The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay, often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.
The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed; each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.
The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished; they did not engender those beliefs, and they are powerless to destroy them.[Les faits ne pénètrent pas dans le monde où vivent nos croyances, ils n’ont pas fait naître celles-ci, ils ne les détruisent pas.]
The best brothel-scenes in literature have been written, without exception, by pious believers or pious unbelievers.
The ancient belief that dreams foretell the future is not wholly devoid of truth. By picturing our wishes as fulfilled, dreams are after all leading us into the future. But this future, which the dreamer pictures as the present, has been moulded by his indestructible wish into a perfect likeness of the past.
That’s the curious part about speaking the truth. No one does believe it.
One must accept truth. It’s no good basing your life on a lie because it’s what you want to believe.
One man doesn’t believe in God at all, while the other believes in Him so thoroughly that he prays as he murders men![Oдин совсем в бога не верует, а другой уж до того верует, что и людей режет по молитве…]
One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.
NEVER CONFUSE FAITH, OR BELIEF—OF ANY KIND—WITH SOMETHING EVEN REMOTELY INTELLECTUAL.
Many a prophecy, by the mere force of its being believed, is transmuted to fact.
