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belief quotes

  • The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

    - Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Essays, no.1,'Of  Truth'.

  •    I am of the firm belief that everybody could write books and I never understand why they don't. After all, everybody speaks.Once the grammar has been learnt it is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say.

    - Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge
      In D L Kirkpatrick (ed) Contemporary Novelists.

  • Rome's just a city like anywhere else. Avastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare.

    -Wilson
      Inside Mr Enderby, pt.2, ch.1.

  • A belief is made religious, not so much by its content, as rather by the way it is held.

    - Rev Don Cupitt
      The Sea of Faith.

  • It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
      A  Tale of  Two Cities, bk.1, ch.1.

  • The abdication of Belief Makes the Behavior small Better an ignis fatuus Than no illume at all.

    - Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
    c.1882  Complete Poems, no.1551 (first published1945).

  • It is my belief,Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.

    - SirArthur Conan Doyle
      The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,'The Copper Beeches'.

  • One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to a greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long.

    -W(illiam) E(dward) B(urghardt) Du Bois
      Written 26  Jun, and read as an oration at his funeral.

  • Belief consists in affirming the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

    - RalphWaldo Emerson
      Representative Men,'Montaigne; or, The Skeptic'.

  • He believed in sudden conversion, a belief which may be right, but which is peculiarlyattractive to the half- baked mind.

    - E(dward) M(organ) Forster
      Howards End, ch.6.

  • I do not believe in Belief† Lord I disbelievehelp thou my unbelief.

    - E(dward) M(organ) Forster
    Two Cheers for Democracy,'What I Believe'.

  • The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.

    - Sigmund Freud
      The Future of an Illusion.

  • A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

    - David Hume
      An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section10, pt.1.

  • All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Remark, 31 Mar, on the existence of ghosts. Quoted in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.3.

  • There was scattered laughter in the rear of the theatre, leading to the belief that somebody was telling jokes back there.

    - George S(imon) Kaufman
    Play review.

  • The authority of a belief imposed by religion surely destroys the discovery of reality.One relies on authority because one is afraid to stand alone.

    -Jiddu Krishnamurti
      BBC interview,7 Dec.

  • The happy ending is our national belief.

    -Joseph R(aymond) McCarthy
      'America the Beautiful', in Commentary, Sep.

  • God grant that we may not have a European war thrust upon us, and for such a stupid reason too, no I don't mean stupid, but to have to go to war on account of tiresome Serbia beggars belief.

    -Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes known as Princess May
      Letter to her aunt Princess  Augusta, Grand-Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, 28  Jul.

  • Faith may be defined brieflyas an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

    - H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken
      Prejudices, 3rd series, ch.14.

  • They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it has helped and hurt us.

    - Arthur Miller
      Of the settlers in Salem in1692. The Crucible, act1.

  • The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

    -Myles na Gopaleen
      Do WhatYou Will, pt.2, ch.15.

  • When you have had a glimpse of such a disaster as this†the result is not necessarily disillusionment and cynicism.Curiously enough, the whole experience has left me with not less but more belief in the decency of human beings.

    - George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
      Homage to Catalonia, ch.14.

  •    During my tenure of power, myearnest wish has beento impress the people of this country with a belief that the legislature was animated bya sincere desire to frame its legislation upon the principles of equity and justice† Deprive me of power tomorrow, but you can never deprive me of the consciousness that I have exercised the powers committed to me from no corrupt or interested motives, from no desire to gratifyambition, or to attain any personal object.

    - Sir Robert Peel
      On the repeal of the Corn Laws, House of Commons, 15 May.

  • The belief that we can start with pure observations alone, without anything in the nature of a theory, is absurd.

    - Sir Karl Raimund Popper
      Conjectures and Refutations (published1963), ch.1.

  • To be forced by desire into any unwarrantable belief is a calamity.

    - I(vor) A(rmstrong) Richards
      Principles of Literary Criticism.

  • Let me assert my belief that the only thing that we have to fear is fear itselfnameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror that paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

    - Franklin D(elano) Roosevelt
      Inaugural address, 4 Mar.

  • As Michael read the Gaelic scroll It seemed the story of the soul; And those who wrought, lest there should fail From earth the legend of the Gael, Seemed warriors of Eternal Mind Still holding in a world gone blind, From which belief and hope had gone, The lovely magic of its dawn.

    - GeorgeWilliam pseudonym  Ó Russell
      The Interpreters,'Michael'.

  • The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief.

    -John Hanning Speke
      Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.

  • After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is the essence which takes its place as life's redemption.

    -Wallace Stevens
      Opus Posthumous, Aphorisms,'Adagia'.

  • Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you much at your own reckoning.

    - Anthony Trollope
      Lord De Guest to Johnny. The Small House at Allington, ch.32.

  • The French are polite, but it is often mere ceremonious politeness. A Russian imbues his polite things with a heartiness that compels belief in their sincerity.

    - Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens Twain
      The Innocents Abroad.

  • I can answer for but three things: a firm belief in the justice of ourcause, close attention in the prosecution of it, and the strictest integrity.

    - BookerTaliaferro Washington
      On being elected Commander of the Unionist Army,19 Jun.

  • Thereisa species of personcalleda'ModernChurchman' who draws the full salary of a beneficed clergyman and need not commit himself to any religious belief.

    - Evelyn Arthur StJohn Waugh
      Decline and Fall, pt.2, ch.4.

  • 'Beauty' is a currency like the gold standard. Like any economy it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in theWest it isthe last, best belief systemthat keeps male domination intact.

    - Naomi Wolf
      The Beauty Myth, ch.1,'The Beauty Myth'.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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