Quotes About Belief

Well, a good place to start if you want to know what something was about is to look to see what changes it introduced. And particularly in the case of a war planned in advance where the outcome was never in any doubt, I think you have solid reason to believe the result was what the thing was really for in the first place.

If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you're saying, because it's too hard to believe one thing and say another.

We should have pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the will

If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope.

Because we take certain things about the world for granted when we encounter new data, we accept it or reject it based in large part on whether it corresponds with or contradicts what we think we already know. This is what I had said earlier. This is being increasingly reinforced by the so-called bubble or silo effect in which computer algorithms channel our online behavior so that we rarely encounter views with which we disagree

I'm sure you believe everything you're saying. But what I'm saying is that if you believe something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting.

tomemos como ejemplo al nuevo director de un subcomité sobre el medio ambiente que explicó que el calentamiento global no puede ser un problema porque Dios le prometió a Noé que no habría otro diluvio.

one is tempted to believe that some people in the White House worship Aztec gods—with the offering of Central American blood.

Foucault: Oh, you know, I don't believe that the problem of personal experience is so very important

As Chomsky says, if you act like there is no possibility of change for the better, you guarantee that there will be no change for the better. The choice is ours, the choice is yours. Robert

I don't say you're self-censoring - I'm sure you believe everything you're saying; but what I'm saying is, if you believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting.

One choice is to assume the worst, and then you can be guaranteed that it'll happen. The other is to assume that there's some hope for change, in which case it's possible that you can help to effect change. So you've got two choices, one guarantees the worst will happen, the other leaves open the possibility that things might get better. Given those choices, a decent person doesn't hesitate.

El discurso de los privilegios está siempre marcado por la confianza y el triunfalismo: conocemos el camino que tenemos delante, y no hay otro camino.

The idea that you have to avoid teaching evolution or pretend you're not teaching it is unique in the industrial world. And the statistics are mind-boggling. Roughly half the population think the world was created a couple thousand years ago.

The magnitude of this event (9/11) turned the world into a scary place. And perhaps the scariest part of all was that these terrorists believed they were doing God's work. They were trained to view life on earth as of no value and that no act, no matter how barbaric, was off-limits if in pursuit of jihadd.

Everybody dies. There's nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God. (Although there's no question a belief in God would come in handy. It would be great to think there's a plan, and that everything happens for a reason. I don't happen to believe that. And every time one of my friends says to me, "Everything happens for a reason," I would like to smack her.)

We know in one part of our brains that we are all going to die, but on some level we don't quite believe it.

It was exciting in its own self-absorbed way, which is very much the essence of journalism: you truly believe that you are living at the center of the universe and that the world out there is on tenterhooks waiting for the next copy of whatever publication you work at.

Death doesn't really feel eventual or inevitable. It still feels... avoidable somehow. But it's not. We know in one part of our brains that we are all going to die, but on some level we don't quite believe it.

My mother was a good recreational cook, but what she basically believed about cooking was that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.

My marriage to him was as willful an act as I have ever committed; I married him against all the evidence. I married him believing that marriage doesn't work, that love dies, that passion fades, and in so doing I became the kind of romantic only a cynic is truly capable of being.

It's hopeless. I know that, but I never really get it. I go right on. I think to myself: I was wrong about the last one, but I'll try harder to be right about the next one.

People who run four miles a day and eat only nuts and berries drop dead. People who drink a quart of whiskey and smoke two packs of cigarettes a day drop dead. You are suddenly in a lottery, the ultimate game of chance, and someday your luck will run out. Everybody dies. There's nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God.

Siempre creemos que a nuestros padres les alcanzará un rayo y que, por arte de magia, se convertirán en las personas que querrías que fueran, o que volverán a ser las personas que eran. Pero eso no va a pasar nunca. Y, aunque sepas que nunca va a pasar, sigues teniendo la esperanza de que pase.