Believe It Or Not Quotes & Sayings

You may have noticed that people in bus stations, if they know you also are alone, will glance at you sidelong, with a look that is both piercing and intimate, and if you let them sit beside you, they will tell you long lies about numerous children who are all gone now, and mothers who were beautiful and cruel, and in every case they will tell you that they were abandoned, disappointed, or betrayed--that they should not be alone, that only remarkable events, of the kind one reads in a book, could have made their condition so extreme. And that is why, even if the things they say are true, they have the quick eyes and active hands and the passion for meticulous elaboration of people who know they are lying. Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever been otherwise. Loneliness is absolute discovery. — Marilynne Robinson

There is so much garbage being said about the mark of the beast. A lot of it is based on what I call the 'sky bus' rapture theory, and is not about the Kingdom. It is a kingdom of fear because it is not about the returning power of the sons of God. You do not find anyone who teaches the rapture theory talking about the resurrection in the life of every believer, or of the glory of the Son of God. I do not find the manifestation of the Kingdom in their lives: the power to raise the dead today and for us to live forever in that glory. I do not hear them talking about the coming glory. When darkness rises, the glory must come in a greater measure (Isaiah 60:1-2). I do not see them talking about the coming glory, all the rapture theory does is create a generation of fearful people - a people who will not sow into the future with their words to make their children believe that there is a hope for them to live for today. — Ian Clayton

I mean, I made The Phantom, although The Phantom was, believe it or not, an independent film. It was just a very large, expensive independent film. — Gerard Butler

The attachment to parental figures I am trying to describe here is an attachment to parents who have inflicted injury on their children. It is an attachment that prevents us from helping ourselves. The unfulfilled natural needs of the child are later transferred to therapists, partners, or our own children. We cannot believe that those needs were really ignored, or possibly even trampled on by our parents in such a way that we were forced to repress them. We hope that the other people we relate to will finally give us what we have been looking for, understand, support, and respect us, and relieve us of the difficult decisions life brings with it. As these expectations are fostered by the denial of childhood reality, we cannot give them up. As I said earlier, they cannot be relinquished by an act of will. But they will disappear in time if we are determined to face up to our own truth. This is not easy. It is almost always painful. But it is possible. In — Alice Miller

God is the most important thing in our lives. I suppose that's true of everybody's lives, whether or not they want to believe it. — Nicholas Sparks

If there's a disaster, do you go over to your neighbor's house with: a) a covered dish or b) a shotgun? It's game theory. If you believe your neighbor is coming over with a shotgun, you'd be an idiot to pick a); if she believes the same thing about you, you can bet she's not going to choose a) either. The way to get to a) is to do a) even if you think your neighbor will pick b). Sometimes she'll point her gun at you and tell you to get off her land, but if she was only holding the gun because she thought you'd have one, then she'll put on the safety and you can have a potluck. — Cory Doctorow

Once in power, Stalin's campaign to succeed Lenin required a legitimate heroic career which he did not possess because of his experience in what he called 'the dirty business' of politics: this could not be told, either because it was too gangsterish for a great, paternalistic statesman or because it was too Georgian for a Russian leader. His solution was a clumsy but all-embracing cult of personality that invented, distorted and concealed the truth. Ironically this self-promotion was so grotesque that it fanned sparks, sometimes innocent ones, which flared up into colossal anti-Stalin conspiracy-theories. It was easy for his political opponents, and later for us historians, to believe that it was all invented and that he had done nothing much at all - particularly since few historians had researched in the Caucasus where so much of his early career took place. An anti-cult, as erroneous as the cult itself, grew up around these conspiracy-theories. — Simon Sebag Montefiore

To sit down so often with nothing to say,-to say something so often, almost without consciousness of saying and without any remembrance or having said,-is a power of which I will not violate my modesty by boasting; but I do not believe everyone has it. — Michael Kelahan

Renouncing false beliefs will not usher in the millennium. Few things about the strategy of contemporary apologists are more repellent than their frequent recourse to spurious alternatives. The lesser lights inform us that the alternative to Christianity is materialism, thus showing how little they have read, while the greater lights talk as if the alternative were bound to be a shallow and inane optimism. I don't believe that man will turn this earth into a bed of roses either with the aid of God or without it. Nor does life among the roses strike me as a dream from which one would not care to wake up after a very short time. — Walter Kaufmann

Nobody understands that by the time the addiction has set in the alcoholic is mandated to drink ... he cannot not drink! Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, 'Jiminy Cricket, I feel sensational! My life is really in great shape! I think I'll become an alcoholic!' I firmly believe that when a shaking-to-pieces alcoholic says he needs a drink or he will die, he means it. — Mercedes McCambridge

I believe modern SF needs to at least be aware of the singularity, if only so that it can dismiss it intelligently (or work around it). But I suspect the singularity is like faster-than-light travel for the IT generation. We may hope for it, and the rules don't forbid it, but we don't know how to do it yet (and it may not be possible). — Charles Stross

It is also an absolute mistake to believe that the State can be anything other than a civitas diaboli if it does not resurrect itself as Imperium, and it is also a mistake to want to build the Imperium on the basis of economic, military, industrial or even 'intellectual' or nationalist factors. The Imperium, according to the primordial conception rooted in Tradition, is something transcendent, and it can only be attained by those who have the power to transcend the lives of petty men and their appetites, their sentimentalisms, their national prides, their 'values', and their phobias. — Julius Evola

I believe it makes us all even closer believe it or not. We were all pretty close to begin with but I think it's done even more for us. It truly is a brotherhood and I'm glad to be a part of it. — Kathy Valentine

Sometimes people with strong ideology, whether left-wing or right-wing, refuse to do something simply because they believe it is wrong, when doing it actually benefits them. For some people, it's not just about money and political power. — Ha-Joon Chang

You may not be the first to say it, write it, create it, or believe it - but you saying it may be the first time someone finally hears. Yes, someone else can say it better, but that doesn't mean you can't say it too. Throw out your inhibitions and spin around in this crazy world of recycled ideas. There is nothing new to say. Say it anyway. — Emily P. Freeman

I never take on anything that is just for the money or just for, you know. I always have to connect with it in a very personal way because I believe the audience will sense whether I'm into it or not, so I don't take on projects that I'm not really passionate about. — Deborah Cox

Reading aloud is the best advertisement because it works. It allows a child to sample the delights of reading and conditions him to believe that reading is a pleasureful experience, not a painful or boring one. — Jim Trelease

It is either all of Christ or none of Christ! I believe we need to preach again a whole Christ to the world - a Christ who does not need our apologies, a Christ who will not be divided, a Christ who will either be Lord of all or will not be Lord at all! — Aiden Wilson Tozer

There is no condition that you cannot modify into something more, any more than there is any painting that you can paint and not like and just paint over it again. There are many limiting thoughts in the human environment that make it feel like it is not so, as you have these incurable illnesses, or these unchangeable conditions. But we say, they are only "unchangeable" because you believe that they are. — Esther Hicks

Why would you believe such things?" he asks. "What good does it do you?" "The world we see with our eyes is not the whole truth. Dreams and visions are just as real as matter. What we can imagine or think exists as truly as anything we can touch or smell. Where do our thoughts come from, if not from God?" "They come from our experience," Sumner says, "from what we've heard and seen and read, and what's been told to us." Otto shakes his head. "If that were true, then no growth or advancement would be possible. The world would be stagnant and unmoving. We would be doomed — Ian McGuire

The idea of living there, of not having to go back ever again to asphalt and shopping malls and modular furniture; of living there with Charles and Camilla and Henry and Francis and maybe even Bunny; of no one marrying or going home or getting a job in a town a thousand miles away or doing any of the traitorous things friends do after college; of everything remaining exactly as it was, that instant - the idea was so truly heavenly that I'm not sure I thought, even then, it could ever really happen, but I like to believe I did. — Donna Tartt

When I was a child and told my mother I didn't felt this was my planet, she thought I was schizophrenic or autistic. When later I finished a college degree and started working in different countries, she called me monster and started threatening me. Nearly 40 years later, when I was making a living from the books I wrote based on what I know, and making 6 times more money than she ever will, she apologized. I'm just not sure why or what she was apologizing for. I had already forgiven her ignorance when realizing nobody would ever believe the truth but myself. I had to go the whole way alone. Nobody was going to come with me on this very long, painful and challenging journey that humans call life but for me was much more than that, it was my mission, of changing their whole future far beyond the time when I'm gone. She was never my mother but merely the human body that gave me birth. In that sense, I am a monster, because I had no love. I had to find that too, on my own. — Robin Sacredfire

Later, the talk turned to all the other guys/girls who were currently hot for the two of them. 'There's this total dweeb named Robert who's always calling me, and I feel bad because he's really nice, but I'm totally not interested,' Phoebe told Pablo.

'Believe me, I know what that's like,' Pablo told Phoebe. 'There's this girl at Hunter who's, like, obsessed with me. She's, like, this big fat girl. Ass like a truck. She's always writing me these love letters. Maybe I should fuck her. You know, just to be nice.' (Smile, smile.)

'You're so bad.' (Phoebe shaking her head; Pablo loving it; Phoebe loving it, too. What was more ego-enhancing than making dumb jokes at the expense of ugly women? Phoebe could never decide whom she hated more--other people or herself.) — Lucinda Rosenfeld

A couple can be quite intimate without sharing bodies - though you will likely not believe that, my Cam. But it can be true. What I feel for you is highly intense, whether you are standing next to me or living a hundred miles away. I do not have to be touching you at all to experience what I feel. — Jennifer Ashley

Believe it or not, I'm as much a fan of a supper shortcut as the next person. — Yotam Ottolenghi

Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences. It may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of terrible things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally ... to say nothing of projection. The damage of the fear, shame, guilt and self-loathing that exist inside a closet are often reflected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty, openness, secrecy and deception for themselves. Coming out, for most of us, is like an exorcism that releases us of the darkness we have lived in for years and caused us to believe awful things about ourselves. On the other side of the looking glass are freedom, light and life. — Anthony Venn-Brown

The upshot is a hermeneutics of suspicion; if someone tells you that he or she has converted to unbelief because of science, don't believe them. Because what's usually captured the person is not scientific evidence per se, but the form of science: "Even where the conclusions of science seem to be doing the work of conversion, it is very often not the detailed findings so much as the form" (p. 362). Indeed, "the appeal of scientific materialism is not so much the cogency of its detailed findings as that of the underlying epistemological stance, and that for ethical reasons. It is seen as the stance of maturity, of courage, of manliness, over against childish fears and sentimentality" (p. 365). — James K.A. Smith

I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it's just my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. [...] What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. [...] Someday you be walking down the road and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it's you thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It's when you bump into a rememory that belongs to somebody else. — Toni Morrison

It is madness to hate all roses because you got scratched with one thorn. To give up on your dreams because one didn't come true. To lose faith in prayers because one was not answered, to give up on our efforts because one of them failed. To condemn all your friends because one betrayed you, not to believe in love because someone was unfaithful or didn't love you back. To throw away all your chances to be happy because you didn't succeed on the first attempt. I hope that as you go on your way, you don't give in nor give up! — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

No one's ready for a thing, until they believe that they can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief and not mere hope or wish. — Napoleon Hill

I have felt alone all my life. I was always too smart, or working too hard, or too full of doubt to fit in with everyone else. But when I'm with you, I never feel alone, Will. Never. I feel seen, and I feel listened to, and I feel important and cared for. When I first met you, I told myself I had to be insane to think that someone like you would be interested in someone like me. But it didn't stop me from falling in love with you, because loving you is as easy and as natural as breathing for me. This may shock you, but my love doesn't come with conditions or requirements. It absolutely doesn't require physical exam, that is for sure. It just is, Will. And it's unstoppable, because, believe me, I've tried to stop it. So I guess what I'm trying to say in my usual inarticulate, rambly, too-wordy way, is that I'm not going anywhere. No matter what. — Sarah Mayberry

I believe that God is like a powerhouse, like where you keep electricity, like a power station. And that he's a supreme power, and that he's neither good not bad, left, right, black or white. He just is. And we tap that source of power and make of it what we will. Just as electricity can kill people in a chair, or you can light a room with it. I think God is. — John Lennon

Trust in someone means that we no longer have to protect ourselves. We believe we will not be hurt or harmed by the other, at least not deliberately. We trust his or her good intentions, though we know we might be hurt by the way circumstances play out between us. We might say that hurt happens; it's a given of life. Harm is inflicted; it's a choice some people make. — David Richo

They maintain he wrote The Art of War. Personally, I believe it was a woman. On the surface, The Art of War is a manual about tactics on the battlefield, but at its deepest level it describes how to win conflicts. Or to be more precise, the art of getting what you want at the lowest possible price. The winner of a war is not necessarily the victor. Many have won the crown, but lost so much of their army that they can only rule on their ostensibly defeated enemies' terms. With regard to power, women don't have the vanity men have. They don't need to make power visible, they only want the power to give them the other things they want. Security. Food. Enjoyment. Revenge. Peace. They are rational, power-seeking planners, who think beyond the battle, beyond the victory celebrations. And because they have an inborn capacity to see weakness in their victims, they know instinctively when and how to strike. And when to stop. You can't learn that, Spiuni. — Jo Nesbo

Believe it or not, one of the things I try to do around here is try to look for opportunities to work with people across the aisle. I know that's not the common narrative. But the truth is if you want to get anything done, that's an absolute requirement. — John Cornyn

If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or do not marry, you will regret both; Laugh at the world's follies, you will regret it, weep over them, you will also regret that; laugh at the world's follies or weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world's follies or weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it, believe her not, you will also regret that; believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both; whether you believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both. Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will also regret that; hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum and substance of all philosophy. — Soren Kierkegaard

God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because 'God' is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, 'God' is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine. — Forrest Church

God inspired me, because I was blessed with the knowledge that I wanted to do this. And my mother supported it. She said, 'Whatever it is you want to do. If you believe acting or comedy is what you really want to do, I can only tell you it's not easy, it's very hard, but I'll support you.' Her supporting me enabled me to move forward. — Martin Lawrence

We are all made from the same seeds. It makes sense to say that compassion, love sunshine, water and nourishing seeds will grow into healthy, happy, fulfilled plants. You don't have to like a certain kind of bread or be a bread maker to have faith. God invented more than brand of toasters to spread the seeds of faith. Those who become self-righteous bread makers shall have self-righteous toaster consciousness.
If our belief system excludes us from sharing bread with those who do not believe the exact same manner as we do, that's when its time to re-evaluate our belief system. — Sadiqua Hamdan

But he hadn't appeared that night. Not the next morning, either. By the time she finally crossed paths with him the following afternoon, his mumbled "Merry Christmas" was the extent of their exchange.
It seemed they were back to silence.
I don't want you.
She tried to ignore the words echoing in her memory. They weren't true, she told herself. She was an expert at deceit; she knew a lie when she heard one.
Still. What else to believe, when he avoided her thus?
Although he rarely spoke to her over the next two days, Sophia frequently overheard him speaking of her. Even these remarks were the tersest of commands: "Fetch Miss Turner more water," or "See that her canopy doesn't go slack." She felt herself being tended, not unlike a goat. Fed, watered, sheltered. Perhaps she shouldn't complain. Food, water, and shelter were all welcome things.
But Sophia was not livestock, and she had other, more profound needs. Needs he seemed intent on neglecting, the infuriating man. — Tessa Dare

Cat lovers take cover. Believe it or not, in the 15th century, there was a 'sport' involving the swinging of cats (by the tail) into the air where they would become moving targets for archers at fetes, fayres and country festivals. Crowded festivals would be described as having no room to 'swing the cat' as revellers would be in danger of being hit by stray arrows. When — Albert Jack

Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey
and returned. — Jasper Fforde

Adoration is not some fervent spiritual or poetic exercise reserved for a chosen few. I believe the human race will die out and destroy nature if it does not learn again how to adore God, the God in all of us, God shining and living in nature, and learn again how to act from and in that spirit of adoration. — Andrew Harvey

If you die to everything you know,including your family,yourmemory,everything you have felt,then death is a purification,a rejuvenating process;then death brings innocence and it is only the innocent who are passionate, not the people who believe or who want to find out what happens after death. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul. The master no longer says: You will think as I do or die. He says: You are free not to think as I do. You may keep your life, your property, and everything else. But from this day forth you shall be as a stranger among us. You will retain your civic privileges, but they will be of no use to you. For if you seek the votes of your fellow citizens, they will withhold them, and if you seek only their esteem, they will feign to refuse even that. You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellow creatures, they will shun you as one who is impure. And even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they, too, be shunned in turn. Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death. — Alexis De Tocqueville

But the war on terror as I have repeatedly said in the past, and the Afghan people believe in it, in truth, is that the war on terror is not in the Afghan villages or homes. Its in the sanctuaries, it is in the training grounds, its in the motivation factors and the money that comes to it. — Hamid Karzai

But just being whatever it is that I am . . . I don't think that makes me a monster. Believe me, I know. ere are plenty of real monsters walking around out there in the world. ey look respectable, but can't hide who they are from me. Real monsters hurt people for pleasure, or for no reason at all - they're just not as well armed as I am. — Michael Selden

An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny. — G.K. Chesterton

So perhaps the reason I shuddered at the idea of writing something about 'Christian art' is that to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command. Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.' And the artist either says 'My soul doth magnify the Lord' and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessicarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary. — Madeleine L'Engle

It does not matter whatsoever, what the people around you think you can or cannot do. What really matters is what you think about your capabilities. — Abhijit Naskar

...the experience of reading a novel has certain qualities that remind us of the traditional apprehension of mythology. It can be seen as a form of meditation. Readers have to live with a novel for days or even weeks. It projects them into another world, parallel to but apart from their ordinary lives. They know perfectly well that this fictional realm is not 'real' and yet while they are reading it becomes compelling. A powerful novel becomes part of the backdrop of our lives, long after we have laid the book asie. It is an exercise of make-believe that, like yoga or a religious festival, breaks down barriers of space and time and extends our sympathies, so that we are able to empathise with others lives and sorrows. It teaches compassion, the ability to 'feel with' others. And, like mythology, an important novel is transformative. If we allow it to do so, it can change us forever. — Karen Armstrong

[T]he crucial question is not, as so many believe, whether property rights should be private or governmental, but rather whether the necessarily 'private' owners are legitimate owners or criminals. For ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner. All property is therefore always 'private'; the only and critical question is whether it should reside in the hands of criminals or of the proper and legitimate owners. — Murray Rothbard

Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order, as it has often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human conditions which are always straining after higher forms of expression, and to which for this reason one can assign no definite terminus nor set any fixed goal. — Rudolf Rocker

Keep your opinions to yourself. I think it's important that I stay neutral on politics and remain hard to understand. I don't want to be pigeonholed as conservative, liberal, independent or anything. I back the man for the things the man believes in, not whether it says "R" or "D" down there beside his name. — Merle Haggard

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

The hard part is believing it can happen to you. Most likely, my runners will never achieve a 3-minute mile. I think they may all be disappointed at 3:20 or 3:30. But even if they never break 4-minutes they will have accomplished something DYNAMIC! They will have created the possibility than now does not exist. — Gerry Lindgren

To many an upright poor person, it seems needless to invent a god who will wash the feet of beggars and exalt those who do not care to labor. What is this but a denial of thrift and a sickly obsession with the victim? The so-called common people are quite able to penetrate this ruse ("The good lord must indeed love the poor, since he made so many of them"). Many decent people are made uneasy by the constant injunction to give alms and to dwell among those who have lost their self-respect. They can also see the hook sticking out of the bait: abandon this useless life, leave your family, and follow the prophet who says that the world is soon to pass away. Such an injunction coupled with an implicit or explicit "or else" is repulsive to many conservatives who believe in self-reliance and personal integrity, and who distrust "charity," just as it was repulsive to the early socialists who did not think that poverty was an ideal or romantic or ennobled state. — Christopher Hitchens

How?" I had seen it with my own eyes, but I still didn't believe it. Then something struck me. "Take off your shirt!"
"I'm not that kind of guy!" He frowned thoughtfully. "On second thought, why not?"
I blushed angrily and looked at Raquel. "What is he? I don't see anything!"
"He's not 'anything'.Just a talented boy."
"Then how did he make a door? How did he get through the Paths?"
"Wait,so am I allowed to put my shirt back on? Or did you want me to remove my pants,too?"
Lend and I joined forces in a dark glare. "Only if you want me to vomit," I snapped. — Kiersten White

I know you may not believe it, but the last thing I want to do is hurt you or do anything that would make you regret that we've met.
- Jeremy — Nicholas Sparks

Believe it or not, there were very few books on art, years ago. — James Rosenquist

All writers are, somewhere or other, mad. Not les grands fous, like Rimbaud, but mad, yes, mad. Because we do not believe in the stability of reality. We know that it can fragment, like a sheet of glass or a car's windscreen. but we also know that reality can be invented, reordered, constructed, remade. Writing is, in itself, an act of violence perpetrated against reality. — Patricia Duncker

When religion does not move people to the mystical or non-dual level of consciousness9 it is more a part of the problem than any solution whatsoever. It solidifies angers, creates enemies, and is almost always exclusionary of the most recent definition of "sinner." At this level, it is largely incapable of its supreme task of healing, reconciling, forgiving, and peacemaking. When religion does not give people an inner life or a real prayer life, it is missing its primary vocation. Let me sum up, then, the foundational ways that I believe Jesus and the Twelve Steps of A.A. are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it. This counterintuitive wisdom will forever be resisted as true, denied, and avoided, until it is forced upon us - by some reality over which we are powerless - and if we are honest, we are all powerless in the presence of full Reality. — Richard Rohr

Not all new knowledge is beautiful, or even to be desired. Yet there comes a time when, no matter how hard it is to accept what we see, no matter how much we do not want to believe it, our studies will cease and we will learn no more. Though the world may point and criticize, if the truth has been found, sometimes you must shout it from the rooftops in the face of all opposition. The pursuit of knowledge requires an iron will that always looks forward and never falters. — Miyuki Miyabe

Human nature presents human minds with a puzzle which they have not yet solved and may never succeed in solving, for all that we can tell. The dichotomy of a human being into 'soul' and 'body' is not a datum of experience. No one has ever been, or ever met, a living human soul without a body ... Someone who accepts - as I myself do, taking it on trust - the present-day scientific account of the Universe may find it impossible to believe that a living creature, once dead, can come to life again; but, if he did entertain this belief, he would be thinking more 'scientifically' if he thought in the Christian terms of a psychosomatic resurrection than if he thought in the shamanistic terms of a disembodied spirit. — Arnold Joseph Toynbee

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. — Thomas Paine

I don't know why one person gets sick, and another does not, but I can only assume that some natural laws which we don't understand are at work. I cannot believe that God "sends" illness to a specific person for a specific reason. I don't believe in a God who has a weekly quota of malignant tumors to distribute, and consults His computer to find out who deserves one most or who could handle it best. "What did I do to deserve this?" is an understandable outcry from a sick and suffering person, but it is really the wrong question. Being sick or being healthy is not a matter of what God decides that we deserve. The better question is "If this has happened to me, what do I do now, and who is there to help me do it?" As we saw in the previous chapter, it becomes much easier to take God seriously as the source of moral values if we don't hold Him responsible for all the unfair things that happen in the world. — Harold S. Kushner

I believe that the purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence. And fame is not for our own benefit, or notoriety is not for our own benefit, it's for leverage to do good. — Rick Warren

I believe that to meet the challenge of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. We must all learn to work not just for our own self, family, or nation but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace, the equitable use of natural resources, and through concern for future generations, the proper care of the environment. — Dalai Lama

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book ... or you take a trip ... and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken. — Anais Nin

I believe you can have whatever you really want in this life, in one form or another, sooner or later. All you have to do is take care of your health and be lucky enough to live for a while. But you can't have it all at once and you can't have it forever. No life has the room for everything in it, not on the same day. — Barbara Sher

A great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or agree with it. A great piece of literature simply is . It is a vehicle of truth, but it is not a blueprint, and we tend to confuse the two. — Madeleine L'Engle

The jobs, the housing, the relationships, the routines --- so many aspects of life that had been cut out of the whole cloth of the war emergency were now so intrinsic that it was easy to believe things had always been this way. Despite the best intentions of returning to their former lives, the come-heres tarried, realizing in small sips of awareness over the course of the war years --- or with great gulping realizations at the war's end abrupt end --- that they would not, or could not, go home again. — Margot Lee Shetterly

If you believe in divine intervention, it's because you think that mankind is the best creation of all beings. But for those who do not think so, mankind is nothing but guinea pigs which will someday be divided into two categories, finished goods or the rejects. — Toba Beta

I don't believe the idea of Fate is that everything in our lives is predetermined. For me, it's those moments when, on reflection, Life seems to have intervened and given us a friendly or not-so-friendly nudge in another direction. — Thea Euryphaessa

I believe that, your art is like a time capsule for where you were at, where your mentality was at, at that specific or that particular space in time. A lot of times people want the same thing over and over again; I'm not going to give you that, I'm just not. So, I want my fans to continue to grow with me and let's take this journey, because it ain't gon' never stop. — Jon Connor

It didn't matter who you were, it only mattered what you were. I was wrong, and soon I believe you're going to see you're wrong too. It isn't about what kind of monster you are; it isn't about whether or not you're a monster at all. It's about who you are and what you represent. — M.R. Merrick

Odd: I wish I could believe in reincarnation.
Chief Porter: Not me. Once down the track is enough of a test. Pass me or fail me, Dear Lord, but don't make me go through high school again.
Odd: If there's something we want so bad in this life but we can't have it, maybe we could get it the next time around.
Chief Porter: Or maybe not getting it, accepting less without bitterness and being grateful for what we have is a part of what we're here to learn. — Dean Koontz

I believe that every one of us has something that's very unique to us specifically. Something unique enough that no one else might really ever understand it - not our parents, or teachers, or best friends, or siblings.
It's our point of view.
Our point of view is what makes us unique, because no one else - no one else - has your particular combination of thoughts, and dreams, and hopes, and desires, and ambitions and memories, and experiences. No one. And I believe that every once in a while, the Universe opens itself up to you and you alone, and shows you something that no one else is going to understand. And you have to decide in that moment how much you believe in what you have seen - even if everyone else in the world tells you you're wrong. — James A. Owen

People have been brainwashed into believing that it's got to be down or it wouldn't be blues. But it's not so. It's got to be a fact or it wouldn't be blues. — Willie Dixon

Before entering into any kind of intimate relationships, whether friendship, familial re-connection, or romance, the idea of "needing" or "being needed" must be eliminated. It's harmful to me and others. Need is no kind of foundation for anything. Rather, I choose to be wanted. "Want" is a deliberate choice. Wanting is not based in fear or ego (which are one in the same, I believe). Want comes from recognition of someone else's goodness and loving them for it. Being wanted is unconditional. It does not require emotional games be played, it does not require reparations be made or obligations be met. Being wanted is good, in and of itself. — Jennifer DeLucy

I don't know what position you're talking about, sir. The Gnomon Society has never questioned the rotundity of the earth. Mr. Jimmerson is himself a skilled topographer."
"Excuse me, Mr. Popper, but I have it right here in Mr. Jimmerson's own words on page twenty-nine of 101 Gnomon Facts."
"No, sir. Excuse me but you don't. Please look again. Read that passage carefully and you'll see what we actually say is that the earth looks flat. We still say that. It's so flat around Brownsville as to be striking to the eye."
"But isn't that just a weasel way of saying that you really believe if to be flat?"
"Not at all. What we're saying is that the curvature of the earth is so gentle, relative to our human scale of things, that we need not bother or take it into account when going for a stroll, say, or laying out our gardens. — Charles Portis

Classically, cosmetics companies will take highly theoretical, textbookish information about the way that cells work - the components at a molecular level or the behavior of cells in a glass dish - and then pretend it's the same as the ultimate issue of whether something makes you look nice. "This molecular component," they say, with a flourish, "is crucial for collagen formation." And that will be perfectly true (along with many other amino acids which are used by your body to assemble protein in joints, skin, and everywhere else), but there is no reason to believe that anyone is deficient in it or that smearing it on your face will make any difference to your appearance. In general, you don't absorb things very well through your skin, because its purpose is to be relatively impermeable. When you sit in a bath of baked beans for charity, you do not get fat, nor do you start farting. — Ben Goldacre

Poor friend and learned physician, my sensitive and gentle companion, instead of treating and curing the sick you yourself have fallen beneath the yoke of death, and now belong to death's kingdom. For many months you have witnessed such suffering and horror as the human mind can scarcely conceive, as he who sees cannot believe. Perhaps it is for the best that your nerves have betrayed you, that a benevolent veil of forgetfulness has fallen upon your mind. Now, at least, you need not fret or worry about what the future may hold in store for you. — Miklos Nyiszli

Most people would not trust a drunken prostitute like Daise. Would you have two weeks ago?'
She blinked at him. 'I don't know.' She hadn't even thought about prostitutes, drunken or not, two weeks ago. 'That could be me on the corner were things different.' She swallowed. 'Or if they go differently, it still could. I would want someone to believe me. — Anne Mallory

Telepathy' literally means to feel at a distance, just as 'telephone' is to hear at a distance and 'television' is to see at a distance. The word suggests the communication not of thoughts but of feelings, emotions. Around a quarter of all Americans believe they've experienced something like telepathy. People who know each other very well, who live together, who are practised in one another's feeling tones, associations and thinking styles can often anticipate what the partner will say. This is merely the usual five senses plus human empathy, sensitivity and intelligence in operation. It may feel extrasensory, but it's not at all what's intended by the word 'telepathy'. If something like this were ever conclusively demonstrated, it would, I think, have discernible physical causes -perhaps electrical currents in the brain. Pseudoscience, rightly or wrongly labelled, is by no means the same thing as the supernatural, which is by definition something somehow outside of Nature. — Carl Sagan

Many Christians, including BioLogos, like to throw out the "you can't take the Bible literally" argument. They think it is the ultimate zinger that will end any debate in their favor. But if we shouldn't take the Bible literally, why should we believe God is real in the literal sense? Perhaps God is a metaphor also. Maybe God is really a metaphor for nature or chance. Heaven forbid! However, BioLogos insists on having it both ways: God is literally true but the Bible is not. That's like saying Mother Goose is literally true but her nursery rhymes are not. — G.M. Jackson

Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing... I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon. — Alice Hoffman

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? — Kyung-Sook Shin

Rebelliousness or unconventionality as such do not constitute proof of individualism. Just as individualism does not consist merely of rejecting collectivism, so it does not consist merely of the absence of conformity. A conformist is a man who declares, "It's true because others believe it" - but an individualist is not a man who declares, "It's true because I believe it." An individualist declares, "I believe it because I see in reason that it's true. — Ayn Rand

In a democracy, you believe it or not; in a dictatorship, you believe it or else. — Evan Esar

Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist. — Peter Block

It is sometimes argued that disbelief in a fearful and tempting heavenly despotism makes life into something arid and tedious and cynical: a mere existence without any consolation or any awareness of the numinous or the transcendent. What nonsense this is. In the first place, it commits an obvious error. It seems to say that we ought not to believe that we are an evolved animal species with faulty components and a short lifespan for ourselves and our globe, lest the consequences of the belief be unwelcome or discreditable to us. Could anything show more clearly the bad effects of wish-thinking? There can be no serious ethical position based on denial or a refusal to look the facts squarely in the face. But this does not mean that we must stare into the abyss all the time. (Only religion, oddly enough, has ever required that we obsessively do that.) — Christopher Hitchens

Sometimes the world loses its face. it becomes too base. The task of the poet is to restore its face, because otherwise man is lost in doubt and despair. It is an indication that the world need not always be like this; it can be different.
When I wrote...that I accepted the salvational goal of poetry, that was exactly what I had in mind, and I still believe that poetry can either save or destroy nations. — Czeslaw Milosz

But men are not content merely desire; they like to have a logical or pseudo-logical justification for their desires; they like to believe that when they want something, it is not merely for their own personal advantage, but that their desires are dictated by pure reason, by nature, by God Himself. — Aldous Huxley

Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light. Normality extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, zestful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his loss. Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns. Some of them - one in ten thousand, or twenty - were possibly seen by human eyes. The liner bearing Hoddan sped through the void. In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. — Murray Leinster

There is no desire that anyone holds for any other reason than that they believe they will feel better in the achievement of it. Whether it is a material object, a physical state of being, a relationship, a condition, or a circumstance - at the heart of every desire is the desire to feel good. And so, the standard of success in life is not the things or the money - the standard of success is absolutely the amount of joy you feel. — Esther Hicks

Believe it or not, I've never been the most popular person at any party." She tried for a wry smile and almost managed it.

He shook his head. "That's only because you hide from people. You don't let them get to know you. Claire, if you let them see who you really are, every person in that room would adore you. — Noelle Adams

Elizabeth related to Jane the next day what had passed between Mr. Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley's regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. The possibility of his having endured such unkindness, was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing remained therefore to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be otherwise explained. — Jane Austen

As morally troubling and politically charged as the issue of inequality has become, it's not likely to cause a populist revolt. Most Americans still have a generally positive view of the wealthy and, rightly or wrongly, believe they too can make it to Richistan someday. — Robert Frank

The self that does not survive scrutiny is the subject of experience in each present moment - the feeling of being a thinker of thoughts inside one's head, the sense of being an owner or inhabitant of a physical body, which this false self seems to appropriate as a kind of vehicle. Even if you don't believe such a homunculus exists - perhaps because you believe, on the basis of science, that you are identical to your body and brain rather than a ghostly resident therein - you almost certainly feel like an internal self in almost every waking moment. And yet, however one looks for it, this self is nowhere to be found. It cannot be seen amid the particulars of experience, and it cannot be seen when experience itself is viewed as a totality. However, its absence can be found - and when it is, the feeling of being a self disappears. — Sam Harris