solutions were doomed to failure, but I also feared that once they failed, the resulting disillusionment would make matters even worse. Yet it was taken for granted in the seventies that the purveyors of these elaborate nostrums were doing the right thing, and anyone who dared to challenge their effectiveness was hooted down. That prospect intimidated me, especially when it came to racial matters.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Page 115
2000s, (2008)

People, Fear, Failure

“A liberal mind is a mind that is able to imagine itself believing anything.”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

The Masses (September 1917)

Imagination

“You have to come to terms with yourself and your place in the scheme of life — something a good many people don't want to do. In the last century we have extended the normal life-span. Many seem to believe that this means we have extended the period when they should enjoy the things they enjoyed in youth. But I don't think they realize that we've also expanded the period of life when we can learn to think, feel, and experience the largeness and the splendor of life.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

"You Should Face Up to Your Death, Says Author".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

Life, People, Youth, Feeling

“When the weather changes and hurricanes hit, nobody believes that the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed. It's the same stock market with the same mechanisms and the same people.”

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician

A Theory of Roughness (2004)

People, Law, Change, Weather

“I said I didn’t want to run for president. I didn’t ask you to believe me.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

New York Times (12 February 1985)

“First of all, Al-Qaeda is a phenomenon…If it is an organization only, I have no link to the organization whatsoever, nor to Sheikh Osama bin Laden, nor to anybody in Al-Qaeda. It is the phenomenon of Al-Qaeda – what they believe, and what their own path is, what their own methods are. I believe Al-Qaeda… Every Muslim around the world shares many things with them. They pray toward the Ka'ba – we pray toward the Ka'ba. They pray five times a day – we pray five times a day. They are Muslims – we are Muslims. They fight against occupiers – we fight against occupiers. So we share with them all these Islamic values. But we don't share with them the structures, activities, and actions. Therefore, if you speak about Al-Qaeda as an organization with a particular dogma, a particular thought and method – definitely, I do not have a relationship with Al-Qaeda. Otherwise I do not think I would be at this table.”

Omar Bakri Muhammad (1958) Islamist militant leader

Islamist Sheik Omar Bakri, Who Fled from London to Lebanon, Declares His Support of Al-Qaeda, Criticizes Hizbullah and States: The Prophet Muhammad Also Killed Civilians, MEMRI, January 8, 2008 http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1651.htm,

World, Thinking, Time, Fight

“He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a thinker on both.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/28/mode/1up pp. 28–29

Failure, Knowledge, Success, Training

“It is God alone that can pronounce upon the real condition of the heart and soul, out of which are the issues of life. A true phrenological fact, therefore, which we can force a sound mind to believe must involve, in one of its aspects, a species of knowledge which ist is not in the power of man, and still less within his province, to attain; and in the other, a physical fact, which can be seen only in the brain itself, and which cannot be interfered from any external sign.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

Review of Vestiges (1845)

Life, God, Soul, Knowledge

“I am proud that my daughter believes, as I do, that hungry children should be fed whether they are Black Panthers or White Republicans”

Tommy Douglas (1904–1986) Scottish-born Canadian politician

Ottawa Journal, 5 October 1969.

Children, Daughters

“Adrian Slywotzky believes the Internet will overturn the inefficient push model of supplier-customer interaction. He predicts that in all sorts of markets, customers will use choiceboards—interactive, on-line systems that let people design their own products by choosing from a menu of attributes, prices, and delivery options. And he explores how the shifting role of the customer—from passive recipient to active designer—will change the way companies compete.”

Adrian Slywotzky (1951) American economist

Adrian J. Slywotzky, Clayton M. Christensen, Richard S. Tedlow, Nicholas G. Carr (2000) "The future of commerce." Harvard Business Review Vol 78.1. p. 39-53. ( abstract http://hbr.org/product/future-of-commerce-hbr-onpoint-enhanced-edition/an/4681-PDF-ENG).

People, Way, Change

“Few are the beliefs, still fewer the superstitions of to-day. We pretend to account for everything, till we do not believe enough for that humility so essential to moral discipline. But the dark creed of the fatalist still holds its ground — there is that within us, which dares not deny what, in the still depths of the soul, we feel to have a mysterious predominance. To a certain degree we controul our own actions — we have the choice of right or wrong; but the consequences, the fearful consequences, lie not with us. Let any one look upon the most important epochs of his life; how little have they been of his own making — how one slight thing has led on to another, till the result has been the very reverse of our calculations. Our emotions, how little are they under our own controul! how often has the blanched lip, or the flushed cheek, betrayed what the will was strong to conceal! Of all our sensations, love is the one which has most the stamp of Fate. What a mere chance usually leads to our meeting the person destined to alter the whole current of our life. What a mystery even to ourselves the influence which they exercise over us. Why should we feel so differently towards them, to what we ever felt before? An attachment is an epoch in existence — it leads to casting off old ties, that, till then, had seemed our dearest; it begins new duties; often, in a woman especially, changes the whole character; and yet, whether in its beginning, its continuance or its end, love is as little within our power as the wind that passes, of which no man knows whither it goeth or whence it comes.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

No.14. The Bride of Lammermuir — LUCY ASHTON.
Literary Remains

Love, Life, Fate, Lie

“Man is free; but not unless he believes he is”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

.
The Story of My Life (trans. Sartarelli/Hawkes 2001), Preface, p. 1
Referenced

“The second conception of the world via the medium of matter required both a visual and a tactile perception of things. In this case the whole design process tends to emanate from the specific characteristics of the respective medium used. The leader of this movement (Tatlin) assumed.... that the intuitive and artistic mastery of materials would lead to inventions on the basis of which objects could be constructed. He believed he could prove this theory with his design for the 'Monument to the Third International' (1920), [never built]. He accomplished this task without having any special technical knowledge of construction.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

Quote from: 'Basic Premises'
1926 - 1941, Rußland: Die Rekonstruktion der Architektur in der Sowjetunion' (1929)

World, Knowledge

“Now you're my whole life;
Now you're my whole world.
I just can't believe
The way I feel about you girl.
Like a river meets the sea,
Stronger than it's ever been.
We've come so far since that day,
And I thought I loved you then.”

Brad Paisley (1972) American country music singer

Then, written by Chris DuBois, Ashley Gorley, and Brad Paisley.
Song lyrics, American Saturday Night (2009)

Love, Life, World, Way

“I came away from the two science surveys superficially acquainted with what was already a rather old-fashioned version of contemporary natural science. Relativity and quantum mechanics were mentioned… but not explained; the stars were still eternal; and both subatomic particles and biochemistry were discreetly omitted. …The two courses persuaded me that, in some sense, I understood the natural world. The illusion endured, for later in life… I tagged along by reading popular accounts, believing that the natural world out there was somehow within my reach, even without the mathematics that made quantum mechanics so mysteriously plausible.”

William H. McNeill (1917–2016) Canadian historian

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

Life, World, Star, Mathematics

“Time seems cold, each day we grey away. Believe the lines that we’ve been told, 'Lose our way lose yesterday’, they say, but who are they? Who are they anyway? They didn’t hear us play at eight years old.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Eight Years Old"
Out Seeing The Fields (2007)

Way, Time

“The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

As quoted in A Random Walk in Science (1973) by Robert L. Weber, p. 76

Pleasure

“Who among American heroes could meet their tests, who would be cleared by their committees? Not Washington, who was a rebel. Not Jefferson, who wrote that all men are created equal and whose motto was "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." Not Garrison, who publicly burned the Constitution; or Wendell Phillips, who spoke for the underprivileged everywhere and counted himself a philosophical anarchist; not Seward of the Higher Law or Sumner of racial equality. Not Lincoln, who admonished us to have malice toward none, charity for all; or Wilson, who warned that our flag was "a flag of liberty of opinion as well as of political liberty"; or Justice Holmes, who said that our Constitution is an experiment and that while that experiment is being made "we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death."”

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian

Who is Loyal to America? (1947)

Death, Men, God, Justice

“I don't think he's a liar, just a fantasist. He says whatever he likes, and then he believes it.”

Norman Tebbit (1931) English politician

On Tony Blair

Thinking

“In reality, there is no such thing as “absolute truth”. Everything within the capacity of human understanding contains a degree of error, and everything men know to be true is only true to a degree. Everyone is inevitably wrong about something somewhere. We don’t know everything about everything. We don’t know everything about anything! And what we do know, we don’t know accurately on all points nor completely in every detail. Honest men admit this. Anyone claiming to know the absolute truth is not being honest, especially not when they claim to know anything about things which can only be believed on faith. Even if men were given genuine revelations by truly omniscient beings, they must still be filtered and interpreted by weaker minds influenced by our limitations, biases, and misimpressions, as well as linguistic and cultural barriers.”

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

"3rd Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnj7PlqmJ5o, Youtube (December 10, 2007) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, Truth, Faith, Error

“2084. He that does not speak Truth to me, does not believe me when I speak Truth.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Truth

“Nobody could believe in me the way I believed in myself.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

Way

“In today’s world of tabloid press and with so much competing for people’s attention, it’s a miracle to get their attention at all. And of course having to compete with the advertising budget of even one of our adversaries is impossible. If the whole movement pooled its resources and went after simply one thing, like the veal industry, we wouldn’t make a dent, advertising dollar for advertising dollar. To me the greatest success is in catching the attention of the public and reminding them that there’s an animal involved, and that that animal is believed not to have been treated properly by a segment of the population.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

Satya, November, 2000 http://www.satyamag.com/novdec00/newkirk.html. 2000

People, World, Success, Animals

“In my years past I have argued that economic sabotage was an appropriate tactic for our time. Like all strategists I have also been forced to recognize that times have changed and it is now my belief that the movements to protect earth and animals have achieved enough with this strategy to now consider an approach that does not compromise objectives, but increases the likelihood of real social change. Let our opposition who believe in violence carry the burden for its justification, but let those who believe in peace and love practice a way of life that our society sorely needs now more than ever.”

Rod Coronado (1966) Native American eco-anarchist and animal rights activist

^ Message from Rod Coronado in Prison

Love, Life, Peace, Way

“She waits for me at night, she waits for me in silence.
She gives me all her tenderness and takes away my pain.
And so far she hasn't run, though I swear she's had her moments.
She still believes in miracles while others cry in vain.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

All About Soul.
Song lyrics, River of Dreams (1993)

Pain, Silence, Waiting, Cry

“I am a firm believer in living as if there were no such thing as a secret. If we hide our sins and live in darkness, we will never get the healing we so desperately need; in fact, if it is hidden so well that we don't even recognize it, we may never even find forgiveness.”

Ted Haggard (1956) American minister

[Haggard, Ted, Simple Prayers for a Powerful Life, Regal Books, September 2002, p. 110, ISBN 0830730559]

Secret, Forgiveness

“I want to deal with one or two of these mighty precious values that we've left behind, that if we're to go forward and to make this a better world, we must rediscover. The first is this—the first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws. I'm not so sure we all believe that. We never doubt that there are physical laws of the universe that we must obey. We never doubt that. And so we just don't jump out of airplanes or jump off of high buildings for the fun of it—we don't do that. Because we unconsciously know that there is a final law of gravitation, and if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences—we know that. Even if we don't know it in its Newtonian formulation, we know it intuitively, and so we just don't jump off the highest building in Detroit for the fun of it—we don't do that. Because we know that there is a law of gravitation which is final in the universe. (Lord) If we disobey it we'll suffer the consequences. But I'm not so sure if we know that there are moral laws just as abiding as the physical law. I'm not so sure about that. I'm not so sure if we really believe that there is a law of love in this universe, and that if you disobey it you'll suffer the consequences.”

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

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)

Love, World, Law, Reality

“The old question as to what shall be done with the negro will have to give place to the greater question “What shall be done with the Mongolian,” and perhaps we shall see raised one still greater, namely, “What will the Mongolian do with both the negro and the white?” Already has the matter taken shape in California and on the Pacific coast generally. Already has California assumed a bitterly unfriendly attitude toward the Chinaman. Already has she driven them from her altars of justice. Already has she stamped them as outcasts and handed them over to popular contempts and vulgar jest. Already are they the constant victims of cruel harshness and brutal violence. Already have our Celtic brothers, never slow to execute the behests of popular prejudice against the weak and defenseless, recognized in the heads of these people, fit targets for their shilalahs. Already, too, are their associations formed in avowed hostility to the Chinese. In all this there is, of course, nothing strange. Repugnance to the presence and influence of foreigners is an ancient feeling among men. It is peculiar to no particular race or nation. It is met with, not only in the conduct of one nation towards another, but in the conduct of the inhabitants of the different parts of the same country, some times of the same city, and even of the same village. 'Lands intersected by a narrow frith abhor each other. Mountains interposed, make enemies of nations'. To the Greek, every man not speaking Greek is a barbarian. To the Jew, everyone not circumcised is a gentile. To the Mohametan, every one not believing in the Prophet is a kaffer.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Men, Hostility, People, Justice

“There is a narrowness of action, though not of intent, which characterizes university departments, and scientific publications and scientists in general: if it is too popular, it is somehow vulgar and wrong. You can't really speak to those people across the street. I live next to the chemists at MIT, but I never see them. I hardly know who they are, yet between physics and chemistry it is hard to know who should study what molecule. I myself am guilty. We form communities not based on the problems of science, but on quite other things. This is part of the general split between the intelligent member of the public and the scientist who speaks in narrow focus. But the great theoretical problems which I believe the world expects will somehow be solved by science, problems close to deep philosophical issues are the very problems that find the least expertise, the least degree of organization, the least institutional support in the scientific institutions of America or indeed of the world.”

Philip Morrison (1915–2005) American astrophysicist

On specialization, Nothing is Too Wonderful to be True (1995)

People, World, Intelligence, Communication

“We believe that the idea underlying this integral concept of statistics finds adequate expression in the ancient Indian work Sankhya in Sanskrit the usual meaning is ‘number‘, but the original root meaning was ‘determinate knowledge’ in the Atharva Veda a derivative from Sankhyata occurs both in the sense of ‘well-known‘ as well as ‘numbered’. The lexicons give both meanings. Amarakosa gives Sankhya – vicarana (deliberation, analysis) as well as ‘number’; also Sankhyavan”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972) Indian scientist

panditah (wise, learned).
Quote, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in Vigyanprasar

Idea, Knowledge, Sense, Learning

“My loneliness is killing me (and I)
I must confess, I still Believe (still believe)
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign!
Hit me Baby One More Time!”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

"...Baby One More Time"
Lyrics, "...Baby One More Time"(1999)

Time, Baby, Loneliness

“I think President Obama is the most radical president this nation's ever seen. And in particular, I think he is a true believer in government control of the economy and of our everyday lives. In my judgment, we are facing what I consider to be the epic battle of our generation, quite literally the battle over whether we remain a free market nation.”

Ted Cruz (1970) American politician

Interview with Caroline May of the The Daily Caller, after his announcement to run for U.S. Senate for the first time; in Caroline May, " Partier for Senate http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/06/ted-cruz-cuban-ivy-league-tea-partier-for-senate/", The Daily Caller (June 6, 2011). 2010s

Thinking

“We believe that the most pressing political necessity is the consolidation of a United Front joining together all sections of the revolutionary, radical and democratic movements. Only a united front—led in the first place by the national liberation movements and the working people—can decisively counter, theoretically, ideologically and practically, the increasingly fascistic and genocidal posture of the present ruling clique”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

If They Come in The Morning (1971)

People, Decision

“I never learned the names of the streets because I couldn't wait to get out. It was too small and I was bored. I was a pretentious little twerp and I had ideas above my station, which everyone should have. I was deeply ambitious but I was deeply dismissive of what was there and that was a mistake. Wexford was a fascinating town and so was the society. I remember a friend of mine telling me about wife-swapping parties that went on there and how people would throw their keys into the middle of a bowl. This was the late 1950s. I didn't believe a word of it. If I believed him and looked about, I would have found another version of Wexford. I'm not saying that I wanted to be at wife-swapping parties, but the Wexford I imagined wasn't necessarily the Wexford that was real. So I blinded myself and I was just as narrow-minded and blinkered as the people whom I despised there. That was a mistake.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Who cares whodunnit? (2013)

People, Imagination, Idea, Learning

“I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, "What happened next?"”

A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian

A Personal History ([1983] 1984) p. 301

Question

“If anyone believes that the enforcement of laws will be stopped if I am done away with, that they are more than wrong, because I am not the system. The system will keep on functioning and no one will get amnesty by getting one or two state officials out of the way.”

Zoran Đinđić (1952–2003) Serbian politician

Politika, 20.02.2003.

Law, Way

“Constantinople has no past; only a noisy present and a splendid future, if the auguries are to be believed.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 2

Past, Future

“I really believe that the marijuana laws are a terrible injustice. They make no sense scientifically, ethically, legally, or any way. They cost a fortune to enforce and we incarcerate hundreds of thousands of people who have done nothing else, but possess or distribute marijuana. Maybe it's because I'm a child of the 60's and marijuana has been such a positive part of my life. I have never seen it as being addictive, having spent weeks, and months, and days of my life (and years) without using marijuana in any form. For me, it's a kind of a sacrament, something that should be used wisely and in the context of a loving family existence. […] There's a place for alcohol too, but there's no reason why adults shouldn't be allowed to do something which not only doesn't add harm to themselves or others, but is a way to enhance the beauty of life, the beauty of eating, of listening to music, of being with friends and family, of being with the one you love.”

Ann Druyan (1949) American author and producer

Ann Druyan – from her video podcast At Home in the Cosmos with Annie Druyan. — OVGuide. "Ann Druyan – A Plea for a Change in the Marijuana Laws Video" http://www.ovguide.com/ann-druyan-9202a8c04000641f8000000000008b85 (Podcast). published by Ann Druyan. Retrieved 2013-10-02.

Love, Life, People, Alcohol

“Many of us go through life feeling as an actor might feel who does not like his part, and does not believe in the play.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Theater

Life, Feeling, Parting

“What good is a martyr, Captain Bastable? A martyr shows us the power of faith. But what if that faith is misinformed? While people believe in heroes and the magic power of an individual to save them from the human condition, they will never be free.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 422)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

People, Faith

“For two things both to believe that snow is white, they need not to be physically similar in any specifiable way, but they must both be in a "functional" condition or state specifiable in the most functional language; they must share a Turing machine description according to which they are both in some particular logical state (which is roughly like two different computers having the same program and being in the same "place" in the program). … it is a type functionalism—each mental type is identifiable as a functional type in the language of Turing machine description.”

Daniel Dennett book Brainstorms

Source: Brainstorms (1978), p. xvi

Way

“I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced wars; it is the intolerant spirit animating that which believed itself in the ascendant.”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

No. 86. (Usbek writing to Mirza)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

War, Religion, History, Animals

“You have to see where the market is going. I always believe there is no sunset business. It’s all in the mindset because if you give up, then you die.”

Sukanto Tanoto (1949) Indonesian businessman

On film and Eastman Kodak, Globe Asia Interview, Sep, 2015. http://www.inside-rge.com/Sukanto-Tanoto-Resource-King-GlobeAsia 2015

Business

“I believe so... Don't accuse anybody else.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Reply to the police when Vincent was asked if he had attempted to commit suicide (27 July 1890), as reported in "The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh" on 60 Minutes, 16 October 2011 http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-18560_162-20120760.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody 1890s

“I don't like that word 'finish'. When something is finished, that means it's dead, doesn't it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while. I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often. The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

quote of 1948
1942 - 1948
Source: Movements in art since 1945, Edward Lucie-Smith, Thames and Hudson 1975, p 32

Quotes, Change, Time, Painting

“Religious fundamentalists see themselves as having remedies for the maladies of the modern world. In reality they are symptoms of the disease they pretend to cure. They hope to recover the unreflective faith of traditional cultures, but this is a peculiarly modern fantasy. We cannot believe as we please; our beliefs are traces left by our unchosen lives. A view of the world is not something that can be conjured up as and when we please.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Human: Against fundamentalism ― religious and scientific (p. 18)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

World, Disease, Faith, Hope

“I am a conservative. I intend to give the American people a clear choice. I welcome a fight between our philosophy and the liberal left-wing dogma which now threatens to engulf every man, woman, and child in the United States. I am in this race because I believe the American people have been pushed around long enough and that they, like you and I, are fed up with the continuing trend toward a socialist state which now subjects the individual to the dictates of an all-powerful central government.”

George Wallace (1919–1998) 45th Governor of Alabama

Speech http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/speech-by-george-c-wallace-the-civil-rights-movement-fraud-sham-and-hoax-1964-.php (4 July 1964) 1960s

People, Fight

“I feel that I have within me a medieval soul, and I believe that the soul of my country is medieval, that it has perforce passed through the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Revolution — learning from them, yes, but without allowing them to touch the soul, preserving the spiritual inheritance which has come down from what are called the Dark Ages. And Quixotism is simply the most desperate phase of the struggle between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which was the offering of the Middle Ages.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

Age, Feeling, Soul, Learning

“As I crossed a few hours ago from Scotland I said to myself,—"The majority there are Radicals. They are going to vote next week for the Home Rule Bill. What would they say to a proposal which was to subject them to the same kind of Government or the same kind of men to which, for the sake of party interests, they are willing to sacrifice you?" They would never accept it. I know Scotland well, and I believe that, rather than submit to such a fate, the Scottish people would face a second Bannockburn or a second Flodden.”

Bonar Law (1858–1923) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

'Mr. Bonar Law In Ulster.', The Times (9 April, 1912), p. 7.

Men, Fate, People, Home

“As I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come - but we believe not too long into the future - I'd like to just (say) what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus- Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.”

Eugene Cernan (1934–2017) United States Navy officer and former NASA astronaut

NASA transcript http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/a17.clsout3.html

God, Peace, Hope, Home

“I do not believe that our friends at the South have any just idea of the state of feeling, hurrying at this moment to a pitch of intense exasperation, between those who respect their political obligations, and those who apparently have no impelling power but that which a fanatical position on the subject of domestic Slavery imparts. Without discussing the question of right — of abstract power to secede — I have never believed that actual disruption of the Union can occur without blood; and if, through the madness of Northern Abolitionists, that dire calamity must come, the fighting will not be along Mason's and Dixon's line merely. It [will] be within our own borders, in our own streets, between the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred.”

Franklin Pierce (1804–1869) American politician, 14th President of the United States (in office from 1853 to 1857)

Letter to Jefferson Davis (6 January 1860).

Feeling, Idea, Question, Fight

“The life insurance industry is filled with good people who believe in their work and their companies, but who may never have challenged the assumptions underlying their efforts.”

Andrew Tobias (1947) American journalist

Source: The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know (1982), Chapter 4, Tell Us The Odds, p. 65.

Life, People, Effort

“Come the Day of Judgment, some believe that the body will be different from our present body. This is only transient, that will be eternal. For this also there are religious arguments.”

Averroes book On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

Pat 5: The Day of Judgment; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy

“Reagan finally won the nomination by promoting "Reaganomics", an economic program based on the theory that the government could lower taxes while increasing spending and at the same time actually reduce the federal budget by sacrificing a live chicken by the light of a full moon. Bush charged that this amounted to "voo-doo economics," which got him into hot water until he explained that what he meant to say was "doo-doo economics." Satisfied, Reagan made Bush his vice-presidential nominee. The turning point in the election campaign came during the October 8 debate between Reagan and Carter, when Reagan's handlers came up with a shrewd strategy: No matter what Carter said, Reagan would respond by shaking his head in a sorrowful manner and saying: "There you go again." This was brilliant, because (a) it required the candidate to remember only four words, and (b) he delivered them so believably that everything Carter said seemed like a lie. If Carter had stated that the Earth was round, Reagan would have shaken his head, saying, "There you go again," and millions of voters would have said: "Yeah! What does Carter think we are? Stupid?”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Dave Barry, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (1989), p. 167

Lie, Stupidity, Thinking, Light

“Animals in zoos (we are told) believe that their bars protect them. We Americans have forged our own bars, built our own cage, and live in it more or less content as long as someone feeds us.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

The Best of Gene Wolfe (2009), afterword to "Petting Zoo", p. 432
Nonfiction

Animals

“There were three types of people in the world, Elizabeth believed. Some, like Cassidy, were naïve and full of ridiculous scruples that held them back from ever enjoying life. Others, like that Allison and Nicole, were phonies who pretended to care about others. And some—only a few—were like her. Strong enough to take what they could. And smart enough not to get caught.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 143

Life, People, World, Strong

“I believe that the main lesson of relativity and quantum theory is that the world is nothing but an evolving network of relationships.”

Lee Smolin book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity

Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2000)

World

“So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I have rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be great for the interests of the south. So fully am I satisfied with this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Statement to John Leyburn (1 May 1870), as quoted in R. E. Lee: A Biography (1934) by Douglas Southall Freeman.
1870s

War, Suffering

“Communism knows no monster. … Should abuse occur, the perpetrator would not be ostracized by his fellow human beings. They would not reject the social violator in order to reassure themselves of their humanity by comparing themselves to a non-human human, to a monster. They would be able to recognize what they have in common with him, and to realize that they could have done what he did. And this, we believe, is a much better way of reducing abuse to its lowest possible minimum than any search for normality.”

Gilles Dauvé (1947) French writer

"Moral Disorder & Sexual Identity," July 28, 2009 https://libcom.org/library/moral-disorder-gilles-dauv%C3%A9

Way, Search, Communication

“But the violence which we chose to adopt was not terrorism. We who formed Umkhonto were all members of the African National Congress, and had behind us the ANC tradition of non-violence and negotiation as a means of solving political disputes. We believe that South Africa belongs to all the people who live in it, and not to one group, be it black or white. We did not want an interracial war, and tried to avoid it to the last minute. If the Court is in doubt about this, it will be seen that the whole history of our organization bears out what I have said, and what I will subsequently say, when I describe the tactics which Umkhonto decided to adopt.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1960s, I am Prepared to Die (1964)

War, People, History

“From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife,
what grain will be saved?My son, believe me, nothing remains,
Only adult toil,
the furrow of fate in the palm.
Only toil,
Nothing more.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Farewell" (1945)
Rescue (1945)

Life, Fate

“We need strong leadership, not cowards who are begging petrol dollars and wanting a block Islamic vote. We need a leader not an appeaser. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees. Stand up for what u believe. Never be intimidated by anyone #english #nosurrender.”

Tommy Robinson (1982) English right-wing activist

Tweet quoted in "Woolwich Beheading: EDL Leader Tommy Robinson Tweets Own Death Threats", Internation Business Times (23 May 2013) http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tommy-robinson-edl-death-threats-woolwich-terrorism-470472 2013

Strong

“We've got The X-Files, and I believe what we're looking for is in them. I'm more certain than ever the truth is out there, Scully.”

Chris Carter (1956) American television and film producer, director and writer

Paper Clip [3.2] (29 September 1995) Mulder to Scully
The X-Files (1993-2002)

Truth

“The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards—and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent. Words have no meaning if the views of less than 50 percent of death penalty States can constitute a national consensus. Our previous cases have required overwhelming opposition to a challenged practice, generally over a long period of time.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On executing minors: Roper v. Simmons (2005) (dissenting).
2000s

Death, Penalty, Time

“All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

Pastor John Hagee on Christian Zionism
Radio
"Fresh Air" with Terry Gross
NPR
2006-09-18
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6097362
2011-08-06

God

“I always say: I believe in Judaism more than I believe in god. [Interviewer: What do you mean by that? ] Belief is maybe a very strong word. I’d say I relate to Judaism more.”

Abby Stein (1991) Trans activist, speaker, and educator

2015

God, Strong

“Optimism' is the perfect way to trivialize everything that Reagan was or did. […] Optimism? Every other person on the No. 6 bus is an optimist. What distinguished Reagan was what he did and said. Reagan was optimistic about America amid the cynicism and general retreat of the post-Vietnam era because he believed unfashionably that America was both great and good.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2000s, 2004, Reagan Was More Than Just An Optimist (2004)

Way, Optimism, Personality, Perfection

“Allah's Apostle said, "In Paradise there is a pavilion made of a single hollow pearl sixty miles wide, in each corner of which there are wives who will not see those in the other corners; and the believers will visit and enjoy them. And there are two gardens, the utensils and contents of which are made of silver; and two other gardens, the utensils and contents of which are made of so-and-so (i. e. gold) and nothing will prevent the people staying in the Garden of Eden from seeing their Lord except the curtain of Majesty over His Face."”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Narrated Abdullah bin Qais, in Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 402
Sunni Hadith

People

“Abu Sa'id al-Khudri said, "A man said, 'Messenger of Allah, who is the best of people?' The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, 'A believer who does jihad in the way of Allah with his self and his wealth.' They said, 'Then who?' He said, 'A man who withdraws into a mountain ravine and worships his Lord.'"”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sunni Hadith

People, Peace, Way, Mountain

“Liberalism in its political instantiation, for all of its appeal, is so powerful a theory that it probably works better in opposition than in government. Modern liberalism has become what liberal philosophers not long ago would have derided as a “comprehensive view” -- a theory that believes itself able to give an account of how every institution of the society should operate, and even, alas, how people should think. Add to that a dash of triumphalism, and you wind up with a government impatient with the tendency of human beings to resist having too much forced on them at once.”

Stephen L. Carter (1954) American legal academic and writer

Trump and the Fall of Liberalism (November 11, 2016)

People, Thinking

“Rather than believe that Watson and Crick made the DNA structure, I would rather stress that the structure made Watson and Crick.”

Francis Crick (1916–2004) British molecular biologist, biophysicist, neuroscientist; co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

What Mad Pursuit (1988)

“(Man on television) Rita, you must believe me, alien beings are among us. (Sylvia) Yeah, in public office.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 176

“Jeanette [Armstrong, "a traditional Okanagan Indian"] said, 'Attitudes about the species communication are the primary difference between western and indigenous philosophies. Even the most progressive western philosophers still generally believe that listening to the land is a metaphor.' She paused, then continued emphatically, 'It's not a metaphor. It's how the world is.'”

Derrick Jensen book A Language Older Than Words

Source: A Language Older Than Words (2000), p. 24

World, Communication

“By his good character, a believer will attain the degree of one who prays during the night and fasts during the day.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Abu Dawood, Hadith 2233
Sunni Hadith

Night

“This is the kind of slavery established by the most merciful God. The reason given for all this, is, that the persons whom they enslaved were heathen. You may enslave them because they are not orthodox. If you can find anybody who does not believe in me, the God of the Jews, you may steal his wife from his arms, and her babe from the cradle. If you can find a woman that does not believe in the Hebrew Jehovah, you may steal her prattling child from her breast. Can any one conceive of anything more infamous? Can any one find in the literature of this world more frightful words ascribed even to a demon?”

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

My Reviewers Reviewed (lecture from June 27, 1877, San Francisco, CA)

God, World, Literature, Personality

“Lookin' so innocent,
I might believe you if I didn't know.
Could'a loved you all my life,
If you hadn't left me waiting in the cold.
And you got your share of secrets,
And I'm tired of being last to know.
And now you're asking me to listen
'Cause it's worked each time before.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

You're Not Sorry.
Song lyrics, Fearless (2008)

Love, Life, Secret, Time

“I believe that fallen creatures perish, perish for ever, for only good can live, and good has not been theirs; but how durst men forge our Saviour's words "eternal death" into so horrible a meaning? And even if he did use other words, and seem to countenance such a meaning for them (and what witness have we that He did, except that of men whose ignorance or prejudice might well have interpreted these words wrongly as they did so many others?)”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Letter II
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Death, Men

“The art of thinking is also the art of believing, because no human being at the present stage of civilization could safely call all his individual and social beliefs into question again or submit them to his conscience. To change all one's opinions is a mental diversion which requires leisure for its indulgence. In order to live a life of action, man must accept most of the moral, social, and religious laws which have been recognized as necessary by his predecessors.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Thinking

Life, Law, Art, Question

“We believe in a strong dollar … Chinese financial assets are very safe.”

Timothy Geithner (1961) American central banker and politician

Peking University, May 31, 2009 http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINPEK12423320090601?rpc=44

Strong

“When a miner looks at the rope that is to lower him into the deep mine, he may coolly say, "I have faith in that rope as well made and strong." But when he lays hold of it, and swings down by it into the tremendous chasm, then he is believing on the rope. Then he is trusting himself to the rope. It is not a mere opinion — it is an act. The miner lets go of every thing else, and bears his whole weight on those well braided strands of hemp. Now that is faith.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 225.

Faith, Strong

“Muhammad seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning, Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 6.4 (trans. Anton C. Pegis)

Wisdom, Men, People, Pleasure

“I do firmly believe that the Londoner is as contented with his city home as the dweller in the fairest valley among the Appennines; and that habit brings its usual indifference as to place.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Home, Indifference

“Senator Menendez seems to think that tax increases create jobs and investment. I believe that private businesses create jobs, and that investment will flow to states with good economic climates and good governance, especially in a globalized economy.”

Tom Kean, Jr. (1968) Member of the New Jersey General Assembly and State Senate

On Taxes (May 12, 2006); "Congress Agrees on Tax Relief Extension", Tom's Blog" (May 12, 2006) http://tomkean.com/today/index.cfm?e=user.about.blog&messageID=137.

Business, Thinking

“As I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 4
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

School, Help, Cheating

“In a time such as ours when people believe they can do without an ideal, cast away what they call abstract ideas, live on realism, rationalism, positivism, reduce everything to knowledge or to the use of more or less ingenious and casual devices — let us acknowledge it here — in such a time there is only one means of avoiding error, crime, disaster, of determining the conduct to be followed on a given occasion — but a safe means it is, and a fruitful one; this is the exclusive devotion to two abstract notions in the field of ethics: duty and discipline; such a devotion, if it is to lead to happy results, further implies besides… knowledge and reasoning.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Variant translation: In our time, which thinks it can do without ideals, that it can reject what it calls abstractions, and nourish itself on realism, rationalism and positivism; which thinks it can reduce all questions to matters of science or to the employing of more or less ingenious expedients; at such a time, I say, there is but one resource if you are to avoid disaster, and only one which will make you certain of what course to hold upon a given day. It is the worship — to the exclusion of all others — of two Ideas in the field of morals: duty and discipline. And that worship further needs, if it is to bear fruit and produce results, knowledge and reason.
As quoted in "A Sketch of the Military Career of Marshal Foch" by Major A. Grasset
Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 150

Happiness, People, Error, Idea

“See, the truth is that if Princeton hadn’t found my brother as a basketball recruit, and if I hadn’t seen that he could succeed on a campus like that, it never would have occurred to me to apply to that school — never. And I know that there are so many kids out there just like me — kids who have a world of potential, but maybe their parents never went to college or maybe they’ve never been encouraged to believe they could succeed there.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Statements proceeding introduction of husband at College Opportunity Summit (16 January 2014) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/16/remarks-president-and-first-lady-college-opportunity-summit 2010s

Truth, World, School, Parent

“Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.”

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

Orthodoxy (1884)

World, Intelligence

“His struggle is different from mine. I had to start from complete anonymity. That isn’t so in his case. But he still has to strive because he will always be compared to his father. And that’s a bigger hurdle to clear, believe me.”

Draft:Udit Narayan (1955) Playback singer

“If you do what you believe in, you’re strong. It’s when you don’t do what you believe in that you’re weak. And we are strong.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

I'll never forget what Jeremy Corbyn whispered in my ear at a campaign event last week http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-labour-manifesto-policies-what-was-in-whispered-in-my-ear-campaign-rally-a7738776.html, article by Harriet Williamson, in The Independent (16 May 2017). 2000s

Strong

“Nazis did not expect Soviet resistance to be so strong. The deeper they moved into this country's territory, the more fierce it became. When Hitler's armies approached Moscow, every man and woman here thought it imperative to resist the enemy. And that resistance grew by the day. The enemy was sustaining heavy losses, one after another. In fact, Hitler's best troops perished here. Nazis believed the Red Army was not capable of defending Moscow, but their schemes failed.”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

Strong, Loss, Country

“While scientists themselves may be religious men of many different faiths, their methodology was designed to be the antithesis of faith because it requires that all assumptions be questioned, that all proposed explanations be based on demonstrable evidence, and that all hypotheses be must be testable and potentially falsifiable. Blaming magic is never acceptable because miracles aren’t explanations of any kind, and there has never been a single instance in history when assuming the supernatural has ever improved our understanding of anything. In fact such excuses have only ever impeded our attempts at discovery. This is one of many reasons why science depends on methodological naturalism; because unlike religion, science demands some way to determine who’s explanations are the more accurate, and which changes would actually be corrections. Science is a self-correcting process which changes constantly because its always improving. Only accurate information has practical application. So it doesn’t matter what you wanna believe. All that matters is why we should believe it too, and how accurate your perception can be shown to be. So you can’t just make up stuff in science (like you can in religion) because you have to substantiate everything, and be able to defend it even against peers who may not want to believe as you do. Be prepared to convince them anyway. Its possible to do that in science because science is based on reason. That means you must be ready to reject or correct whatever you hold true should you discover evidence against it.”

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

"5th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmbnxtnMB4, Youtube (January 14, 2008) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, Faith, Religion, Way

“I must say, the Japanese soldiers came across as fairly stupid. Many of their actions made no sense. They really believed, like Hitler's Nazis, that they were a superior race, and that it was their sacred duty to uplift the poor, colonized Asians and to liberate them!”

Robert Kuok (1923) Malaysian businessman

Cap 3 "Under the Japanese Heel"

Stupidity, Sense

“The future always comes as a surprise, but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

Quoted by: Philip Jenkins, God's Continent / Christianity, Islam And Europe's Religious Crisis https://books.google.nl/books?id=IilDVBzWiGAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22God%27s+Continent+/+Christianity,+Islam+And+Europe%27s+Religious+Crisis%22&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTy-arla3MAhVCQBoKHWTlAToQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22And%20for%20my%20part%20I%20cannot%20but%20believe%22&f=false, 2007, p.3 Source: The Great Heresies (1938), Chapter III

Wisdom, Future, Parting

Quotes about believer page 84

Quotes about believer
page 84