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Quotations about
Belief & Doubt
Never believe anything that requires you to hate people who do not believe it. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
It is easy to mistake our prejudice for patriotism, our rationalization for reason, our littleness for logic, our theories for truth, and our fervor for fact. ~William Arthur Ward, Thoughts of a Christian Optimist, 1968
Instances must be familiar to every reader in which the same person was willing, with greedy credulity, to swallow the most extravagant fiction, and yet refuse credence to a philosophical fact... Of all the offspring of Time, Error is the most ancient, and is so old and familiar an acquaintance, that Truth, when discovered, comes upon most of us like an intruder, and meets the intruder's welcome... To call a prejudice "time-hallowed," is to open a way for it into hearts where it never before penetrated. Some peculiar custom may disgrace the people amongst whom it flourishes; yet men of a little wisdom refuse to aid in its extirpation, merely because it is old. Thus it is with human belief, and thus it is we bring shame upon our own intellect... The very same principle which leads to the rejection of the true, leads to the encouragement of the false. ~Charles Mackay, "The Love of the Marvellous and the Disbelief of the True," Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, 1841
An old man out in the mountains that had never been anywhere might say he didn't believe in electricity, but that wouldn't keep your electric light bill from being more than you thought it ought to be at the end of the month. ~Kate Trimble Sharber (b.1883), The Annals of Ann, 1910
...poetry is not greatly concerned with what a man thinks, but with what is so imbedded in his nature that it never occurs to him to question it: not a matter of which idea he holds, but of the depth at which he holds it. ~Ezra Pound
This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question. ~Orson Scott Card, Ender's War
In the end you regret less the things you believed that weren't true than the things that never came true because you didn't believe. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
I'm definitely a believer. There's so much that you couldn't explain, and we waste our time in this lifetime trying to figure it out from a scientific standpoint — sometimes you need to just enjoy the magic of something. ~Jaleel White, on Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry, 2017
Not believing has a sickness which is believing a little. ~Antonio Porchia (1886–1968), Voces, 1943–1966, translated from the Spanish by W.S. Merwin (1927–2019), Voices, 1988
I said to myself, "I cannot possibly believe that;" and as I did so I perceived that I had already believed it a second time. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
He does not believe who does not live according to his belief. ~Proverb
A skeptic doubts the best authority; an enthusiast is likely to accept the poorest. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
You're sure that you are Right? How fine and strong!
But were you never just as Sure — and Wrong?
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Wrath," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je n'y crois pas, mais je les crains, — "I don't believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. ~Ambrose Bierce
The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly & desperately drunk with a certain belief; it agitates & tears him, & almost bereaves him of the power of articulation. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
An old belief is like an old shoe. We so value its comfort that we fail to notice the hole in it. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Convictions are more dangerous enemies to truth than lies. ~Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), "IX. Man by Himself," Human, All-Too-Human, translated by M.A. Mügge, 1908
Believe what you have Proved. They most deceive
Themselves who try to Prove what they Believe.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Truth," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924
The human tendency is to live by myth and illusion when possible, by facts when necessary. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
The partisan is so convinced that his own opinion and his own side are right, and all that goes contrary to them is wrong, that he cannot think there is any good in the other opinion and the other side. He lives in a continual fever of attack and defence, and has no knowledge of the quiet peace of an equal mind. ~James Allen (1864–1912), "Equal-Mindedness," Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success, 1913
When a man is under the sway of passion and prejudice he is spiritually blind. Seeing nothing but good in his own side, and nothing but evil in the other, he cannot see anything as it really is, not even his own side; and not understanding himself, he cannot understand the hearts of others, and thinks it is right that he should condemn them. Thus there grows up in his heart a dark hatred for those who refuse to see with him and who condemn him in return, he becomes separated from his fellow-men, and confines himself to a narrow torture-chamber of his own making. ~James Allen (1864–1912), "Equal-Mindedness," Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success, 1913
Belief stains darker, imprints deeper than truth. ~Terri Guillemets
The doubt, like the mosquito, buzzes round my faith. ~Emily Dickinson, 1861
It is the easiest thing in the world to deny a fact. People do it all the time. Yet it remains a fact just the same. ~Isaac Asimov, "Fact," Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, 1988
Today's sad fact: You aren't going to change someone's mind who believes it in their headbone. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
To spread your belief, you must exude your belief. It is not enough that people hear it from you, they must catch it from you. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Everything is here that tastes most human, from faith to fairyland; the gentle, solemn men have long silly ribbons hanging from their big black hats and the women wear costumes like our Elizabethan ancestresses; they know these are the right things to wear and so they go on wearing them inflexibly. Their faith is a marvellous thing. They not only believe in the Roman Catholic Church and its priests, lock, stock and barrel, but also in all their
...and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible. ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
Stand aloof from your own opinions; they seek to lure you with an illusive certainty. ~Henry Stanley Haskins, "Human Judgment," Meditations in Wall Street, 1940
It is not what a man hears but what he believes that makes him wise or foolish. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor
People believe the truth more readily if something difficult of belief or incredible is mixed with it. ~Mark Rutherford (William Hale White)
Zeal in proselytising is often due to an uneasy suspicion that we only half-believe. ~Mark Rutherford (William Hale White)
Nothing is more vital than error. Controversies rarely if ever die. They merely sink beneath the surface of literate attention and continue a submerged existence in the dark, unfathomed caves of the popular mind. ~Bergen Evans, "Adam's Navel," The Natural History of Nonsense, 1946
If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
~William Blake (1757-1827), "Auguries of Innocence"
Belief, like any other moving body, follows the path of least resistance... ~Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, 1901
I know as well as you must that there are many articles of belief clinging to the skirts of our time which are the bequests of the ages of ignorance that God winked at. ~O. W. Holmes
Doubts are infantine realities. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
Man is liberated from his illusions to make room for a fresh set. ~Henry Stanley Haskins, "Wisdom and Knowledge," Meditations in Wall Street, 1940
With allowance for exceptions... I can hardly believe that a person who is unfair in argumentation will be honest in practical affairs, under circumstances of temptation. If it were not that ignorance, like age, has its privileges, and can play strange tricks, and that man, instead of being defined a thinking animal, might more properly be termed an unthinking one, it would be difficult to avoid the suspicion that the way in which some, claiming to be champions of truth, can argue, implies, as it assuredly tends to produce, an utter corruption of moral principle. There is nothing in a course of dissipation, or religious negligence, that so blunts all perception of right and wrong, as the bigotry which will not open its eyes to evidence, and the sophistry that defends what reason has pronounced untenable.
They whose pretensions should involve the largest infusion of justice and charity, are too often distempered partisans, whose reflective faculty, if at all awake, perambulates a well-trodden circle, beyond which it seldom strays but to nap at the house of Intolerance or Incapacity...
Even among those in repute for wisdom and worth, there are intellects radically and invincibly opaque — hostile to illumination, and incapable either of fairness or penetration in the search of truth. Avoid these, or conversation exciting their morbid idiosyncrasies, as you would the plague. ~William Benton Clulow, "Search of Truth," 1833–1863
Truth of whatever kind is only fact or reality. But in a multitude of instances mankind are much fonder of fiction than of reality... One reason may be, that there is often considerable difficulty in arriving at facts, but little or none in taking up with some vague or apparent resemblances. ~William Benton Clulow, Horæ Otiosæ, 1833
The greater part of current opinions are entertained by the majority without evidence, intellectual or experimental; being transmitted from one to another as an
The vitality of Error, indeed, is almost beyond belief, and can be matched only by the infinity of the subterfuges she employs, and the stoutness of her resistance to illumination: while the utterances of Reason, in territories long governed by Assumption instead of Thought, are pretty sure to have the effect of the dragon's teeth in raising up a host of warriors. ~William Benton Clulow, Sunshine and Shadows, 1863
Slowness in believing is the key to opening the most closed heart. ~Jacques Deval (1890–1972), Afin de vivre bel et bien, 1970
I have never considered it my business to disabuse someone of a belief that makes life tolerable for them. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
The more cherished the illusion, the more reviled is the teller of truth. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
If you can get a man nervous enough you can make him believe anything. ~"Taking Stock of the Year," The Saturday Evening Post, 1908, George Horace Lorimer, editor
The hardest thing about reshaping minds is getting to them before the cement dries. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
With most people unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
I believe this — that from an early age we can observe and witness for ourselves, and that what our parents tell us to believe, if it were subject to the rules of jurisprudence, would be thrown out of court as leading the witness. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
If you want to make a man hate you fiercely and forever, prove to him something he does not wish to believe. ~Olin Miller (1893–1981)
I respect more the person who struggles with his faith than the person who is confident in his skepticism. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
One's hope for any day is that the good done by people of faith will outweigh the harm done by people of certainty. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Nobody wants his cause near as bad as he wants to talk about his cause. ~Will Rogers (1879–1935)
When people want to believe, the facts won't stop them, and when they don't want to believe, the facts won't make them. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Fond faith thrives best in rich deceptive soil —
Where knaves sow dreams that witless fools embroil.
~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
I have no faith in the sense of comforting beliefs which persuade me that all my troubles are blessings in disguise. ~Rebecca West, "Pleasure Be Your Guide," 1939
Skepticism is a religion very rich in evangelists but very short on saviors. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Just because something is unbelievable does not mean you shouldn't believe it. Put another way, some things are worth believing in whether they're true or not. ~Jeb Dickerson, @JebDickerson
In dogma men often worship error and call it Deity. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
There are things I believe that I have always believed, but there is nothing I believe for that reason alone. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Certainty is most passionate in the absence of evidence. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
It is hard to talk sense to people who find it personally offensive. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
...you can't fact check crazy... ~Emma Wolf, 2015, emmawolf.wordpress.com
There are people who never say, "In my opinion..." They say, "The reality is..." when the reality is, it's their opinion. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2018
Invariable certitude is always suggestive of mania. ~Austin O'Malley, Keystones of Thought, 1914
I believe that there is an explanation for everything, so, yes, I believe in miracles. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
But probably 2,000 years hence many beliefs of the wise of our day will have come to seem equally foolish. Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. ~Bertrand Russell, c.1943
One seldom knows one’s true opinion until one has expressed it. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
There is no belief so preposterous that something more preposterous cannot be cited as further evidence. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
FRIENDSHIP. A mutual belief in the same fallacies, mountebanks, hobgoblins and imbecilities. ~H. L. Mencken
Sometimes you believe a thing that isn't true because in the world you wish to live in, it would be true. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
If a tribe becomes too rational — perhaps it will always succumb to the tribe that has the determination that only blind belief can confer. ~Dr. Idel Dreimer, lumpenbangenpiano.com
I want to say, on behalf of all us lifelong doubters, that we're pretty overwhelmed these days, there being so much information that needs to be doubted. ~Robert Brault, 2020, rbrault.blogspot.com
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published 1998 Mar 18
revised 2021 Mar 13
last saved 2024 May 3
www.quotegarden.com/belief.html