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Belief quotes

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“At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian's faith is unseen reality.” A. W. Tozer, “The Pursuit of God” - 1948

“nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know;” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“Assume a virtue, if you have it not.” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“He did not say that because he knew that if you said a good thing it might not happen.” Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea” - 1952

“I say, then, that 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, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“Believe that God loves you as you cannot conceive; that He loves you with your sin, in your sin.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.” Thomas Carlyle, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History” - 1841

“He's the victim of a critical age; he has ceased to believe in himself and he doesn't know what to believe in.” Henry James, “The Portrait of a Lady” - 1881

“FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1911

“I drank in my words like a thirsty man. I even began to believe them.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“People who are religious should be glad, since not everyone is blessed with the ability to believe in a higher order.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“It is human to lament, human to weep with them that weep, but it is greater to believe, more blessed to contemplate the believer.” Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling” - 1843

“People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.” Neil Gaiman, “American Gods” - 2001

“a belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” Joseph Conrad, “Under Western Eyes” - 1911

“one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy” Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace” - 1869

“if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.” Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass” - 1871

“Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons—that's philosophy.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is not credible.” Margaret Atwood, “The Blind Assassin” - 2000

“One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.” John Stuart Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government” - 1861

“One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.” Nelson Mandela, “Long Walk to Freedom” - 1995

“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.” Bertrand Russell, “Sceptical Essays” - 1928

“I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also.” Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick” - 1851

“It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly said dispassionately, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve.” James Joyce, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” - 1916

“I believe in God, God. God, I believe in God.” William Faulkner, “As I Lay Dying” - 1930

“For 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, “Middlemarch” - 1872

“As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” - 1841

“I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine.” H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine” - 1895

“He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met with an animal having habits and structure not in agreement.” Charles Darwin, “On The Origin of Species” - 1859

“Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a...” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.” David Hume, “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” - 1748

“Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret. For in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.” Bram Stoker, “Dracula” - 1897

“I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life....” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of a 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!” Thomas Carlyle, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History” - 1841

“We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Sorrows of Young Werther” - 1774

“The article of justification must be sounded in our ears incessantly because the frailty of our flesh will not permit us to take hold of it perfectly and to believe it with all our heart.” Martin Luther, “Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians” - 1535

“Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!” Walter Scott, “Ivanhoe” - 1820

“I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“If ye believed more in life, then would ye devote yourselves less to the momentary.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“But if I did not believe, still should I love. Had you come back for me, and had there been no other way, I would have gone into the jungle with you—forever.” Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes” - 1912

“The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.” John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” - 1689

“OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1911

“I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.” Ronald Reagan, “Inaugural Address” - 20 January 1981

“I had a new vision in front of me, and I always feel that if I can see it and believe it, then I can achieve it.” Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story” - 2012

“If you don’t believe in yourself, then how will anyone else believe in you?” Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story” - 2012

“If I understand this correctly Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible.” A. W. Tozer, “The Pursuit of God” - 1948

“I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything. That which can be imagined is as much an approximation to truth as that which can be proved by mathematics.” Charlie Chaplin, “My Autobiography” - 1964

“Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

Related topics

God religion knowledge freedom imagination reality superstition life reason truth sin virtue heart silence good loneliness faith Christianity miracle atheism

Related authors

Neil Gaiman (4)
Aldous Huxley (3)
David Hume (3)
Thomas Carlyle (3)
James Joyce (2)
John Green (2)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2)
Joseph Conrad (2)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2)
George MacDonald (2)
Friedrich Nietzsche (2)
Ambrose Bierce (2)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (2)
A. W. Tozer (2)
Blaise Pascal (2)
John Steinbeck (2)
William Shakespeare (1)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
William Faulkner (1)

Related sources

American Gods (4)
Brave New World (3)
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (3)
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (3)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (2)
The Brothers Karamazov (2)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (2)
The Devil's Dictionary (2)
Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story (2)
The Pursuit of God (2)
Pensées (2)
East of Eden (2)
The Princess and the Goblin (2)
Hamlet (1)
This Side of Paradise (1)
As I Lay Dying (1)
The Old Man and the Sea (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
Moby-Dick (1)
Middlemarch (1)