Belief

"Luulo ei ole tiijjon väärti. (Heinlahti, Karelia) (MSA)"

"Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death? No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no. One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?" "Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.""

"Abraham Van Helsing: The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him."

"There are three kinds of objects of belief. Some are always believed and never understood, such as all history, which runs through temporal and human acts. Others must be understood to be believed, such as all human reasonings. Thirdly, there are those which must be believed first and understood later, like divine matters."

"Do you believe in fairies?...If you believe, clap your hands! Don't let Tinker die."

"Whenever a child says "I don't believe in fairies" there's a little fairy somewhere that falls right down dead."

"A man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; he has climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope. Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and sensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity, because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of the world."

"And what is meant by believing in Christ but just going with trusting and loving hearts, and committing to His love and power ourselves, our souls, and all that concerns us for time and eternity!"

"Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it … or because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings—that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide."

"What motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow. During the past decade that belief has proved correct. Beyond that, the rising price has on its own generated additional buying enthusiasm, attracting purchasers who see the rise as validating an investment thesis. As “bandwagon” investors join any party, they create their own truth – for a while."

"Ideo credendum quod incredibile."

"For fools are stubborn in their way, As coins are harden'd by th' allay; And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff As when 'tis in a wrong belief."

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

"No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone!"

"Einstein's letters teach us impressively the fact that even an exact science like physics is based on fundamental beliefs."

"We should never believe anything we have not dared to doubt."

"To believe everything is weakness, to believe nothing folly."

"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."

"If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind."

"Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves but for humanity. It is rightly used on truths which have been established by long experience and waiting toil, and which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning. Then it helps to bind men together, and to strengthen and direct their common action. It is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of the believer."

"The fact that believers have found joy and peace in believing gives us the right to say that the doctrine is a comfortable doctrine, and pleasant to the soul; but it does not give us the right to say that it is true. And the question which our conscience is always asking about that which we are tempted to believe is not, "Is it comfortable and pleasant?" but, "Is it true?""

"He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all."

"Believe, and if thy belief be right, that insight which gradually transmutes faith into knowledge will be the reward of that belief."

"He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend, must have a very long head, or a very short creed."

"I’ve always believed Frick to be detached from reality, but I thought he was just a megalomaniac, a manipulator, a con artist. Now I begin to slowly understand. He’s far more dangerous than any of those things. He’s a true Believer."

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

"I would rather work with five people who really believe in what they are doing rather than five hundred who can't see the point."

"Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe in everything."

"Dionysus: He who believes needs no explanation. Pentheus: What's the worth in believing worthless things? Dionysus: Much worth, but not worth telling you, it seems."

"He believed because he wanted to believe. And that, too, is madness."

"Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise."

"I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental canons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish."

"He does not believe that does not live according to his belief."

"What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it."

"Heaven from the hopeless doubter The true believer makes: Against the darkness outer The light God's likeness takes."

"Where knowledge suffices, we have no need of belief; but where knowledge does not prove its virtue or appears insufficient, we should not dispute the rights of belief."

"I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth."

"I cannot comment on your beliefs. What appears self-evident to one person may seem to another observer to be entirely the product of an idiosyncratic bent."

"The Savage interrupted him. "But isn't it natural to feel there's a God?" "You might as well ask if it's natural to do up one's trousers with zippers," said the Controller sarcastically. "You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons–that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to."

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

"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe."

"Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

"The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life."

"Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world."

"If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing that we cannot see with our physical eyes, then we first and foremost ought to give up believing in love. If we were to do so and do it out of fear lest we be deceived, would we not then be deceived? We can, of course, be deceived in many ways. We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. We can be deceived by appearances, but we certainly are also deceived by the sagacious appearance, by the flattering conceit that considers itself absolutely secure against being deceived. Which deception is more dangerous? Whose recovery is more doubtful, that of the one who does not see, or that of the person who sees and yet does not see? What is more difficult—to awaken someone who is sleeping or to awaken someone who, awake, is dreaming that he is awake?"

"Believing something to be true is a complicated affair. It may consist in taking something to be true, pure and simple; or it may consist in believing, but not knowing, something to be true—that is, entertaining doubts about its truth. In the former case the difference between belief and knowledge may not arise. It does in the latter."

"To succeed, we must first believe that we can."

"Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right."

"I think it’s okay to believe in anything that makes you a better person, whether it’s real or not. You have to believe in something. Me, I choose to believe in nothing, with all my heart, and I am a better person for it."

"He who wishes to learn must believe."