Quotes About Belief

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." —Steve Jobs

Contrary to fiction, you can't hypnotize someone to commit armed robbery, or jump off a building, against their will. A person can only be hypnotized to do something they would already be willing to do otherwise. Same with this. We can strengthen a tendency, put a thought into your sleeping head, but it can't contradict how you feel consciously.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." —Joseph Conrad, Novelist

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." —Albert Einstein

Truth doesn't matter! It's what people will believe that matters.

We've conditioned the public to believe women are only making a fraction of what men make for so long now, they'll believe the lie before they believe the correction. This claim has been around for so long it's created its own fucking reality.

Confirmation bias. This is our tendency to seek out information that supports and reinforces our beliefs, and ignore or discount any information that is contrary to them. So we stick to our guns, even against overwhelming evidence that we're wrong.

Arthur Schopenhauer had famously expressed, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Cultures and national belief systems that maintain their integrity can add to diversity. I'm a strong believer in melting pot societies, but enclaves of distinctiveness are important too. As long as every nation, and every diverse group within every nation, is accepting of others.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says. He is always convinced that it says what he means." —George Bernard Shaw

In 1944, an experiment was conducted that should have conclusively proven that DNA was actually the carrier of the genetic code, but these results were resisted and largely ignored. Scientists had convinced themselves that DNA was too simple to be the conductor of the orchestra, and clung to this belief. Again, once consensus is reached, it isn't easily overcome,

The more intellect you bring to bear on the question, with faith out of the picture, the more certain you become that God is just a construct of the human mind, nothing more." Desh

What I find the most insidious about this," said Joe Allen, "is how fervent, how zealous, his followers seem to be. Even if they don't always like his personality, they believe in his cause." "His cause?" said Jenna in disgust. "Ruling the world is a cause?

I'm just struck by how absolutely certain we can be about things for which there is no objective certainty. How stubborn. And how often we can fool ourselves.

She really did believe that when all was said and done, only experience with a person could give you a sense of their spirit—their values, their dreams, their demeanor, and their sense of humor.

As the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer had famously expressed, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

cling to these cherished beliefs with superhuman tenacity. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that we're wrong.

Shared belief in an absurdity is a much better indicator of loyalty than shared belief in the truth. And it's a much better way to create group cohesion. If a leader asks you to believe that the sky is blue, and you do, what does that prove? The truth is easy. But if he requires his followers to believe the sky is green, they quickly distance themselves from non-believers and become firmly united in a shared delusion.

God can do anything, right? He's all powerful. So he could have created a species of gods. He could have filled the universe with his equals. But instead, he created an inferior species to worship him. Aronson obviously prefers to do the same.

There have been thousands of different religions through time. And the followers of each of these religions believe that their founders received the divine answer, and that the religious mythology of all other religions is delusional. Almost everyone agrees that all the other religions were invented by man, just not the particular one into which they were born.

So your drug could at least loosen the grip of a cult leader on his followers?

a number of prominent scientists believe our minds are quantum instruments. That consciousness itself is a quantum event.

If I claim that an invisible giant hamster is hovering above me, I'm a lunatic. If I sense the spirit of God hovering above me, I'm simply a spiritual being.