Still Believing Quotes & Sayings

Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I knew beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid. I thought how terrible the nights must have been in a time when men knew the things were there and were deadly. But no, that's wrong. If I knew they were there, I would have weapons against them, charms, prayers, some kind of alliance with forces equally strong but on my side. Knowing they were not there made me defenseless against them and perhaps more afraid. — John Steinbeck

When Moses smashed the golden calf, the Israelites stopped worshipping it. When a flood inundated the temple of Baal, the Malachites decided Baal wasn't such a hot god anyway. But Jesus has been out to lunch for two thousand years, and people not only still follow his teachings, they live and die believing he'll come back eventually, and it will be business as usual when he does. — Stephen King

Never console yourself into believing that the terror has passed, for it looms as large and evil today as it did in the despicable era of Bedlam. But I must relate the horrors as I recall them, in the hope that some force for mankind might be moved to relieve forever the unfortunate creatures who are still imprisoned in the back wards of decaying institutions. — Frances Farmer

When I come across one or other of my fellow Christians ignorant of astronomy, believing what is not so, I calmly look on, not thinking him the worse for mistaking the place or order of created things, so long as he holds nothing demeaning to you, Lord, the creator of all those things. But he is worse off if he holds that his error is a matter of religious faith, and persists stubbornly in the error. His faith is still a weak thing in its cradle, needing the milk of a mothering love, until the youth grows up and cannot be the play-thing, any more, of every doctrinal wind that blows.
But one who ventures on the role of teacher, of leader and ruler of those under his spell, whose followers heed him not as a man only but as your very Spirit
what are we to make of him when he is caught purveying falsehoods? Should we not reject and despise such madness? — Augustine Of Hippo

A Farewell For a while I shall still be leaving, Looking back at you as you slip away Into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all alive, believing That in a single poignant hour We did say all that we could ever say In a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind. After a while we shall be cut in two Between real islands where you live And a far shore where I'll no longer keep The haunting image of your eyes, and you, As pupils widen, widen to deep black And I am able neither to love or grieve Between fulfillment and heartbreak. The time will come when I can go to sleep. But for a while still, centered at last, Contemplate a brief amazing union, Then watch you leave and then let you go. I must not go back to the murderous past Nor force a passage through to some safe landing, But float upon this moment of communion Entranced, astonished by pure understanding - Passionate love dissolved like summer snow. — May Sarton

Sometimes we simply don't want to face the truth about ourselves; the myth reads so much better. Sometimes we do not seek help because it will mean we have to change, and change is painful and unpredictable. To me, now, faith is bringing all that is true about our lives into the blinding light of God's grace. It is believing that He will still be there at the end of the journey, and so will we, perhaps a little bloodied, probably with a limp, and possibly, as the Skin Horse said, with most of our hair loved off, but we will be there. — Sheila Walsh

You know, it's one thing to say you believe. It's another thing to have your faith tested severely and come out on the other side of it still believing God. — Joyce Meyer

As for major obstacles keeping young Latinos from becoming filmmakers, I think our communities are still coming into their identities as storytellers. It's such an important identity to reclaim - it's how our ancestors kept our cultures alive. But a long history of silencing, invisibility, and marginalization has kept generations of Latinos from believing in themselves, from seeing themselves as agents of their own lives. I think there needs to be a focus on this aspect to help cultivate young Latinas to see themselves as cultural producers and defenders. — Aurora Guerrero

The commitment had disappeared, and although he still watched the imagined glory of stealing, she could see now he was not believing. He was trying to believe it, and that's never a good sign. — Markus Zusak

Noah was a funeral pyre. He was burning. The flames rose to staggering heights and blazed in white, hot tongues. Jeremie had once told him a story of the burial rites of the Norse. They'd burn their dead, believing the high smoke carried their loved ones' souls to Valhalla.

Noah was beyond Valhalla. Beyond the creamy spaciousness above the clouds, beyond the limits of the very earth. He floated among the stars, joined them in holy communion, knew each one by name. Then they were within him, scores of them, bright and hot, turning his ribs into a furnace as they shifted and created constellations in his soul. And all the while, the summer sang in his lungs.

There was no space between him and Jeremie. Where one ended, the other began, and still Jeremie pulled him closer like the moon pulls the tide, gripping him tightly in the same way he'd gripped Noah's heart, had gripped his entire being. — Lily Velez

For you who came so far; for you who held out, wearing a black scarf to signify grief; for you who believe true love can find you amidst this atlas of tears linking one town to its own memory of mortar, when it was still a dream to be built and people moved there, believing, and someone with sky and birds in his heart said this would be a good place for a park. — Naomi Shihab Nye

Whatever are the difficulties in believing that the Old and New Testaments proceed from, or record the acts of, a perfectly wise and good being, the same and still greater difficulties stand in the way of the belief, that a being of such a character can have been the Maker of the universe. He considered Butler's argument as conclusive against the only opponents for whom it was intended. Those who admit an omnipotent as well as perfectly just and benevolent maker and ruler of such a world as this, can say little against Christianity but what can, with at least equal force, be retorted against themselves. — Christopher Hitchens

Unless you see your nature, you shouldn't go around criticizing the goodness of others. There's no advantage in deceiving yourself. Good and bad are distinct. Cause and effect are clear. But fools don't believe and fall straight into a hell of endless darkness without even knowing it. What keeps them from believing is the heaviness of their karma. They're like blind people who don't believe there's such a thing as light. Even if you explain it to them, they still don't believe, because they're blind. How can they possibly distinguish light? — Bodhidharma

Many in our world today want us to believe that we can except Christ simply as a Savior from sin, but not the Lord of our lives. They teach essentially that a person can perform an act of believing on Christ once, and after this, they can fall away even into total unbelief and yet still supposedly be "saved". Christ does not call men in this way. Christ does not save men in this way. The true Christian is the one continually coming, always believing in Christ. Real Christian faith is an ongoing faith, not a one-time act. If one wishes to be eternally satiated, one meal is not enough. If we wish to feast on the bread of heaven, we must do so all our lives. We will never hunger or thirst if we are always coming and always believing in Christ. He's our sufficiency. Christ the bread from heaven. We must feed on all of Christ, not just the parts we happen to like. Christ is not the Savior of anyone unless He is their Lord as well. — James R. White

To be priests does not mean primarily that we are our own individual priests, but rather that as part of the priestly people of God we are priests for the entire community of belief, and that they are priests for us - while all of us, as the believing community, are priests for the world. Rather than setting aside the need for the community of the church, the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers strengthens it. It is true that access to God is no longer controlled by a hierarchical priesthood. But we still stand in need of the community of believers, the body of Christ, in which each member is a priest for the rest, and feeds the rest. Without such nourishment, an isolated member cannot live. — Justo L. Gonzalez

[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired]
This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects (Works, Vol. iv, p. 327). — Thomas Jefferson

Nevertheless, some Southerners like James Monroe still had serious reservations about the compromise, believing that assumption would reduce "the necessity for State taxation" and thus would "undoubtedly leave the national government more at liberty to exercise its powers and increase the subjects on which it will act. — Gordon S. Wood

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

When we lost something precious, and we'd looked and looked and still couldn't find it, then we didn't have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we grow up, and we were free to travel around the counry, we would always go and find it in Norfolk ... And that's why years and years later, that day Tommy and I found another copy of that lost tape of mine in a town on the Norfolk coast, we didn't just think it pretty funny; we both felt deep down some tug, some old wish to believe again in something that was once close to our hearts. — Kazuo Ishiguro

I couldn't fault her for believing, because I had to imagine i was nice to have that illusion still intact. — David Levithan

Though I do not believe in the order of things, still the sticky little leaves that come out in the spring are dear to me, the blue sky is dear to me, some people are dear to me, whom one loves sometimes, would you believe it, without even knowing why; some human deeds are dear to me, which one has perhaps long ceased believing in, but still honors with one's heart, out of old habit ...
Ivan Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If you came into the theater believing in the talking snake, it's kind of hard to leave the theater still believing in the talking snake. — Bill Maher

I'm not always the favourite to win, but I still enjoy it. The main thing is that I've planned for it and even if the result isn't great, I know I've done the best I can do. It's being true to, and believing in, yourself. — Jenny Meadows

People haven't stopped believing in love. They haven't stopped wanting to be in love. They just don't believe in a happy ending anymore. They still believe in love, and falling in love, but they know now that ... they know that romances almost never end as well as they begin. — Gregory David Roberts

I was in California the first time I heard Michael Jackson wanted to record with me. I was, like, 'Nah, no way, he's too big, it can't be true.' Then I got a call from Michael's people at my hotel telling me he was interested. But I still wasn't believing it - I thought they were setting me up for a TV practical jokes show. — Heavy D

In spite of unseasonable wind, snow and unexpected weather of all sorts - a gardener still plants. And tends what they have planted ... believing that Spring will come. — Mary Anne Radmacher

I am still a coward, still fearful; none of that has changed. But I turn and walk away from her. It's like stepping off a cliff, believing the air will hold you up. And it does. I see that I don't have to do what she says, and worse and better, I've never had to do what she says. I can do what I like. — Atwood, Margaret

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

The more I lose, the more they believe they can beat me. But believing is not enough, you still have to beat me. — Roger Federer

Putting thoughts into words is vastly different from putting truth into words. For words are not truth. As ardently as writers sort and select and polish their words, at the end of the day they are still words. They are not, in themselves, truth. However carefully we choose our words, no matter how eloquently we compile and conjoin and convey them, they remain just words, merely signposts that point to the truth, as Eckhart Tolle put it. Just as preachers, politicians, PR spin masters and the media can't create truth by writing or speaking words they say are true, authors can't validate truth by putting it into print. And the rest of us can't know it by simply hearing or reading the words. We can only find our way to truth by following the signposts and ultimately believing. It all comes down to believing, to faith, for there is no proof this side of the big dirt nap. — Lionel Fisher

15-2 See, your faith anchors you in Christ. That's intellectual. You believe it. You accept it. You say that it's right. You recognize it to be the truth, and you're a Christian. And you've got Everlasting Life by believing it. You've entered to God. You're on the campgrounds. Manna's falling, and you're eating it.
And did you notice: the strange thing, there was a mixed multitude eating the same manna? People who are sinners, who does not accept the Lord Jesus can still enjoy the--seeing the moving of the miracle of God, healing the sick; can rejoice in people doing right; can open their hearts and rejoice in a sermon that's preached under the anointing. And that's the same type of manna that the Christian is eating. You see it? ( See "Why are people so tossed about ?" Preached on Sunday, 1st January 1956 at the Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, Indiana, U.S.A. - Paragraph 15:2 ) — William Marrion Branham

So you drive as far as you can, even when you can clearly read the sign. You want to think you are exempt, that it doesn't apply to you. But it does. Life is still a dead end. And we still have a hard time believing it — Robert Fulghum

You care, you really care for me!" "Of course," Eric said. "How could you doubt it?" But it was not easy to believe that anyone cared for me; I sometimes failed to realize, I think, how much my parents cared for me. It is only now, reading the letters they wrote to me when I came to America fifty years ago, that I see how deeply they did care. And perhaps how deeply many others have cared for me - was the imagined lack of caring by others a projection of something deficient or inhibited in myself? I once heard a radio program devoted to the memories and thoughts of those who, like me, had been evacuated during the Second World War, separated from their families during their earliest years. The interviewer commented on how well these people had adjusted to the painful, traumatic years of their childhood. "Yes," said one man. "But I still have trouble with the three Bs: bonding, belonging, and believing." I think this is also true, to some extent, for me. — Oliver Sacks

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

Learning to pass, it turns out, is less a matter of acting than not acting. You can become part of a given scene, situation, or people ('our people,' as it were), simply by letting yourself serve as a mirror for those around you. When I was still in college, when I still thought I might make a good priest, I spent some time in a Trappist monastery. I found that by exerting as little of my own personality as possible, I was able to fit right in. The monks in no time came to call me brother, believing I was destined to make vows as one of their own. Passing begins with the assumptions of those around you. The best thing you can do to maintain the illusion is to come as close as possible to doing nothing at all. — Peter Manseau

What is the world's problem? The world is still believing the old childish stories! That is the problem! Grow up, world, grow up! Be a bit serious! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

It does not matter how old or wise you get, life is about believing and listening to your inner voice. I still believe in angels, fairies and butterflies and that keeps me smiling. Ambika — Jack Canfield

Still, as long as you keep pointing to the specifics, you will miss the full meaning of your pain. You will deceive yourself into believing that if the people, circumstances, and events had been different, your pain would not exist. This might be partly true, but — Henri J.M. Nouwen

You may be right in believing that if you study hard, one day you might become fluent in English. But you will still look Chinese, and when people meet you, they'll see a Chinese girl no matter how well you speak English. You'll always be expected to know Chinese, and if you don't, I'm afraid they will not respect you as much. — Adeline Yen Mah

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

Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg. — J.K. Rowling

Somehow the painted door now stood open. Blaise was following Livia through it, past Throgmorton's outstretched arm. Sunni shed her slippers and hurried after them, still not quite believing they were walking through what she had thought was only paint on a wall. — Teresa Flavin

I grew up believing my sister was from the planet Neptune and had been sent down to Earth to kill me. I believed this because my sister Emily convinced me of it when I was a toddler. I think she'd seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers and her imagination ran away with her. There's a part of me that still believes it. — Zooey Deschanel

There's no denying that I loved him and still do, but there are lots of things to be happy about. The Ocean Teacher said that the purpose of life is to be happy. The Divine Weaver told me not to become disheartened when the pattern doesn't suit. She said I should wait and watch and be patient and devoted.
The threads of my life are all tangled and jumbled up. I don't know if I'll ever get them straightened out. The fabric of my existence is pretty ugly right now. All I can do is hold onto my faith, believing that someday I'll see the light of that bright star again. — Colleen Houck

Only one advantage still remained to Mandred, an edge that Vrrmik could never take from him. The soldiers who marched behind his banner were men and it was the hearts of men that beat within their breasts, hearts that could be moved to selflessness, could be stirred to valour and fired with courage. However numerous Vrrmik's horde, they were skaven, they were cringing beasts driven by fear and greed, incapable of believing in anything more vital than their own skins. Terror and avarice were the forces that drove them on, but such things could only stretch so far, overcome only so much. Mandred's troops could endure more than Vrrmik's monsters. That was the one strength the skaven could never equal. — C.L. Werner

Believing in yourself means more than simply believing in your own ultimate success; it means believing you will survive failures, disappointments, rejections, and criticism but still persist. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We have all been fooled into believing in people who are entirely imaginary
made-up prisoners in a hypothetical panopticon. But the point isn't whether or not you believe in imaginary people; it's whether or not you want to.
"I think I'll stick with reality," I said, handing Cassidy back her phone.
She stared at it, and then me, disappointed. "I'd think you of all people would want to escape."
"Imaginary prisoners are still prisoners. — Robyn Schneider

Many of us understand giving, but some of us may still be confused about the meaning of forgiveness. Some people may go through life in a groveling mode, mistakenly believing they have to receive forgiveness from others. Forgiveness offers more than a reprieve granted to us by another person. True forgiveness is a process of giving up the false for the true and allows us to rid our thinking of rigid ideas. We can develop the flexibility to change our mind and our behavior patterns to higher and greater expressions and find new avenues to freedom. — John Templeton

At least I have the comfort of believing Alina is in heaven. That maybe someday I'll gaze into a child's eyes and see a piece of my sister's should in there, because the fact is I do believe we go on. Then again, maybe I'll never see a trace of her, but I still feel her. I don't know how to explain it. It's as if she's only a slight shift of reality away from me sometimes, in what I think of as the slipstream, and if I could only slip sideways, too, I could join her. And one day I think I will slip sideways and get to see her again, if only as ships passing on our way to new destinations in the same vas, magnificent sea. — Karen Marie Moning

The history taught in our schools is scandalous. We grew up believing that Columbus actually discovered America. We still celebrate Columbus Day. Columbus was after one thing only - gold. — Woody Harrelson

He believes, but he does not believe: the impossibility of believing is the impossibility which he accepts most reluctantly, but still it is there with the other impossibilities of this world which is too full of weeping for a child to understand. — Edmund Wilson

I do not ... reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science ... Statistics ... apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate ... There will always be some indeterminism ... in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man's intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method.. — Claude Bernard

This was how you wound up in the Inquisition. When you stopped being able to see any difference between Light Ones and Dark Ones. When for you, people weren't even a flock of sheep, but just a handful of spiders in a glass jar. When you stopped believing in the future, and all you wanted to do was preserve the status quo. For yourself. For those few individuals who were still dear to you. — Sergei Lukyanenko

I also think it's possible for us to be better people tomorrow than we are today." He had no idea, of course, whether any of these things were true, in whole or in part. Still, what possible good could come of believing otherwise? - — Richard Russo

The goal of argumentation is to make a case so forceful (note the metaphor) that skeptics are coerced into believing it - they are powerless to deny it while still claiming to be rational. In principle, it is the ideas themselves that are, as we say, compelling, but their champions are not always averse to helping the ideas along with tactics of verbal dominance, among them intimidation ("Clearly . . ."), threat ("It would be unscientific to . . ."), authority ("As Popper showed . . ."), insult ("This work lacks the necessary rigor for . . ."), and belittling ("Few people today seriously believe that . . ."). Perhaps this is why H. L. Mencken wrote that "college football would be more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students. — Steven Pinker

Have apparent confidence in all, real confidence in none, until from actual experience it is found that the individual is worthy of it - from this rule I have never departed. ... When I have found men mere politicians, bending to the popular breeze and changing with it, for the self-popularity, I have ever shunned them, believing that they were unworthy of my confidence - but still treat them with hospitality and politeness. — Jon Meacham

At one time, the earth was supposed to be flat. Well, so it is, even today, from Paris to Asnieres. But that fact doesn't prevent science from proving that the earth as a whole is spherical. No one nowadays denies it. Well ... we are still at the stage of believing that life itself is flat, the distance from birth to death. Yet the probability is that life, too, is spherical and much more extensive and capacious than the hemisphere we know. — Vincent Van Gogh

If you're still believing, then you're almost there! — Anthony Liccione

Do not stand still disputing about your election, but set to repenting and believing. Cry to God for converting grace. Revealed things belong to you; in these busy yourself ... Whatever God's purposes may be, I am sure His promises are true. Whatever the decrees of heaven may be, I am sure if I repent and believe I shall be saved. — Joseph Alleine

You don;t believe me?" He sound wounded, like the thought of me not believing him makes him incredibly sad.
"No."
"Then come with me," he says. He unfolds his long legs and stands up. "To Cooley's. You'll see they just posted the schedule. If I'm lying, I'll buy you a chocolate shake."
"And If you're not?"
"Then I'll still buy you a chocolate shake." He grins at me. — Lauren Barnholdt

The romance that has surrounded the Beat generation since the mid-Sixties has acted as a kind of sentimental glaze, obscuring its fundamentally nihilistic impulse under a heap of bogus rhetoric about liberation, spontaneity, and 'startling oases of creativity', Notwithstanding their recent media media make-over, the Beats were not Promethean iconoclasts. They were drug-abusing sexual predators and infantilized narcissists whose shamelessness helped dupe a confused and gullible public into believing that their utterances were works of genius. We have to thank Lisa Phillips and the Whitney for inadvertently reminding us of this with such vividness. If nothing else, 'Beat Culture and the New America' showed that the Beats were not simply artistic charlatans; the were -- and, in the case of those who are still with us, they remain -- moral simpletons, whose destructive influence helped fuel the cultural catastrophe with which we are now living. — Roger Kimball

If God has given you a mission, you must be tough enough to handle what people say and still not be distracted while doing what you were created to do. Are you tough enough? God and the enemy know the truth about you, and remember even great people doing great things for great causes meet negative criticisms. All criticism is not bad, just like all flattery is not good. Many times people don't criticize you because they are evil; they do it because they have been trained to think anyone who doesn't perceive and see things in the same manner is an enemy. The critic is a prisoner to his own experiences and perspectives, erroneously believing his limited experiences are the sum of all truth. When you acknowledge your critics, you give them your power and validate their words. They are not important until you respond. — Bishop T. D. Jakes

Jefferson's views on religious liberty, however, appealed to many more moderate voters. New Jersey Republicans charged that Jefferson's enemies used religion as a means of assault "because he is not a fanatic, nor willing that the Quaker, the Baptist, the Methodist, or any other denominations of Christians, should pay the pastors of other sects; because he does not think that a Catholic should be banished for believing in transubstantiation, or a Jew, for believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."14 Still, — Jon Meacham

The old man, especially if he is in society in the privacy of his thoughts, though he may protest the opposite, never stops believing that, through some singular exception of the universal rule, he can in some unknown and inexplicable way still make an impression on women. — Giacomo Leopardi

My theory was that if I behaved like a confident, cheerful person, eventually I would buy it myself, and become that. I always had traces of strength somewhere inside me, it wasn't fake, it was just a way of summoning my courage to the fore and not letting any creeping self-doubt hinder my adventures. This method worked then, and it works now. I tell myself that I am the sort of person who can open a one-woman play in the West End, so I do. I am the sort of person who has several companies, so I do. I am the sort of person WHO WRITES A BOOK! So I do. It's the process of having faith in the self you don't quite know you are yet, if you see what I mean. Believing that you will find the strength, the means somehow, and trusting in that, although your legs are like jelly. You can still walk on them and you will find the bones as you walk. Yes, that's it. The further I walk, the stronger I become. So unlike the real lived life, where the further you walk, the more your hips hurt. — Dawn French

I've come to realize there's a world of difference between knowing something happened, even knowing why it happened, and believing it. Because when she cut off contact, yeah, I knew what had happened. But it took me a long, long time to believe it.
Some days, I still don't quite believe it. — Gayle Forman

My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring, still. — Maya Angelou

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in. — Sarah Polley

For a while I shall still be leaving, looking back at you as you slip away into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all are alive, believing that in a single poignant hour we did say all that we could ever say in a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind. — Hermann Hesse

Don't seem right, do it?" said Topper.

"It ain't right," replied Fin. "Not at all."

Jack guzzled his wine and wiped at his beard. "Mayhap it's right and we can't see it..."

Topper scratched his bald head and hummed in thought. "Still don't seem right," he proclaimed when he'd hummed enough.

Jack dropped his flagon to the deck and it rolled away clattering. "Yeah, well, what seems ain't always what is. — A.S. Peterson

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

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

It made no sense that Abraham could head for the mountain in Moriah still believing in God's goodness. It made no sense that even as he walked his son to the sacrificial altar, he still believed God's promise that Isaac would give him many descendants. It made no sense that he was willing to do the one thing in the world he could not do, just because God told him to. God told him to obey and to believe that he as a loving god and could be trusted. So Abraham did obey. — Anne Lamott

The woods were deserted that day.
The stones stood still and silent, as though they were waiting for something. At the center of them all, a jagged piece of amber glowed in the growing darkness. Lights fizzed softly around it, turning pink, orange, purple, blue.
No one saw it. No one ever did. Why would they? No one knoew about its magic, not anymore. They had forgotten all about such magic a long, long time ago. About the same time they stopped believing in faries.
How foolish. — Liz Kessler

Kate Gompert's always thought of this anhedonic state as a kind of radical abstracting of everything, a hollowing out of stuff that used to have affective content. Terms the undepressed toss around and take for granted as full and fleshy - happiness, joie de vivre, preference, love - are stripped to their skeletons and reduced to abstract ideas. They have, as it were, denotation but not connotation. The anhedonic can still speak about happiness and meaning et al., but she has become incapable of feeling anything in them, of understanding anything about them, of hoping anything about them, or of believing them to exist as anything more than concepts. Everything becomes an outline of the thing. Objects become schemata. The world becomes a map of the world. An anhedonic can navigate, but has no location. I.e. the anhedonic becomes, in the lingo of Boston AA, Unable To Identify. — David Foster Wallace

I know it's more five-star now than it was then, but it's still a difficult tour. In the same way as India and Pakistan players find it difficult coming to Australia. People sometimes have difficulty believing that. — Richie Benaud

Breaking News: I am still standing! — Milan Jed

A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude, that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoroud the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition. ( ... ) an object much less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant place in their hearts. — Edward Gibbon

Rupert yanked Rebecca off her seat to the floor! If that weren't bad enough, he dropped down on top of her, not with his full weight,, but enough to make it uncomfortable.
Rebecca had,of course, heard the gunfire that had prompted Rupert's actions. She wasn't deaf. Still, annoyed, she asked, "Do you really think a shot is going to get through the back panel of a coach this sturdily built? And fired from a moving vehicle? Anyone aiming isn't likely to hit us a'tall."
"They're on horseback," was all he said.
"Even worse.Have you ever hit what you aimed at while racing along on a horse?"
"Yes."
She snorted,but believing him at all. — Johanna Lindsey

There are still people who believe in that and wake up every day believing it's possible, and invest their whole selves in that. — Todd Rundgren

Why don't you start believing that no matter what you have or haven't done, that your best days are still out in front of you. — Joel Osteen

You're only famous in the eyes of others. Inside, you're still the same, and not a hundred million records or TV shows can change that. I think the only pitfall of fame is believing that it means something, and behaving like that. — Jamie Cullum

Keep believing in yourself, and don't ever give up, even if people tell you otherwise. Just believe in yourself and take every action you need to get there, whether it's taking more lessons or a fun, cool job in New York or LA and stepping out of the box. Be a little bit risky, but still confident. — Julianne Hough

It's easy to slide into believing you're the hypnotist here, the mirage master, the smart cookie who knows what's real and how all the tricks are done. The fact is you're still just another slack-jawed mark in the audience. No matter how good you are, this world is always going to be better at this game. It's more cunning than you are, it's faster and it's a whole lot more ruthless. All you can do is try to keep up, know your weak spots and never stop expecting the sucker punch. — Tana French

Believing in the second coming itself is anything but arrogant. The whole point of it is to insist, over against not only the wider pagan world, but against all self-delusion or pretension within the church, that Jesus remains sovereign and will return at last to put everything right. This putting right (the biblical word for it is "justice") is the sort of sigh-of-relief event that the whole world, at its best and at many other times too, longs for most deeply. All sorts of things are out of joint, both on a large and a small scale, in the world; and God the creator will put them straight. All sorts of things are still going wrong, corrupting the lives of human beings and the larger life of the environment, the planet itself; God the creator will put them right. All sorts of things are still wrong with us, Jesus's followers; Jesus, when he comes, will put us right as well. That may not be comfortable, but it's what we need. — N. T. Wright

Self-will means believing that you alone have all the answers. Letting go of self-will means becoming willing to hold still, be open, and wait for guidance for yourself. It means learning to let go of fear (all of the "what ifs") and despair (all of the "if onlys") and replacing them with positive thoughts and statements about your life. — Robin Norwood

Good!" the creature echoed. "Doctor Nelson will be along in a minute. Feel like some breakfast?" All four symbols in the query were in Smith's vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard them rightly. He knew that he was food, but he did not "feel like" food. Nor had he had any warning that he might be selected for such an honor. He had not known that the food supply was such that it was necessary to reduce the corporate group. He was filled with mild regret, since there was still so much to grok of these new events, but no reluctance. — Robert A. Heinlein

[T]he practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoured the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition — Carl Sagan

Faith is, believing there is still a star out there to wish on, just for you, tucked away behind dark clouds. — Anthony Liccione

The evidence that you truly repented long ago when you said you did is because you're still repenting now and even to a greater degree. The evidence that you believed a long time ago is that you're still believing now and ever more believing in greater and greater degrees. — Paul Washer

There's a gap between people knowing what I do and really believing that I still do that - and wondering what it is I really do. — Bill Cosby

If she'd said she loved me and still did all those cruel and careless things, would my child mind have decided to accept that as the definition of love?
Probably.
Would I have ended up believing that love was manipulative and hurtful and full of pain, gotten use to being shoved aside, sworn at and disregarded, picked up and hugged, and then slapped around for getting in the way, starved and smiled at, neglected and cursed, told I was no good and would never amount to anything, then hefted high and proudly shown off down at the Walmart, introduced as a little pisser and a big mistake in the same breath?
Yes, I would have, because if she said she loved me and then acted that way I would have thought that was how you loved someone, and how someone should love you back. — Laura Wiess

Sometimes love is taken away unjustly, but not until the very end do you stop believing and then it is very bitter. It is bitter because somewhere within you the perfect standard still lives, the pure expectation against which failure and betrayal are contrasted like the dark shadows on a moonlit road. — Mark Helprin

Some primary reasons that both Plato and Aristotle had for believing in God were utterly erroneous - simple errors caused by our being stuck to the planet and misled by the sensation that the planet is standing still. If they had been aware that the Earth spins, they would have understood that, by and large, we are making our own light show in the night sky. As it was, the precision of the movements of all the stars seemed astonishing. If we knew how we lined up among the planets, their motion would not seem so strange and willful. Also, had the philosophers been able to leave planet Earth for a jaunt in outer space, they could have seen that, at a distance from gravity and atmosphere, moving things tend to keep moving, without any need for an impelling force. From out there, the motion of the planets would seem natural as well. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

I couldn't help but wonder if that was what love was
believing that someone was going to come through, in the end, and that it would still count — Laura Dave

It is indeed surprising that a man inspite of his belief in the Fire of Jahannum is still able to laugh, and inspite of his belief in Maut he is able to be happy. Inspite of believing in the Reckoning, he commits evil deeds. Inspite of believing in Taqdeer, he grieves. Inspite of observing the world with its changes, he feels contented with it. Inspite of believing in Jannat, he refrains from righteous deeds. — Moses

Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints. Revelation 13:10 How does a believer get her thoughts to bow to the truth? By believing, speaking, and applying truth as a lifestyle. This step is something we live, not just something we do. We can't just shout, "Sit!" and expect the dog to stay there for a week. We've worked a long time to get that dog to sit, but it's still not going to sit forever. We don't achieve victory once and never have to bother with that thought problem again. Our thought life is something we'll be working on the rest of our lives in our desire to be godly. — Beth Moore

All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. 14 Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. 15 If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. 16 But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. — Anonymous

Actually, I think I'm part of the last generation to grow up believing in magic and fairies and believing I had powers - you know, lying on the ground and trying to have my spirit leave my body - which never happened; still working on that bit. — Alice Englert

Billy didn't need someone to pour him his drinks, he needed someone to tell him that living isn't poetry. It isn't prayer. To tell him and convince him. And none of us could do it because every one of us thought that as long as Billy believed it was, as long as he kept himself believing it, then maybe it could still be true. — Alice McDermott