As a man believes, so he will act.
SAM HARRIS, The End of Faith
If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order.
FRANK HERBERT, Heretics of Dune
A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.
JOSÉ BERGAMÍN, El cohete y la estrella
As belief shrinks from the world, it is more necessary than ever that someone believe. Wild-eyed men in caves. Nuns in black. Monks who do not speak. We are left to believe. Fools, children. Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes.
I do not believe in Belief.
E.M. FORSTER, What I Believe
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those “truths” we once believed.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, "Truth Will Have No Other Gods Alongside It"
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
HENRI POINCARÉ, Of Science and Hypotheses
A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.
FRANZ KAFKA, as quoted in Carol Dingle's Memorable Quotations
It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potentia.
SAM HARRIS, The End of Faith
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. Some minds are incapable of skepticism.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic," Representative Men
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. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.
WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFORD, The Ethics of Belief
He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.
THOMAS FULLER, Gnomologia
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good ground for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
BERTRAND RUSSELL, "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish," Unpopular Essays
The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.
MAX BORN, as quoted in Judith Sherven's The New Intimacy
A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence.
DAVID HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- If what we worship fail us, still the fire
- Burns on, and it is much to have believed.
AMY LOWELL, "Hero-Worship"
A belief is not true because it is useful.
HENRI FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL, as quoted in Bob Kelly's Worth Repeating
