Quotes About Belief

In our cynical world, where suspicion is a necessity, insisting that something is true is not nearly as powerful as suggesting that something might be true.

I've been pulling up the wood crosses and replacing them with limestone slabs that I pry out of the dry riverbed in the belief that the children buried here deserve better than having their graves marked with the talisman of the cult that killed them.

There are no truths. Only stories.

The truth about stories is that that's all we are.

He said that even in our darkest hour, we should always remember to keep our eyes fixed on the brightest star and walk forward in faith. And with God's love to guide us, we'll be led on, step by step, to the right place.

I'll trust myself, myself shall be my friend.

Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.

Just as Marx is not simply a materialist, insofar as he is a historical materialist, so Nietzsche is not simply an atheist, insofar as he is a historical atheist: Zarathustra is 'the most pious of all those, who do not believe in God'.

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which believe the idea that things cannot be changed.

Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.

As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have an unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings.

The major part of our species seems able to undergo any trauma without significantly re-examining its household mantras, including "everything happens for a reason," "the show must go on," "accept the things you cannot change," and any other adage that gets people to keep their chins up.

As we should know by now, it is as easy to make fun of religious or scientific visionaries as it is to idolize them. Which attitude is adopted depends on whether or not they tell you what you want to hear.

If things are not what they seem—and we are forever reminded that this is the case—then it must also be observed that enough of us ignore this truth to keep the world from collapsing.

at any given time there are more cannibals than philosophical pessimists.

The divine right of kings may now be acknowledged as a fabrication, a falsified permit for prideful dementia and impulsive mayhem. The inalienable rights of certain people, on the other hand, seemingly remain current: somehow we believe they are not fabrications because hallowed documents declare they are real.

We think, therefore we should make everyone think what we think.

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.

Renowned for stating his convictions in the form of a paradox, as above, Chesterton, along with anyone who has something positive or equivocal to say about the human race, comes out on top in the crusade for truth. (There is nothing paradoxical about that.) Therefore, should your truth run counter to that of individuals who devise or applaud paradoxes that stiff up the status quo, you would be well advised to take your arguments, tear them up, and throw them in someone else's garbage.

Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and whatever else that—with a smattering of emotive images and strains of maudlin music—can move the average citizen to tears or violence, the pessimist is invisible in both history books and the media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, he could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause. Pessimists are indeed lackadaisical as partisans in the human drama.

After all, many people came here for vaguely therapeutic reasons, believing there were medicines dispensed by the very mood of the town's quaint streets and its sea-licked shores.

Optimists may have fugitive doubts about the basic desirability of existence, but pessimists never doubt that existence is basically undesirable. If you interrupted them in the middle of an ecstatic moment, which pessimists do have, and asked if existence is basically undesirable, they would reply "Of course" before returning to their ecstasy.

Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and the media. Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood for a cause.

To wail adamantly that a god exists is to kill that god or turn it into a plastic idol. To say that a god might exist is to vivify it with the meaning of mystery.