Beliefs Quotes

“Be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!”
― Lewis Carroll

“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
― Gautama Buddha, Sayings of Buddha

“There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“The most confused you will ever get is when you try to convince your heart and spirit of something your mind knows is a lie.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“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, The Neverending Story

“Beliefs are choices. First you choose your beliefs. Then your beliefs affect your choices.”
― Roy T. Bennett

“My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism

“It's a fact—everyone is ignorant in some way or another.

Ignorance is our deepest secret.

And it is one of the scariest things out there, because those of us who are most ignorant are also the ones who often don't know it or don't want to admit it.

Here is a quick test:

If you have never changed your mind about some fundamental tenet of your belief, if you have never questioned the basics, and if you have no wish to do so, then you are likely ignorant.

Before it is too late, go out there and find someone who, in your opinion, believes, assumes, or considers certain things very strongly and very differently from you, and just have a basic honest conversation.

It will do both of you good.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”
― Blaise Pascal, De l'art de persuader

“Insanity is everyone expecting you not to fall apart when you find out everything you believed in was a lie.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attention of bright, curious, intelligent people is to belittle or condescend or to show arrogance toward their beliefs.”
― Carl Sagan

“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
― Mark Twain

“Not everything that can be counted counts.
Not everything that counts can be counted.”
― William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: a casual introduction to sociological thinking

“Your beliefs affect your choices. Your choices shape your actions. Your actions determine your results. The future you create depends upon the choices you make and the actions you take today.”
― Roy T. Bennett

“If you want to discover the true character of a person, you have only to observe what they are passionate about.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or nothing, and so they give their lives to little or nothing. One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it…and then it’s gone.

But to surrender who you are and to live without belief is more terrible than dying – even more terrible than dying young.”
― Joan of Arc

“Do not make the mistake of thinking that you have to agree with people and their beliefs to defend them from injustice.”
― Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

“All religions lead to the same God, and all deserve the same respect. Anyone who chooses a religion is also choosing a collective way for worshipping and sharing the mysteries. Nevertheless, that person is the only one responsible for his or her actions along the way and has no right to shift responsibility for any personal decisions on to that religion.”
― Paulo Coelho, Like the Flowing River

“I would rather have strong enemies than a world of passive individualists. In a world of passive individualists nothing seems worth anything simply because nobody stands for anything. That world has no convictions, no victories, no unions, no heroism, no absolutes, no heartbeat. That world has rigor mortis.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression”
― Rowan Atkinson

“Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.”
― Thomas Paine

“Human beings believe just as they breathe - in order to survive.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game

“Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“It is easier to tell a person what life is not, rather than to tell them what it is. A child understands weeds that grow from lack of attention, in a garden. However, it is hard to explain the wild flowers that one gardener calls weeds, and another considers beautiful ground cover.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“You cannot be truly humble, unless you truly believe that life can and will go on without you.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“If they told us what to believe, and we didn't come to it on our own, is it still true?”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“Humanity does not suffer from the disease of wrong beliefs but humanity suffers from the contagious nature of the lack of belief. If you have no magic with you it is not because magic does not exist but it is because you do not believe in it. Even if the sun shines brightly upon your skin every day, if you do not believe in the sunlight, the sunlight for you does not exist.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems