Quotes About Belief

He who approaches the temple of the Muses without inspiration, in the belief that craftsmanship alone suffices, will remain a bungler and his presumptuous poetry will be obscured by the songs of the maniacs.

What shall we say about those spectators, then, who can see a plurality of beautiful things, but not beauty itself, and who are incapable of following if someone else tries to lead them to it, and who can see many moral actions, but not morality itself, and so on? That they only ever entertain beliefs, and do not know any of the things they believe?

Reality is created by the mind. We can change our reality by changing our mind.

Socrates: This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

But I am too stupid to be convinced by him.

Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind—isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road?

I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying is true.

Now I am a diviner, though not a very good one, but I have enough religion for my own use, as you might say of a bad writer—his writing is good enough for him; and

What is spoken of the unchanging or intelligible must be certain and true; but what is spoken of the created image can only be probable; being is to becoming what truth is to belief.

Pooh, he said. Much alike, aren't they, this case and that! There is nothing to hinder their being so, said I, but even if they are not alike and if the man thinks they are, do you believe he will any the less answer what appears to him, whether we forbid him or not?

No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know.

for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.

For, it could be doubted that the things said are possible; and, even if, in the best possible conditions, they could come into being, that they would be what is best will also be doubted. So that is why there's a certain hestitation about getting involved in it, for fear that the argument might seem to be a prayer, my dear comrade.

In my opinion it's preferable for me to be a musician with an out-of-tune lyre or a choir-leader with a cacophonous choir, and it's preferable for almost everyone in the world to find my beliefs misguided and wrong, rather than for just one person - me - to contradict and clash with myself.

But what if there are no gods?

But far more dangerous are the others, who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods

For to fear death, men, is in fact nothing other than to seem to be wise, but not to be so. For it is to seem to know what one does not know: no one knows whether death does not even happen to be the greatest of all goods for the human being; but people fear it as though they knew well that it is the greatest of evils.

I would not swear that my argument is right down to the last word, but I would fight to the last breath, both in word and deed, that we will be better men – brave instead of lazy – if we will believe we must search for the things we do not know; if we will refuse to believe it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that there is no point in looking.

Porque temer la muerte, atenienses, no es otra cosa que creerse sabio sin serlo, y creer conocer lo que no se sabe. En efecto, nadie conoce la muerte, ni sabe si es el mayor de los bienes para el hombre. Sin embargo, se la teme, como si se 68 supiese con certeza que es el mayor de todos los males.

but I would contend at all costs in both word and deed as far as I could that we will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not [c] know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it.

En efecto, atenienses, temer la muerte no es otra cosa que creer ser sabio sin serlo, pues es creer que uno sabe lo que no sabe. Pues nadie conoce la muerte, ni siquiera si es, precisamente, el mayor de todos los bienes para el hombre, pero la temen como si supieran con certeza que es el mayor de los males.

And that only these two things, true belief and knowledge, guide correctly, and that if a man possesses these he gives correct guidance. The things that turn out right by some chance are not due to human guidance, but where there is correct human guidance it is due to two things, true belief or knowledge.

Pues a mi, ni Méleto ni Ánito pueden ocasionarme ningún mal, aunque se lo propusieran. ¿Cómo pueden hacerlo, si estoy plenamente convencido de que un hombre malvado jamás puede perjudicar a un hombre justo?