Belief That People Quotes & Sayings

In this age, there is no substitute for Christianity. That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants. The great, vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure, doctrines and divine truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. — United States House Judiciary Committee Of Congress 1854

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. But we lean forward nonetheless because, despite all risks and rational argument, we believe that the path we are choosing is the right and best thing to do. We refuse to be bystanders, even if we do not know exactly where our actions will lead.
This is the kind of passionate conviction that sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn't dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold.
"Life is a sum of all your choices," wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures and hopefully inspire others along the way. — Howard Schultz

What held people together was the belief that you're really going to change the world. I think that's the nature of many startups. You believe that what you are doing is going to have a dramatic impact. You might not exactly know how, but you really have a belief. That keeps you going and going through many changes and a lot of uncertainty. — Ray Ozzie

They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here. — Thomas Carlyle

Question four: What book would you give to every child?
Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads.
That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside. — Derrick Jensen

Our group takes what I'll call a Post-Atheist stance. Our position is that god is a creation of human beings, who only exists because of the clap-hands-if-you-believe-in-fairies principle. If enough people were sensible enough not to clap hands, then this Tinker Bell god would die. However, unfortunately, billions of human beings are still prepared to defend their belief in some sort of god-fairy, and, as a result, god exists. What's worse is that he is now running amok. — Salman Rushdie

I believed it had been long enough that Kresimir would never return. I believed it was time for change. I thought all of Rozalia's concerns were foolish, and that Julene was living in the past. I believed we were alone."
"My people have never been alone," Mihali said. "The others may have left. I did not. — Brian McClellan

She averted his eyes, but not before he recognized the pain in them, a tormented and languished gaze, a stare preserved for people who were able to love deeply enough that they could be destroyed by it. For a moment, he knew that gaze intimately, remembering it from a time long gone. The ache of a shattered belief once known. He knew that feeling. — Jacqueline Simon Gunn

When the American people look at the political process play out, they hear all the spinning and all the doctrinaire language, and they still walk away with the belief that they're not being represented in Congress, that there's no trust in the executive branch. — David Gregory

What I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all - the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead. — Barack Obama

Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true. — George Bernard Shaw

We look for this security by fortifying and enclosing ourselves in innumerable ways. We want the protection of being "exclusive" and "special," seeking to belong to the safest church, the best nation, the highest class, the right set, and the "nice" people. These defenses lead to divisions between us, and so to more insecurity demanding more defenses. Of course it is all done in the sincere belief that we are trying to do the right things and live in the best way; but this, too, is a contradiction. — Alan W. Watts

The fantastic political and economic burdens imposed by that treaty have entirely disillusioned the German people and annihilated its belief in justice. — Adolf Hitler

The problem with most people who say they believe, however, is that said belief is only a thin layer of solid ice which rests over a vast ocean that is likewise deep with non-solid disbelief. — Stephen Richards

Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems - from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics. — Bono

Few things build a person up like affirmation. According to Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition (Simon and Schuster, 1991),
the word affirm comes from ad firmare, which means "to make firm." So when you affirm people, you make firm within them the things you see about them. Do that often enough, and the belief that solidifies within them will become stronger than the doubts they have about themselves. — John C. Maxwell

All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need ... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little - "
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME ... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point - "
MY POINT EXACTLY. — Terry Pratchett

There is something inherently stupid about gentrified thinking. It's a dumbing down and smoothing over of what people are actually like. It's a social position rooted in received wisdom, with aesthetics blindly selected from the presorted offerings of marketing and without information or awareness about the structures that create its own delusional sense of infallibility. Gentrified thinking is like the bourgeois version of Christian fundamentalism, a huge, unconscious conspiracy of homogenous patterns with no awareness about its own freakishness. The gentrification mentality is rooted in the belief that obedience to consumer identity over recognition of lived experience is actually normal, neutral, and value free. — Sarah Schulman

As for the secularist belief that says 'if we were to eliminate all religions, the world would know peace,' this is the Atheist Heaven; thus it is so important to him (although perhaps more laughable than some say the Christian Heaven). It is about as useless as saying 'if all people were true Christians, the world would know peace,' or 'if all people were devout Muslims, the world would know peace.' And even yet, the secular dream could remain active only for a time before generational rebellion and freedom of thought were to kick in anew. — Criss Jami

People hear that you grew up religious, and they can't imagine you'd have a complex relationship with faith. If you believe one part, you must believe it all. But who gets more chances to see the absurdities than the devout? An answer that's satisfying on Sunday becomes contradictory by Wednesday night. Belief is a wrestling match that lasts a lifetime. — Victor LaValle

It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown. — Dan Barker

There is absolutely nothing in the Mormon's religion inconsistent with the most patriotic devotion to the government of the United States. Revelation and the commandments of the church require that the Constitution and the laws of the land be upheld. It is also part of our belief that the time will come when the country will be distracted and general lawlessness prevail. Then the Mormon people will step forward and take an active part in rescuing the nation from ruin. — Wilford Woodruff

We should strengthen the faith of our people in their own future, the faith of every Canadian in Canada, and of every province in its sister province. This faith wrongs no one; burdens no one; menaces no one; dishonors no one; and, as it was said of old, faith moves mountains, so I venture reverently to express my own belief that if the difficulties of our future as a dominion were as high as the peaks of the Alps or Andes, yet that the pure patriotic faith of a united people would be all sufficient to overcome and ultimately to triumph over all such difficulties. — Thomas D'Arcy McGee

I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality that's beyond belief. — Noam Chomsky

I've never understood the need people have to dictate morality to other people. I really don't know what it is. I don't know if it's fear or the belief that they know the only right way. Or maybe they see a lot of social ills and social decline, and they really think they have the elixir for it. — Stephen Chbosky

You learn in America to speak two ways. You learn in public discourse not to be very specific about your religious life. Or, if we talk about it, we'll find a secular way of doing it that will not be offensive to people of non-belief. So, that you go through life with these alternate voices. — Richard Rodriguez

People that say "I can't" should try saying "I choose not to. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

We like to think we're superior to the people who, centuries ago, burned 'witches' for no better reason than a neighbor's belief that his crop failure or impotence was caused by that woman's action. But reporters are still prone to the same mental errors that caused these killings: seeing patterns where there are none, finding causes where there is only coincidence, ignoring our sources' political agendas and turning scanty evidence into panic. — John Stossel

The Trojan Horse Sterling had referred to reflected his belief that the truth about Jonestown had never been revealed to the American people. A belief shared by his fellow co-founders. They were certain that while there were undoubtedly suicides at Jonestown, the event could more accurately be described as a mass murder that resulted from an experiment of sorts carried out by various US agencies. — James Morcan

Entitlement is simply the belief that you deserve something. Which is great. The hard part is, you'd better make sure you deserve it. So, how did I make sure that I deserved it?
To answer that, I would like to quote from the Twitter bio of one of my favorite people, Kevin Hart. It reads:
My name is Kevin Hart and I WORK HARD!!! That pretty much sums me up!!! Everybody Wants To Be Famous But Nobody Wants To Do The Work! — Mindy Kaling

I saw the logic that they used, and the death of a thousand cuts as experimental scientists slowly chipped away at the belief that the world was an inexplicably powerful, magical place. Ultimately they failed, though. The magic never really went away. It waited, quietly, for people to return to it when they found the science wanting. — Deborah Harkness

Hive Queen: So many of your people are becoming Christians. Believing in the god these humans brought with them.
Human: You don't believe in God?
Hive Queen: The question never came up. We have always remembered how we began.
Human: You evolved. We were created.
Hive Queen: By a virus.
Human: By a virus that God created in order to create us.
Hive Queen: So you, too, are a believer.
Human: I understand belief.
Hive Queen: No - you desire belief.
Human: I desire it enough to act as if I believed. Maybe that's what faith is.
Hive Queen: Or deliberate insanity. — Orson Scott Card

I have a very genuine care for individuals; I have a very genuine sense of the power of individuals to make a difference, a very genuine belief that people matter, a very genuine belief of wanting the very best for individuals. — Gail Kelly

State solutions are imposed from above; they are often without corrective devices, and cannot easily be reversed on the proof of failure. Their inflexibility goes hand in hand with their planned and goal-directed nature, and when they fail the efforts of the state are directed not to changing them but to changing people's belief that they have failed. — Roger Scruton

Other people's belief changes you. We all have insecurity, and uncertainty, and to have that glow cast over you by somebody that you respect, makes a gigantic difference. — Jake Gyllenhaal

The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying. — Jennifer Weiner

I hope, too, that my book will illuminate my belief that love of art - be it poetry, storytelling, painting, sculpture, or music - enables people to transcend any barrier man has yet devised. — Mary Ann Shaffer

It seems so much of my time and my energy have been focused on making or trying to make other people love me. The unspoken belief was that if I could make myself lovable to others I would feel loved ... The truth is, I can only feel loved by others when I love myself. — Kimberly Kirberger

In my experience ideology is a lot like religion; it's a belief system and most people cling to it long after it becomes clear that their ideology doesn't describe the real world. — Maureen F. McHugh

What is it that makes us who we are and what we are? Is it only our blood, the color of our hair, our skin, and our eyes? Or is it believing in what we believe and living the way we live? — Aleksandra Layland

In the early days of eBay, I articulated for the very first time this belief that people are basically good. — Pierre Omidyar

It always amazes me that once you cut through the clutter, people are pretty much the same. Especially through adolescence and early adulthood. For the most part, people go through the same experiences and think the same things, but somehow no one ever escapes the belief that his experience is unique in every conceivable way. — Nicholas Sparks

My belief assumed a form that it commonly assumes among the educated people of our time. This belief was expressed by the word "progress." At the time it seemed to me that this word had meaning. Like any living individual, I was tormented by questions of how to live better. I still had not understood that in answering that one must live according to progress, I was talking just like a person being carried along in a boat by the waves and the wind; without really answering, such a person replies to the only important question-"Where are we to steer?"-by saying, "We are being carried somewhere. — Leo Tolstoy

When I talk to audiences about the size and age of the cosmos, people often say, "It makes me feel so insignificant." I answer, "The bigger and more impersonal the universe is, the more meaningful you are, because this vast, impersonal place needs something significant to fill it up." We've abandoned the old belief that humanity is at the physical center of the universe but more come back to believing we are at the center of meaning. — Alan Dressler

Religious freedom is often referred to as America's first freedom. Our country was founded by religious exiles and built on the belief that God has given all people certain inalienable rights. Government's role in society is to protect these rights and ensure that we are safe from religious persecution and discrimination. — Marco Rubio

As a black woman interested in feminist movement, I am often asked whether being black is more important than being a woman; whether feminist struggle to end sexist oppression is more important than the struggle to racism or vice versa. All such questions are rooted in competitive either/or thinking, the belief that the self is formed in opposition to an other ... Most people are socialized to think in terms of opposition rather than compatibility. Rather than seeing anti-racist work as totally compatible with working to end sexist oppression, they often see them as two movements competing for first place. — Bell Hooks

The starting point of it all was, of course, moral perfection, but this was soon replaced by a belief in overall perfection, that is, a desire to be better not in my own eyes or in the eyes of God, but rather a desire to be better in the eyes of other people. And this effort to be better in the eyes of other people was very quickly displaced by a longing to be stronger than other people, that is, more renowned, more important, wealthier than others. — Leo Tolstoy

And Indiana's John Defrees expressed his belief that the inclusion of Winfield Scott of Virginia, Alexander Stephens of Georgia, and Edward Bates of Missouri "would do much to bring about a re-action among the people of all the Southern States except S. Carolina, which is insane beyond hope of cure."134 (Stephens himself later branded as "totally groundless" the "rumor" that he had ever discussed a cabinet appointment with the president-elect. — Harold Holzer

And they know neither sect nor idolatry, with the exception that all believe that the source of all power and goodness is in the sky, and they believe very firmly that I, with these ships and people, came from the sky, and in this belief they everywhere received me, after they had overcome their fear. — Christopher Columbus

Dogmatic religion has been used to fantastic effect over thousands of years to fuel and exploit emotions like fear and guilt, and the feeling of being 'unworthy'. This has encouraged people to hand over their right to think and feel to a Bible and a priest because they have not had the confidence or self-belief to realize that they have a right, and an infinite gift, to make their own decisions — David Icke

To create a free society is not to accomplish the impossible task of convincing all people to abandon aggression, but to accomplish the essential task of convincing enough people to abandon the belief that aggression is ever legitimate. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

PRONOIA: The irrational belief that people like you — Jon Winokur

Religion is a cultural relic inherited from ancient civilizations that doctrinal influence persists globally in modern times. Religious people rely upon their notional belief in the primal innocence of human beings in order to support the abstract supposition of inherently benevolent God guiding human souls. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated. I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don't push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion. — Andy Rooney

Idealism easily becomes dangerous because it brings with it, almost inevitably, the belief that the ends justify the means. If you are fighting for good or for God, what matters is the outcome, not the path. People have little respect for rules; we respect the moral principles that underlie most rules. But when a moral mission and legal rules are incompatible, we usually care more about the mission. — Jonathan Haidt

What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself. — Milton Friedman

Prayer is not a monologue. It speaks to God and to the community. In the last analysis, religion is not what goes on inside a soul. It is what goes on in the world, between people, between us and God. To trap faith in a monologue, and pretend that it resides solely inside the self, undermines the true interchange of all belief. — David Wolpe

In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs, and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment of the subject. — Gerald R. Ford

I wish they would teach it in schools: Give people the belief that they are going to do well. A lot of people are really talented and scared to follow their talent because you don't know where it's going. — Bill Burr

Most reject the more repugnant or indefensible dogmas while still holding onto some core belief. Many believers will proudly describe themselves as "reasonable" or "rational" based on how little of their religion they still embrace versus how much they now reject. I think it's funny when people realize that the less you believe the more reasonable you are, but they stop before they reach the logical conclusion. — Aron Ra

Common people tend to term any kind of bizarre phenomenon as "paranormal" or "supernatural". They often exaggerate it as the work of the Gods. Behind this belief is nothing but primitive ignorance. Social progress means that people must (a necessity, not a luxury) align their beliefs and behavior to new knowledge and understanding of nature. — Abhijit Naskar

There are lots of people out there who think they know the truth about God and religion, but does anybody really know for sure? That's why the founding fathers built freedom of religious belief into the structure of this nation, so that everybody could make up their minds for themselves. — Jesse Ventura

Grandpa Eli had often told me that the real truth was seldom what we thought it was. "Most of the time," he said,"people choose to believe a story because it fills their need. At other times, they're afrad not to believe it. Then right or wrong, that belief becomes their truty. — Deborah Epperson

I am about tribal feminine power. As a leader, I may stumble but my essence lives to the future
of my people, of my literature, of my art. And when a tribesman turn against its leader, that tribe will become two. It may faulter my course, but it will not stifle my ending. I rule only among my believers. — Kristie LeVangie

Knowledge is unsettled by the idea of power. We see how it works in the worlds of business and politics, and we suspect that it works the same in the spiritual world. We presume it's a gift for the exceptional and the few. She can do it, but we cannot, people might say to themselves. He is the chosen one; I am not. He's a master, but I can never be. We have become masters of what we are not. We have made ourselves vulnerable to the belief that others have greater power than we do, because we won't acknowledge the power of us - the truth of us. Power, to the world-dream, is something small and self-serving. Power, from the point of view of creation, is infinite and selfless. — Miguel Ruiz

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave. — Joss Whedon

they argue that belief in a transcendent being conveys a genetic advantage: that couples who follow one of the three religions of the Book and maintain patriarchal values have more children than atheists or agnostics. You see less education among women, less hedonism and individualism. And to a large degree, this belief in transcendence can be passed on genetically. Conversions, or cases where people grow up to reject family values, are statistically insignificant. In the vast majority of cases, people stick with whatever metaphysical system they grow up in. That's why atheist humanism - the basis of any 'pluralist society' - is doomed. — Michel Houellebecq

There is a widespread belief that americans hate cities. I think it is probable that Americans hate city failure, but, from the evidence, we certainly do not hate successful and vital city areas. On the contrary, so many people want to make use of such places, so many people want to work in them or live in them or visit in them, that municipal self-destruction ensues. In killing successful diversity combinations with money, we are employing perhaps our nearest equivalent to killing with kindness. — Jane Jacobs

It is my firm belief that the God of Heaven raised up the founding fathers and inspired them to establish the Constitution of this land. This is part of my religious faith. To me this is not just another nation. It is a great and glorious nation with a divine mission to perform for liberty-loving people everywhere. — Ezra Taft Benson

Can I persuade you that if you let a driver into your lane, or thank a sales clerk, or smile at someone in a hallway, you can change his or her life? Of course not - but if you don't go through the day with the assumption that small moments and small gestures can touch people's lives, what is the alternative belief? — Robert Maurer

I sometimes subscribe to the belief that all historical events occur simultaneously, like a dream in the mind of God. Perhaps it is only man who views time sequentially and tries to impose a solar calendar upon it. What if other people, both dead and unborn, are living out their lives in the same space we occupy, without our knowledge or consent?
The Glass Rainbow, p. 138 — James Lee Burke

I also believe that man's continued domestication (if you care to use that silly euphemism) of dogs is motivated by fear: fear that dogs, left to evolve on their own, would, in fact, develop thumbs and smaller tongues, and therefore would be superior to men, who are slow and cumbersome, standing erect as they do. This is why dogs must live under the constant supervision of people ... From what Denny has told me about the government and its inner workings, it is my belief that this despicable plan was hatched in a back room of none other than the White House, probably by an evil adviser to a president of questionable moral and intellectual fortitude, and probably with the correct assessment - unfortunately, made from a position of paranoia rather than of spiritual insight - that all dogs are progressively inclined regarding social issues. — Garth Stein

It is my belief that in our mad world where there is so much pain, rivalry, hatred, violence, inequality, and oppression, it is people who are weak, rejected, marginalized, counted as useless, who can become a source of life and of salvation for us as individuals as well as for our world. And it is my hope that each one of you may experience the incredible gift of the friendship of people who are poor and weak, that you too, may receive life from them. For they call us to love, to communion, to compassion and to community. — Jean Vanier

They reminded me of the people of my village, their indomitable spirit in the face of disaster, their unshakable belief that no matter what might befall them, life was basically good and the world benign. — Lian Hearn

Most of us don't fear that we are not enough; what most of us really fear is our own greatness. Most of us have a fear of success. Why? Because we don't think that we deserve to be successful in anything. This is why people recklessly spend their money or don't work as hard as they could or do things that they know are wrong. They are hindering their own success on purpose, because they don't think they deserve it. They cut their own legs out from underneath them on purpose. They are self-sabotaging. — Lisa Bedrick

Invitations not obligations: Our expectations of other people can be a big drain on our emotions. When we ask someone to do something, or, worse, have a belief that someone should do something and insist that he or she comply, it places a great stress on us. And the other person, noting our anxiety and insistence that they conform to our expectations, may actually become less inclined to respond as we like.
Instead, consider everything you want someone else to do to be an invitation that the other person may or may not choose to accept. Of course, if you are an employer or a parent who is trying to ensure a child's safety, you must have parameters and ground rules. Everyone else, however, should be released from the obligation of doing, being, living, and acting as you feel they should. — Will Bowen

One of the paradoxes of our time is that the War on Terror has served mainly to reinforce a collective belief that maintaining the right amount of fear and suspicion will earn one safety. Fear is promoted by the government as a kind of policy. Fear is accepted, even among the best-educated people in this country, even among the professors with whom I work, as a kind of intelligence. And inspiring fear in others is often seen as neighborly and kindly, instead of being regarded as what my cousin recognized it for - a violence. — Eula Biss

It is important to note that the acquisition of wealth, as the accepted standard of succes, does not refer to increasing material goods for sustenance purposes, or even for the purpose of increasing enjoyment. It refers rather to wealth as a sign of individual power, a proof of achievement and self-worth.
Modern economic individualism, though based on belief in the free individual, has resulted in the phenomenon that increasingly large numbers of people have to work on the property (capital) of a few powerful owners. It is not surprising that such a situation should lead to widespread insecurity, for not only is the individual faced with a criterion of succes over which he has only partial control but also his opportunities for a job are in considerable measure out of his control. — Rollo May

The fact is that I have lived with the belief that power, any kind of power, was the one thing forbidden to poets ... Power requires that the inner person never be unmasked. No, we poets have to go naked. And since this is so, it is better that we stay private people; a naked public person would be rather ridiculous, what? — May Sarton

This game brings out the most selfish parts of many people, but it had the opposite effect on you. Watching you restored my belief that Caraval could be what I believe it used to be---and that my brother could be good once again. — Stephanie Garber

Religion and science have nothing to do with each other, they're about different things, science is about the way the world works and religion is about miracles, I mean, if you ask most ordinary people in church or in a mosque why they believe, it's almost certainly got something to do with the belief that God does wonderful things, that God intervenes, that God heals the sick, that God answers prayers, God forgives sins. — Richard Dawkins

And I think belief is one of those things that comes to people in their own way. And just because I believe in something doesn't mean I think that you should. — Alan Alda

As a rule those who were least remarkable for intelligence showed the greater powers of survival. Such people recognized their own deficiencies and the superior intelligence of their opponnents; fearing that they might lose a debate or find themselves out-manoeuvred in intrigue by their quick-witted enemies, they boldly launched straight into action; while their opponents, overconfident in the belief that they would see what was happening in advance, and not thinking it necessary to seize by force what they could secure by policy, were the more easily destroyed because they were off their guard. 84 Certainly it was in Corcyra that — Thucydides

Elizabeth understood as she never had before. Everyone, all of them had lived secure in the belief that the earth was stable, unchanging, eternal.
Now no one could trust the ground beneath their feet.
Yes, the earthquake was the story of destruction, but not just of things. An earthquake destroyed security. It destroyed complacency. It changed the people who lived through it. — Christina Dodd

This may seem labouring the obvious, but in Japan one meets intelligent people who claim that 'logic' is something invented in the West to allow Westerners to win discussions. Indeed, the belief is widespread that the Japanese can as happily do without logic now as they supposedly have for centuries past. — Karel Van Wolferen

What's to rationalize? You mean you shouldn't pray if you haven't got your s
t together? This is another fairly common misconception of faith, which is that people who go to church, or people who pray, or people who talk about their religion must be, somehow more pious or ethically rigorous or have more morally cleansed lifestyle. The high correlation is supposed to be between faith and your search, the depth of your search, your willingness to try, your willingness to admit error, your hope and belief in the ultimate meaning and value of that search.' - Timothy Shriver — J. Randy Taraborrelli

Most successful people move from fear to failure; to faith and then to fruitfulness. That's the trend. — Israelmore Ayivor

I came to Ottawa with the firm belief that the only people in this country who should have guns are police officers and soldiers. — Allan Rock

Many people and governments share the mistaken belief that science, with new, ingenious devices and techniques, can rescue us from the troubles we face without our having to mend our ways and change our patterns of activity. This is not so. — Henry W. Kendall

Oprah Winfrey's global influence is unparalleled. Not only has her generosity and firm belief that education is the key to a better life benefited countless women and children around the world, but her example has also inspired millions of people to give back in ways big and small. — Eli Broad

In a way, the fearful fundamentalists are right: globalism does undermine systems of absolute value and belief. But in a way they are wrong: the systems of value and belief do not immediately disappear - people simply inhabit them in a different fashion, and sometimes the old ways turn out to have a surprising amount of life left in them. The human mind has a great repertoire of ways to accept and honor social constructions of reality without swallowing them whole. Globalizing processes require us to renegotiate our relationships with familiar cultural forms, and remind us that they are things made by people: human, fallible things, subject to revision. Globalism — Walter Truet Anderson

Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt. — Christopher Hitchens

I have a really deep belief that we create technologies to empower ourselves. We've invented a lot of technology that just makes us all faster and better, and I'm generally a big fan of this. I just want to make sure that this technology stays subservient to people. People are the number one entity there is on this planet. — Sebastian Thrun

It is evident that a man with a scientific outlook on life cannot let himself be intimidated by texts of Scripture or by the teaching of the Church. He will not be content to say "such-and-such an act is sinful, and that ends the matter." He will inquire whether it does any harm or whether, on the contrary, the belief that it is sinful does harm. And he will find that, especially in what concerns sex, our current morality contains a very great deal of which the origin is purely superstitious. He will find also that this superstition, like that of the Aztecs, involves needless cruelty, and would be swept away if people were actuated by kindly feelings towards their neighbors. But the defenders of traditional morality are seldom people with warm hearts ... One is tempted to think that they value morals as affording a legitimate outlet for their desire to inflict pain; the sinner is fair game, and therefore away with tolerance! — Bertrand Russell

I've been seeing the change. It's been steady. It's been more controlled than people think. And my own belief is that China knows it also needs to be part of the world, and that it needs to be able to have trade with Europe and the United States in order to house and feed a billion people. That's really kind of single-mindedly what they see their role as being. — Jeffrey R. Immelt

She did believe in Austre. She loved the teachings of the five Visions. Humility. Sacrifice. Seeing another's problems before your own. Yet she was beginning to think that she - along with many others - had taken this belief too far, letting her desire to seem humble become a form of pride itself. She now saw that when her faith had become about clothing instead of people, it had taken a wrong turn. — Brandon Sanderson

Two years ago, George Bush felt prompted to address this issue. More spending on public education, said the president, isn't "the best answer." Mr. Bush went on to caution parents of poor children who see money "as a cure" for education problems. "A society that worships money ... ," said the president, "is a society in peril." The president himself attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts - a school that spends $11,000 yearly on each pupil, not including costs of room and board. If money is a wise investment for the education of a future president at Andover, it is no less so for the child of poor people in Detroit. But the climate of the times does not encourage this belief, and the president's words will surely reinforce that climate. — Jonathan Kozol

I think setting goals is critical; having deadlines for ourselves- how much by when? Too many people have these big dreams where they want to have a big house on the ocean. But until we say what ocean, how big, what day, our conscience doesn't know what to do with that information. A positive expectancy, a positive attitude, a belief that your dream is possible is also helpful. — Jack Canfield

The number one problem that keeps people from winning in the United States today is lack of belief in themselves. — Arthur L. Williams Jr.

Often their rage erupts because they believe that all ways of looking that highlight difference subvert the liberal belief in a universal subjectivity (we are all just people) that they think will make racism disappear. They have a deep emotional investment in the myth of sameness even as their actions reflect the primacy of whiteness as a sign informing who they are and how they think. — Bell Hooks