Quotes About Belief

Everyone knows that part of the spirit descends to the afterworld, while part of it remains with the family, but we have a special belief about the spirit of a young woman who has died before her marriage that goes contrary to this. She comes back to prey upon other unmarried girls--not to scare them but to take them to the afterworld with her so she might have company.

No matter what you're feeling or how desperate you become, always take a moral position. If you do that, God will watch over you.

What the body knows and what the mind chooses to believe are two different things, after all.

To believe in dreams is to spend half your life asleep.

There was a typhoon the day you were born... It is said that a Dragon born in a storm will have a particularly tempestuous fate. You always believe you are right, and this makes you do things you shouldn't... You're a Dragon, and of all the signs only a Dragon can tame the fates. Only a Dragon can wear all the horns of destiny, duty, and power. Your sister is merely a Sheep...

You are a haenyeo! Never for one moment believe you are unworthy.

Men are so sure of themselves, and they have such courage and conviction. They believe-truly believe- that they can make things happen just by speaking the words, and in many cases they can.

I wonder if there was anything I could have done differently. I hope I would have done everything differently, except I know that everything would have turned out the same. That's the meaning of fate. But if some things are fated and some people are luckier than others, then I also have to believe that I still haven't found my destiny.

I thought I could use idealism to solve my inner conflicts, but in healing my inner conflicts I destroyed my idealism.

I have heard that you should not do bed business after too much hard work, Snow Flower told me, but I don't believe that my mother-in-law has heard that. She looked exhausted. I felt the same way after visiting my husband's home-from the nonstop labor, from being polite, and from always being watched. This is the one rule my mother-in-law doesn't respect either, I commiserated. Haven't they heard an exhausted well yields no water?

It is always better to let them (shaman and priest) take credit for a good outcome. Do you understand?

Prayer is prayer, regardless of where you are.

I didn't understand depression, how it was a con and a thief of joy. How it lured people away, making them believe that the world was better off without them.

It was human nature to see only what you want to see, and nothing would change that, no matter what tools people had at their disposal. The truth is only what you think it is.

Didn't he know that she was playing him? The funny thing was that they almost never, ever did. And even after they figured it out, they doubted themselves. Wanted to believe they were wrong. Even when there was no denying that they'd been had, you could almost always go back for a second helping.

Hope is good. Without it, well, you do the math. But hope has to be like a prayer. Putting it out there to something more powerful than yourself. If the last few months have taught me anything, it's this: We don't have control, we have choices. The little ones, the big ones, these are the points on which our lives pitch and pivot. All we can do is make the best choices we can with what we know, and hope that things turn out the way we want.

She told me I didn't understand depression, how it was a con and a thief of joy. How it lured people away, making them believe that the world was better off without them.

The more you must assert your own reality to people, the crazier you seem.

Harry Houdini had a saying that came back to Ian now and again: For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, none will suffice.

there were only two ways of being in the world. You either walked through life acting out of love, or you acted out of fear.

When your heroes reveal themselves as human, it exposes your own flaws, too. Naivete, mainly, a willingness to believe in someone, something.

We cling to our ideas of people, don't we? We hold on tight even when all evidence points to something else.

For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, none will suffice.

I'm the world's least happy atheist. I miss having religious faith, but trying to have it seems like trying to be in love with someone that you're not in love with.