Popular quotes about Beliefs! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 23
If we, who live outside asylums, act as if we lived in a fictitious world- that is to say, if we are consistent with our beliefs- we cannot adjust ourselves to actual conditions, and so fall into many avoidable semantic difficulties. But the so-called normal person practically never abides by his beliefs, and when his beliefs are building for him a fictitious world, he saves his neck by not abiding by them. A so-called "insane" person acts upon his beliefs, and so cannot adjust himself to a world which is quite different from his fancy.
Alfred KorzybskiHolding on to beliefs limits our experience of life. That doesn't mean that beliefs or ideas or thinking is a problem; the stubborn attitude of having to have things be a particular way, grasping on to our beliefs and thoughts, all these cause the problems. To put it simply, using your belief system this way creates a situation in which you choose to be blind instead of being able to see, to be deaf instead of being able to hear, to be dead rather than alive, asleep rather than awake.
Pema ChodronIf you can do one thing you thought was utterly impossible, it causes you to rethink your beliefs. Life is both subtler and more complex than some of us like to believe. So if you haven't done so already, review your beliefs and decide which ones you might change now and what you would change those beliefs to.
Tony RobbinsCreative power has to filter through our beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and habits. The more negative and constricted our beliefs and patterns are, the more they block the creative energy. Most people hope that by ignoring negativity, it will go away, but the reverse is actually true. Through recognizing, acknowledging, and experiencing it, the blocked energy can be released. You are then free to replace it with positive beliefs and attitudes.
Shakti GawainWhen people try to use religion to address the natural world, science pushes back on it, and religion has to accommodate the results. Beliefs can be permanent, but beliefs can also be flexible. Personally, if I find out my belief is wrong, I change my mind. I think that's a good way to live.
Lisa RandallThere is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.
Anthony de MelloIf we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.
Donald DavidsonI have certain beliefs about how people should treat employees and how companies should be run, but I was really surprised though this process to learn that those beliefs are actually good business.
Adam McKayNear beliefs are to blame for a new brand of Christianity that is epidemic in our homes and churches-a faith that has little flavor, little light and little influence. When near beliefs are our only source of motivation, tough stands are never taken, feathers are never ruffled, and absolutes are held very loosely.
Dennis RaineyI'm not an atheist. I do have faith in God. I do not judge people for their faith. I judge people who use religion to hurt people. I don't believe in a religion that shuns people for their beliefs, or that you should hurt people for their beliefs.
Leah ReminiBeliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.
Maynard James KeenanTo enlighten people by reminding them the irrationality of their beliefs is an act more honest and more important than the act of praising and respecting people's beliefs!
Mehmet Murat IldanUntil you understand your Core Story, whatever it is, and how it made you who you are today, your foundation will reflect only your unconscious beliefs about yourself, real or imagined, positive or negative. When you delve into your subconscious beliefs about your lot in life, whether you believe you deserve to be happy or sad, successful or unsuccessful, only then do you have the chance to change the story that is replaying over and over in your head and determining how you go through life.
Lucinda BassettSuppose we concede that if I had been born of Muslim parents in Morocco rather than Christian parents in Michigan, my beliefs would be quite different. [But] the same goes for the pluralist...If the pluralist had been born in [Morocco] he probably wouldn't be a pluralist. Does it follow that...his pluralist beliefs are produced in him by an unreliable belief-producing process?
Alvin PlantingaWhen our beliefs are based on our own direct experience of reality and not on notions offered by others, no one can remove these beliefs from us.
Nhat HanhWhat sets science and the law apart from religion is that nothing is expected to be taken on faith. We're encouraged to ask whether the evidence actually supports what we're being told - or what we grew up believing - and we're allowed to ask whether we're hearing all the evidence or just some small prejudicial part of it. If our beliefs aren't supported by the evidence, then we're encouraged to alter our beliefs.
Gary TaubesStress is a byproduct of subconscious beliefs you have about the world. You can't choose not to believe something. You believe it because you think it's true. To eliminate stress, you must learn to challenge these beliefs so that you see them differently.
Andrew BernsteinOne reason why I recommend the abandonment of religious beliefs is because I think those beliefs are wrong. There is no evidence that our world was created by divine intention, that a god intercedes in human affairs, or that there is life after death. Religion is a hangover from humankind's timorous infancy; it's time for us to walk upright and unafraid, and to take charge of our own lives.
Simon LeVayI absolutely believe that people should show respect to everybody, regardless of their lifestyle, regardless of their beliefs, religious beliefs or any other kind of belief.
Rick WarrenWe can tolerate great diversity in our aesthetic beliefs, but we can't tolerate much diversity in our moral beliefs.
Jonathan HaidtI have a list of universal beliefs, and they are amazing beliefs, like, "No one cares" or "You don't care about me"; "I should be successful" or "I'm not successful"; "I don't have enough money"; "I'm too tall or thin or fat"; "I shouldn't have done it" - oh, my goodness, they go on and on and on.
Byron KatieWhen I watch that attachment happening, I see the beliefs that I have around it. If somebody's not paying attention to me in a certain way, in my mind, it means they don't love me or they don't respect me. Bringing awareness to the beliefs that are underneath the attachment and bringing awareness to the way my body and heart are tightening, helps me wake up and re-inhabit a larger space of being. Holding on and pushing away might be going on but I'm freer to respond in a healthy way.
Tara BrachDangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change
Frank HerbertConvictions are not merely beliefs we hold; they are those beliefs that hold us in their grip.
Albert MohlerThese maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our scientific beliefs. These premisses or beliefs are embodied in a tradition, the tradition of science.
Michael PolanyiA democratic state will protect the freedom to hold any beliefs other than those that harm others, such as racism. In particular, it will see to it that no one is harmed just because of her beliefs.
Mario BungeGood marriages are built upon a combination of emotional love and a common commitment to a core of beliefs about what is important in life and what we wish to do with our lives. Speaking each other's primary love language creates the emotional climate where these beliefs can be fleshed out in daily life.
Gary ChapmanThere is no question that, if you look at name recognition and celebrity, my opponent is far-and-away ahead. I think that if you put my beliefs in one column and her positions in another column, I am almost convinced that a majority of the people in the Democratic Party would support my beliefs.
Jonathan TasiniI'm interested in how a person forms her beliefs, how that happens. Beliefs of all kinds make up the animating force in each of us. Without them we would be paralyzed, lifeless - the glove without the hand.
Zia Haider RahmanFaith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. When man rejects reason as his standard of judgement, only one alternative standard remains to him: his feelings. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feelings with knowledge
Nathaniel BrandenThose beliefs about the essential goodness or beauty of the world are fundamentally paper-thin bullshit. There's not an essential belief that isn't a contingent belief. It could all be destroyed in a second, at any second. And I have an issue with that.
Zadie SmithThe crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs; diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought; superstitions cancel one another, and reason begins.
Will DurantTo assert that it is possible to establish peace between men of different nations is simply to assert that man, whatever his ethnical background, his race, religious beliefs, or philosophy, is capable of reason. Two forces within the individual contribute to the development of his conscience and of his morality: reason and sensitivity.
Leon BourgeoisPeople who write about issues like poverty or terrorism are a part of the elite, and the distance between the elite and nonelite is growing very fast. You can move around the world but meet only people who speak your language, who share the same ideas, the same beliefs, and in doing so you can lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of the world does not think or believe in or speak the everyday discourse of the elite.
Pankaj MishraPeople have the absolute right to preach and to think and to say whatever they believe, and at the same time those beliefs can't be used as the basis for denying other people their equal rights and their equal freedom.
Chris ChristieWhat scares me most about the media is that so many of them don't realize that by presenting and highlighting certain issues, opinions, and perspectives over others, they can manipulate and control people's beliefs in subtle ways.
Oliver StoneWhile everyone I work with may not share my beliefs, I have been surrounded by nothing but support.
Clay AikenCertain beliefs must accompany every action: One should act without selfishness, cultivate compassion for all living things, and develop respect for others.
Dalai LamaWriting is how I communicate my deepest beliefs, and what I hope are helpful observations about our dual citizenship, as children of God, as regular old mixed-up, worried, flawed, precious human beings.
Anne LamottLife knows us not and we do not know lifeโ-we donโt know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow
Joseph ConradOur conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.
Erich FrommThe unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangibles, ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die.
Chuck PalahniukSometimes you are forced to defend your beliefs. Sometimes you are forced to look at relationships that aren't positive anymore. There are times when I have had to make peace with the fact that I am at war. And sometimes you have to fight those who do not want love to conquer all.
Tori AmosExhilarating. Radical Grace moved me to tears with its portrayal of good people putting their beliefs into action in ways that transcend all ideological boundaries.
Roger EbertTo me consensus seems to be - the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects - the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"?
Margaret ThatcherIf they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse. And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humored these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.
Blaise PascalReligion isn't best understood primarily as a collection of beliefs held by backward people with fear and trembling for most of human history (religion as brainwash). It is rather, among other things, a scriptorium of beleaguered witness, a record of collated information, both fragmentary and sometimes systematic, with which we may feel compelled to reckon as it somehow, across history, reckons with us, an inheritance, if you like, of difficult wisdom.
David Dark