Best 4234 quotes in «belief quotes» category

In some cases, I am able to respect what so many call bigots. Such people have a more solid foundation for drawing their lines when it comes to the security of their ways and quite possibly the security of mankind. They rely on something that has worked to get man this far without placing ideals blindly driven by emotion first; they have a sure line and they say, 'No.' That, in a sense, is something I find to be highly respectable.

In some ways I admire Aunt Helen's unwavering certainty in God's divine plan. It must be comforting, to have faith like that. To believe so concretely that there's someone—something—out there watching guard, keeping us safe, testing us only with what we can handle. I've never believed in anything the way Aunt Helen believes in God.

In spite of being complicated people choose superstitions over common sense.

Instead of speaking of beliefs, one must actually speak of truths, and that these truths were themselves products of the imagination. We are not creating a false idea of things. It is the truth of things that through the centuries has been so oddly constituted. Far from being the most simple realistic experience, truth is the most historical. There was a time when poets and historians invented royal dynasties all of a piece, complete with the name of each potentate and his genealogy. They were not forgers, nor were they acting in bad faith. They were simply following what was, at the time, the normal way of arriving at the truth. [...] I do not at all mean to say that the imagination will bring future truths to light and that it should reign; I mean, rather, that truths are already products of the imagination and that the imagination has always governed. It is imagination that rules, not reality, reason, or the ongoing work of the negative.

Interesting Avil, the priests and the acolytes of the various religions and temples of Torea build their whole lives on a lie. At first, as children they believe it. Maybe as they grow older and more wise they see the absurdness of their beliefs, but by that time they have invested time and emotional energy into those beliefs, then seeing them crumble and fall apart would be too hard for them to bear. So the protect the lie, they shore it up with more lies and they ebb out their short lives, knowing what they preach is untrue, but preaching it all the same... Almost as if preaching it hard enough will make it true... Are they trying to convince their congregation? Or themselves? You are wiser than you look Avil.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John1:1 Words carry great power, it is quite important to know not so much what the dictionary says that they mean, but what the ancients say that they mean. Judaism believes that the entirety was created by rearranging the 22 letters of its alphabet into words, and whatever was spelled by God was created. "And God SAID let there be light and there was" God said/spelled a word first before any creation. In the beginning, was the word. Jesus, while on the cross, could have easily said, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they say

In the beginning there was faith-which is childish; trust-which is vain; and illusion-which is dangerous. We believed in God; trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image. THAT was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals.

In the darkest time, I have always believed, the light will shine.

In the darkest of places, even the slightest glimmer of Light shines as the Sun.

In the end, it wasn't so much that there was an alternative narrative--there always was--but it came down to belief: Which one did you want to believe. Which one suited you best? Or, perhaps more to the point: Which one told the story you were already telling yourself?

In the end all the puzzles of your life will be solved ,until then... laugh at the scepticism, live for the moment and remember everything happens for a reason.

In the end it will be your “Actions” “Convictions” & “Thoughts” which will determine how you shaped your life.

In the end, people believed what they wanted to believe. The truth had very little to do with it.

In the end, you will realize most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

In the forty minutes I watched the muskrat, he never saw me, smelled me, or heard me at all. When he was in full view of course I never moved except to breathe. My eyes would move, too, following his, but he never noticed. Only once, when he was feeding from the opposite bank about eight feet away did he suddenly rise upright, all alert- and then he immediately resumed foraging. But he never knew I was there. I never knew I was there, either. For that forty minutes last night I was as purely sensitive and mute as a photographic plate; I received impressions, but I did not print out captions. My own self-awareness had disappeared; it seems now almost as though, had I been wired to electrodes, my EEG would have been flat. I have done this sort of thing so often that I have lost self-consciousness about moving slowly and halting suddenly. And I have often noticed that even a few minutes of this self-forgetfulness is tremendously invigorating. I wonder if we do not waste most of our energy just by spending every waking minute saying hello to ourselves. Martin Buber quotes an old Hasid master who said, “When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.

In the greatest trial, we behold the greatness of our great God.

In the light of love, I find the glory of God’s grace.

In the past, people around the world heard the buzzing of bees as voices of the departed, a murmured conveyance from the spirit world. This belief traces back to the cultures of Egypt and Greece, among others, where tradition held that a person's soul appeared in bee form when it left the body, briefly visible (and audible) in its journey to the hereafter...Nobody knows the exact sequence of events that led to the beginning of bees, but everyone can agree on at least one thing: we know what it sounded like.

In these circumstances they did what most of us do, and, being ignorant of the truth, persuaded themselves into believing what they wished to believe.

In the spiritual realms, we can only see the things of the spirit.

In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big – ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of belief squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith.

In the wilderness, our faith is tested, and God faithfulness is manifested.

In the wilderness, we experience the faithfulness of God.

In the wilderness, God performs His mighty miracles.

In times of trouble, wait for the Lord to defend you.

I remember us saying that we liked small houses, that proximity engendered closeness in a family. That nobody should be raised by a nanny or in day care. I remember us saying that time, not money, was the greatest resource. That everything would be all right. That the universe would provide. That belief was a force more powerful than gravity itself.

In wartime people took action because of what they believed in. In peacetime people were driven by their private concerns.

I once found a phoenix charred in its own ashes. I brought it home with me, wept through the night, and then tossed it to the wind--its brittle body dispersing all about. This thing without a name and deep within me--how it truly believes that if something is meant to take flight, then it must one way or another.

I once struggled in Hell, and was then admitted into Heaven. It all happened in one moment while not moving from my chair. In that moment I simply changed my heart, deciding that I had a Perfect and Loving Creator who was giving and taking as needed to help me, his child, grow and mature. At that moment ALL that had ever occurred in my life (Joyous or difficult) was transformed into Heavenly Blessings and I ceased being a tortured victim in Hell.

I prefer a world with many beliefs and religions. It stimulates my faith to keep growing day by day.

I raised my hand and asked if God was a spirit. And he said yes, He was. So I asked if it was right that a spirit was different from a person because it didn't have a body, wasn't material. And when he agreed, I asked how, if God was a spirit, He could be a man, if He didn't have a body or anything.

I respect the values of all people, whatever those are, but in my personal life; I am very strict on my principles with the worth of my culture and belief.

I respect you as a person too much to respect your ridiculous beliefs.

(I should mention I attended a Christian elementary school where “my dad’s hermeneutic can beat up your dad’s hermeneutic” served as legit schoolyard banter.)

I sigh. “But if you’d talked to Jules—if she could hear you . . .” My voice trails off. “Then you wouldn’t feel quite so crazy?” Oliver asks gently. “Can’t you believe in me, if I believe in you?

I shall not be afraid of a calamity. God is my defender.

I shall not repent of my faith.

I speak of the power of trying, because I have fallen and struggled to stand. I speak of generosity because I battle selfishness. I speak of joy because I have known sorrow. I speak of faith because I almost lost mine, and know what it is to be broken, in need of redemption. I speak of Thanks because I am grateful for the totality of this Life... not just the easy parts.

I spent most of my life believing l was crazy because all the crazy things I experienced in childhood were treated as nonexistent or normal. This belief colored every decision made, from something so basic as what to wear today, to the more esoteric boundaries of whether I should kill myself. I understood very well that killing myself under the wrong circumstances would establish my insanity forever. So I analyzed every word, every gesture, before committing myself. (Which probably accounts for why I am alive today.)

I strongly believe that success is directly proprotional to one's ability to be simple and comfortable. In fact, simplicity and comfort have a multiplication effect, thus increasing the chances of expedited and sustained success.

It almost doesn’t matter what is real or unreal. It really matters what we choose to believe.

Ist das Göttliche vielleicht gar nicht irgendeine abstrakte unbegreifliche "Kraft" namens Gott, sondern unsere einmalige menschliche Fähigkeit, diese Kraft wahrzunehmen?

Is there love without an action? No! Love is an active word.

I still have joy in the midst of struggles.

I suppose I could have helped them see how their life histories deepened their distress or given them some more grownup ways of conceiving of God, but few were interested in that. We were engaged in a more ancient drama, wrestling far more primitive fears.

It appears now to be universally admitted that, before the exile, the Israelites had no belief in rewards and punishments after death, nor in anything similar to the Christian heaven and hell; but our story proves that it would be an error to suppose that they did not believe in the continuance of individual existence after death by a ghostly simulacrum of life. Nay, I think it would be very hard to produce conclusive evidence that they disbelieved in immortality; for I am not aware that there is anything to show that they thought the existence of the souls of the dead in Sheol ever came to an end. But they do not seem to have conceived that the condition of the souls in Sheol was in any way affected by their conduct in life. If there was immortality, there was no state of retribution in their theology. Samuel expects Saul and his sons to come to him in Sheol.

I tasted injustice and the special horror of seeing its perpetrators flourish. How frequent and how bitter is this aspect of human wretchedness. The wicked prosper in front of our eyes and go on and on and on prospering. What a blessing it must have been once to be able to believe in hell. A great and deep human consolation was lost to us when that ancient and respectable belief faded from our minds.

It cost nothing to think bigger than you are, BUT cost a fortune to think less of yourself.

It could be that God has absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem.

It doesn't make sense to take on the second-hand beliefs that others proffer.