Quotes About Belief

Skepticism is about approaching the world by asking why things might not be true rather than why they are true. It's a recognition that, while there is an objective truth, everything we believe about the world is not true. Thinking in bets embodies skepticism by encouraging us to examine what we do and don't know and what our level of confidence in our beliefs and predictions. This moves us closer to what is objectively true.

Hindsight bias is the tendency to believe that an outcome, after it occurs, was predictable or inevitable.

The verdict appears to be a consequence of hindsight bias—the human tendency to believe that whatever happened was bound to happen, and that everyone must have known it. If [the foreman] believed that an explosion was imminent, then he is a monster; but of that there is no evidence. Hindsight bias is not enough to support a verdict.

We have the intuition that when the world tells us our beliefs need updating, when new information conflicts with a belief we have, we will resolve that conflict by changing our belief. But all too often, like the cult members, we rationalize away the new information so we can defend our prior belief and stick to it.

We would be better served as communicators and decision-makers if we thought less about whether we are confident in our beliefs and more about how confident we are. Instead of thinking of confidence as all-or-nothing (" I'm confident" or "I'm not confident"), our expression of our confidence would then capture all the shades of grey in between.

Terms that express likelihoods mean very different things to different people. Using ambiguous terms can lead to confusion and miscommunication with people you want to engage for help. Being more precise, by expressing probabilities as percentages, makes it more likely you'll uncover information that can correct inaccuracies in your beliefs and broaden your knowledge.

It doesn't take much for any of us to believe something. And once we believe it, protecting that belief guides how we treat further information relevant to the belief.

Whether it is a football game, a protest, or just about anything else, our pre-existing beliefs influence the way we experience the world. That those beliefs aren't formed in a particularly orderly way leads to all sorts of mischief in our decision-making.

This irrational, circular information-processing pattern is called motivated reasoning. The way we process new information is driven by the beliefs we hold, strengthening them. Those strengthened beliefs then drive how we process further information, and so on.

La profusion des choses cachait la rareté des idées et l'usure des croyances.

Cette méchanceté était son ressort vital, sa force pour résister à la misère et croire qu'il était un homme.

Çocukken benim için lüks, kürk mantolar, uzun elbiseler ve deniz k?y?s?ndaki villalard?. Daha sonra bunun entellektüel bir yaÅŸam sürmek olduÄŸuna inand?m. Åžimdi bana öyle geliyor ki lüks ayn? zamanda, bir erkeÄŸe ya da bir kad?na olan tutkuyu yaÅŸayabilmektir

For many centuries people have believed that there is continuity between the individual in utero and the individual in the world; now there is solid evidence that this ancient belief is correct, albeit in a far more complex and nuanced way than our ancestors ever imagined. But science can't tell us everything we need to know about this new perspective; there's always a gap where the hard evidence of the laboratory meets the soft flesh of our bodies.

The position of the Atheist is a clear and reasonable one. I know nothing about 'God' and therefore I do not believe in Him or in it; what you tell me about your God is self?contradictory, and therefore incredible. I do not deny 'God,' which is an unknown tongue to me; I do deny your God, who is an impossibility. I am without God.

The Atheist waits for proof of God. Till that proof comes he remains, as his name implies, without God. His mind is open to every new truth, after it has passed the warder Reason at the gate.

Hope is a gift. You can't choose to have it. To believe and yet to have no hope is to thirst beside a fountain.

Do you think there's such a thing as a ghost who masquerades as a person? Do you believe that there are people whose bodies are still alive here on earth but whose souls are already in hell?

To believe and yet to have no hope is to thirst beside a fountain.

She wonders when it was that she began to despair. All these years she mistook it for pious resignation. Now she sees the difference. Such a fine line between a state of grace and a state of mortal sin. What is the good of believing fervently in God if you wind up hating Him?

Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier.

Why worry when you can pray?

Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.

Don't let what you can't do interfere with what you can do.

A problem not worth praying about is not worth worrying about.