Power Of Belief Quotes & Sayings

Superstition is the irrational belief that an object or behavior has the power to influence an outcome, when there's no logical connection between them. Most of us aren't superstitious - but most of us are a 'littlestitious.' — Gretchen Rubin

The fact is that much of advertising's power comes from this belief that advertising does not affect us. The most effective kind of propaganda is that which is not recognized as propaganda. Because we think advertising is silly and trivial, we are less on guard, less critical, than we might otherwise be. It's all in fun, it's ridiculous. While we're laughing, sometimes sneering, the commercial does its work. — Jean Kilbourne

Faith is the deepest and truest form of magic. — Seth Adam Smith

A princess once carefully kissed a porcupine to be kind, upon which he began to think himself a prince. He then dressed like a prince, behaved like a prince, and announced himself to be a prince. The world, therefore, saw him as such, and so a porcupine prince he was. (Of course, most were reluctant to argue with him otherwise.) — Richelle E. Goodrich

Participation in the dance was entirely voluntary, a mental vow to worship the Mystery in this manner being expressed by a man ardently desiring the recovery of a sick relative; or surrounded by an enemy with escape apparently impossible; or, it might be, dying of hunger ... since some inscrutable power had swept all game from forest and prairie. Others joined in the ceremony in the hope and firm belief that the Mystery ... would grant them successes against the enemy and consequent eminence at home. — Edward S. Curtis

When this reality, the one and only power that checks and disciplines man from within, vanishes because belief in it is slackening, the social domain falls prey to passions. The ensuing vacuum is filled by the gas of emotion. Everyone proclaims what best suits his interests, his whims, his intellectual manias. To escape the void and the perplexities of his own soul, a man will rush to join any party standard that is being carried through the streets. With society gone there remain only parties. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

The administrative and hierarchic aspects seem to be crucial in the evolution of belief systems. The truth is first revealed to all men, but very quickly individuals appear claiming sole authority and a duty to interpret, administer and, if need be, alter this truth in the name of the common good. To this end they establish a powerful and potentially repressive organisation. This phenomenon, which biology shows us is common to any social group, soon transforms the doctrine into a means of achieving control and political power. Divisions, wars and break-ups become inevitable. Sooner or later, the word becomes flesh and the flesh bleeds. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Must be nice to have that kind of unshakable belief in a merciful higher power. — Ellen Hopkins

The cultural forces that help politically sustain both the militaristic and the corporate function of the Deep State, however, are growing more irrational and antiscience. A military tradition that glories in force and appeals to self-sacrifice is the polar opposite of the Enlightenment heritate of rationality, the search for peace, and a belief in the common destiny of mankind. The warrior-leader, like the witch doctor, ultimately appeals to irrational emotionalism; and the cultural psychology that produces the bravest and most loyal warriors is a mind-set that is usually hostile to the sort of free inquiry of which scientific progress depends. This dynamic is observable in Afghanistan: no outside power has been able to conquer and pacify that society for millennia because of the tenacity of its warrior spirit; yet the country has one of the highest illiteracy rates on earth and is barely out of the Bronze Age in social development. p 260 — Mike Lofgren

I believe in the power of origins, a belief that, as Ecclesiastes put it, 'that wich is done is that wich shall be done: and there is no new thing under de sun'; that we claim as originality and discovery are nothing but the airs and delusios of our innocence, ignorance, and arrogance: that whatever is said was said better - more powerfully, beautifully, and purely, long ago — Nick Tosches

I never let the thought of failure enter my mind. My knowledge of my unity with the Universal One and the fact that I must do this thing, and the inspired belief I should do it as a demonstration of my belief in man's unlimited power, made me ignore the difficulties that lay in the way. — Walter Russell

What we call "the laws of nature" merely reflect the normal way in which God sustains or governs the natural world. Perhaps the most wicked concept that has captured the minds of modern people is the belief that the universe operates by chance. That is the nadir of foolishness. Elsewhere, I have written more extensively on the scientific impossibility of assigning power to chance, because chance is simply a word that describes mathematical possibilities.* Chance is not a thing. It has no power. It cannot do anything, and therefore it cannot influence anything, yet some have taken the word chance, which has no power, and diabolically used it as a replacement for the concept of God. But the truth, as the Bible makes clear, is that nothing happens by chance and that all things are under the sovereign government of God, which is exceedingly comforting to the Christian who understands it. — R.C. Sproul

Change your thought, change your mind.
Change your belief, change your action. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

In a brilliant lecture written in 1944, C. S. Lewis described the fatal British obsession with the 'inner ring', the belief that somewhere, just beyond reach, is an exclusive group holding real power and influence, which a certain sort of Englishman constantly aspires to find and join. — Ben Macintyre

Religions have much, much more in common than they like to admit. The beliefs are almost always the same; it's just that the histories are different. Everybody wants to believe in a higher power. Everybody wants to belong to something bigger than themselves, and everybody wants company in doing that. They want there to be a force of good on earth, and they want an incentive to be a part of that force. They want to be able to prove their belief and their belonging, through rituals and devotion. They want to touch the enormity. — David Levithan

The fatal effects of sin can be removed only by the provision that God has made. The Israelites saved their lives by looking upon the uplifted serpent. That look implied faith. They lived because they believed God's word, and trusted in the means provided for their recover. So to sinner may look to Christ, and live. He receives pardon through faith in the atoning sacrifice. Unlike the inert and lifeless symbol, Christ has power and virtue in Himself to heal the repenting sinner. — Ellen G. White

Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

All day long because it's what you've been trained to do. But if, in your heart, you believe that the pain you're feeling is real and if you believe it's connected to some underlying condition, it is unlikely that the pain or the spirit will leave. Demons are more sensitive to what you think than what you say. Your belief in the legitimacy of the symptoms plays into the agenda of the evil spirit and what you believe can allow it to remain there. What we believe about the afflicting spirit can either empower it or remove its power over us. The degree to which any spirit can influence us is determined by how much we believe what it says. — Praying Medic

It is a commonplace that every age, or almost every age, thinks that its own time is one of special difficulty. The barbarians seem always to be at the gate. Alas, in our present day this is rather too literally so. But what many fail to realise is that the barbarians are a more various and numerous group than just those unspeakable villains who behead hostages in the desert. Barbarians might also wear ties and travel business class, they might occupy seats of power in government. They might be us, ourselves, when we give up certain civil liberties and betray our own values in the spurious belief that this will protect us from terrorism, organised crime, unwelcome immigration. Forms of dismantling civilisation might differ, but the result is the same. — A.C. Grayling

Couture has a power that ready-to-wear can never have; the attention of les petites mains as they sew; all that love and belief goes into the cloth. That's what you feel when you wear it. — Amanda Harlech

I still have great faith in democracy. I have great belief in the power of community. — Terry Tempest Williams

I have a profound belief in the power of the Sacraments. I believe that in a Divine way the use of them teaches the teachable their inward meaning and therefore I think we need be in no hurry to attempt to teach new converts all that we think we know about them. — Roland Allen

The critical task of schizoanalysis, then, is to destroy the power of representation in all its many forms, including the Oedipus complex, the ego, religious and ethnic fanaticisms, patriotism, the debt to capital, and so on; the aim is to expunge belief from the unconscious altogether, to undo molar recoding as much as possible. — Eugene W. Holland

Individuals who succeed have a belief in the power of commitment. If there's a single belief that seems almost inseparable from success, it's that there's no great success without commitment. If you look at successful people in any field, you'll find they're not necessarily the best and the brightest, the fastest and the strongest. You'll find they're the ones with the most commitment. — Tony Robbins

The pre-rational view of spirituality is irrational because it is based on pre-rational worldviews, such as the magical, the belief that individual thoughts and actions directly influence the outside world ("If I dance, it will rain"); and the mythical, which is belief in unverified dogma, a worldview that usually includes a belief in an external power that can be asked to change outcomes ("If I pray to Jesus, he will intervene in my life"). — Gudjon Bergmann

Belief has the power to change your inner state and your outer world. — John Paul Warren

One of the many reasons that Padma will always be a secondary power on the Council is his belief that all power must be taken, that all power must come through fear. True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war. — Laurell K. Hamilton

The Gospel is a declaration of something totally finished apart from our agreement or vote. Inside that declaration is an ongoing and relentless invitation to deepening relationship but any lack of belief or participation on our part has no power to negate the accomplished truth of that declaration. — William P. Young

Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy. As to truth, justice, and fidelity, who have been their brave exponents and daring proclaimers? Nearly always the godless ones: the Atheists; they lived, fought, and died for them. They knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself. — Emma Goldman

Things, events and people align and position themselves accordingly when a strong enough thought stirs them. — Stephen Richards

Belief comes spontaneously as well as by effort. Belief is power. An insincere and uninspired seeker is aware of the truth that belief is power, but he cannot go beyond understanding or awareness; whereas a sincere, genuine, devoted and surrendered seeker knows that belief is dynamic power, and he has this power as his very own. — Sri Chinmoy

There is healing power in believing, belief in the infinite power of Source, the infinite power of ourselves and the universe that has been created for us. Believing makes all things possible and when all things are possible, we can achieve anything. — Sahvanna Arienta

They've said: PRAYING isn't enough in this situation.
Contrary to belief, prayer is all you need. If you believe that it isn't, it's only because you haven't truly experience the power of praying in your life.
Keep praying. When there was a battle, one man prayed, and God caused the sun to delay setting, so they could win the battle. (Joshua 10)
The prayers of the Righteous, they have overwhelming impacts and I encourage you to include that in whatever your next move is in this situation.
I don't march, I don't openly protest... No important reasons... I just don't... but I can do what I do best... Help behind the scenes.. and PRAY.. because, I know it works.
Peace and Blessings — Jennifer M. Malone

Omnipotence is a status that is fragile at best. By its very own standard meaning of unlimited power, unlimited authority, unlimited presence, and unlimited meaning; it still follows within its own realm of self-defeat, being overwhelmingly defeated, unlimited defeat, being crippled, being negated, being surpassed, being unable to do, and etc. And of course, one can twist metalogic, add in paradoxes, add in metapotence, but it's usually as a means to maintain the belief of something so high, that it cannot be reached. Unfortunately, it's been reached, and it has been defeated by finite conditions. — Lionel Suggs

More than Christianity, the religion of Victorian times was a belief in human advance - the conviction that freed from ignorance and superstition, humanity could expand its power and be master of its destiny. — John N. Gray

I believe in God, which means I am open to some absurd possibilities. But I understand the power of that faith, and I understand the metaphor of that belief. — Reza Aslan

To think that because those who wield power in society wield in the end that of government, therefore it is of no use to attempt to influence the constitution of the government by acting on opinion, is to forget that opinion is itself one of the greatest active social forces. One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests. — John Stuart Mill

The spirit of adventure to embrace the new and the incredible belief in the power of invention attracted me to the Russian avant-garde. — Zaha Hadid

Faith can turn the night to light. — Seth Adam Smith

Evidently, rigging cables is therapy for the Swiss: or part of their theology. What was it that he used to say? A balanced arc between mountain rows / as servant to his master shows / the power of besieged belief / in something something something, something something something-something to do with ducks, or rainbows. — Mark Helprin

Just as the French of the nineteenth century invested their surplus capital in a railway-system in the belief that they would makemoney by it in this life, in the thirteenth they trusted their money to the Queen of Heaven because of their belief in her power to repay it with interest in the life to come. — Henry Adams

The Average Occidental- be he a democrat or a Fascist, a Capitalist or a Bolshevik, a manual worker or an intellectual- knows only one positive "religion", and that is the worship of material progress, the belief that there is no other goal in life than to make that very life continually easier or, as the current expression goes, "independent of nature". The temples of this "religion" are the gigantic factories, cinemas, chemical laboratories, dancing halls, hydro- electric works; and its priests are bankers, engineers,film stars, captains of industry, record-airmen. The unavoidable result of this craving after power and pleasure is the creation of hostile groups armed to the teeth and determined to destroy each other whenever their respective interests come to clash. And on the cultural side the result is the creation of a human type whose morality is confined to the question of practical utility alone, and whose highest criterion of good and evil is material progress. — Muhammad Asad

The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit. — Isabelle Eberhardt

However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must
start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that
right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However
far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power
and airtight roles within the family. — Gloria Steinem

The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey. — Walter Lippmann

If you think you have no power over what happens in the outside world, this is a belief and an agreement you have made between yourself and the field of existence. Your cells hear this command about your place in reality and do everything possible to make certain, in whatever situation you meet, that you have no power over events. Your beliefs establish the instructions for how you want to operate your biological being, and in these times of tremendous acceleration, humankind is faced with the responsibility of learning how to manage the energy of thought — Barbara Marciniak

For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power. — Thomas Hobbes

What is the special privilege of youth? It is, I think, the power of looking forward, the firm belief that the future holds something that is worth possessing, and that, therefore, one can let the present moment drop from one without regret and without fear. — Edith Sitwell

As a journalist in Providence, I was particularly drawn toward stories about women's issues: I wrote about discrimination, abortion, violence against women. I wrote about women's health, sexism in the media, cultural imagery. I even wrote about women (other women) with eating disorders. And quietly, privately, I starved myself half to death. There you have it: intellectual belief without the correlary of emotional roots; feminist power understood in the mind but not known, somehow, in the body. — Caroline Knapp

Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted - and few have been able to resist the power for long - to clothe their own aspirations and action in the moral purposes of the universe. To know that nations are subject to the moral law is one thing, while to pretend to know with certainty what is good and evil in the relations among nations is quite another. There is a world of difference between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's side and that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also. — Hans J. Morgenthau

God could easily at any moment prove he existed beyond doubt with some amazing show of power which would have everyone kneel to him in awe. That is not what he wants. Real belief can't be gained by a dazzling show and a loving relationship can't be won through force. — Lewis N. Roe

That's life. It's a series of knock-down, drag-out fights with yourself and others that will leave you lying on the ground bruised and bloody and drooling all over your shag carpeting. But all that doesn't define you, your reaction to it does. Your environment doesn't make you who you are, your choices - your beliefs, do. — J.S.B. Morse

If human beings can be trained for cruelty and greed and a belief in power which comes through hate and fear and force, certainly we can train equally well for greatness and mercy and the power of love which comes because of the strength of the good qualities to be found in the soul of every human being. — Eleanor Roosevelt

The confidence in the unlimited power of science is only too often based on a false belief that the scientific method consists in the application of a ready-made technique, or in imitating the form rather than the substance of scientific procedure, as if one needed only to follow some cooking recipes to solve all social problems. It sometimes almost seems as if the techniques of science were more easily learnt than the thinking that shows us what the problems are and how to approach them. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage ... Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost. — Friedrich Hayek

Words are divine force. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Without faith, you are as a crow who has forgotten his ability to fly; you peck at the dark, muddy earth when the bright mountains lie before you. — Seth Adam Smith

The only limits of power are the bounds of belief. — Harold Wilson

Find ways for people to shape their work and the company In addition to stripping leaders of the traditional tools of power and relying on facts to make decisions, we give Googlers uncommon freedom in shaping their own work and the company. Google isn't the first to do so. For over sixty-five years, 3M has offered its employees 15 percent of their time to explore: "A core belief of 3M is that creativity needs freedom. That's why, since about 1948, we've encouraged our employees to spend 15% of their working time on their own projects. To take our resources, to build up a unique team, and to follow their own insights in pursuit of problem-solving."103 Post-it Notes famously came out of this program, as did a clever abrasive material, Trizact, which somehow sharpens itself as it's used. — Anonymous

Surveying American scientists as a whole, Pew Research showed that 33 percent admitted belief in God, while 41 percent were atheists (the rest either didn't answer, didn't know, or believed in a "universal spirit or higher power"). In contrast, belief in God among the general public ran at 83 percent and atheism at only 4 percent. In other words, scientists are ten times more likely to be atheists than are other Americans. This disparity has persisted for over eighty years of polling. — Jerry A. Coyne

What is enthusiasm but a passionate belief in what seems to be a high and holy aim, - an unselfish devotion to some noble cause, - a consecration of heart and mind and soul to the attainment of a great object? What is it but an earnest effort to attain the heights of spiritual and intellectual endeavor? What is it but the life, the force, the power, which makes individuals or nations capable of enduring much and waiting long, in the conviction that ultimately the thing they have at heart will be accomplished? — Orison Swett Marden

A lower power cannot compass the full understanding of a higher. But to limit one's belief to the bounds of one's own small powers, would be to tie oneself down to the foot of a tree, and deny the existence of its upper branches. — Mrs. Alfred Gatty

PRACTICE OF THE Art of Peace is an act of faith, a belief in the ultimate power of nonviolence. It is faith in the power of purification and faith in the power of life itself. It is not a type of rigid discipline or empty asceticism. It is a path that follows natural principles, principles, that must be applied to daily living. The Art of Peace should be practiced from the time you rise to greet the morning to the time you retire at night. — Morihei Ueshiba

The power of the American system of republicanism lies in its capacity to allow religious belief to be a competing, not a controlling, factor in American life. — Jon Meacham

I am far from a perfect dad. And I always will be. But I'm a damn good dad, and my son will always feel bigger than anything life can throw at him. Why? Because I get it. I get the power a dad has in a child's life, and in a child's level of self-belief. I get that everything I ever do and ever say to my son will be absorbed, for good or for bad. — Dan Pearce

If you think that you are the only one who is right then please consult someone; If you believe that you are right then dont't seek self approval... before that learn to discriminate between a thought and a belief... — Dinesh Kumar

The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation. — Sam Harris

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

To realize the Enlightenment ideals of formal equality, the rule of law, freedom of commerce, and religious toleration, Voltaire and many of the other philosophes looked to absolutist monarchs, whose policies they hoped to influence. The support of the philosophes for the expansion of the monarch's sovereign power was tactical. It arose not out of a principled belief in the throne, but out of the recognition that only a strong monarchy had the power to override the resistance to enlightened legislation by the privileged churches, estates, and corporations that made up continental European society. (p. 45) — Jerry Z. Muller

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

The mighty miracles of the Lord are marvellous! — Lailah Gifty Akita

100% of a Guru's marketing plan depends on you holding the belief that you are not enough; that you were created less equipped than necessary to fulfill your purpose. What if you let go of that belief and connected with the truth of your innate power to change and shape your life? You ARE enough. You CAN change and shape your own life. Anyone who tells you different is simply lying. Your life has immeasurable potentiality for greatness; act accordingly. — Steve Maraboli

Lay down your cynicism, and believe in the transformational power of love. — Bryant McGill

To achieve peace, destruction is delivered. To give the gift of freedom, one promises eternal imprisonment. Adjudication obviates the need for justice. This is a studied, deliberate embrace of diametric opposition. It is a belief in balance, a belief asserted with the conviction of religion. But in this case, the proof of a god's power lies not in the cause but in the effect. Accordingly, in this world and in all others, proof is achieved by action, and therefore all action - including the act of choosing inaction - is inherently moral. No deed stands outside the moral context. At the same time, the most morally perfect act is the one taken in opposition to what has occurred before. — Steven Erikson

As I reject the old time beliefs, it is not a matter of countering belief with belief, rather I can challenge the efficacy of old beliefs with sound arguments. We believe in nature and that human progress depends on the domination of man over nature. There is no conscious power behind it. This is our philosophy. — Bhagat Singh

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

The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We use this word all the time, and I think behind it lurk some really extraordinary taboos and confusions. What I want to argue tonight is that how we talk about belief- how we fail to criticize or criticize the beliefs of others, has more importance to us personally, more consequence to us personally and to civilization than perhaps anything else that is in our power to influence. — Sam Harris

The power of belief, of God is beyond what mere mortals can Imagine. There is no restrictions in my Life. If I do what I love, work night and day, and I'm open to the spirits. that's when the "Greats" take over. — Richard Cabral

Men have gone on to build up vast intellectual schemes, philosophies, and theologies, to prove that ideals are not real as ideals but as antecedently existing actualities. They have failed to see that in converting moral realities into matters of intellectual assent they have evinced lack of moral faith. Faith that something should be in existence as far as lies in our power is changed into the intellectual belief that it is already in existence. When physical existence does not bear out the assertion, the physical is subtly changed into the metaphysical. In this way, moral faith has been inextricably tied up with intellectual beliefs about the supernatural. — John Dewey

In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force. Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgement that they have framed of things. — John Locke

God is awe-inspiring. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. — Frank Herbert

For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe
the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. — John F. Kennedy

For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. — George Orwell

The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions - racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war - which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action. — George Orwell

I shall devote only a few lines to the expression of my belief in the importance of science ... it is by this daily striving after knowledge that man has raised himself to the unique position he occupies on earth, and that his power and well-being have continually increased. — Marie Curie

But now science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting not to fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it cannot tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways
air, and water, and land
because of ungovernable science. — Michael Crichton

Betty took him for a walk in the zoo and he was amused by her evident belief in the curative power of animals. She seemed to think that it must steady him to look at a buffalo. — Nathanael West

The assertion that only sex is power and the arrogation of creativity to the masculine sex and the rendering of all creativity as sexual - this is patriarchal aesthetics. Patriarchal passion sees violent sex as the essential creative act, even aesthetically, through a sort of metaphysical transubstantiation. This is their romantic belief that sex with the Master can produce the artistic spirit in the student. Male creativity is thus born in another, her work is given depth through the violent transgression of her boundaries. — Somer Brodribb

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

How will I make a people who do not understand the power of belief believe? And without their belief Mother Earth will wither and Yuletide will fade ... and so, too will I ... like all the spirits and gods before me. — Brom

What, however, makes culture and ideology attractive? They become attractive when they are seen as rooted in material success and influence. Soft power is power only when it rests on a foundation of hard power. Increases in hard economic and military power produce enhanced self-confidence, arrogance, and belief in the superiority of one's own culture or soft power compared to those of other peoples and greatly increase its attractiveness to other peoples. Decreases in economic and military power lead to self-doubt, crises of identity, and efforts to find in other cultures the keys to economic, military, and political success. — Samuel P. Huntington

Thoughts are just moving through consciousness. They have no power. Nothing has reality until you reach it, grab it, and somehow impregnate it with the power of belief. — Adyashanti

I need you, Desari. I was empty without you. And that kind of emptiness eats away at you, consumes you until your soul is dark and ugly and all that matters is sating your hunger. But nothing fills the void.Nothing. Year after year you endure the emptiness until life itself is a curse hardly to be borne. And all the while the darkness, the beast in you whispers, an insidious whisper promising power from the kill,promises that wear away your belief in God,in all the things that are right and true and good.The monster inside you,so black and hungry for life, grows and grows until it has consumed everything you ever were. That is the curse born by Carpathian males, Desari. — Christine Feehan

the geas in question draws its power from the sum over time of the entire loyal British population's faith in the Crown since that charter was established over four centuries ago. Which adds up to something like ninety million person-centuries-worth of belief. Hence the, shall we — Charles Stross

It is my firm belief that the solution to all problems lies in dialogue. Earlier, it was believed that force indicates power. Now, power must come through the strength of ideas and the effective dialogue. — Narendra Modi

There's a great power of imagination about these little creatures, and a creative fancy and belief that is very curious to watch ... I am sure that horrid matter-of-fact child-rearers ... do away with the child's most beautiful privilege. I am determined that Anny shall have a very extensive and instructive store of learning in Tom Thumbs, Jack-the-Giant-Killers, etc. — William Makepeace Thackeray