A visitor to my country cottage, noticing a horseshoe hanging on the wall, teased me – the scientist – about this ancient superstition. Can it be that you, of all people, believe it will bring you luck? Of course not, I replied, but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not. – Niels Bohr
Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. – Roald Dahl
An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe in it. – Don Marquis
And curious creatures that we are, in every sense of the word. Not only are we the sole animal in all of nature capable of believing in Santa Claus, we are also the only one that can come to grips with the unpleasant truth that he doesn’t exist. – Jon Franklin
Another alternative would have been to give you what’s called a popular-scientific lecture, that is a lecture intended to make you believe that you understand a thing which actually you don’t understand, and to gratify what I believe to be on of the lowest desires of modern people, namely the superficial curiosity about the latest discoveries of science. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Atheist: Any or every man who does not believe in the god of the priest. – Voltaire
Beliefs are the determinants of what one experiences. There are no external causes. – David Hawkins
Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. – Tony Robbins
Believe Big. The size of your success is determined by the size of your belief. Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success. Remember this, too! Big ideas and big plans are often easier and certainly no more difficult than small ideas and small plans. – David Schwartz
Believe in the future by creating it first. – Hugh Macleod
Believe it, you’ll see it. Know it, you’ll be it! – Wayne Dyer
Believe nothing unless it agrees with your own reason. – Buddha
Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself, and never mind the rest. – Beatrix Potter
Between dreaming and making a dream come true is belief. – Beat Schindler
Dear Miss Block: The question “Why” in the human sphere is easy to answer: To create satisfaction for ourselves and for other people. In the extra-human sphere the question has no meaning. Also the belief in God is no way out for in this case you may ask “Why God”. Sincerely yours. – Albert Einstein (on April 28, 1961, in a letter to Miss Marion Block, May Cottage, Oberlin, Ohio)
Do not accept any explanation of the world either through chance or determinism. You are not responsible for your belief. It is not even you who decides that you are not responsible – and so on to infinity. You are not obliged to believe. There is no point of departure. – René Magritte
Do not believe the truth. The truth is tiny compared to what you have to do. – Leonard Cohen
Does a child believe that milk exists? Or does it know that milk exists? Does a cat know that a mouse exists? – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. – Albert Einstein
For they can conquer who believe they can. – John Dryden
How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? – Woody Allen
No-one believed in microscopic life before the microscope. – Unknown
Human beings, thanks to culture and genetics, are inclined to be pessimistic, fearful, skeptical and believers in conspiracy theories. We also don’t like change. – Seth Godin
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody. It saves so much trouble. – Rudyard Kipling
I am a firm believer in negative thinking when used correctly. We need to be AWARE of negatives so that we can steer clear of them. A golfer needs to know where the bunkers and sand traps are, but he doesn’t think continuously about the bunker, where he doesn’t want to go. His mind glances at the bunker, but he dwells upon the green. – Maxwell Maltz
I am not only a pacifist, but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace … Is it not better for a man to die for a cause in which he believes, such as peace, than to suffer for a cause in which he does not believe, such as war? – Albert Einstein
I believe in God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings. – Albert Einstein
I believe that there are more urgent and honorable occupations than that incomparable waste of time we call suffering. – Colette
I believe the most important mission of the state is to protect the individual and make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality. – Albert Einstein
I can only believe that someone else is in pain, but I know it if I am. Yes: one can make the decision to say I believe he is in pain instead of he is in pain. But that is all. What looks like an explanation here, or like a statement about a mental process, is in truth an exchange of one expression for another which, while we are doing philosophy, seems the more appropriate one. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. – Byron Katie
I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book. – J.K. Rowling
I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. – Ronald Reagan
I do not believe in pity. What torments me tonight is the gardener’s point of view. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. – Thomas Paine
I do not believe that rich people are better or worse than poor people. They are just richer. – T Harv Eker
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. – Galileo Galilei
I don’t believe consciousness is generated in the brain any more than television programs are made inside my TV. The box is too small. – Terence McKenna
I don’t believe I have ever invented a line of thinking, I have always taken one over from someone else. I have simply straightaway seized on it with enthusiasm for my work of clarification. That is how Boltzmann, Hertz, Schopenhauer, Frege, Russell, Kraus, Loos, Weininger, Spengler, and Sraffa have influenced me. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
I don’t believe in the verb, to be. I do not believe that I am. – Duchamp
I firmly believe that love of a subject or hobby is a better teacher than a sense of duty, at least for me. – Albert Einstein
I have made a great discovery. I no longer believe in anything. It is not the object that matters to me but what is between them: it is this in-between that is the real subject of my pictures. – George Braque
I realized a long time ago that a belief which does not spring from a conviction in the emotions is no belief at all. When I am convinced of something, I am convinced with my whole self, as though my flesh had informed me. Knowledge is the condition of my being. – Evelyn Scott
I think people talk too much, that’s the truth of the matter. I do. I don’t believe in words. People use too many words and usually wrongly. I am sure that in the distant future people will talk much less and in a more essential way. – Michelangelo Antonioni
If a business fails, it’s always the owner’s beliefs or skills. – Tony Robbins
If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed. – Voltaire
If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning. – Mahatma Gandhi
If someone does not believe in fairies, he does not need to teach his children that there are no fairies. He can omit to teach them fairy. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
If there were a verb meaning to believe falsely, it would not have any significant first person, present indicative. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn’t be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
If you don’t believe in magic, you will never find it. – Roald Dahl
If you don’t believe in miracles perhaps you have forgotten you are one. – Amy Rees Anderson
If you don’t believe in miracles, you’re not a realist. – Anonymous
If your beliefs don’t get you to abundance, you’ve missed something. – Beat Schindler
It all began with my eye-trapper when I was a little boy. I used to close my eyes and turn around three times. I believed that way I could trap the air, the scents, the life that surrounded me. The trap didn’t work very well, but I never got over the idea of it. – Jacques Henri Lartigue
It is surely harmful to the souls to make a heresy of believing what is felt. – Galileo
It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here. – James Baldwin
It’s better to look back and say I can’t believe I did that, than to look back and say I wish I had. – Unknown
James Dickey had always been interested in the creative possibilities of the lie. He believe that the poet is not trying to tell the truth, but to make it. The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being. It is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. – Graham Greene
Man is what he believes. – Anton Chekhov
My final belief is suffering. And I begin to believe that I do not suffer. – Antonio Porchia
My good friend Jacques Monod spoke often of the randomness of the cosmos. He believed everything in existence occurred by pure chance with the possible exception of his breakfast, which he felt certain was made by his housekeeper. – Woody Allen
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. – Johann Wolfgang Goethe
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is to believe that ones works is terribly important. Bertrand Russell
Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success. – Pablo Picasso
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw
People don’t do what they believe in. They just do what’s most convenient and then repent. – Bob Dylan
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it. – Anne Lamott
Religion is belief in someone else’s experience. Spirituality is having your own experience. – Deepak Chopra
Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15. – Ronald Reagan
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the right time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some are like the fool who believes things come into existence when he opens his eyes and cease to exist when he closes them. – Unknown
Successful people are able to rise above crises by relaxing no matter what the external situation. Their belief in themselves, the strength of their self-image is impenetrable armor, which protects them against shattering events. – Maxwell Maltz
Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
Suppose it were forbidden to say I know and only allowed to say I believe I know. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
The best camouflage is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it. – Max Frisch
The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
The man I want to become, if I believe myself to be, I will become. – Gandhi
The market for something to believe in is infinite. – Hugh Macleod
The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come. – Sir Peter Ustinov
The problem lies precisely in not accepting any explanation of the world either through chance or determinism. I am not responsible for my belief. It is not even I who decided that I am not responsible – and so on to infinity. I am not obliged to believe. There is no point of departure. – René Magritte
The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn’t absurd to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity. The idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known. There is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
The ultimate fraud is the scientific atheist who believes in probability. – Bart Kosko
There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe. – Friedrich Nietzsche
There is but one way to experience freedom. It’s not through knowledge. It can only be found through practice, practice, practice of free will. Staying open to the possibilities of choices you made ever since you ceased to be a baby. Co-author together with the divine at your side every step, creating your own life and through it, the life of others. I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. – Byron Katie
There might actually occur a case where we should say, This man believes he is pretending. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else’s. – Joseph Campbell
Thought attracts that upon which it is directed. There is genuine magic in believing. – Claude Bristol
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson
Ts’ui Pen did not think of time as absolute and uniform. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a dizzily growing ever spreading network of diverging, converging and parallel times. This web of time — the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect, or ignore each other through centuries —embraces every possibility. We do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do and you do not, and in yet others both of us exist. In this one, in which chance has favored me, you have come to my gate. In another you, crossing the garden, have found me dead. In yet another, I say these very same words, but am an error, a phantom. – Jorge Luis Borges
Very few people believed in microscopic life, before the invention of the microscope. – Wayne Dyer
Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. – Roald Dahl
We believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if we could. – William James
We do not believe what we see, we see what we believe. – Brian Tracy
What a pity that so many people rather believe their doubts and doubt their beliefs. – Jannie Putter
What is this? the Unicorn asked. This is a child! Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice to introduce her. I always thought they were fabulous monsters! said the Unicorn. Is it alive? It can talk, said Haigha solemnly. The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said: Talk, child. Alice said: Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters too. I never saw one alive before. Well, now that we have seen each other, said the Unicorn, if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain? – Lewis Carroll
What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
What we believe is going to come from a situation determines what we go after and what we hold back from. – Tony Robbins
What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are. – Tony Robbins
When I am furious about something, I sometimes beat the ground or a tree with my walking stick. But I certainly do not believe that the ground is to blame or that my beating can help anything. And all rites are of this kind. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I’m beginning to believe it. – Irving Stone
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. – Maya Angelou
When you see a difference between the guidebook and the bird, believe the bird. – Tara Brach
When you don’t understand what your values and beliefs are, you stand under somebody else’s. – Beat Schindler
Where belief in the omnipotence of physical force gets the upper hand in political life, this force takes on a life of its own and proves stronger than the men who think about using force as a tool. – Albert Einstein
With your thoughts you fashion your environment. Your beliefs, ideals and philosophy is the only climate you will ever live in. – Steven Covey
Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as soon as you can change your beliefs. – Maxwell Maltz
Would you rather have your mind closed by belief, or opened by wonder? – Anonymous
You are not responsible for the beliefs you were given in childhood. But when you’ve grown up you are totally responsible for fixing it, that’s why it’s called grownup. – Beat Schindler
You don’t always know, but you can always believe. – Beat Schindler
You have to learn to ignore your fear. Without the will to believe in yourself, nothing good can happen.- Hilma af Klint
You know how when you visualize something every day, to such a degree that you can literately taste its reality? And you believe in the likelihood of its manifestation with all your heart and soul? And as often as you think of it, in at least some small way, you prepare for its arrival? Yet still absolutely nothing happens? Right! That’s impossible. – Mike Dooley
You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think. – Marianne Williamson
Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does. – Unknown
Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And it will punish you for believing both. – Patrick Ness
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. – Steve Jobs
