Quotes About Belief

And when someone suggests you believe in a proposition, you must first examine it to see whether it is acceptable, because our reason was created by God, and whatever pleases our reason can but please divine reason, of which, for that matter, we know only what we infer from the processes of our own reason by analogy and often by negation.

But it's atheists who say that the world wasn't made by anyone, and you say you're not an atheist . . . I'm not because I can't bring myself to believe that all these things we see around us—the way trees and fruits grow, and the solar system, and our brains—came about by chance. They're too well made. And therefore there must have been a creating mind. God.

But what use is the unicorn to you if your intellect doesn't believe in it?

Adso of Melk: The Koran, the Bible of the infidels, a perverse book … William of Baskerville: A book containing a wisdom different from ours.

Le pregunté cómo se llamaba el gato y contestó que los gatos no se llaman porque no son cristianos como los perros

Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend.

I didn't know how to define it -- hermetic skepticism? liturgical cynicism? -- this higher disbelief that led him to acknowledge the dignity of all the superstitions he scorned.

So you truly do not believe in God? I find no reason to, in nature... If the idea of God is unknown in the state of nature, it must then be a human invention.

Mystical additions and subtractions always come out the way you want.

Atât de mare e puterea adev?rului care, precum binele, se r?spândeÈ™te de la sine.

I was upset. I had always believed logic was a universal weapon and now I realized how its validity depended on the way it was employed.

Os homens nunca praticam o mal tão completa e entusiasticamente como quando o fazem por convicção religiosa.

Not that the incredulous person doesn't believe in anything. It's just that he doesn't believe in everything. Or he believes in one thing at a time. He believes a second thing only if it somehow follows from the first thing. He is nearsighted and methodical, avoiding wide horizons. If two things don't fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that's credulity.

The conspiracy theory of society . . . comes from abandoning God and then asking: "Who is in his place?" —Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, London, Routledge

De mens bedrijft het kwaad nooit zo hartstochtig en vol overgave als wanneer hij dat doet uit godsdienstige overtuiging.

If the eye could see the demons that people the universe, existence would be impossible. —Talmud, Berakhot, 6

Counterfactual conditionals are always true, because the premise is false. But I was there that day, so now I am where I am.

Superstition brings bad luck.

I hated my mother who had gone without telling me, I hated my father who had done nothing to stop her, I hated God because he had willed such a thing to happen, and I hated my grandfather because he thought it normal for God to will such things.

Often the object of a desire, when desire is transformed into hope, becomes more real than reality itself.

Die Menschen tun das Böse nie so vollständig und begeistert, wie wenn sie es aus religiöser Überzeugung tun.

Jangan percaya begitu saja pada apa yang disebut sebagai sejarah

Oysa ÅŸimdi, dünyan?n zarars?z bir bilmece olduÄŸunu, ard?nda bir gerçek varm?? gibi onu aç?klamaya kalk??ma ç?lg?nl???m?z?n onu korkunçlaÅŸt?rd???na inan?yorum.

Heden ten dage verstaat men onder vrijheid echter de mogelijkheid om de geloofsovertuiging en de mening te kiezen die je het meest aanstaat en die allemaal inwisselbaar zijn - en het maakt de staat niet uit of je vrijmetselaar, christen, Jood of een volgeling van de Grote Turk bent. Zo wordt men onverschillig jegens de Waarheid.