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Belief is in a sense passive, an agreement or acceptance only; faith is active and positive, embracing such reliance and confidence as will lead to works. Faith in Christ comprises belief in Him, combined with trust in Him. One cannot have faith without belief; yet he may believe and still lack faith. Faith is vivified, vitalized, living belief.
James E. TalmageA belief is only a thought that you keep thinking. So as you keep thinking this thought, you keep vibrationally attracting relative to that thought. So you confirm your own beliefs again and again and again and again and again. That's why someone who believes in cancer can confirm that belief, or someone who believes in robbery can confirm that belief. So everything is a sort of confirmation of belief.
Esther HicksThey have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.
Thomas CarlyleIt is probably true that almost all atheists stand for the values of reason and freethought. I will attempt to put these values in more substantial terms. There is the belief that inquiry and doubt are essential checks against deception, self deception, and error. There is the belief that logic and the scientific method is the only way the world can arrive at an agreement on the truth about anything.
Richard CarrierMy belief is that the various religious traditions have great potential to increase compassion, the sense of caring for one another, and the spirit of reconciliation. However, I believe that a human being, without religious faith, can be a very good person - sincere, a good heart, having a sense of concern for others - without belief in a particular religious faith.
Dalai LamaBelief is another word for paradigm. It's a synonymous. Your belief of the way things are. Values are the way things should be, it's a paradigm of the way things should be. Beliefs are the paradigms of the way things are.
Stephen CoveyAbout belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.
Kurt VonnegutHope -- Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is Godโs greatest gift to us...A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.
Barack ObamaIn any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.
William JamesWhat is wrong is not the great discoveries of scienceโinformation is always better than ignorance, no matter what information or what ignorance. What is wrong is the belief behind the information, the belief that information will change the world. It wonโt.
Archibald MacLeishNothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth. A lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. A man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life. I believe the one thing naturally begets the other.
Charles SpurgeonThe degree of confirmation assigned to any given hypothesis is sensitive to properties of the entire belief system... simplicity, plausibility, and conservatism are properties that theories have in virtue of their relation to the whole structure of scientific beliefs taken collectively. A measure of conservatism or simplicity would be a metric over global properties of belief systems.
Jerry FodorPragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?
William JamesThis sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation.
William Kingdon CliffordWhen you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?
Michael CrichtonTrusting people to be creative and constructive when given more freedom does not imply an overly optimistic belief in the perfectibility of human nature. It is, rather, belief that the inevitable errors and sins of the human condition are far better overcome by individuals working together in an environment of trust and freedom and mutual respect than by individuals working under a multitude of rules, regulations, and restraints imposed upon them by another group of imperfect individuals.
Peter SengeThe law of your mind is the law of belief. This means to believe in the way your mind works, to believe in belief itself.
Joseph MurphyWhat motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow. During the past decade that belief has proved correct. Beyond that, the rising price has on its own generated additional buying enthusiasm, attracting purchasers who see the rise as validating an investment thesis. As 'bandwagon' investors join any party, they create their own truth - for a while.
Warren BuffettA firm belief atthracts facts. They come out iv holes in the ground an' cracks in th' wall to support belief, but they run away fr'm doubt.
Finley Peter DunneWhat no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.
Austin FarrerThe death of God represents not only the realization that gods have never existed, but the contention that such a belief is no longer even irrationally possible: that neither reason nor the taste and temper of the times condones it. The belief lingers on, of course, but it does so like astrology or a faith in a flat earth.
William H. GassBefriending the life in others is sometimes a complex matter. There are times when we offer our strength and protection, but these are usually only temporary measures. The greatest blessing we offer others may be the belief we have in their struggle for freedom, the courage to support and accompany them as they determine for themselves the strength that will become their refuge and the foundation for their lives. I think it is especially important to believe in someone at a time when they cannot yet believe in themselves. Then your belief will become their lifeline.
Rachel Naomi RemenI oppose any belief that contradicts experimental evidence as determined by the methods of science. All beliefs not in such contradiction may be considered as faith. Whether faith in a particular belief is beneficial or not is another matter.
Alan LightmanPerhaps the belief in God is the belief that the universe is intelligible, but not to us.
Thomas NagelBelief is the natural state of things. It is the default option. We just believe. We believe all sorts of things. Belief is natural; disbelief, skepticism, science, is not natural.
Michael ShermerThe Bible gives no hint that a Christian "belief system" might be isolated from the life of the Church, subjected to scientific analysis, and have its truth compared with competing "belief systems".
Peter LeithartBetter a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.
George EliotWe are, indeed, not among the least contented. You, however, if your belief makes you blessed then appear to be blessed! Your faces have always been more injurious to your belief than our objections have! If these glad tidings of your Bible were written on your faces, you would not need to insist so obstinately on the authority of that book ... As things are, however, all your apologies for Christianity have their roots in your lack of Christianity; with your defense plea you inscribe your own bill of indictment.
Friedrich NietzscheAccording to my religious belief, I'm sorry if you feel like I'm pushing this on you - my religious belief is that you behave the way God wants us to behave. And that's simply love God and love one another. If we did that, there would be no need for any of the other commandments. It would be great. But in the same vein, we would have obtained paradise by that point. And it's tougher to get to paradise by that point.
Ralph SarchieThe ghostly presence of virtual particles defies rational common sense and is nonintuitive for those unacquainted with physics. Religious belief in God, and Christian belief that God became Man around two thousand years ago, may seem strange to common-sense thinking. But when the most elementary physical things behave in this way, we should be prepared to accept that the deepest aspects of our existence go beyond our common-sense intuitions.
Antony HewishTalk of belief in these animals is not some kind of anthropomorphism. We simply cannot explain the kinds of problem solving and behavioral sophistication some species exhibit without supposing that they have genuine beliefs. But once these ethologists finish making the case for animal belief, they quickly move to talk of animal knowledge as well. What I argue is that this is not a mere faรงon de parler.
Hilary KornblithShammiji is said to be India's answer to Elvis Presley, but I say that Elvis Presley is America's answer to Shammi Kapoor. The mark of a good actor is the belief with which he gives a shot and Shammiji gave his each shot with a strong belief and that makes him a great actor of all times.
Aamir KhanWhat held people together was the belief that you're really going to change the world. I think that's the nature of many startups. You believe that what you are doing is going to have a dramatic impact. You might not exactly know how, but you really have a belief. That keeps you going and going through many changes and a lot of uncertainty.
Ray OzzieOur belief in God is not blind faith. Belief is having a firm conviction something is true, not hoping it's true.
Max LucadoGod is all-loving, all-knowing and everywhere, and we possess those qualities. We are actually extremely powerful beings, yet we seem to fear being powerful so we hold ourselves back. However, in truth, we are one with God and each other. The belief that we are separated from God and other people is just that: a belief.
Doreen VirtueAll belief that does not make us more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, a mistaken and superstitious belief.
Johann Kaspar LavaterThere ought not be two histories, one of political and moral action and one of political and moral theorizing, because there were not two pasts, one populated only by actions, the other only by theories. Every action is the bearer and expression of more or less theory-laden beliefs and concepts; every piece of theorizing and every expression of belief is a politcal and moral action.
Alasdair MacIntyreOf all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.
Thomas PaineI don`t understand a belief that there is an invisible being in the sky who watches over us all the time and keeps score and who throws you in a burning pit. I think that's very limiting, very antihuman. It's the way they devised for helping to control people because if they can make you believe in an invisible man who's going to hurt you later, they can make you believe anything!
George CarlinBelief isn't supposed to make sense, at least not all the time. In that, it finds its power. It gets to creep up on you and carry you forward. Until you can carry yourself again.
Laura DaveSo many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God's unaltered word. They like to quote the textual work that shows the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us do that.
Gerd R. PuinI saw one of my primary tasks was to do what I could to restore confidence, to ensure that people knew and cared about their predicament and that governments were committed to helping. Equally an optimism had to be engendered, a belief that not only would they recover but would emerge 'bigger, brighter and better than ever.'
Peter CosgroveContrary to popular belief, conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empiresโฆ But what history really shows is that today`s empire is tomorrow`s ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit.
Mumia Abu-JamalThe substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!
Winston ChurchillCyprian was not issuing a new decree but was keeping to the most solid belief of the Church in order to correct some who thought that infants ought not be baptized before the eighth day after their birth. . . . He agreed with certain of his fellow bishops that a child is able to be duly baptized as soon as he is born.
Saint Augustine