Belief

Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with. ~~ Henry S. Haskins

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. ~~ Walter Lippman

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it. ~~ Don Marquis

I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse. ~~ Isaac Asimov

Some things have to be believed to be seen. ~~ Ralph Hodgson

I do not believe in doing for pleasure things I do not like to do. ~~ Don Herold

I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. ~~ Galileo Galilei

The greater the lie, the greater the chance that it will be believed. ~~ Adolf Hitler

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. ~~ Bertrand Russell

It is just when opinions universally prevail and we have added lip service to their authority that we become sometimes most keenly conscious that we do not believe a word that we are saying. ~~ Virginia Woolf

All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife . Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself, and never mind the rest. ~~ Beatrix Potter

I believe in the incomprehensibility of God. ~~ Honore de Balzac

An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run. ~~ Sydney J. Harris

A belief is not true because it is useful. ~~ Henri-Frederic Amiel

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life IS worth living and your belief will help create the fact. ~~ William James

Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened. ~~ Thomas Hardy

To believe in one's dreams is to spend all of one's life asleep. ~~ Chinese proverb

Generally the theories we believe we call facts, and the facts we disbelieve we call theories. ~~ Felix Cohen

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances. ~~ Bruce Barton

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

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable. ~~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. ~~ Demosthenes

Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known. ~~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

If you achieve success, you will get applause, and if you get applause, you will hear it. My advice to you concerning applause is this: Enjoy it but never quite believe it. ~~ Robert Montgomery

If you believe, then you hang on. If you believe, it means you've got imagination, you don't need stuff thrown out for you in a blueprint, you don't face facts -- what can stop you? If I don't make it today, I'll come in tomorrow. ~~ Ruth Gordon

If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live. ~~ George E. Woodbury

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will. ~~ Clint Eastwood

We must not indulge in unfavorable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain. ~~ Walter Savage Landor

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. ~~ Andre Gide

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men -- that is genius. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything. ~~ Oscar Wilde

Many people believe they are attracted by God, or by Nature, when they are only repelled by man. ~~ William Ralph Inge

He does not believe who does not live according to his belief. ~~ Thomas Fuller

Man is what he believes. ~~ Anton Chekhov

Sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ~~ Lewis Carroll

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day. ~~ Abraham Lincoln

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. ~~ Bertrand Russell

I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things. ~~ William J. Locke

You cannot believe in honor until you have achieved it. Better keep yourself clean and bright: you are the window through which you must see the world. ~~ George Bernard Shaw

I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. ~~ John Ruskin

If I have any belief about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to Heaven, and very, very few persons. ~~ James Thurber

There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave. ~~ Louis Kronenberger

Few really believe. The most only believe that they believe or even make believe. ~~ John Lancaster Spalding

Man's most valuable trait
Is a judicious sense of what not to believe. ~~ Euripides

I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest. ~~ John Buchan

The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. ~~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I do not believe today everything I believed yesterday; I wonder will I believe tomorrow everything I believe today. ~~ Isaac Goldberg

At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done -- then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. ~~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ~~ Dinah Mulock Craik

There is nothing that fear or hope does not make men believe. ~~ Vauvenargues

The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe. ~~ H. L. Mencken

Propaganda is the art of persuading others of what you don't believe yourself. ~~ Abba Eban

Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view. ~~ Lillian Hellman

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. ~~ George Carlin

.society is a complex and mysterious creation and . it's extremely imprudent to believe in the fact it presents you with at a given moment, let alone to consider it the one and only true face. ~~ Vaclav Havel

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

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny. ~~ Eric Hoffer

We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm. ~~ Winston Churchill