Before Believing Quotes & Sayings

For all who believe that peace is not an ideal or pipe dream but anecessity. ~Libba Bray

They believe, and believing changes everything. ~Gemma, The sweet far thing, Libba Bray

Bu the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us forward, into the unknown. ~Circe, The sweet far thing, Libba Bray

Stop, gemma, before you go mad.
Or am I already there? ~Gemma, The sweet far thing, Libba Bray

peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more aruous. ~George Shaw — Libba Bray

The reality is that whatever you are looking for is, at the same time, looking for you. It all starts with believing before seeing. — John Frederick Demartini

People today distinguish between knowledge and action and pursue them separately, believing that one must know before he can act ... They say [they will wait] till they truly know before putting their knowledge into practice. Consequently to the end of their lives, they will never act and also will never know. — Wang Yangming

As soon as men who believe they are doing God's will get hold of power, whether household or village or in Jerusalem or Rome itself, the devil enters them. It isn't long before they start drawing up lists of punishments for all kinds of innocent activities, sentencing people to be flogged or stoned in the name of God for wearing this or eating that or believing the other. And the privileged ones will build great palaces and temples to strut around in, and levy taxes on the poor to pay for their luxuries...and put them poor harmless heretics they flush out to horrible public deaths, to terrify the rest into obedience. — Philip Pullman

Memorizing someone else's explanation of the truth isn't the same as seeing the truth for yourself. It is what it is - the memorization of second-hand knowledge. It is not your experience. It is not your knowledge. And no matter how much material is learned by rote, and no matter how eloquently we can speak about the memorized information, we're clinging to a description of something that's not ours. What's more, the description is never the item itself. By holding onto our impression of certain descriptions, we frequently are unable to see the real thing when it's right before our eyes. We are conditioned by memorizing and believing concepts - the truth of which we've never genuinely seen for ourselves. — H.E. Davey

Deceit for personal gain is one of history's most recurring crimes. Man's first step towards change would be thinking, counter-arguing, re-thinking, twisting, straightening, perfecting, then believing every original idea he intends to make public before making it public. There is always an angle from which an absolute truth may appear askew just as there is always a personal emotion, or a personal agenda, which alienates the ultimate good of mankind. — Criss Jami

From the perfection of Allah's ihsan is that He allows His slave to taste the bitterness of the break before the sweetness of the mend. So He does not break his believing slave, except to mend him. And He does not withhold from him, except to give him. And He does not test him (with hardship), except to cure him. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

The hardest part is setting the camera on the tripod, or making the decision to bring the camera out of the car, or just raising the camera to your face, believing, by those actions, that whatever you find before you, whatever you find there, is going to be good. — Sally Mann

She must start believing in impossible things, for impossible things kept appearing before her eyes. — Christina Henry

If you cherish something enough", she told me, "it doesn't matter how old or worn or useless it's become; your caring for it immediately raises its value in somebody else's eyes. It's just like rehab- a body's got to believe in their own worth before anybody can start fixing them, but most people need someone to believe in them before they can start believing in themselves. — Charles De Lint

Try to understand, analyze and find the truth before believing. — Debasish Mridha

I pitied the French for their naivete in believing that they had to visit a country in order to exploit it. Hollywood was much more efficient, imagining the countries it wanted to exploit. I was maddened by my helplessness before the Auteur's imaginations and machinations. His arrogance marked something new in the world, for this was the first war where the losers would write history instead of the victors. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

could make them laugh, and although he couldn't make them like him, that was absolutely okay. They were dead-enders headed for dead-end marriages and dead-end jobs. They would raise dead-end kids and dandle dead-end grandkids before coming to their own dead ends in dead-end hospitals and nursing homes, rocketing off into darkness believing they had lived the American Dream and Jesus would meet them at the gates of heaven with the Welcome Wagon. Morris was meant for better things. He just didn't know what they were. — Stephen King

The biggest mistake that parents make, is believing that their assigned task in life is to teach their children and to guide them in every situation of their children's lives. The truth is that it is the task of parents to both learn from their children and to guide them as well. Parenting is a relationship that goes both ways, from the moment your child is born, you learn from that person, and in fact, your lessons begin long before your child's lessons do. Later on, when you've learned a great deal already, then they begin to learn from you. Throughout our lives, it is a give-and-take relationship, in many ways. Our assigned task is to learn from our children, and to guide and teach them. Their assigned task is to learn from us, and also to teach us. — C. JoyBell C.

The house remembered her. Laurel did not consider herself a romantic, but the sense was so strong that for a moment she had no trouble believing that the combination before her of wooden boards and red chimney bricks, or dappled roof tiles and gabled windows at odd angles, was capable of remembrance. — Kate Morton

Success starts with believing before you can achieve it. — Robert Moment

It was another year or two before I discovered that drat and draft were different words. During that same period I remember believing that details were dentals and that a bitch was an extremely tall woman. A son of a bitch was apt to be a basketball player. When you're six, most of your Bingo balls are still floating around in the draw-tank (27-8). — Stephen King

I hated being lied to.
I hated even more believing those lies until the truth decided to come for me.
Turned out, I was never an individual; I was a possession to trade.
I was never unique; someone had lived my life many times before, never free, never whole.
My life was never mine.
My destiny was already written.
My story began the night he came for me. — Pepper Winters

He'd fallen in the trap before of believing she had the cold soul of an ice queen, but moments like these, it seemed more like she'd been encased a long time ago and couldn't break free. — Katherine McIntyre

Into these pavilions he admitted the elect, and there, says Marco Polo, gave them to eat a certain herb, which transported them to Paradise, in the midst of ever-blooming shrubs, ever-ripe fruit, and ever-lovely virgins. What these happy persons took for reality was but a dream; but it was a dream so soft, so voluptuous, so enthralling, that they sold themselves body and soul to him who gave it to them, and obedient to his orders as to those of a deity, struck down the designated victim, died in torture without a murmur, believing that the death they underwent was but a quick transition to that life of delights of which the holy herb, now before you, had given them a slight foretaste." "Then," cried Franz, "it is hashish! I know that - by name at least. — Alexandre Dumas

When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has for the truth's sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice because he seeks to do his will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice and offering, and that he has not, nor will not seek his face in vain. — Joseph Smith Jr.

And Belen?"
"Yes, Your Majesty?"
Maybe I do want to talk about him. A little. "Humberto would be proud of you, too. He always believed you'd come back to us." Saying his name aloud doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Humberto, I practice silently. Humberto.
A soft catch of breath. Then: "He had a way of believing in people long before they believed in themselves, didn't he?"
The entrance to my tent flaps closes, and he is gone. — Rae Carson

I have to own something before I can say it, and I have to own it before I can sing it as well, emotionally. I only enjoy acting and singing if I am believing what I am doing. — Gregory Harrison

The great lesson here taught is for all time. Often the Christian life is beset by dangers, and duty seems hard to perform. The imagination pictures impending ruin before and bondage or death behind. Yet the voice of God speaks clearly, "Go forward." We should obey this command, even though our eyes cannot penetrate the darkness, and we feel the cold waves about our feet. The obstacles that hinder our progress will never disappear before a halting, doubting spirit. Those who defer obedience till every shadow of uncertainty disappears and there remains no risk of failure or defeat, will never obey at all. Unbelief whispers, "Let us wait till the obstructions are removed, and we can see our way clearly;" but faith courageously urges an advance, hoping all things, believing all things. — Ellen G. White

It all went back to problems we had talked about before, you know, such as the British not believing in formation bombing and not believing in daytime bombing. — Stuart Symington

In Muslim societies, a person who has been manipulated unto believing in extremist violence or terrorism often seeks the permission of his mother before he may join a militant jihad and educated women as a rule, tend to withhold their blessings from such things. — Greg Mortenson

When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before. — Benedict Cumberbatch

When we move forward into our future, knowing and using the treasures within, then only good lies before us. We can know and affirm that everything that happens to us is for our highest good and greatest joy, truly believing that we can't go wrong. — Louise Hay

But like a gambler at a slot machine, hoping the next spin would change her life for the better, she closed in before she lost her nerve. Taking his hand, she pulled him toward her, near enough to feel his body against her. She looked up at him, tilting her head slightly as she leaned in. Mike, recognizing what was happening but still having trouble believing it, tilted his head and closed his eyes, their faces drawing near. — Nicholas Sparks

You want to know how to stop this killer? Forgive yourself, and he'll
disappear from your life forever."
"Thanks. I'll be sure to do that."
And I know:
1. This is almost the same conversation I've had with myself many times
before.
2. Gordon's only trying to help.
But it doesn't matter.
I:
1. Say, "See you later."
2. Step outside.
3. Close the door.
I don't want to, really. I want to go back inside and believe Gordon's words,
like a child believing in a fairy tale, and I want to escape this nightmare forever.
But I can't.
I realize now that it's easy to tell the difference between a real problem and
an imaginary one.
It's just the terror of facing the truth that's hard. — Jeremy C. Shipp

If enlightenment comes first, before thinking, before practice, your thinking and your practice will not be self-centered. By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing, believing in something which has no form or no color, which is ready to take form or color. This enlightenment is the immutable truth. It is on this orginal truth that our activity, our thinking, and our practice should be based. — Shunryu Suzuki

Before examining this more carefully and investigating its consequences, I want to dwell for a moment in the contemplation of God, to ponder His attributes in me, to see, admire, and adore the beauty of His boundless light, insofar as my clouded insight allows. Believing that the supreme happiness of the other life consists wholly of the contemplation of divine greatness, I now find that through less perfect contemplation of the same sort I can gain the greatest joy available in this life. — Rene Descartes

I sit before flowers
hoping they will train me in the art
of opening up
I stand on mountain tops believing
that avalanches will teach me to let go
I know
nothing
but I am here to learn. — Shane Koyczan

The task of liturgy is to order the life of the holy community following the text of Holy Scripture. It consists of two movements. First it gets us into the sanctuary, the place of adoration and attention, listening and receiving and believing before God. There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives ordered to all aspects of the revelation of God in Jesus.

Then it gets us out of the sanctuary into the world into places of obeying and loving ordering our lives as living sacrifices in the world to the glory of God. There is a lot involved, all the parts of our lives out on the street participating in the work of salvation. — Eugene H. Peterson

Really believing in "once upon a time". Believing that it will draw you in, take you with me to a place you've never been before. — Cameron Dokey

We're eye doctors."
"What's something about the eye that most people don't realize?"
"The eye doesn't see. The brain sees. The eye just transmits. So what we see isn't only determined by what comes through the eyes. What we see is affected by our memories, our feelings, and by what we've seen before. — Brandon Stanton

This thought runs like a bright golden thread through the dark tapestry of our sorrow. We learn so much from our children - in patience, in humility, in gratitude for other blessings we had accepted before as a matter of course; so much in tolerance; so much in faith - believing and trusting where we cannot see; so much in compassion for our fellow man; and yes, even so much in wisdom about the eternal values in life. — Andrew Solomon

I don't believe that," I said, and he raised his brow beneath his shaggy hair.
"I never asked you to."
(Jessica) — Shannon A. Thompson

Every day is a grand adventure into the great unknown and you cannot know what lies around the next corner. So, standing in this place, with the unknown before you, you have only two choices: you can live in trust (believing you are safe and that good things are coming) or you can live in fear (scared of the future and focused on you). Your choice will not change what's around that next corner, it will be what it's meant to be, but it will have a big impact on the way you feel today. Do you want to experience today in fear, focused on yourself? Or do you want to experience trust and focus on love? It's up to you. — Kimberly Giles

I heard the bells from the future churches, the children playing and laughing in the schoolyards ... and here was an almond tree in bloom before me: I must reach out and cut a flowering branch. For, by believing passionately in something which still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired, whatever we have not irrigated with our blood to such a degree that it becomes strong enough to stride across the somber threshold of nonexistence. — Nikos Kazantzakis

Gifts of grace come to all of us. But we must be ready to see and willing to receive these gifts. It will require a kind of sacrifice, the sacrifice of believing that, however painful our losses, life can still be good - good in a different way then before, but nevertheless good. I will never recover from my loss and I will never got over missing the ones I lost. But I still cherish life ... I will always want the ones I lost back again. I long for them with all my soul. But I still celebrate the life I have found because they are gone. I have lost, but I have also gained. I lost the world I loved, but I gained a deeper awareness of grace. That grace has enabled me to clarify my purpose in life and rediscover the wonder of the present moment. — Gerald L. Sittser

Here's the thing, Cuba. Somedays will eat you alive. They're promises you make to fool yourself into believing everything will turn out right in the end. Someday, your ship will come in. Someday, you'll tell me why you're an asshole. But that someday gets further and further away, until before you know it, it turns into never. Make your someday, now. That's my motto. — Ilsa Madden-Mills

I would think of certain winter nights when he wedged himself between Nona and me in bed, a furtive warmth embedded in his skin already tinctured with virginal earth and milk and possibility, or how that peculiar scent common to all small children before the age of five--sunshine sweetened hair, a nascent woodsiness in him exuding youthful exuberance--gripped us, suspended us eighties in the sense that our hope, our very survival, depended on the fulfillment of this child's dreams. How I took those years I spent for granted, believing them unalterable? pg. 9 — S.K. Kalsi

The winds of potential change blow constantly through our existence altering potentialities until a tipping point or nexus shakes our thread into a different weave, a new existence. It is our pattern-sensing consciousnesses that tricks us into believing remaining static is an option, that this day is like the next or the one before, as if the chaos that change will inevitably bring can be avoided. It's a comforting lie . . . — Larry J. Dunlap

J. Ivy is a brilliant man with an incredible voice and a way with words. I've known him for over a decade and owe my stage name to him believing in me back then before I even had a record deal. I'm excited for him to share his truth with the world. — John Legend

Neither one of us could really articulate how we felt until I heard Lamott referencing Paul Tillich and telling the audience, "The opposite of faith is not doubt - it's certainty." Steve and I didn't leave religion because we stopped believing in God. Religion left us when it started putting politics and certainty before love and mystery. — Brene Brown

I do not think it can be disputed that while we lay heavy stress on faith (coming to Christ, trusting His promises, believing that God knows what He is doing with our lives, and hoping for heaven), we touch very lightly on repentance (binding one's conscience to God's moral law, confessing and forsaking one's sins, making restitution for past wrongs, grieving before God at the dishonor one's sins have done Him, and forming a game plan for holy living). — J.I. Packer

What you think you are inside doesn't matter, Morgan." She hastened over to sit beside him. "In the end, it's what a man does, how he acts, that shows his character. And I've never seen you act anything but nobly."
He lifted his face to hers, astonished at how fiercely she defended him, even after knowing the darkest secrets of his soul. "How can you be so sure of my character when I'm not even sure of it myself?"
"I can't help it," she said, her voice trembling. She dropped her eyes to the bench, turmoil showing in her sweet features. "I love you. And loving someone means believing in them."
She loved him? Despite knowing what he was? A fierce joy seized him before he could prevent it. He caught her by the chin and forced her to look at him, but her clear blue eyes held no hint of deception. "God help you if you don't mean that, ma belle ange. — Sabrina Jeffries

He had met this sort of white man before, earnest and believing what came out of their mouths. The veracity of their words was another matter, but at least they believed them. The southern white man was spat from the loins of the devil and there was no way to forecast his next evil act. — Colson Whitehead

As the season of believing seems to wind down let me gently remind you that many dreams still wait in the wings. Many authentic sparks must be fanned before passion performs her perfect work in you. Throw another log on the fire. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: A quiet conscience mades one strong! — Anne Frank

I'm always surprised by how many people give up before they enter the room. They buy into the hype - that there are so many more qualified applicants, that no one's hiring - and assume they're not going to get the job. You've got to go into every interview believing this is the one you're going to nail. — Nicole Williams

Before believing, find the truth; before accepting, try to understand. — Debasish Mridha

Like most men, he had a tough time believing that his wife had had any kind of interesting life before she met him. Which was ridiculous on its face. — C.J. Box

A sad thing! What it termed its concessions were our conquests; what it termed our encroachments were our rights. When the hour seemed to it to have come, the Restoration, supposing itself victorious over Bonaparte and well-rooted in the country, that is to say, believing itself to be strong and deep, abruptly decided on its plan of action, and risked its stroke. One morning it drew itself up before the face of France, and, elevating its voice, it contested the collective title and the individual right of the nation to sovereignty, of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation that which made it a nation, and to the citizen that which made him a citizen. This is the foundation of — Victor Hugo

I remember Spider Woman from the first page of Leslie's novel Ceremony. She is the Thought Woman who names things and so brings them into being. Until then, I had imagined myself alone in believing that spiders should be the totem of writers. Both go into a space alone and spin out of their own bodies a reality that has never existed before. — Gloria Steinem

'Hail, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you' (Lk. 1:28)! Thus does the holy Church invoke the most holy Virgin, the Mother of God. But the Lord is also with every pious soul that believes in Him. The Lord's abiding with the Virgin Mary before she conceived the Savior is not a particularity proper to the most pure Virgin alone. The Lord is with every believing soul: 'The Lord is with you.' These words may be said to everyone who keeps the Lord's commandments. — John Of Kronstadt

Before we received Christ, we were slaves to sin. But because of Christ's work on the cross, sin's power over us has been broken. Satan has no right of ownership or authority over us. He is a defeated foe, but he is committed to keeping us from realizing that. He knows he can block your effectiveness as a Christian if he can deceive you into believing that you are nothing but a product of your past, subject to sin, prone to failure, and controlled by your habits. — Neil T. Anderson

Thus it is brought prominently before us, that superstition's chief victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages; they it is, who (especially when they are in danger, and cannot help themselves) are wont with prayers and womanish tears to implore help from God: upbraiding Reason as blind, because she cannot show a sure path to the shadows they pursue, and rejecting human wisdom as vain; but believing the phantoms of imagination, dreams, and other childish absurdities, to be the very oracles of Heaven. As though God had turned away from the wise, and written His decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind! Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear. — Christopher Hitchens

dJack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack forgot to check if the ice was thick.
Emma was still,
Emma was late,
Emma's brother is now part of the lake.
Time has passed,
Time has gone,
Time brought Jack back wrong.
He was solemn,
He was brave,
He left his coat on Emma's grave.
Emma was sad,
Emma was scared,
But she knew inside that Jack really cared.
Jack was lost,
Jack had forgot,
That he had a story before the plot.
Jack had wondered,
Jack had fought,
Jack had remembered what he had forgot.
I hope you dream.
I hope you wonder.
I hope you have fun because this is done.
Keep believing everyone.
Jack be fearless,
Jack be bold,
Jack drowned when he was 17 years old. — William Joyce

Stay Stupid The three dumbest guys I can think of: Charles Lindbergh, Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill. Why? Because any smart person who understood how impossibly arduous were the tasks they had set themselves would have pulled the plug before he even began. Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur's indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be - and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway. How do we achieve this state of mind? By staying stupid. By not allowing ourselves to think. A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. Don't think. Act. — Steven Pressfield

The drone in my ear, it's like the tornado drill in elementary school, the hand-cranked siren that rang mercilessly, all of us hunched over on ourselves, facing the basement walls, heads tucked into our chests. Beth and me wedged tight, jeaned legs pressed against each other. The sounds of our own breathing. Before we all stopped believing a tornado, or anything, could touch us, ever — Megan Abbott

The Holy Spirit, who enabled me to believe, gave me peace through believing. I felt as sure that I was forgiven as before I felt sure of condemnation. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

[As to the second case] ,that of being drawn into one [a trap or ambush] ... you must be shrewd about not believing easily things not in accord with reason. For example, if the enemy puts some booty before you, you ought to believe that within it there is a hook and that it conceals some trick. If many of the enemy are put to flight by your few, if a few of the enemy assail your many, if the enemy turn in sudden flight, ... you ought to fear a trick. And you should never believe that the enemy does not know how to carry on his affairs; rather, if you hope to be less deceived ... and ... run less risk, in proportion as your enemy is weaker, in proportion as he is less cautious, you should the more respect him. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Worshipping the Lord means giving Him the place that he must have; worshipping the Lord means stating, believing - not only by our words - that He alone truly guides our lives; worshipping the Lord means that we are convinced before Him that He is the only God, the God of our lives, the God of our history. — Pope Francis

And it dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns ... that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn't have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale ... that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorientate myself. p.71 — Bob Dylan

The point of Christian scholarship is not recognition by standards established in the wider culture. The point is to praise God with the mind. Such efforts will lead to the kind of intellectual integrity that sometimes receives recognition. But for the Christian that recognition is only a fairly inconsequential by-product. The real point is valuing what God has made, believing that the creation is as "good" as he said it was, and exploring the fullest dimensions of what it meant for the Son of God to "become flesh and dwell among us." Ultimately, intellectual work of this sort is its own reward, because it is focused on the only One whose recognition is important, the One before whom all hearts are open. — Mark A. Noll

Teresa blames herself for believing that she was indispensable to Mahmoud. Pride goeth before a fall. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Brother I've been right where you are now
And my heart was broke
Cause I never spoke
Those healing words out loud

But I've learned my lesson well
And now every night
Before I close my eyes
I look at my woman and
I ask myself did you

Tell her that you love her
Tell her that you need her
Tell her that you want her to stay
Reassure her with a kiss
She may never know unless you
Show her what your feeling
Tell her you're believing
Even though it's hard to say
'Cause she needs to know you're thinking of her
So open up and tell her that you love her — Lonestar

God is not dead; he really does communicate today. He's interested in every part of your life, your home, your finances, every kind of decision - and more than just the moral issues. His eye is always on you. He wants to lead you. But you have to believe that he will indeed speak to you when you wait before him in believing prayer, with a yielded heart to do his will. — Jim Cymbala

Before believing something, check the facts. False beliefs can infect and affect the mind. — Debasish Mridha

Proofs are no help to believing, especially material proofs. Thomas believed, not because he saw Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe, before he saw. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy.
But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners, we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God's love and to confess our needs openly before our brothers and sisters. We know we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride that cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied, but transformed. — Richard J. Foster

We all have rough times in our lives tears, anger, and more. We have the tools to prepare for them times before they come like studying, memorizing the word, keep God in our lives and believing God's promises. — Amanda Penland

As of 2016, humankind indeed manages to hold the stick at both ends. Not only do we possess far more power than ever before, but against all expectations, God's death did not lead to social collapse. Throughout history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan, all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who continue to believe in God and His all-encompassing plans. God-fearing Syria is a far more violent place than the atheist Netherlands. — Yuval Noah Harari

If someone says that they saw a Sasquatch, they're either lying or they are stupid! Now stop lying about the Jewpacabra before stupid people start believing you! — Kyle

Sight is not faith, and hearing is not faith, neither is feeling faith; but believing when we neither see, hear, nor feel is faith; and everywhere the Bible tells us our salvation is to be by faith. Therefore we must believe before we feel, and often against our feelings, if we would honor faith. — Hannah Whitall Smith

I don't know when the last time was that Steven Spielberg or George Lucas made a movie with Universal, but I can tell you that Universal is leading the charge. They're looking at film differently. They're planning ahead in a way that I've never seen a studio do before. They're believing in a relationship between fan and film franchise, in a new way. They're more receptive to an audience, in part because of social media, in a way we've never been allowed. — Vin Diesel

We acknowledge no righteousness but what the obedience and satisfaction of Christ yields us. His blood, not our faith; his satisfaction, not our believing it, is the matter of our justification before God. — John Flavel

If you're subjected to enough great salesmen and salespitches and marketing concepts for long enough - like from your earliest Saturday-morning cartoons, let's say - it is only a matter of time before you start believing deep down that everything is sales and marketing, and that whenever somebody seems like they care about you or about some noble idea or cause, that person is really a salesman and really ultimately doesn't give a shit about you or some cause but really just wants something for himself. — David Foster Wallace

I do not put much stock in "believing in God." The grammar of "belief" invites a far too rationalistic account of what it means to be a Christian. "Belief" implies propositions about which you get to make up your mind before you know the work they are meant to do. — Stanley Hauerwas

When you understand how the mind-brain functions together, you know that faith, which is believing before seeing, is the natural process of creation. — Robert Anthony

It might be a good idea if, like the White Queen, we practiced believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast, for we are called on to believe what to many people is impossible. Instead of rejoicing in this glorious "impossible" which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his might actions comprehensible to our finite minds. — Madeleine L'Engle

He had a way of believing in people long before they believed in themselves, didn't he? — Rae Carson

Belief is a shelter, so before believing, always find out the truth. — Debasish Mridha

Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging, therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried. — Oswald Chambers

I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em. — Terry Pratchett

That's the worst thing they do to you, to any of you. Whatever those brain lesions are all about, the worst damage is done before they even pick up the knife: You're all brainwashed into believing you're ugly. — Scott Westerfeld

I am now willing to forgive myself ... for believing I could offer something to others before I have offered it to myself. — Iyanla Vanzant

Recognizing someone as a part of you before they've even become that person in your life, and knowing, without a doubt, that neither of you will ever be who are you in this exact moment ever again and believing, against all odds, you will continue to belong to one another despite that. — Emily Henry

He imagined the future I could have before I even wanted it for myself, and he was the one to push me toward it. That's faith. Growing up, I thought faith was about believing Jesus died for us, and that if I held on to that, I'd get to meet him when I died too. But faith doesn't mean that to me anymore. Now it means someone seeing something in you that you don't, and not giving up until you see it too. I want that. I miss that. — Jessica Knoll

As stated before, in Western - particularly American - culture, there is the myth of the individual superbeing. One man or woman, well-armed and highly skilled, with nerves of steel, can conquer the world. In truth, anyone believing this should simply strip naked, holler for the undead, then lay down on a silver platter. — Max Brooks

One thing I'm big on is believing in giving an album time. I'll say you'll have to give an album three years before you can call it a classic. If you can't listen to it three years later then it's not really a classic. — Schoolboy Q

Truly, "seeing is believing" - and many a man lives a long life through, thinking he believes certain universally received and well established things, and yet never suspects that if he were confronted by those things once, he would discover that he did not really believe them before, but only thought he believed them. — Mark Twain

The great political, artistic, and religious project of modernity has been to find a meaning to life that is not rooted in some great cosmic plan. ...But we are still convinced our lives have meaning. As of 2016, humankind indeed manages to hold the stick at both ends. Not only do we possess far more power than ever before, but against all expectations. God's death did not lead to social collapse. Throughout history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who continue to believe in God and his all-encompassing plans. — Yuval Noah Harari

They have lied to us. They can't keep us from dying, so They lie to us about death. A cooperative structure of lies. What have they ever given us in return for the trust, the love--They actually say 'love'--we're supposed to owe Them? Can They keep us from even catching cold? from lice, from being alone? from anything? Before the Rocket we went on believing, because we wanted to. But the Rocket can penetrate, from the sky, at any given point. Nowhere is safe. We can't believe Them any more. Not if we are still sane, and love the truth. — Thomas Pynchon

Jasmine had endured enough parochial schooling before middle school to have a residual attachment to the beautiful parts of believing, the certainty of knowing one is loved by something beyond comprehension, but also a niggling fear of those who believed too much in anything they could not touch. Believers were the sort to wave pictures of dead fetuses at her when she went to her gynecologist for a checkup. — Thomm Quackenbush

Being a skeptic just means being rational and empirical: thinking and seeing before believing. — Michael Shermer

How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ. — John Calvin

Check other sources before believing mainstream media.Seek the truth. — Anne-Rae Vasquez