Quotes About Belief

Optimists are usually wrong. But all the great change in history, positive change, was done by optimists.

Cheaters must get some credit before they can cozen, and all falsehood, if not founded in some truth, would not be fixed in any belief.

He does not believe who does not live according to his belief.

Trust thyself only, and another shall not betray thee.

One could always count on Baal for a religious experience, but not so Yahweh.

church has discovered that when it goes to the Scripture in faith, it finds itself encountered by Christ in ways that serve as the keys for understanding its encounters with Christ everywhere else.

A person's conclusions can only be as solid as the information on which they are based. Thus, a person who is exposed to almost nothing but inaccurate information on a given subject almost inevitably develops an erroneous belief, a belief that can seem to be "an irresistible product" of the individual's (secondhand) experience.

Chapter 7 takes a psychological truism, "we tend to believe what we think others believe" and turns it around: We tend to think others believe what we believe. This chapter examines a set of cognitive, social, and motivational processes that prompt us to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs, further bolstering our credulity.

we believe certain things because they ought to be true.

The most favorable attitudes toward ESP were found in a survey of Canadian college students, of whom 80% reported a belief in psi.21 National surveys of the U.S. population have found that roughly 50% of the population are believers, including 67% of those who are college educated.22 Perhaps

develop the habit of employing one of several "consider the opposite" strategies. We can learn to ask ourselves, for example, "Suppose the exact opposite had occurred. Would I consider that outcome to be supportive of my belief as well?" Alternatively, we can ask, "How would someone who does not believe the way I do explain this result?"

Because so much disagreement remains hidden, our beliefs are not properly shaped by healthy scrutiny and debate. The absence of such argument also leads us to exaggerate the extent to which other people believe the way we do.

People are extraordinarily good at ad hoc explanation. According to past research, if people are erroneously led to believe that they are either above or below average at some task, they can explain either their superior or inferior performance with little difficulty.

Our prayers are granted as soon as we have prayed, even though the process of fulfilling our requests has not yet begun.

The Indwelling of Christ by faith…is to have Jesus Christ continually in one's eye, a habitual sight of Him. I call it so because a man actually does not always think of Christ; but as a man does not look up to the sun continually, yet he sees the light of it…. So you should carry along and bear along in your eye the sight and knowledge of Christ, so that at least a presence of Him accompanies you, which faith makes. —Thomas Goodwin, Works, 2:411

Where God gives opportunity for preaching it is more than likely that he has some people to convert. Usually the Word of God takes root among some, though often in but a few.

Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is applying that skepticism to the press.

Loretta's eyes flashed. "Is that what gets you through the night, Philip?" she asked. "Choosing to believe something, whether it's true or not?" "In one way or another, Loretta, isn't that what gets everyone through the night?" I asked.

Perspective gets lost in moral certainties. Which only means that no one was ever burned at the stake by a doubter.

Science comits suicide when it adopts a creed.

The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.

I believe in singularity in relationships because you've got to have trust on both sides.

A local cult called Christianity.

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.