quotations about belief
But I was commanded to believe; and yet it corresponded not with what had been established by calculations and my own sight.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. I mean, it's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary... but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn't believe in anything any more if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.
STEVE MARTIN
A Wild and Crazy Guy
If you want to know what your true beliefs are, take a look at your actions.
ROBERT ANTHONY
Think Big
The only thing wrong with love and faith and belief is not having it.
MARK SCHWAHN
"What Comes After the Blues", One Tree Hill
I don't have to run from anything because I don't believe in anything.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
Wise Blood
If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.
WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD
The Ethics of Belief
Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barriers of system.
GEORGE ELIOT
Silas Marner
Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
Beliefs are more powerful than facts.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Atreides
A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, can make anything happen. This is how we create our consensus reality, including our gods.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.
JOHN LOCKE
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
BBC radio debate on the existence of God, "Russell vs. Copleston,", 1948
If we can once believe that success is possible, success becomes possible.
FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP
Success: A Course in Moral Instruction
Many a prophecy, by the mere force of its being believed, is transmuted to fact.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.
THOMAS FULLER
Gnomologia
Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Price of the Ticket
The things a man has heard and seen are threads of life, and if he pull them carefully from the confused distaff of memory, any who will can weave them into whatever garments of belief please them best.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Celtic Twilight
It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something, and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith ... it fixes you.
JOSS WHEDON
"Jaynestown", Firefly
There are people who can believe anything they wish. What lucky creatures!
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
The Reflections of Lichtenberg