#belief

"My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."

"I'm happy to tell you there is very little in this world that I believe in."

"When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do."

"I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world."

"Believe what you believe and it will be, believe what others believe and they will consume you!"

"It is not needful for our dreams to be very grand nor very big. It is only needful for our dreams to be very shiny."

"I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned."

"Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in God."

"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them."

"What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve."

"Whatever negative things people think and say about you is enough to bring you down provided you belief that it carries a weight that can push you hard. Don't agree to accept what critics say; be prepared to silence them by doing what they think you can't do!"

"Destiny is real. And she's not mild-mannered. She will come around and hit you in the face and knock you over and before you know what hit you, you're naked- stripped of everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you didn't know- and there you are! A bloody nose, bruises all over you, and naked. And it's the most beautiful thing."

"You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true."

"We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper."

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."

"Science replaces private prejudice with public, verifiable evidence."

"The only truth was whatever you could make someone believe."

"Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason."

"If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once."

"[W]hen someone finds himself quite unjustly attacked and hated on all sides, there is no need for such a person to feel dismayed by misfortune. See how Fortune, who has harmed many a one, is so inconstant, for God, Who opposes all wrong deeds, raises up those in whom hope dwells."