Belief Quotes

The great lawyer who employs his talent and his learning in the highly emunerative task of enabling a very wealthy client to override or circumvent the law is doing all that in him lies to encourage the growth in the country of a spirit of dumb anger against all laws and of disbelief in their efficacy.

Theodore Roosevelt

The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Natural History of Intellect (1893)

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 5

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

George Carlin

Imagination grows by exercise and contrary to common belief is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

Ursula K. LeGuin

Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.

Walter Bagehot

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

John Maynard Keynes

A strict belief, fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand there is comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers.

Epicurus

If the belief in Christianity did not make us happy, it would not be believed: how little it must then be worth!

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human, All Too Human" page 87, #120.