Quotes and Sayings about Belief
"I consider myself a non-denominational Christian. I grew up in a Bible church and still hold those beliefs very close to me."
- Jensen Ackles
(Related: Christian, Church, Bible, Beliefs)
"There are just certain things that turn my head. It may be a girl's sense of humor, it may be her wit, or her belief system; it could be a lot of different things."
- Jensen Ackles
(Related: Humor, Belief, May, Sense, Wit)
"A man must now swallow more belief than he can digest."
- Henry Brooks Adams
(Related: Belief, Man, Now)
"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life IS worth living and your belief will help create the fact."
- James Truslow Adams
(Related: Life, Belief, Fact, Help, Living, Will, Worth)
"The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart."
- Richard Adams
(Related: Science, Religion, Heart, Belief, Atoms, Lies, Novelty, Popular, Radical, Rejection, Stars)
"The love which moves the world, according to common Christian belief, is God's love and the love of God."
- Mortimer Adler
(Related: Love, God, Belief, Christian, World)
"Truth is inseperable from the illusory belief that from the figures of the unreal one day, in spite of all, real deliverance will come."
- Theodor Adorno
(Related: Truth, Belief, Day, Will)
"Everyone's entitled to express their political beliefs. I don't presume to tell anybody who to vote for. I am comfortable telling people what my opinions are."
- Ben Affleck
(Related: People, Beliefs, Opinions, Vote)
"While everyone I work with may not share my beliefs, I have been surrounded by nothing but support."
- Clay Aiken
(Related: Work, Beliefs, May, Nothing, Support)
"As Governor, I could think of only one way to unify our State that was made up of so many different climates, political beliefs and people, and that was our music."
- Lamar Alexander
(Related: Music, People, Beliefs, State)
"It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen."
- Muhammad Ali
(Related: Belief, Conviction, Deep, Repetition)
"The outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs."
- James Lane Allen
(Related: Life, Beliefs, Will)
"I have a profound belief in the power of the Sacraments. I believe that in a Divine way the use of them teaches the teachable their inward meaning and therefore I think we need be in no hurry to attempt to teach new converts all that we think we know about them."
- Roland Allen
(Related: Power, Belief, Meaning)
"Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love. If I do not love a person I am not moved to help him by proofs that he is in need; if I do love him, I wait for no proof of a special need to urge me to help him."
- Roland Allen
(Related: Love, Arguments, Beliefs, Help, Proof, Zeal)
"To do what we are doing in this budget to our children, cutting their health care funds, decreasing opportunity, simply so we can pay for tax cuts and a war in Iraq is beyond belief, and we need to reverse it."
- Tom Allen
(Related: Health, War, Opportunity, Belief, Care, Children, Tax, Iraq, Tax cuts)
"When push comes to shove, it ain't the science that's going to lift you up-it's the belief, the spiritual side of life, that's going to lift you up, no matter what religion you are."
- Kirstie Alley
(Related: Religion, Science, Life, Belief, Spiritual)
"As a result of half a century of Soviet rule people have been weaned from a belief in human kindness."
- Svetlana Alliluyeva
(Related: People, Belief, Kindness, Result)
"I think that our fundamental belief is that for us growth is a way of life and we have to grow at all times."
- Mukesh Ambani
(Related: Life, Belief, Growth)
"My whole belief system is that our paths are drawn for us. I believe in reincarnation. I believe we're here to learn and grow. We choose how we come into this life based on what it is we have to learn. Some people have harder lessons than others."
- Gillian Anderson
(Related: Life, People, Belief, Reincarnation)
"Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based."
- Gillian Anderson
(Related: Obvious, Reality)
"I have a great belief in the future of my people and my country."
- Marian Anderson
(Related: People, Belief, Country, Future)
"You have to suspend disbelief a little bit to buy into your situation and to the story and to how the character will react. You have to tweak your credibility a little bit, is basically what it comes down to."
- Richard Dean Anderson
(Related: Character, Credibility, Will)
"One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying."
- Joan of Arc
(Related: Life, Sacrifice, Belief, Dying, Fate, Living)
"Home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties!"
- Matthew Arnold
(Related: Home, Beliefs, Causes, Names)
"And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning."
- Isaac Asimov
(Related: Life, People, Belief, Man, Will)
"Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise."
- Margaret Atwood
(Related: Age, Belief, Disguise)
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly."
- Richard Bach
(Related: Belief, End, Ignorance, Injustice, Tragedy, World)
"Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger."
- Richard Bach
(Related: Men, Beliefs)
"It is my belief CAFTA will be beneficial for Alabama and the United States as a whole."
- Spencer Bachus
(Related: Belief, states, United, Will)
"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
(Related: Beliefs, Impossibility)
"We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours."
- James Baldwin
(Related: Experience, Thought, Beliefs, Deeds)
"In everyday life, my wife is the most wonderful. We're in love with each other beyond belief."
- Christian Bale
(Related: Love, Life, Wife, Belief)
"Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other."
- Honore de Balzac
(Related: Friendship, Belief, Nothing)
"Americans have an abiding belief in their ability to control reality by purely material means... airline insurance replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash."
- Cecil Beaton
(Related: Death, Fear, Belief, Control, Ability, Americans, Reality)
"Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don't match our own beliefs about how we should look."
- Martha Beck
(Related: Beauty, Beliefs, Body, Shame)
"All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many."
- Ulrich Beck
(Related: Religion, Belief, Atheism, Modernity, Theory)
"The belief in charms for protecting newborn infants is very strong in Greece."
- James Theodore Bent
(Related: Belief, Greece)
"No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion."
- Jeremy Bentham
(Related: Government, Power, Religion, Belief)
"A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition."
- Jose Bergamin
(Related: Belief, Doubt, Superstition)
"The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with a pretense of certitude."
- Peter L. Berger
(Related: People, Beliefs, Fault, Today, Uncertainty)
"Our institute's agenda is relatively simple. We study the relationship between social-economic change and culture. By culture we mean beliefs, values and lifestyles. We cover a broad range of issues, and we work very internationally."
- Peter L. Berger
(Related: Change, Work, Values, Beliefs, Culture, Study)
"We're still a great team. In your mind you can understand that but, emotionally, we needed to express the same belief. We came out full of fire and scored two early goals, two really beautiful goals, and that changed everything."
- Dennis Bergkamp
(Related: Belief, Goals, Fire, Mind)
"I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right."
- Henry Bessemer
(Related: Ideas, Belief, Control, Mind, Practice, Right)
"Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Belief, Optimism, Doctrine, Ugly)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Knowledge, Belief)
"Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Belief, Absurdity, Opinion)
"It was because of my great interest in the West, and my belief that its development would be assisted by the interest I could awaken in others, that I decided to bring the West to the East through the medium of the Wild West Show."
- Buffalo Bill
(Related: Development, Belief, Interest)
"It is on the acceptance or rejection of the theory of the Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious beings besides the Spirits of the Dead."
- H. P. Blavatsky
(Related: Nature, Belief, Acceptance, Existence, Rejection, Spirits, Theory, Unbelief, Unity)
"Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence."
- Countess of Blessington
(Related: Religion, Fear, Belief, Confidence, Superstition)
"The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is."
- Allan Bloom
(Related: Belief, Failure, Vision, Books, Now)
"Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidiest and most pernicious illusion."
- Allan Bloom
(Related: Belief, Values, Illusion, Reason)
"You know, I start with the assumption that -or with, with the belief that this president has to succeed. We all have an enormous amount of capital invested in his success. His success is the country's success."
- Michael Bloomberg
(Related: Success, Belief, Country, President, Succeed)
"The real evidence is not practically speaking in scholarship but in how Jesus and the Christianity based on him manifest themselves in the lives of practising Christians. Their lives are the proofs of their beliefs."
- Lionel Blue
(Related: Christianity, Beliefs)
"It has been a privilege beyond belief for me to have represented the State of Louisiana in Congress and to have been given the blessed assignment of U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See."
- Lindy Boggs
(Related: Belief, Congress, Privilege, State)
"And I think the rolling polls put more pressure on them to sustain their beliefs and to improve their delivery of the policy and their delivery of the ideas so that they can garner support for whatever principle they're articulating."
- Jim Bolger
(Related: Policy, Ideas, Beliefs, Pressure, Support)
"The stage is suspension of disbelief. Film is a literal medium."
- Joseph Bologna
(Related: Film)
"Knowledge of other people's beliefs and ways of thinking must be used to build bridges, not to create conflicts."
- Kjell Magne Bondevik
(Related: People, Knowledge, Beliefs, Thinking)
"Most executives, many scientists, and almost all business school graduates believe that if you analyze data, this will give you new ideas. Unfortunately, this belief is totally wrong. The mind can only see what it is prepared to see."
- Edward de Bono
(Related: Business, Ideas, Belief, Mind, School, Scientists, Will, Wrong)
"The belief that there is only one truth, and that oneself is in possession of it, is the root of all evil in the world."
- Max Born
(Related: Truth, Belief, Evil, Possession, World)
"There are two objectionable types of believers: those who believe the incredible and those who believe that 'belief' must be discarded and replaced by 'the scientific method."
- Max Born
"I've been in elementary education for years and my belief is that Christmas pageants in schools are little more than conditioning kids for the Christian religion."
- Jack Bowman
(Related: Education, Religion, Belief, Christian, Christmas, Kids, Schools, Years)
"The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices."
- Bill Bradley
(Related: American, Beliefs, Neutrality, Religious, Tradition)
"America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered."
- Louis D. Brandeis
(Related: Happiness, Progress, Belief, America, Lies)
"Neither, I must say with all due respect, is it the power of teachers and students. Basically the true and real power is with working people of all colors, of all beliefs, of all national origins."
- Harry Bridges
(Related: Power, People, Beliefs, Colors, Respect, Students, Teachers)
"We found that specialists did not know as much as we thought. So, you think maybe there are other answers. There are not but if you belief something will help you it probably will: it will help, not cure."
- Charles Bronson
(Related: Thought, Belief, Answers, Cure, Help, Will)
"I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me."
- Charlotte Bronte
(Related: Belief)
"The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others."
- Arthur C. Brooks
(Related: Happiness, Life, Truth, Belief, Income, Value)
"Atrocities are human nature - they don't have political beliefs, color, creed or anything like that. They just happen, it's human."
- Clancy Brown
(Related: Nature, Beliefs, Human nature)
"Suggesting a married Jesus is one thing, but questioning the Resurrection undermines the very heart of Christian belief."
- Dan Brown
(Related: Heart, Belief, Christian, Questioning)
"It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print."
- Louise Brown
(Related: Belief, Dancing, Girls)
"I live my life on self-belief and I live it partly on going with the flow."
- Melanie Brown
(Related: Life, Self)
"Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief."
- Leo Burnett
(Related: Belief, Advertising, Information, Mind, Public)
"America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman."
- George W. Bush
(Related: Peace, America, Beliefs, Desire, Dignity, Rights, Man, Mission, Nation, Woman)
"It is our conduct, our patriotism and belief in our American way of life, our courage that will win the final battle."
- Prescott Bush
(Related: Patriotism, Life, Belief, Courage, American, Battle, Will)
"A belief may be larger than a fact."
- Vannevar Bush
(Related: Belief, Fact, May)
"Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance."
- Samuel Butler
(Related: Belief, Body)
"No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief."
- John Calvin
(Related: God, Man, Open, Salvation, Unbelief)
"Because I would just tell everyone it was going to be great and just put that belief in them."
- Jim Capaldi
(Related: Belief)
"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck."
- George Carlin
(Related: Soul, Belief)
"No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Men, Man, Proof)
"The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Unbelief)
"Those who desire to rise as high as our human condition allows, must renounce intellectual pride, the omnipotence of clear thinking, belief in the absolute power of logic."
- Alexis Carrel
(Related: Power, Belief, Desire, Logic, Pride, Thinking)
"We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams."
- Jimmy Carter
(Related: Dreams, People, Beliefs)
"You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other."
- Jimmy Carter
(Related: God, Belief, Conflict, Divorce, Duty, Public, Religious, Service, Will)
"You can't divorce religious belief and public service I've never detected any conflict between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other."
- Jimmy Carter
(Related: God, Belief, Conflict, Divorce, Duty, Public, Religious, Service, Will)
"The domination of western values, beliefs and way of life has angered many from the east and in developing countries."
- Silvia Cartwright
(Related: Life, Values, Beliefs, Countries)
"My own personal, moral, spiritual, religious, etc. beliefs don't oppose same-gender marriage."
- Ed Case
(Related: Marriage, Beliefs, Religious, Spiritual)
"I think the support of the other team at AOL and everybody's really shared passion and belief about this and - saying that some day everybody was going to be on line."
- Steve Case
(Related: Belief, Day, Passion, Saying, Support)
"The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs."
- Fidel Castro
(Related: Beliefs)
"I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief."
- Nick Cave
(Related: God, Religion, Belief, Church)
"Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf."
- Robert Cecil
(Related: Faith, Evil, Unbelief)
"In fact, the U.S. military has bent over backwards to respect the religious beliefs of some very dangerous fanatics who want to kill us."
- Linda Chavez
(Related: Beliefs, Fact, Fanatics, Military, Religious, Respect, Want)
"Neither the wording of the amendment itself nor common practice challenged the widely held belief that government guaranteed freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."
- Linda Chavez
(Related: Government, Religion, Belief, Freedom, Practice)
"It is my hope and my belief that you will be able to report that I died with dignity, without animal fear and without bravado. I owe that much to myself."
- Caryl Chessman
(Related: Fear, Belief, Hope, Dignity, Will)
"Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture."
- Lydia M. Child
(Related: Successful, Belief, Building)
"Do not try to approach God with your thinking mind. It may only stimulate your intellectual ideas, activities, and beliefs. Try to approach God with your crying heart. It will awaken your soulful, spiritual consciousness."
- Sri Chinmoy
(Related: God, Heart, Ideas, Beliefs, Consciousness, May, Mind, Spiritual, Thinking, Will)
"You can free yourself from aging by reinterpreting your body and by grasping the link between belief and biology."
- Deepak Chopra
(Related: Belief, Body)
"Beliefs and values that have held sway for thousands of years will be questioned as never before."
- Carol P. Christ
(Related: Values, Beliefs, Will, Years)
"If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Related: Men, Belief, Error, Pleasure)
"Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Intelligence, Belief)
"There is nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitor."
- Frank Howard Clark
(Related: Beliefs, Help, Nothing, Trying)
"There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child."
- Frank Howard Clark
(Related: Beliefs, Help, Nothing, Trying)
"I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift."
- Septima Clark
(Related: Belief, Chaos, Fact, Thinking)
"Once Ptolemy and Plato, yesterday Newton, today Einstein, and tomorrow new faiths, new beliefs, and new dimensions."
- Albert Claude
(Related: Beliefs, Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday)
"Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality."
- Adam Clayton
(Related: Equality, Belief, Brothers, Man, Mankind)
"The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Character, Beliefs, Credulity, Harm, Man, Support)
"This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Power, Belief, Investigation, Sense)
"Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Belief, Actions, Influence)
"An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Life, Beliefs, Circumstances)
"If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Belief, Deeds, Future, Guidance, Open)
"In like manner, 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."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Belief, Harm, May)
"Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. A awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Belief, Help, Man, Posterity, Privilege, Responsibility, Speech, Will, World)
"A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions."
- William Kingdon Clifford
(Related: Experience, Belief, Actions, Reflection, Will)
"Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed."
- Morris Raphael Cohen
(Related: Life, Values, Beliefs, Conservatism, Question, Will)
"Obedience is an act of faith; disobedience is the result of unbelief."
- Edwin Louis Cole
(Related: Faith, Act, Obedience, Result, Unbelief)
"That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(Related: Faith)
"Belief gets in the way of learning."
- Jeremy Collier
(Related: Belief, Learning)
"Your chances of success in any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself."
- Robert Collier
(Related: Success, Belief)
"I am obliged to believe certain opinions myself. No man's belief will save me except my own."
- Anthony Collins
(Related: Belief, Man, Opinions, Will)
"Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action."
- Cyril Connolly
(Related: Faith, Thought, Action, Belief, Sense, Sin)
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
- Joseph Conrad
(Related: Men, Belief, Evil, Supernatural, Wickedness)
"Other people's beliefs may be myths, but not mine."
- Mason Cooley
(Related: People, Beliefs, May, Myths)
"Pope John Paul II brought hope to all corners of the world, to people of all faiths and backgrounds, with his powerful belief in the human spirit."
- Jerry Costello
(Related: People, Belief, Hope, Spirit, World)
"When you are getting ready to become a mom, being in love with someone just isn't enough. You need to think about whether he would be a good parent and raise your children with similar beliefs."
- Cindy Crawford
(Related: Love, Mom, Being, Beliefs, Children)
"The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief."
- Michael Crichton
(Related: Life, Faith, Belief, Reason, Universe, Years)
"Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't carry just a piece of cloth to symbolize his belief in racial equality; he carried the American flag."
- Adrian Cronauer
(Related: Equality, Belief, American, Martin)
"I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck."
- Aleister Crowley
(Related: Belief, Universe)
"The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us."
- Mario Cuomo
(Related: Beliefs, Force)
"In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality."
- Clarence Darrow
(Related: God, Men, Belief, Fact, Immortality, Reason, Support)
"We wanted to meet him, for though we were neither of us naive people we had not wholly lost our belief that it is delightful to meet artists who have given us pleasure."
- Robertson Davies
(Related: People, Belief, Artists, Pleasure)
"Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself."
- Robertson Davies
(Related: Art, Belief, Literary, Spirit)
"Christopher Reeve understood that... everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body."
- Patti Davis
(Related: Belief, Hope, Vision, Body, Walking)
"I went to Concord, a young woman from the backwoods, firm in belief that Emerson was the first of living men. He was the modern Moses who had talked with God apart and could interpret Him to us."
- Rebecca H. Davis
(Related: God, Men, Belief, First, Living, Woman)
"Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time."
- Richard Dawkins
(Related: Power, Religion, Time, Truth, Belief)
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."
- Richard Dawkins
(Related: Faith, Belief, Evaluate)
"Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that."
- Richard Dawkins
(Related: Religion, Thought, People, Beliefs, Harm, Nonsense)
"At every turn when there has been an imbalance of power, the truth questioned, or our beliefs and values distorted, the change required to restore our nation has always come from the bottom up from our people."
- Howard Dean
(Related: Change, Power, Truth, People, Values, Beliefs, Nation)
"Trust and belief are two prime considerations. You must not allow yourself to be opinionated."
- James Dean
(Related: Trust, Belief)
"Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs."
- Guy Debord
(Related: Beliefs, Ignorance, Quotations)
"What do you mean you don't believe in homosexuality? It's not like the Easter Bunny, your belief isn't necessary."
- Lea DeLaria
(Related: Belief, Easter, Homosexuality)
"Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe."
- Gail Devers
(Related: Dreams, Faith, Work, Belief, Determination, Vision, Dedication, Hard work)
"Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis."
- John Dewey
(Related: History, Beliefs, Man, Old, Surrender)
"The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative."
- John Dewey
(Related: Education, Experience, Belief)
"The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs."
- John Dewey
(Related: Work, Beliefs, Old, Trouble)
"Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs."
- Marlene Dietrich
(Related: Beliefs, Habits)
"Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair."
- Annie Dillard
(Related: Work, Belief)
"This is a free country, and nobody should be criticized for their political beliefs. We're all allowed to have our opinions."
- Shannen Doherty
(Related: Beliefs, Country, Opinions)
"In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs."
- David Herbert Donald
(Related: Religion, Beliefs, Day, Meetings, Prayer, President, Public, Religious, Right)
"America's Veterans have served their country with the belief that democracy and freedom are ideals to be upheld around the world."
- John Doolittle
(Related: Belief, America, Country, Democracy, Freedom, Ideals, Veterans, World)
"If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once."
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Related: Life, Love, Belief, Force, Immortality, Living, Mankind, World)
"Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people."
- Andre Dubus
(Related: People, Belief, Shyness)
"Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief."
- Carol Ann Duffy
(Related: Father, Belief, Christmas)
"Give up the belief that mind is, even temporarily, compressed within the skull, and you will quickly become more manly or womanly. You will understand yourself and your Maker better than before."
- Mary Baker Eddy
(Related: Belief, Mind, Will)
"Credulity is belief in slight evidence, with no evidence, or against evidence."
- Tryon Edwards
(Related: Belief, Credulity)
"A key to my thinking has always been the almost fanatical belief that what I was engaged in was a literary art form. That belief was compounded out of ego and necessity, I guess, a combination of the two."
- Will Eisner
(Related: Art, Belief, Ego, Key, Literary, Necessity, Thinking)
"Yeah, I think the common denominator - and this is probably going to sound like Acting 101 - but the common denominator is belief in the character in the moment."
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: Belief, Character, Acting, Sound)
"Comedy is much more challenging, because you have to have the same level of belief but you have to make people laugh, and that's definitely a challenge."
- Jenna Elfman
(Related: People, Belief, Challenge, Comedy)
"All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgements of probabilities, and not on certainties."
- Charles W. Eliot
(Related: Business, Beliefs)
"The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief."
- George Eliot
(Related: Belief, Sincerity, Theories)
"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them."
- George Eliot
(Related: Soul, Belief, Unbelief)
"Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world."
- Albert Ellis
(Related: Beliefs, Results, World)
"A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest."
- Henry Ellis
(Related: Beliefs, Man)
"When belief in a god dies, the god dies."
- Harlan Ellison
(Related: God, Belief)
"The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."
- Jacques Ellul
(Related: Belief, Goal, Opinion, Propaganda)
"We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Related: Apples, Beliefs, Man)
"Happy is he who has gained the wealth of divine thoughts, wretched is he whose beliefs about the gods are dark."
- Empedocles
(Related: Gods, Thoughts, Wealth, Beliefs)
"When it comes to controlling human beings, there is no better instrument than lies. Because you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts."
- Michael Ende
(Related: Power, Beliefs, Lies)
"The act of voting by ordinary Iraqis in the face of extreme danger confirms President Bush's belief that people around the globe, when given a chance, will choose liberty and democracy over enslavement and tyranny."
- John Ensign
(Related: People, Belief, Act, Chance, Danger, Democracy, Extreme, Liberty, President, Tyranny, Voting, Will)
"My core beliefs revolve around the idea that we should live to the best of our abilities-we should live and let live."
- Enya
(Related: Idea, Beliefs)
"As an artist, you dream about accumulating enough successful music to someday do just one greatest-hits album, but to reach the point where you're releasing your second collection of hits is beyond belief."
- Gloria Estefan
(Related: Music, Dream, Successful, Belief, Artist)
"The belief that we are what the media says we are, what people perceive we are, is soon to be what we think we are. We are treated based on this warped perception. It is hard to get away from it."
- Kevin Eubanks
(Related: People, Belief, Perception, Media)
"If the truth contradicts deeply held beliefs, that is too bad."
- Hans Eysenck
(Related: Truth, Beliefs)
"It is my belief that tax credits only go to people who are making money, and they generally keep it."
- Diane Feinstein
(Related: Money, People, Belief, Tax)
"I don't feel particularly comfortable about actors using whatever power they may have to push their beliefs, unless they're extremely well informed."
- Ralph Fiennes
(Related: Power, Actors, Beliefs, May)
"The film depends on the audience's belief in this relationship."
- Ralph Fiennes
(Related: Belief, Film)
"When she was younger, my mother was quite committed to Roman Catholicism. But she got disillusioned with it and moved closer to something like Buddhist beliefs near the end of her life."
- Ralph Fiennes
(Related: Life, Mother, Buddhist, Beliefs, Catholicism, End)
"Belief and knowledge are considered to be two different things. But they are not."
- Stanley Fish
(Related: Knowledge, Belief)
"Books are only the shadow and life the real thing. I believe this as strongly as any belief I hold."
- Esther Forbes
(Related: Life, Belief, Books, Shadow)
"The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race."
- E. M. Forster
(Related: Belief, Curiosity, Humanism, Mind, Race, Taste)
"When he realized who he'd pulled over, the policeman shook his head in disbelief. He told me of all people I should know better. He gave me a real dressing down, but let me go."
- Dennis Franz
(Related: People)
"Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be forced into unbelief."
- Sigmund Freud
(Related: Belief, Unbelief)
"He does not believe that does not live according to his belief ."
- Sigmund Freud
(Related: Belief)
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
- Milton Friedman
(Related: Belief, Arguments, Freedom)
"A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
- Milton Friedman
(Related: Belief, Arguments, Economy, Freedom, Want)
"The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness."
- James Anthony Froude
(Related: Belief, Effect)
"Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness; but a belief is always sensitive."
- James Anthony Froude
(Related: Science, Belief, Reason)
"You can't control people. You must understand them. You have to know where they're coming from, their beliefs and values, what turns them off, what they're against."
- Hayden Fry
(Related: People, Control, Values, Beliefs)
"Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
(Related: Faith, Belief, Thinking)
"He does not believe who does not live according to his belief."
- Thomas Fuller
(Related: Belief)
"I am not wrong in the belief that its public funds are more secure than those of all the European powers."
- Albert Gallatin
(Related: Belief, Public, Wrong)
"President Reagan is now at rest. We mourn his passing, but we are grateful for the gifts he gave us: a safer world, strong economic base, and a renewed belief in America's greatness."
- Elton Gallegly
(Related: Belief, Greatness, America, Gifts, Now, President, Rest, World)
"Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place - service - social service - the ants creed, the bees creed."
- John Galsworthy
(Related: Religion, Life, Belief, Ants, Bees, Future, Service)
"It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh."
- Mohandas Gandhi
(Related: Soul, Belief, Strength)
"Research on child abuse suggests that religious beliefs can foster, encourage, and justify the abuse of children. When contempt for sex underlies teachings, this creates a breeding ground for abuse."
- Mary Garden
(Related: Sex, Abuse, Beliefs, Breeding, Children, Contempt, Religious, Research)
"Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community."
- John W. Gardner
(Related: Men, People, Belief, Community, Existence, Integrity)
"Science doesn't in the slightest depend on trust. It depends completely on the belief that you can demonstrate something for yourself."
- Walter Gilbert
(Related: Science, Trust, Belief)
"It takes a lot more energy to fail than to succeed, since it takes a lot of concentrated energy to hold on to beliefs that don't work."
- Jerry Gillies
(Related: Work, Beliefs, Energy, Succeed)
"The beliefs expressed in the Declaration of Independence remain a standard for our nation today. They also remain a standard for those nations across the globe striving to achieve democracy."
- Paul Gillmor
(Related: Beliefs, Democracy, Independence, Nation, Nations, Today)
"The only people available to change the world are the people now living in it, with all the beliefs they bring along - however retrograde those beliefs may appear to those of us who see ourselves as enlightened."
- Todd Gitlin
(Related: Change, People, Beliefs, Living, May, Now, World)
"There are many qualities that make a great leader. But having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader."
- Rudy Giuliani
(Related: Leader, Being, Beliefs, Popular)
"The belief of our Reason is an Exercise of Faith, and Faith is an Act of Reason."
- Joseph Glanvill
(Related: Faith, Belief, Act, Exercise, Reason)
"That though we are certain of many things, yet that Certainty is no absolute Infallibility, there still remains the possibility of our being mistaken in all matters of humane Belief and Inquiry."
- Joseph Glanvill
(Related: Belief, Possibility, Being, Certainty)
"Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Related: Belief, Man)
"He is dead in this world who has no belief in another."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Related: Belief, World)
"In times when religious or political faith or hope predominates, the writer functions totally in unison with society, and expresses society's feelings, beliefs, and hopes in perfect harmony."
- Juan Goytisolo
(Related: Faith, Society, Feelings, Hope, Beliefs, Harmony, Religious, Writer)
"Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize Bush to take the nation to war. Most of them did so in the belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace."
- Bob Graham
(Related: War, Belief, Democrats, Nation, President)
"I proceed with the proper subject of this discourse; namely, the further changes in scientific belief, which have occurred within my own recollection, even since the time when I first aspired to authorship, now forty- five years ago."
- Asa Gray
(Related: Time, Belief, Authorship, First, Now, Years)
"We may take it to be the accepted idea that the Mosaic books were not handed down to us for our instruction in scientific knowledge, and that it is our duty to ground our scientific beliefs upon observation and inference, unmixed with considerations of a different order."
- Asa Gray
(Related: Idea, Knowledge, Beliefs, Books, Duty, May, Observation, Order)
"There is a class, moreover, by whom all these scientific theories, and more are held as ascertained facts, and as the basis of philosophical inferences which strike at the root of theistic beliefs."
- Asa Gray
(Related: Beliefs, Class, Facts, Theories)
"It remains to consider what attitude thoughtful men and Christian believers should take respecting them, and how they stand related to beliefs of another order."
- Asa Gray
(Related: Men, Attitude, Christian, Beliefs, Order, Thoughtful)
"I think that the core doctrines of Christianity - the incarnation, the resurrection, life after death-these are as strong as ever. In fact, the belief in life after death has increased in this century."
- Andrew Greeley
(Related: Death, Life, Belief, Christianity, Fact)
"The beliefs concerning reincarnation have great ethical impact on human life and our relationship to the world."
- Stanislav Grof
(Related: Life, Beliefs, Reincarnation, World)
"Many cultures have independently developed a belief system in reincarnation that includes return of the unit of consciousness to another physical lifetime on Earth."
- Stanislav Grof
(Related: Belief, Consciousness, Earth, Reincarnation)
"Command that no one be received, or kept to be of your household indoors or without, if one has not reasonable belief of them that they are faithful, discreet, and painstaking in the office for which they are received, and withal honest and of good manners."
- Robert Grosseteste
(Related: Belief, Manners, Office)
"I stood up as best I could to their disgusting stupidity and brutality, but I did not, of course, manage to beat them at their own game. It was a fight to the bitter end, one in which I was not defending ideals or beliefs but simply my own self."
- George Grosz
(Related: Beliefs, End, Fight, Ideals, Self, Stupidity)
"I believe people who practice their beliefs in daily life are activists."
- Jasmine Guy
(Related: Life, People, Beliefs, Practice)
"While I do not suggest that humanity will ever be able to dispense with its martyrs, I cannot avoid the suspicion that with a little more thought and a little less belief their number may be substantially reduced."
- John B. S. Haldane
(Related: Thought, Belief, Humanity, Martyrs, May, Suspicion, Will)
"Being, belief and reason are pure relations, which cannot be dealt with absolutely, and are not things but pure scholastic concepts, signs for understanding, not for worshipping, aids to awaken our attention, not to fetter it."
- Johann G. Hamann
(Related: Belief, Attention, Being, Reason, Understanding)
"Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active."
- Edith Hamilton
(Related: Faith, Belief)
"A great number of the disappointments and mishaps of the troubled world are the direct result of literature and the allied arts. It is our belief that no human being who devotes his life and energy to the manufacture of fantasies can be anything but fundamentally inadequate."
- Christopher Hampton
(Related: Life, Belief, Being, Disappointments, Energy, Literature, Result, World)
"And I know that the younger generation is doing things that are so ingenious. And for them it's not a matter of a political belief or an environmental stance. It's really just common sense."
- Daryl Hannah
(Related: Environmental, Belief, Common sense)
"The fifties - they seem to have taken place on a sunny afternoon that asked nothing of you except a drifting belief in the moment and its power to satisfy."
- Elizabeth Hardwick
(Related: Power, Belief, Nothing)
"Belief in the absence of illusions is itself an illusion."
- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
(Related: Belief, Absence, Illusion)
"Belief is thought at rest."
- Larry Harvey
(Related: Thought, Belief, Rest)
"Given the fact that most religions share basic values, it is most unfortunate that religious people can be played off against each other so easily. One possible reason for this may be that people do not know enough about other people's beliefs."
- Alcee Hastings
(Related: People, Values, Beliefs, Fact, May, Reason, Religious)
"To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm."
- Friedrich August von Hayek
(Related: Power, Society, Knowledge, Belief, Act, Fact, Harm)
"There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs... begins."
- Isaac Hayes
(Related: Time, Beliefs, Bigotry, Intolerance, Religious, Satire, World)
"Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new ethics."
- Lafcadio Hearn
(Related: Beliefs, Ethics, Tolerance)
"It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip."
- Robert A. Heinlein
(Related: Beliefs, Gossip)
"Belief is a moral act for which the believer is to be held responsible."
- Lillian Hellman
(Related: Belief, Act)
"The ears of men are lesser agents of belief than their eyes."
- Herodotus
(Related: Men, Belief, Eyes)
"All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties."
- William Reddington Hewlett
(Related: Business, Beliefs)
"Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth."
- Aaron Hill
(Related: Thoughts, Beliefs, Consequences, Morals)
"It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served."
- Napoleon Hill
(Related: People, Belief, Class, Man, May)
"One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life."
- Napoleon Hill
(Related: Life, Feelings, Ideas, Beliefs, Harmony, Measure)
"An illustration I use to get people to understand it is this: I'll ask major corporate audiences: Why don't you just take all your traditional beliefs about organizations, and apply them to the neurons in your brain?"
- Dee Hock
(Related: People, Beliefs, Corporate)
"Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality."
- Dee Hock
(Related: Money, Morality, People, Heart, Belief, Body, Influence, Mind, Spirit)
"A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light."
- David Hockney
(Related: Belief, Light)
"Prayer is a thought, a belief, a feeling, arising within the mind of the one praying."
- Ernest Holmes
(Related: Thought, Belief, Feeling, Mind, Prayer)
"We can trust our doctors to be professional, to minister equally to their patients without regard to their political or religious beliefs. But we can no longer trust our professors to do the same."
- David Horowitz
(Related: Trust, Beliefs, Doctors, Religious)
"This is appalling. The idea that a person could be punished because of their religious belief and the idea they might be executed is just beyond belief."
- John Howard
(Related: Idea, Belief, Religious)
"It's beyond belief that any Australian could be so stupid as to carry drugs into any country in Asia."
- John Howard
(Related: Belief, Country, Drugs)
"I played saxophone, so I was into jazz. I learned from each audience and each teacher that I had. I can't really tell you any rules or anything, but the way I develop my beliefs is really just by personally learning from different situations."
- Chad Hugo
(Related: Beliefs, Jazz, Learning, Rules)
"We emerged from the events of September 11 more steadfast in our beliefs, more courageous in our actions and more determined to protect our values than ever before."
- Jane D. Hull
(Related: Values, Actions, Beliefs, Events)
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
- David Hume
(Related: Belief, Man)
"Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain."
- David Hume
(Related: Imagination, Belief, Nothing)
"It is my firm belief that I have a link with the past and a responsibility to the future. I cannot give up. I cannot despair. There's a whole future, generations to come. I have to keep trying."
- King Hussein
(Related: Belief, Despair, Future, Generations, Past, Responsibility, Trying)
"God help us from those who believe that they are the sole possessors of truth. How we manage at times to agree willingly to become prisoners within our own minds and souls of beliefs and ideas on which we can never be flexible."
- King Hussein I
(Related: God, Truth, Ideas, Beliefs, Help)
"A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor."
- Aldous Huxley
(Related: Death, Knowledge, Belief, Ambition, Frustration, Hell, Majority, Rumor)
"It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts."
- Thomas Huxley
(Related: Beliefs)
"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."
- Ada Louise Huxtable
(Related: Time, Belief, Clothes, Day, Right, Spirit, Summer, World)
"The distance is great from the firm belief to the realization from concrete experience."
- Isabella I
(Related: Experience, Belief)
"True faith is belief in the reality of absolute values."
- William Ralph Inge
(Related: Faith, Belief, Values, Reality)
"Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows."
- Robert Green Ingersoll
(Related: Belief, Ignorance, Miracles)
"I was mostly surprised by the rap artists, actually, that were influenced by Sabbath. That was a surprise. But it's very nice and I'm very honored. It's nice to know after 27 years now that what I said in the first place has stuck, and that was the belief in it."
- Tony Iommi
(Related: Belief, Artists, First, Now, Rap, Sabbath, Years)
"The Young Women's Christian Association is nourished by its roots in Christianity and, at the same time, over the years, it's been enriched by beliefs and values from all kinds of places, even, in fact, strengthened by our diversity."
- Patricia Ireland
(Related: Time, Women, Values, Christian, Christianity, Beliefs, Diversity, Fact, Years)
"I come from a Christian faith. I am not going to give you insight into my particular beliefs."
- Patricia Ireland
(Related: Faith, Christian, Beliefs)
"My belief is that what comes across on the television is a capture of my enthusiasm and my passion for wildlife."
- Steve Irwin
(Related: Belief, Enthusiasm, Passion, Television, Wildlife)
"Those people who want to express their religious beliefs on public property should enjoy the same rights that we provide to those protesting the war in Iraq."
- Ernest Istook
(Related: War, People, Beliefs, Rights, Iraq, Property, Public, Religious, Want)
"The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Ideas, Americans, Beliefs, Censorship, Competition, Constitution, Debate, Democracy, First, Free speech, Rights)
"It is my belief that we all have the need to feel special. It is this need that can bring out the best in us, yet the worst in us."
- Janet Jackson
(Related: Belief)
"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact."
- Henry James
(Related: Life, Belief, Fact, Help, Living, Will, Worth)
"It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to under value them."
- Henry James
(Related: People, Belief, Americans, Earth, Fact, Nations, Self, Value, World)
"The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds."
- William James
(Related: Change, Fear, Belief, Now, Past, Result, Sense, World)
"Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them."
- William James
(Related: Truth, Thoughts, Beliefs, Credit, Fact, Nothing)
"These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."
- William James
(Related: Life, Belief, Fact, Help, Living, Will, Words, Worth)
"Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible."
- William James
(Related: Faith, Belief, Doubt)
"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact."
- William James
(Related: Life, Belief, Fact, Help, Living, Will, Worth)
"Belief creates the actual fact."
- William James
(Related: Belief, Fact)
"A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets."
- Steve Jobs
(Related: Belief, Open, Right)
"If our core belief is based on what other people think, then we eventually will allow their opinions to become our reality."
- Darren L. Johnson
(Related: People, Belief, Opinions, Reality, Will)
"Your behavior is based on your beliefs, and what you do and say, over and over again, helps develop your habits."
- Darren L. Johnson
(Related: Behavior, Beliefs, Habits)
"There is no greater level and form of belief than believing in yourself."
- Darren L. Johnson
(Related: Belief)
"Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy."
- Samuel Johnson
(Related: Belief, Confidence, Man)
"In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs, nor a code of action - you are attached primarily to a Person, and secondarily to these other things."
- E. Stanley Jones
(Related: Action, Beliefs, Order)
"We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done."
- Barbara Jordan
(Related: Society, Belief, Community, Future, Sense)
"Our concept of governing is derived from our view of people. It is a concept deeply rooted in a set of beliefs firmly etched in the national conscience, of all of us."
- Barbara Jordan
(Related: People, Beliefs, Conscience)
"We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that."
- Barbara Jordan
(Related: Belief, Positive, Vision, America, Day, Future, Promise, Reality)
"What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance."
- Barbara Jordan
(Related: Government, Idea, Belief, Balance, Nothing)
"In other times, I could stand here and give this kind of exposition on the beliefs of the Democratic Party and that would be enough. But today that is not enough. People want more."
- Barbara Jordan
(Related: People, Beliefs, Party, Today, Want)
"The word "belief" is a difficult thing for me. I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it - I don't need to believe it."
- Carl Jung
(Related: Reason, Word)
"I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief."
- Immanuel Kant
(Related: Knowledge, Belief, Order)
"The commune movement is part of a reawakening of belief in the possibilities for utopia that existed in the nineteenth century and exist again today, a belief that by creating the right social institution, human satisfaction and growth can be achieved."
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter
(Related: Belief, Growth, Possibilities, Right, Satisfaction, Today, Utopia)
"It's a short step from the belief that every child should be wanted to the belief that a child exists to satisfy our wants."
- Leon Kass
(Related: Belief)
"Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person."
- Walter Kaufmann
(Related: Faith, Belief)
"The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more."
- Elia Kazan
(Related: Society, Belief, American, Will)
"The Islam of the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th century was a poor thing. Nobody bothered about it. Islam was that funny sort of pure system of beliefs that depressed people in the Middle East held as their religion."
- John Keegan
(Related: Funny, Religion, People, Islam, Beliefs, First, Poor)
"My efforts in Congress are guided by the belief that environmental preservation and restoration are a critical part of the legacy we leave to future generations."
- Sue Kelly
(Related: Environmental, Belief, Congress, Future, Generations)
"Many people and governments share the mistaken belief that science, with new, ingenious devices and techniques, can rescue us from the troubles we face without our having to mend our ways and change our patterns of activity. This is not so."
- Henry W. Kendall
(Related: Change, Science, People, Belief)
"Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one's own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others."
- John F. Kennedy
(Related: Beliefs, Commitment, Oppression, Persecution, Tolerance)
"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
- John Maynard Keynes
(Related: Men, Belief, Capitalism, Will)
"The belief in some being who can be the judge of all human matters is a very comfortable one - all wrongs will be righted and all rights will be rewarded."
- Eli Khamarov
(Related: Belief, Being, Rights, Will, Wrongs)
"Cross cultural experience teaches us not simply that people have different beliefs, but that people seek meaning and understand themselves in some sense as members of a cosmos ruled by God."
- Jeane Kirkpatrick
(Related: Experience, God, People, Beliefs, Cosmos, Meaning, Sense)
"I had some hesitations about philosophy because, if you worked out a philosophical theory, it was hard to know whether you were going to be able to prove it or whether other theories had just as good a claim on belief."
- Stephen Cole Kleene
(Related: Belief, Philosophy, Theories, Theory)
"I think through education, belief in God, and good engineering, our children become a lot better at what they're doing than we did, and that starts with the very first sign of life on the face of this earth."
- Evel Knievel
(Related: Life, Education, God, Belief, Children, Earth, Engineering, First)
"Patriotism was a living fire of unquestioned belief and purpose."
- Frank Knox
(Related: Patriotism, Belief, Purpose, Fire, Living)
"We're very open and outspoken about our faith and our beliefs. We also talk about our doubts, our moments of insecurities. We talk about it all day, how we're inspired by God. We recognize little miracles every day, and that's how we're raising our daughter."
- Boris Kodjoe
(Related: Faith, Daughter, God, Beliefs, Day, Miracles, Moments, Open, Talk)
"Responsibility and respect of others and their religious beliefs are also part of freedom."
- Horst Koehler
(Related: Beliefs, Freedom, Religious, Respect, Responsibility)
"The thing that reinforces my belief about that is having worked the last four years with the Safe Kids Campaign on a national basis. I am so amazed at what these little kids do in keeping their parents alerted to what they are there for."
- C. Everett Koop
(Related: Belief, Kids, Parents, Years)
"Your belief in God is merely an escape from your monotonous, stupid and cruel life."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Related: Life, God, Belief)
"The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Related: Fear, Belief)
"If the American people really come to a settled belief that Bush lied us into war, his presidency will be over."
- Bill Kristol
(Related: War, People, Belief, American, Presidency, Will)
"Despair and frustration will not shake our belief that the resistance is the only way of liberation."
- Emile Lahud
(Related: Belief, Despair, Frustration, Will)
"The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking."
- Charles Lamb
(Related: Beauty, Soul, Belief, Possibility, Appearance, Body, Error)
"No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence."
- Ann Landers
(Related: Belief, Right)
"Propaganda must appeal to mankind's better judgment and to the necessary belief in a better future. For this belief, the valley of the shadow of death is but a war station on the road to the blessed summit."
- Christian Lous Lange
(Related: Death, War, Belief, Future, Judgment, Mankind, Propaganda, Road, Shadow)
"The idea of eternity lives in all of us. We thirst to live in a belief which raises our small personality to a higher coherence - a coherence which is human and yet superhuman, absolute and yet steadily growing and developing, ideal and yet real."
- Christian Lous Lange
(Related: Idea, Belief, Eternity, Personality)
"But teleological considerations can lead no further than to a belief and a hope. They do not give certainty."
- Christian Lous Lange
(Related: Belief, Hope, Certainty)
"The effect of the mass media is not to elicit belief but to maintain the apparatus of addiction."
- Christopher Lasch
(Related: Belief, Addiction, Effect, Media)
"My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle."
- David Herbert Lawrence
(Related: Religion, Belief, Being, Blood, Intellect, Wrong)
"The mind can assert anything and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept."
- David Herbert Lawrence
(Related: Beliefs, Body, Consciousness, Mind)
"The more we can get together and talk about various perspectives, feelings, beliefs, the better."
- William P. Leahy
(Related: Feelings, Beliefs, Talk)
"I'm not ashamed of my spiritual beliefs, but I in no way incorporate them into this band."
- Amy Lee
(Related: Beliefs, Spiritual)
"There is no exit from the circle of one's beliefs."
- Keith Lehrer
(Related: Beliefs)
"Ali's belief in himself was something I picked up on, and it's become my own philosophy."
- Sugar Ray Leonard
(Related: Belief, Philosophy)
"The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals."
- Jonathan Lethem
(Related: Religion, Belief, Values, Virtue, Civil rights, Diversity, Ideals, Parents)
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
- Carl Levin
(Related: Peace, Belief, Building, Destruction, Nations, Stability, United, Weapons)
"With most people disbelief in a thing is founded on a blind belief in some other thing."
- Georg C. Lichtenberg
(Related: People, Belief, Blind)
"Being stuck is a position few of us like. We want something new but cannot let go of the old - old ideas, beliefs, habits, even thoughts. We are out of contact with our own genius. Sometimes we know we are stuck; sometimes we don't. In both cases we have to DO something."
- Rush Limbaugh
(Related: Genius, Ideas, Thoughts, Being, Beliefs, Habits, Old, Want)
"I am proud to be an American, and proud that such beliefs are at the core of our country and its citizens."
- John Linder
(Related: American, Beliefs, Country)
"We are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: Belief, World)
"Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: Beliefs)
"The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart."
- Walter Lippmann
(Related: Science, Heart, Belief, Atoms, Lies, Novelty, Radical, Rejection, Stars)
"The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions."
- Audre Lorde
(Related: Belief)
"Some critics of my work took the view that a satirist should defer to the finer feelings of his readers and respect widely held beliefs."
- David Low
(Related: Work, Feelings, Beliefs, Respect)
"Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief."
- James Russell Lowell
(Related: Men, Belief)
"However, we all share the firm belief in the triumph of humanist and progressive values that mankind has achieved during its long history of struggle and creativeness."
- Tran Duc Luong
(Related: History, Belief, Values, Mankind, Struggle)
"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."
- Robert Wilson Lynd
(Related: War, Belief, Possibility)
"We are as great as our belief in human liberty - no greater. And our belief in human liberty is only ours when it is larger than ourselves."
- Archibald MacLeish
(Related: Belief, Liberty)
"Superstitions and belief in magic are perennial in just the same way as religion, and something near to being universal among mankind; and why this is so may be interesting, but in most cases the beliefs themselves are devoid of interesting content, at least to me."
- Bryan Magee
(Related: Religion, Belief, Being, Beliefs, Content, Magic, Mankind, May)
"Belief is such a powerful thing - but because it is, it can also be very destructive and it's very easily manipulated."
- Jena Malone
(Related: Belief)
"When I joined the Communist movement in 1935 it was based upon the belief that mankind's future was to be found there. Certainly, millions who joined it the world over, like myself, didn't join it for profit."
- Albert Maltz
(Related: Belief, Future, Mankind, Profit, World)
"Realizing that our actions, feelings and behaviour are the result of our own images and beliefs gives us the level that psychology has always needed for changing personality."
- Maxwell Maltz
(Related: Feelings, Actions, Beliefs, Personality, Psychology, Result)
"Further-more, partisan attachments powerfully shape political perceptions, beliefs and values, and incumbents enjoy advantages well beyond the way in which their districts are configured."
- Thomas E. Mann
(Related: Values, Beliefs, Perceptions)
"The word 'Antichrist', to me, is the collective disbelief in god."
- Marilyn Manson
(Related: God, Word)
"There really have only ever been a few people in each generation who step out, are willing to put themselves on the line, and risk everything for their beliefs."
- Wynton Marsalis
(Related: People, Beliefs, Risk)
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests."
- Peter Marshall
(Related: Belief, Force)
"Religion is the belief in an ever-living God, that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind."
- James Martineau
(Related: Religion, God, Belief, Mankind, Mind, Universe, Will)
"My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror."
- W. Somerset Maugham
(Related: Life, Belief, Horror, World)
"If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?"
- W. Somerset Maugham
(Related: Change, Life, Beliefs, News, Will)
"Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young."
- W. Somerset Maugham
(Related: Imagination, Belief, Exercise)
"There is no way that you can ever really repeat something. I have this great belief that the magic of the moment can never be recaptured."
- Brian May
(Related: Belief, Magic)
"I go through major crises every few months, but then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal."
- Brian May
(Related: Belief, Creativity, Months)
"Don't make the mistake of thinking that you have to agree with people and their beliefs to defend them from injustice."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Mistake, People, Beliefs, Injustice, Thinking)
"The test of a belief is not exclusively in the belief itself, but also in the intentions and actions of those who embrace it."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Belief, Actions, Intentions)
"If you change the belief first, changing the action is easier."
- Peter McWilliams
(Related: Change, Action, Belief, First)
"But my shift to the serious study of economics gradually weakened my belief in Major Douglas's A+B theorem, which was replaced in my thought by the expression MV = PT."
- James Meade
(Related: Thought, Belief, Economics, Expression, Study)
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Wisdom, Belief, Democracy, Ignorance)
"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."
- H. L. Mencken
(Related: Faith, Belief, May)
"You always really have to remain consistent in your beliefs and philosophy."
- Mark Messier
(Related: Beliefs, Philosophy)
"As a captain, I think it's important that the players really know who you are and what you stand for, what your beliefs are, and to be consistent in those if things are going good or things are going bad."
- Mark Messier
(Related: Beliefs)
"My beliefs will run through everything I do. My beliefs, my values are my anchor and when people try to drag me, as I know they will, it is to that sense of right and wrong, that sense of who I am and what I believe, to which I will always hold."
- Ed Miliband
(Related: People, Values, Beliefs, Right, Sense, Will, Wrong)
"One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests."
- John Stuart Mill
(Related: Belief)
"What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs."
- John Stuart Mill
(Related: Men, Act, Beliefs, Majority)
"Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm."
- Henry Miller
(Related: Beliefs, Ethics, Laws)
"No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance."
- Henry Miller
(Related: Belief, Destiny, Guidance, Man, Surrender)
"What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act according to their beliefs."
- Henry Miller
(Related: Men, Ability, Act, Beliefs, Majority)
"We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave society devoid of belief."
- Jeff Miller
(Related: Religion, Society, Belief, Corruption, Country, Court, Poison, Will)
"All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief."
- Jeff Miller
(Related: Faith, Belief, Act, Practice)
"An attitude of philosophic doubt, of suspended judgment, is repugnant to the natural man. Belief is an independent joy to him."
- William Minto
(Related: Attitude, Belief, Doubt, Joy, Judgment, Man)
"If you don't have solid beliefs you cannot build a stable life. Beliefs are like the foundation of a building, and they are the foundation to build your life upon."
- Alfred A. Montapert
(Related: Life, Beliefs, Building)
"You're not free until you've been made captive by supreme belief."
- Marianne Moore
(Related: Belief)
"The written tone and the spoken tone change and the reporters' disbelief in the veracity of the government spreads to the readers and the viewers."
- Roger Mudd
(Related: Change, Government)
"My belief is the majority of people in politics are just interested in pursuing this career in politics, and doing what's necessary to get themselves re-elected. And if that happens to coincide with the public good, great. But if it doesn't, the public good loses out."
- Dick Murphy
(Related: Politics, People, Belief, Career, Majority, Public)
"First and foremost, I'm a feminist. And basically that stems from a strong belief that all people and creatures deserve equal opportunity, rights and respect."
- Kathy Najimy
(Related: People, Opportunity, Belief, First, Rights, Respect)
"We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not - nor will we ever - monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources."
- Janet Napolitano
(Related: People, American, Beliefs, Civil rights, Ideology, Responsibility, Will)
"Do not fall prey to the false belief that mastery and domination are synonymous with manliness."
- Kent Nerburn
(Related: Belief)
"Effective use of Braille is as important to the blind as independent mobility, knowledge in the use of adaptive technology, and the core belief that equality, opportunity and security are truly possible for all people who are blind."
- Bob Ney
(Related: Equality, Technology, People, Knowledge, Opportunity, Belief, Blind, Security)
"Perhaps one reason for the falling-off of belief in a continuance of conscious existence is to be found in the quality of life that most of us lead. There is not much in it with which, in any kind of reason, one can associate the idea of immortality."
- Albert J. Nock
(Related: Life, Quality, Idea, Belief, Existence, Immortality, Reason)
"One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't."
- Lyn Nofziger
(Related: Belief, Country, Freedom, Security)
"My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage."
- Peggy Noonan
(Related: Belief, Choice, Despair, Now, Religious)
"I was opposed to World War II, and indeed on June 22, 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union I suddenly found myself the lone supporter of peace since everybody else had, because of their communist beliefs, shifted over to become supporters of the war."
- Douglass North
(Related: Peace, War, Beliefs, June, World, World war)
"The worst cynicism: a belief in luck."
- Joyce Carol Oates
(Related: Belief, Luck)
"We've persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people - a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it's time to turn the page."
- Barack Obama
(Related: History, Time, War, People, Civilization, Belief, Beginning, Iraq, Now, Remarkable, Responsibility, states, United)
"I'm pretty much a good Catholic girl at heart, and I believe in family. I also have a basic belief that God takes care of me. I believe in prayer, even though I'm not that religious. I just have that foundation from my family. I mean when you think that you're just a human being and one of God's creatures, you can't take anything that seriously."
- Catherine O'Hara
(Related: God, Family, Heart, Belief, Being, Care, Prayer, Pretty, Religious)
"This country has been unconscious, and it's got to awake. That's my belief."
- Charles Olson
(Related: Belief, Country, Unconscious)
"Americans will respect your beliefs if you just keep them private."
- Bill O'Reilly
(Related: Americans, Beliefs, Respect, Will)
"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
- George Orwell
(Related: Power, Beliefs, Mind)
"The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say - or their beliefs - or sex."
- John Osborne
(Related: Time, Sex, Sacrifice, People, Beliefs, Careers, First)
"Where belief is painful we are slow to believe."
- Ovid
(Related: Belief)
"Choose beliefs that serve your soul - choose beliefs that serve the grander dream of who you choose to be."
- Joy Page
(Related: Soul, Dream, Beliefs)
"Sometimes all it takes to change a life is to decide which beliefs do not serve you and to literally change your mind about those beliefs."
- Joy Page
(Related: Change, Life, Beliefs, Mind)
"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."
- Thomas Paine
(Related: God, Belief, Man)
"Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief in abstract entities."
- Tom G. Palmer
(Related: Belief, Trying)
"Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists."
- Blaise Pascal
(Related: Faith, Truth, Belief, Gain, Harm, Hesitation, Nothing, Will)
"The Gateway to Christianity is not through an intricate labyrinth of dogma, but by a simple belief in the person of Christ."
- Norman Vincent Peale
(Related: Belief, Christianity)
"The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise."
- Charles Sanders Peirce
(Related: Action, Belief, Habit, Beliefs)
"The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking."
- Charles Sanders Peirce
(Related: Nature, Thought, Action, Belief, Effect, Exercise, Future, Influence, Thinking, Will)
"It will sometimes strike a scientific man that the philosophers have been less intent on finding out what the facts are, than on inquiring what belief is most in harmony with their system."
- Charles Sanders Peirce
(Related: Belief, Facts, Harmony, Man, Will)
"Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else."
- Charles Sanders Peirce
(Related: Change, Belief, Doubt, State, Struggle)
"I believe a man is better anchored who has a belief in the Supreme Being."
- James Cash Penney
(Related: Belief, Being, Man)
"Our shared conservative values, our belief in the individual is the great hope of our nation."
- Rick Perry
(Related: Belief, Hope, Values, Conservative, Nation)
"The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older."
- William Lyon Phelps
(Related: Life, Time, Belief, Thoughts, Youth)
"If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible."
- William Lyon Phelps
(Related: People, Beliefs, Certainty, Sense)
"This required the development of a view which allowed one to integrate research with belief, thing with person, fact with aesthetics, knowledge with application of knowledge."
- Kenneth L. Pike
(Related: Knowledge, Development, Belief, Aesthetics, Fact, Research)
"To attain inner peace you must actually give your life, not just your possessions. When you at last give your life - bringing into alignment your beliefs and the way you live then, and only then, can you begin to find inner peace."
- Peace Pilgrim
(Related: Life, Peace, Beliefs, Possessions)
"But the debt limit obviously is something that needs to and will be passed. That is not inconsistent with a process and a belief that we have to get significant deficit reduction."
- David Plouffe
(Related: Belief, Debt, Needs, Will)
"It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt."
- Plutarch
(Related: God, Belief, Contempt, Opinion, Unworthy)
"The scientific and scholarly community is marked by the belief that the truth is to be found in all; none can claim it as their monopoly."
- John Charles Polanyi
(Related: Truth, Belief, Community)
"Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness."
- Michael Polanyi
(Related: Belief, Acceptance, Language, Words)
"The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith."
- Michael Polanyi
(Related: Faith, Beliefs, Stability)
"These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our scientific beliefs. These premisses or beliefs are embodied in a tradition, the tradition of science."
- Michael Polanyi
(Related: Art, Science, Beliefs, Maxims, May, Tradition)
"One of the great mind destroyers of college education is the belief that if it's very complex, it's very profound."
- Dennis Prager
(Related: Education, Belief, College, Mind)
"Too many religious organizations are in the business of enforcing beliefs."
- Charley Pride
(Related: Business, Beliefs, Religious)
"My belief is that no movie, nothing in life, leaves people neutral. You either leave them up or you leave them down."
- David Puttnam
(Related: Life, People, Belief, Nothing)
"It is this power structure which the Radical Right in the United States has been attacking for years in the belief that they are attacking the Communists."
- Carroll Quigley
(Related: Power, Belief, Radical, Right, states, United, Years)
"The Maria Mayer shell model suggestion in 1949 was a great triumph and fitted my belief that a nuclear shell model should represent a proper approach to understanding nuclear structure."
- James Rainwater
(Related: Belief, Understanding)
"The characteristic political attitude of today is not one of positive belief, but of despair."
- Herbert Read
(Related: Attitude, Belief, Positive, Despair, Today)
"I had just arrived in New York from California. I was nineteen years old and excited beyond belief. I was an art student and an acting student and behaved as most young actors did - meaning that there was no such thing as a good actor, 'cause you yourself hadn't shown up yet."
- Robert Redford
(Related: Art, Belief, Acting, Actor, Actors, Meaning, Old, Years)
"I grew up with Scientology - my parents at one point were clerical. It's a pragmatic philosophy, not merely a belief system. Yeah, it's had media exposure because certain luminaries do Scientology, but millions of people do it who are not celebrities. It's not a threat or some cult."
- Giovanni Ribisi
(Related: People, Belief, Media, Parents, Philosophy, Scientology)
"We as a people, as a state, and as a community, have too much promise, too much potential, and too much at stake to go any other way than forward. We are too strong in our hearts, too innovative in our minds, and too firm in our beliefs to retreat from our goals."
- Bill Richardson
(Related: People, Goals, Beliefs, Community, Potential, Promise, State)
"I repeatedly have to correct this belief. In a sense, magnitude involves steps of 10 because every increase of one magnitude represents a tenfold amplification of the ground motion. But there is no 'scale of 10' in the sense of an upper limit."
- Charles Francis Richter
(Related: Belief, Sense)
"For too long, we have focused on our differences - in our politics and backgrounds, in our race and beliefs - rather than cherishing the unity and pride that binds us together."
- Bob Riley
(Related: Politics, Beliefs, Pride, Race, Unity)
"If we are going to save this country, if we are going to reestablish that belief in God, it's up to us. If we don't do it, who will?"
- Bob Riley
(Related: God, Belief, Country, Will)
"There was a time when meanings were focused and reality could be fixed; when that sort of belief disappeared, things became uncertain and open to interpretation."
- Bridget Riley
(Related: Time, Belief, Open, Reality)
"Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
(Related: Work, Feelings, Belief, Reality, Will, World)
"I don't think my spirituality has affected my character. I feel like my character is much more cynical about his beliefs, and I think I have to kind of drop what I believe in order to play him."
- Jason Ritter
(Related: Character, Beliefs, Order, Play, Spirituality)
"I have personal beliefs and they are sometimes reflected in the movies I make, but I also reflect other points of view."
- Tim Robbins
(Related: Movies, Beliefs)
"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."
- Tom Robbins
(Related: Business, Government, Soul, Force, Magic, Poor)
"What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are."
- Tony Robbins
(Related: Beliefs)
"Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives."
- Tony Robbins
(Related: Experience, Power, Ability, Beliefs, Meaning)
"It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean."
- Tony Robbins
(Related: Beliefs, Events)
"But there's no reason why we should abdicate our foundational principles because certain groups don't believe in them. You know, no majority should surrender its deeply held beliefs to those who don't believe in anything."
- Pat Robertson
(Related: Beliefs, Majority, Principles, Reason, Surrender)
"We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposed to rob us of their companionship."
- James Harvey Robinson
(Related: Beliefs, Companionship, Passion)
"I have enjoyed the personal use of money; but I have gotten the greatest satisfaction from using it to advance my beliefs in human relations, human values."
- Winthrop Rockefeller
(Related: Money, Values, Beliefs, Satisfaction)
"I know there has long been a great frustration among the African Americans in Nevada over their belief that we have not adequately responded to their desires to become more educated and more productive citizens."
- James E. Rogers
(Related: Belief, African, Americans, Frustration)
"Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
(Related: Work, Beliefs)
"We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Life, Belief, Hope, Conviction, World)
"The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that."
- Richard Rorty
(Related: Beliefs, Cause, Language, World)
"The belief may be too often mistaken, but the illusion of coming into direct contact with the past is intoxicating and persuasive, and can result in an interpretation that carries conviction. Sometimes confidence is all that's needed."
- Charles Rosen
(Related: Belief, Confidence, Conviction, Illusion, May, Past, Result)
"The belief is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the bite of the mosquito... She always injects a small quantity of fluid with her bite - what if the parasites get into the system in this manner."
- Ronald Ross
(Related: Belief, Disease, Quantity)
"I am much more radical in my beliefs than my products represent me to be."
- Isabella Rossellini
(Related: Beliefs, Radical)
"Now, it's my belief that Python is a lot easier than to teach to students programming and teach them C or C++ or Java at the same time because all the details of the languages are so much harder. Other scripting languages really don't work very well there either."
- Guido van Rossum
(Related: Time, Work, Belief, Now, Programming, Students)
"For many years, I have lived uncomfortably with the belief that most planning and architectural design suffers for lack of real and basic purpose. The ultimate purpose, it seems to me, must be the improvement of mankind."
- James Rouse
(Related: Design, Belief, Purpose, Improvement, Mankind, Planning, Years)
"My belief about acting in one foot on a banana peel and the other one in the grave."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Belief, Acting, Grave)
"My personal belief is that you carry your own water in a relationship. If you see a girl and you think she's hot, that's a very human reaction, but you don't go and tell your spouse that, you know? So in one way it's how you behave."
- Mark Ruffalo
(Related: Belief, Water)
"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Work, Belief)
"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Belief, Absence, Man, Will)
"When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Belief, Habit, Conviction, Man, Will)
"Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Belief, Respect, Will, Worth)
"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
- Bertrand Russell
(Related: Beliefs, Wrong)
"The same tools that make any writer good, plus a cheerful willingness to suspend belief."
- Fred Saberhagen
(Related: Belief, Tools, Writer)
"Um, I have an enormous faith in God. I have an enormous support system that also has that same belief."
- Katey Sagal
(Related: Faith, God, Belief, Support)
"A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
(Related: Civilization, Knowledge, Beliefs, Logic, Man, Open)
"Both now and for always, I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit."
- Andrei Sakharov
(Related: Belief, Strength, Now, Spirit)
"Our philosophy precedes from the belief that sport is an inalienable part of the educational process and a factor for promoting peace, friendship, cooperation and understanding among peoples."
- Juan Antonio Samaranch
(Related: Friendship, Peace, Belief, Cooperation, Philosophy, Understanding)
"I confused things with their names: that is belief."
- Jean-Paul Sartre
(Related: Belief)
"The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news."
- Jessica Savitch
(Related: Women, Belief, News, Old, Television)
"It is my belief that one's salary is between an individual and the IRS."
- Jessica Savitch
(Related: Belief)
"He was the first to conceive of movies as an art form. His belief was that if the traditional art form would not find room for him, then he would make an art form of his own."
- Richard Schickel
(Related: Art, Movies, Belief, First)
"While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of my own beliefs. I offer my sincere apology to those I offended."
- Ron Schiller
(Related: Values, Apology, Beliefs, Meeting)
"There is a strong correlation between belief in evolution and liberal views on government control, pornography, prayer in schools, abortion, gun control, economic freedom, and even animal rights."
- Phyllis Schlafly
(Related: Government, Belief, Control, Abortion, Evolution, Freedom, Rights, Liberal, Pornography, Prayer, Schools)
"Palestinian propagandists can say and do anything they please without concern for the truth, in the belief that if they repeat it often enough it will simply become the truth."
- Jack Schwartz
(Related: Truth, Belief, Concern, Will)
"Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
(Related: Belief, Giving, Quitting)
"We have good security. It's hard to get in here. Barring a tactical entry where terrorists come in and hold us hostage, that's about the only thing that could possibly warrant me carrying a gun in the clubhouse. That's highly unlikely, and I admit that. But my personal belief is I don't want to suffer from the poor choices of others."
- Luke Scott
(Related: Belief, Choices, Poor, Security, Want)
"Your desires and true beliefs have a way of playing blind man's bluff. You must corner the inner facts."
- David Seabury
(Related: Beliefs, Blind, Facts, Man)
"An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived."
- John Searle
(Related: Belief)
"I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs."
- Pete Seeger
(Related: Beliefs, Questions, Religious)
"Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Belief, Exercise, Judgment, Man)
"The journey of your first movie is not just beyond belief it can be truly beyond satire."
- Yahoo Serious
(Related: Belief, First, Journey, Satire)
"Need is not quite belief."
- Anne Sexton
(Related: Belief)
"'Freedom of belief and worship is the most important guarantee of social peace."
- Ahmet Necdet Sezner
(Related: Peace, Belief, Worship)
"One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person's beliefs at the time."
- Idries Shah
(Related: Time, People, Beliefs, Past)
"It is better to be true to what you believe, though that be wrong, than to be false to what you believe, even if that belief is correct."
- Anna Howard Shaw
(Related: Belief, Wrong)
"Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force."
- George Bernard Shaw
(Related: Power, Belief, Capitalism, Force, Interest, Self, Self interest)
"Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it."
- William Shenstone
(Related: Men, Belief, Strength)
"The election is over, and even though there are people who have different ideologies and beliefs, from now on we must all embrace each other, creating a harmonious and unified new Taiwan through our love and tolerance."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Love, People, Beliefs, Now, Tolerance)
"We will make every effort to unify all ethnic groups, to strengthen belief in Taiwan and to persist in reform."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Belief, Effort, Reform, Will)
"In the latter case life rests upon a thousand presuppositions which the individual can never trace back to their origins, and verify; but which he must accept upon faith and belief."
- Georg Simmel
(Related: Faith, Life, Belief)
"Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you."
- Marsha Sinetar
(Related: Change, Success, Beliefs, Challenge)
"There arose a belief in style - and in banality. Banality encompassed politics, too, because it was a common belief that politics were not worthy of art."
- Douglas Sirk
(Related: Art, Politics, Belief, Style)
"We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect... but, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs."
- Aaron Siskind
(Related: Beliefs, Relax, World)
"My challenge as a satirical artist is how to present ideas to people to enable them to question and reexamine their beliefs. My hope is, that my work provokes people to look at things in a new way."
- Joey Skaggs
(Related: Work, People, Ideas, Hope, Artist, Beliefs, Challenge, Present, Question)
"The belief in immortality has always seemed cowardly to me. When very young I learned that all things die, and all that we wish of good must be won on this earth or not at all."
- Anne Smedley
(Related: Belief, Earth, Immortality)
"A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system."
- Jane Smiley
(Related: Ideas, Belief, May, Will)
"All money is a matter of belief."
- Adam Smith
(Related: Money, Belief)
"The future of Conservatism lies in our beliefs and values, not by throwing them away. We need to shed associations that bind us to past failures, but hold faith with those things that make us Conservatives."
- Iain Duncan Smith
(Related: Faith, Values, Beliefs, Conservatism, Future, Lies, Past)
"The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome."
- Lillian Smith
(Related: Belief)
"It is curious to reflect, for example, upon the remarkable legend of the Philosopher's Stone, one of the oldest and most universal beliefs, the origin of which, however far back we penetrate into the records of the past, we do not probably trace its real source."
- Frederick Soddy
(Related: Beliefs, Example, Past, Remarkable)
"I was born and trained to communicate music, just as the sons were born and trained to hunt, and I was lucky to have grown up in Hungary, a country that lives and breathes music-that has a passionate belief in the power of music as a celebration of life."
- Georg Solti
(Related: Life, Music, Power, Belief, Country, Sons)
"Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall."
- Stephen Sondheim
(Related: Imagination, Nature, Meaning)
"One of my beliefs is that there are certain institutions within a community which stand for the spirit and heart of that community, there's the church, the local football team, the local pub and the theatre."
- David Soul
(Related: Heart, Church, Beliefs, Community, Football, Spirit, Theatre)
"I think that we need to look hard at our beliefs and be responsible about how we speak out."
- Mary Steenburgen
(Related: Beliefs)
"I am confident that, in the end, common sense and justice will prevail. I'm an optimist, brought up on the belief that if you wait to the end of the story, you get to see the good people live happily ever after."
- Cat Stevens
(Related: People, Belief, Common sense, End, Justice, Will)
"But individuals and firms spend an enormous amount of resources acquiring information, which affects their beliefs; and actions of others too affect their beliefs."
- Joseph E. Stiglitz
(Related: Actions, Beliefs, Information)
"Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance."
- W. Clement Stone
(Related: Truth, Ignorance, Understanding, Will)
"One of the hardest things to believe is that anyone will abandon the effort to escape a charge of murder. It is extremely important to suspend disbelief on that. If you don't, the story is spoiled."
- Rex Stout
(Related: Effort, Murder, Will)
"In this Epistle, the Apostle seeks, with great earnestness, to confirm the Christian converts in the belief of that Gospel, which he had so faithfully preached."
- John Strachan
(Related: Belief, Christian)
"The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome."
- Jonathan Swift
(Related: Belief, Want)
"Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary."
- David Sylvian
(Related: Belief, Discipline, Buddhism, Zen)
"Realizing full well that fine condition and confidence will not in themselves make a champion, it is my belief, however, that they are essential factors."
- Major Taylor
(Related: Belief, Confidence, Will)
"I've always held to the belief, though, that people who do too much acting training always look like they're acting, you know?"
- Noah Taylor
(Related: People, Belief, Acting, Training)
"It is my belief that it is not the fact that he traveled as much as he did during the past few months as much as what he said and how he said it that hurt him."
- Robert Teeter
(Related: Belief, Fact, Hurt, Months, Past)
"To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects."
- Margaret Thatcher
(Related: Values, Beliefs, Principles)
"At least I know that one film-maker in my career has had the initiative to come to me and thought of me as being capable of doing interesting and complicated work, and so I have a new-found belief that other film-makers will see me in a different way, the way that Patty did."
- Charlize Theron
(Related: Work, Thought, Belief, Being, Career, Film, Will)
"And I don't think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there's another set of moral codes, but I don't think government has a role."
- Clarence Thomas
(Related: Government, God, People, Belief)
"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around."
- Henry David Thoreau
(Related: Beliefs, World)
"It is very distressing that anyone would look at these matters from a political viewpoint. Core beliefs about when life begins and ends are far too important for any such calculations."
- Mac Thornberry
(Related: Life, Beliefs, Calculations)
"If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons."
- James Thurber
(Related: Beliefs, Dogs, Immortality, Heaven, Will)
"Throughout that period, Japan had made honest efforts to keep the destruction of war from spreading and, based on the belief that all nations of the world should find their places, had followed a policy designed to restore an expeditious peace between Japan and China."
- Hideki Tojo
(Related: Peace, War, Policy, Belief, Destruction, Nations, World)
"It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain."
- Lily Tomlin
(Related: Belief, Deep, Language)
"The equation of religion with belief is rather recent."
- Arnold J. Toynbee
(Related: Religion, Belief)
"It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief."
- Lionel Trilling
(Related: Art, Life, Now)
"Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated."
- G. B. Trudeau
(Related: Belief, College, Students, World)
"Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation."
- D. Elton Trueblood
(Related: Faith, Trust, Belief, Proof)
"You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break."
- Harry S. Truman
(Related: Men, Belief, American, Being, Parents)
"In rating ease of description as very important, we are essentially asserting a belief in quantitative knowledge - a belief that most of the key questions in our world sooner or later demand answers to 'by how much?' rather than merely to 'in which direction?'"
- John Tuley
(Related: Knowledge, Belief, Answers, Direction, Key, Questions, World)
"Yoga has reinforced and grounded my own spiritual beliefs."
- Christy Turlington
(Related: Beliefs, Spiritual, Yoga)
"A lot of people have questioned how yoga and their own spiritual beliefs can come together. Yoga actually pre-dates religion."
- Christy Turlington
(Related: Religion, People, Beliefs, Spiritual, Yoga)
"I believe in prayer and in strong belief."
- Tina Turner
(Related: Belief, Prayer)
"Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems."
- Miguel de Unamuno
(Related: Beliefs)
"Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first."
- Peter Ustinov
(Related: People, Belief, First, Friends)
"Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts."
- Jean Vanier
(Related: People, Belief, Envy, Gifts, Ignorance)
"My belief in God is responsible for what I am... How can I refuse to talk about something which is so much a prt of my life both as a man and as a actor?"
- Robert Vaughn
(Related: Life, God, Belief, Actor, Man, Talk)
"My childhood beliefs became so much a part of me that even today I find myself automatically living by a personal standard of conduct which can only be explained as resulting from my religious training."
- Robert Vaughn
(Related: Beliefs, Childhood, Living, Religious, Today, Training)
"Why do people embrace God? In my opinion, belief in God and an afterlife is a necessary extension of man's need to feel that this life does not end with what we call death."
- Robert Vaughn
(Related: Death, Life, God, People, Belief, Afterlife, End, Man, Opinion)
"Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief. A patriot shows their their patriotism through their actions, by their choice."
- Jesse Ventura
(Related: Patriotism, Knowledge, Belief, Actions, Choice, Feeling, Loyalty, Result)
"I don't believe we need the government's help as much as some think we do. That belief sets me apart from the Democrats, since their way of dealing with everything is to tax and spend."
- Jesse Ventura
(Related: Government, Belief, Democrats, Tax, Help)
"I believe patriotism comes from the heart. Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief."
- Jesse Ventura
(Related: Patriotism, Heart, Knowledge, Belief, Feeling, Loyalty, Result)
"If we cling to the institution of Islam, then we tend to defend it against whatever we see as a danger to it, so because of this we see now that many people are defending states, defending territories, defending everything institutional in the belief that they defend Islam."
- Abdurrahman Wahid
(Related: People, Belief, Islam, Danger, Now, states)
"American government was founded on a belief and a faith in God and in doing what is right and just."
- Ginny B. Waite
(Related: Faith, Government, God, Belief, American, Right)
"If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad."
- Denis Waitley
(Related: Belief)
"My faith is very private to me. It plays an important part in my life, but I do not try and throw my beliefs at others. I have tremendous respect for all faiths and beliefs, but have a deep concern that religion and faith are currently a long way apart from each other."
- Rick Wakeman
(Related: Faith, Religion, Life, Beliefs, Concern, Deep, Respect)
"I have a strong belief in God... I find religion to be a very personal thing... I am also very spiritual."
- Sela Ward
(Related: Religion, God, Belief, Spiritual)
"My parents gave me stability and a belief in myself and in all the possibilities life has to offer. I was told the only limitations I would ever face were those I placed upon myself."
- Dionne Warwick
(Related: Life, Belief, Limitations, Parents, Possibilities, Stability)
"Science moves with the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that the truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty."
- James D. Watson
(Related: Science, Truth, Belief, Adventure, Arrogance, Pretty, Spirit)
"And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on."
- Alan Watts
(Related: Faith, Attitude, Belief)
"The belief that one's own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions."
- Paul Watzlawick
(Related: Belief, Reality)
"There is a species of person called a 'Modern Churchman' who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief."
- Evelyn Waugh
(Related: Belief, Religious)
"That friend a great man's ruin strongly checks, who rails into his belief all his defects."
- John Webster
(Related: Friend, Belief, Man, Ruin)
"In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs."
- Simone Weil
(Related: Church, Beliefs)
"It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics."
- Paul Wellstone
(Related: Politics, Time, Belief, Extremes, Inequality, Potential)
"All... religions show the same disparity between belief and practice, and each is safe till it tries to exclude the rest."
- Thomas Wentworth
(Related: Belief, Practice, Rest)
"Fear is the denomination of the Old Testament; belief is the denomination of the New."
- Benjamin Whichcote
(Related: Fear, Belief, Old)
"Talk unbelief, and you will have unbelief; but talk faith, and you will have faith. According to the seed sown will be the harvest."
- Ellen G. White
(Related: Faith, Harvest, Talk, Unbelief, Will)
"Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth."
- Bradley Whitford
(Related: Life, Love, Action, Hope, Beliefs, Earth, Future, Grace, Honor, Now, Right, Waiting)
"Likewise today, some Christians are content to merely exist until they die. They don't want to risk anything, to believe God, to grow or mature. They refuse to believe his Word, and have become hardened in their unbelief. Now they're living just to die."
- David Wilkerson
(Related: God, Content, Living, Now, Risk, Today, Unbelief, Want, Word)
"A belief in God helps provide a foundation to arbitrate our decisions. Without this foundation, we are condemned to live essentially formless lives."
- Armstrong Williams
(Related: God, Belief, Decisions)
"In the context of interfaith encounter, we need to bring to the surface how our actual beliefs shape what we do - not simply to agree that kindness is better than cruelty."
- Rowan D. Williams
(Related: Beliefs, Cruelty, Kindness)
"Contrary to popular belief, Americans don't hate advertising."
- Roy H. Williams
(Related: Belief, Advertising, Americans, Hate, Popular)
"If the Labour party goes back to reasserting its socialist and democratic beliefs, that's where I belong."
- Shirley Williams
(Related: Beliefs, Party)
"It is my belief that everything you need to know about the world can be learned in a church choir."
- Connie Willis
(Related: Belief, Church, World)
"I have noticed, with much distress, the excessive wartime activity of the investigating bureaus of Congress and the administration, with their impertinent and indecent searching out of the private lives and the past political beliefs of individuals."
- Wendell Willkie
(Related: Beliefs, Congress, Past)
"Old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false."
- E. O. Wilson
(Related: Beliefs, Old)
"Belief is the death of intelligence."
- Robert Anton Wilson
(Related: Death, Intelligence, Belief)
"The infrastructure of the US is a long-term suspension of disbelief that such things won't be exploded deliberately by people who don't create anything."
- Dave Winer
(Related: People)
"'Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact."
- Naomi Wolf
(Related: Age, Politics, Belief, Economy, Gold)
"Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs."
- Thomas Wolfe
(Related: Beliefs, Culture)
"The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence."
- Tom Wolfe
(Related: Life, Men, Belief, Being, Conviction, Existence, Fact, Loneliness, Now)
"What do you know? Haven't you heard of suspension of disbelief?"
- Ed Wood
"Such evidence is not the only kind which produces belief; though positivism maintains that it is the only kind which ought to produce so high a degree of confidence as all minds have or can be made to have through their agreements."
- Chauncey Wright
(Related: Belief, Confidence)
"Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown."
- Frances Wright
(Related: Religion, Belief, Causes, May)
"Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it."
- Francis Wright
(Related: Action, Belief, Actions, Consequences, First, Force, Judgment, Religious, Right, Sensations, Wrong)
"A necessary consequent of religious belief is the attaching ideas of merit to that belief, and of demerit to its absence."
- Francis Wright
(Related: Ideas, Belief, Absence, Merit, Religious)
"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen."
- Frank Lloyd Wright
(Related: Belief)
"The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace... a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness."
- Minoru Yamasaki
(Related: Men, Peace, Belief, Greatness, Ability, Beliefs, Cooperation, Dedication, Dignity, Humanity, Living, Symbol, Trade, World)
"Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed."
- Philip Zimbardo
(Related: Being, Beliefs, Curiosity, Hurt)
"Our belief is that it is a basket of well-diversified companies that are playing the Internet, but are not direct Internet companies."
- John Zimmerman
(Related: Belief, Internet)
"That whole environment was just incompatible with my beliefs and my personality. It was a dark time for me."
- Zhang Ziyi
(Related: Time, Beliefs, Environment, Personality)