Quotes About Beliefs

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 ... Who knows what use they’ll make of you? Maybe you’ll help them to persuade people to buy things they don’t need, or hate things they know nothing about, or hold beliefs that make them easy to handle, or doubt the truths that might save them.

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins. Religious beliefs are sacred to people and at all times should be respected and honored. As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.

The basic fault lines today are not between people with different beliefs but between people who hold these beliefs with an element of uncertainty and people who hold these beliefs with a pretense of certitude

An interesting thing about the religious people who run Iran is that one of their problems with Ahmadinejad, who they thought would be one of their guys because he's so religious, is that he actually has some really nutty ideas about religion. He's too religious. He's too literal. I mean, there are plenty of people in Iran who like Ahmadinejad's religious beliefs, just as there are plenty of Christian fundamentalists in America who like George W. Bush's beliefs. But there are also plenty of people who are very uncomfortable with his overt religiosity.

Either philosophy reinforces communal beliefs, in which case it is pointless; or else it is at odds with those beliefs, in which case it is dangerous.

The broadcasting industry definitely has changed, and I'm talking about young broadcasters who come along today, they really feel like they have to do something that's outlandish to make them stand out. They have to say something provocative that maybe they don't even really truly believe in their heart and, it's not really what their beliefs are, but they're going to sacrifice their beliefs to try to do something to gain attention.

When we speak of ordinary unqualified knowledge, my thought is that we are implicitly relativizing to the standards imposed by our evolution-derived humanity. These are standards that determine when we consider it appropriate to store beliefs just as a human being, rather than in one's capacity as an expert of one or another sort. Such stored beliefs are to be available for later use in one's own thought or in testimony to others.

Near 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.

The people we are in relationships with are always a mirror, reflecting our own beliefs, and simultaneously we are mirrors, reflecting their beliefs.

I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs.

Basically these are beliefs about apocalypse that we have seen as truth in Western civilization for the last couple of hundred years. So we live according to these "truths" and as a result manifesting a life using those beliefs, which can be very self-destructive.

If the truth conflicts with my beliefs, I change my beliefs.

My beliefs will run through everything I do. My beliefs, my values are my anchor and when people try to drag me, as I know they will, it is to that sense of right and wrong, that sense of who I am and what I believe, to which I will always hold.

...as I reject the old time beliefs, it is not a matter of countering belief with belief, rather I can challenge the efficacy of old beliefs with sound arguments. We believe in nature and that human progress depends on the domination of man over nature. There is no conscious power behind it. This is our philosophy.

If you don't have solid beliefs, you cannot build a stable life. Beliefs are like the foundation of a building, and they are the foundation to build your life upon.

Modern liberalism, for most liberals is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow.

It's a matter of ABC: When we encounter ADVERSITY, we react by thinking about it. Our thoughts rapidly congeal into BELIEFS. These beliefs may become so habitual we don't even realize we have them unless we stop to focus on them. And they don't just sit there idly; they have CONSEQUENCES.

Before you disagree make sure you understand. In other words, we must make sure that we can describe another's theological position as he would describe it before we criticize or condemn. Another guiding principle should be 'Do not impute to others beliefs you regard as logically entailed by their beliefs but that they explicitly deny'.

Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.

There was a man named Robert Dear who in court said he was a warrior for the babies, whose ex-wife talked about his Christian beliefs motivating his desire to attack and murder three people, including a police officer, in Colorado.That man is a Christian. He`s an avowed Christian. He appears to have acted on those Christian beliefs to undertake that act of violence.

In place of the old beliefs of a civilization based on godliness, judgment and historical loyalty, young people are given the new beliefs of a society based on equality and inclusion, and are told that the judgment of other lifestyles is a crime. ... The "non-judgmental" attitude towards other cultures goes hand-in-hand with a fierce denunciation of the culture that might have been one's own

Faith 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

The problem is, most people don't like to hear suggestions that directly confront or run counter to their most sacred beliefs.

The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise.

It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.

The challenge for the church is how do we have unity about basic beliefs and yet respect individual differences.

I don't look to my situation to determine what choices I make. I've developed a good sense of values and beliefs. That's my reality. No matter where I am, God is still good. No matter where I am, nothing is impossible. It's those sort of principles that really anchor me.

Let me fill you in on a few of my beliefs. First of all, I believe that I'll dress the way I want and I'll act the way I want. But most importantly, these fans don't just look at me for my appearance, they love me for what's on the inside.

The first thing we need to do is realize that some of our old beliefs are dysfunctional and no longer work, if indeed they ever did. If the desire to do that isn't there, there's nothing to do.

I had so many beliefs against being a singer or what it takes. There was a lot of pain associated with that. The rejection of it all. I lived in a rejection state of mind. Not because of my voice; the mike never rejected me. It was harboring all those bad memories of being broke. It teaches you your worth. Nothing good comes from that.

a father for whom everything is an unshakable duty, for whom there is a right way and a wrong way and nothing in between, a father whose compound of ambitions, biases, and beliefs is so unruffled by careful thinking that he isn’t as easy to escape from as he seems. Limited men with limitless energy; men quick to be friendly and quick to be fed up; men for whom the most serious thing in life is to keep going despite everything. And we were their sons. It was our job to love them.

When we form heart-centered beliefs within our bodies, in the language of physics we're creating the electrical and magnetic expression of them as waves of energy, which aren't confined to our hearts or limited by the physical barrier of our skin and bones. So clearly we're speaking to the world around us in each moment of every day through a language that has no words: the belief-waves of our hearts.

Sociotropic voters with biased economic beliefs are more likely to produce severe political failures than are selfish voters with rational expectations.

One of the finest beliefs I developed years ago that helped me to enjoy all of my life experience was the idea that there are no bad experiences, that no matter what I go through in life - whether it's a challenging experience or a pleasurable one - every experience provides me something of value if I look for it.

The difficulty with humanity's previous attempts at reinventing itself is that we've always started with behaviors rather than with beliefs.

We are living in a dynamic age with multiple ideas and beliefs of correctness; this world is not deterministic and not still.

I was shamed.My son, Bill, who was 14 come to me and said: "Mother, you've been professing that you're an atheist for a long time now. Well, I don't believe in God either, but every day in school I'm forced to say prayers, and I feel like a hypocrite. Why should I be compelled to betray my beliefs?" I couldn't answer him.

It's all about a war of social impulses and beliefs that is as powerful in its way as a big hurricane.

I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith. They feel no obligation to understand what they believe. They may even wish not to have their beliefs disturbed by thought.

I'm not a politician by profession. I am a citizen who decided I had to be personally involved in order to stand up for my own values and beliefs. My candidacy is based on my record, and for that matter, my entire life.

I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant.

One sees a trend in our political and legal cultures toward treating religious beliefs as arbitrary and unimportant, a trend supported by a rhetoric that implies that there is something wrong with religious devotion.

And maybe she had certain beliefs that if you love somebody, [you're] gonna like them too. And that isn't necessarily true.

I want to be the president for all Americans, regardless of your political beliefs, where you come from, what you look like, your religion.

Positive secularism is not tolerance of all religions, but it is the total denial of religious beliefs: it is the emergence of homogeneous human outlook which is based upon verifiable facts of life.

If you want to see the consequences of ideas, write a story. If you want to see the consequences of belief, write a story in which somebody is acting on the ideas or beliefs that she has.

All religious beliefs seem weird to people not brought up in them.

It requires troublesome work to undertake the alteration of old beliefs.