Quotes About Belief

The kinds of discoveries that are made through practice have nothing to do with believing in anything. They have much more to do with having the courage to die, the courage to die continually.

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.

We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people's wrongness.

Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't share their beliefs - in effect, becoming fundamentalist. It's very dangerous - the finger of righteous indignation pointing at someone who is identified as bad or wrong.

All ego really is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are.

Not an unbeliever, sir, a free-thinker. Perhaps you've never thought about the difference. As a free-thinker I can believe what I like, when I like. I can commit you, in your sad situation, to the protection of God this evening, even though tomorrow morning I shan't believe he exists. As an unbeliever I should be obliged not to believe, and that's an unwarrantable restriction on my thoughts.

The professor urged upon Fred that to base one's calculations on unobservables - such as God, such as the soul, such as the atom, such as the elementary particle - was nothing more than a comforting weakness. 'I don't deny that all human beings need comfort. But scientists should not indulge themselves on quite this scale.

Everyone has known what it's like to see their dreams crumble. But these women...have found something more stable to hang onto. They're not content and fulfilled because circumstances turned out the way they hoped, but because of their faith in a God who is above circumstance.

We are the body of Christ. We are the continuing incarnation of the Divine. Look around and see Jesus. We who believe and trust and love each other are the manifestation of God in this place, at this time.

There's this piece of contemporary mythology that the forties are the best time of your life. A load of cock, so far as I'm concerned.

Children are infinitely credulous. My Lisa was a dull child, but even so she came up with things that pleased and startled me. 'Are there dragons?' she asked. I said that there were not. 'Have there ever been?' I said all the evidence was to the contrary. 'But if there is a word dragon,' she said, 'then once there must have been dragons.

Churches have always seemed to me almost irrefutable evidence. They make me wonder if – just possibly – I might be wrong.

And yet I am by nature sceptical - a questioner, a doubter, an instinctive agnostic.

I'm afraid I can't do the things you want me to do because people don't go in much for sorcery nowadays. I don't think they'd be very interested.

Ghosts?' Said Mrs Verity. 'Why, good gracious, I could tel you a thing or two about ghosts. Believe in them? Well, what I always say is, we don't know the answers to everything, do we? I mean, there's some things in this world you can't explain and maybe we're not meant to.

Still, if that's the way she feels about it there's not much use you going home now and saying "Look mum, I got a bloke coming in tomorrow to see about the ghost", is there?

God, she says, 'is an unprincipled bastard, wouldn't you agree?

You think back. And often it seems more real than now. I mean, here I am, like this, but in my mind it's like I was different. Young, you see. You never really believe you're not anymore.

I'm not sure that I believe in God.' 'Oh I do,' says Claudia. 'Who else could bugger things up so effectively?

She had never really believed in God. There didn't seem any point in it, and he just seemed so, well, unlikely. But now, a world that definitely had no God at all felt kind of... empty. It wasn't really God she wanted; it was the possibility of God.

The water used for manufacture was frequently supplied as urine from workers in the gunpowder mill; the urine of a heavy wine drinker was believed to create particularly potent gunpowder. Urine from a clergyman, or better yet a bishop, was also considered to give a superior product.

Nem tudo na vida é doloroso ou inviável.

Rest is the ability to totally trust God without living under the stress of the cares of life.

At times you may believe that you are at wits' end and feel that God has bypassed you for a more urgent petition or a needier person. Perhaps He has "too many children" to take care of and is "too busy for you." However, just as the examples above indicate, God prepares a good outcome before the situation arises; He is not surprised at the trouble and at your reaction to it, and He can and is planning a way of escape before you ever get into the crisis.