best quotations about
Beliefs |
and Convictions
50 quotes | Visits: 3,093 |
Quotations
Modern man does not love, but seeks refuge in love; does not hope, but seeks refuge in hope; does not believe, but seeks refuge in a dogma. — Nicolas Gomez Davila, 1913-1994, Colombian writer 9 likes | |
Never confuse your right to say what you believe with a right to never be disagreed with and ridiculed for saying what you believe. — Ricky Gervais, 1961-, British comedian & screenwriter 8 likes | |
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 8 likes | |
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies. — Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher 8 likes | |
In the end, leaders are defined by the convictions they hold. — George W. Bush, 1946-, American President 8 likes | |
If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself. — Saint Augustine, 354-430, Christian theologian & philosopher 8 likes | |
Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, 1906-1966, Polish author of maxims 7 likes | |
A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind. — Robert Oxton Bolt, 1924-1955, British playwright 6 likes | |
Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. — Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, English philosopher 6 likes | |
The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth. — Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965, British writer 6 likes | |
He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 5 likes | |
When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. — Umberto Eco, 1932-2016, Italian writer 5 likes | |
Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers. — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 5 likes | |
Principles are only good when they generate acts. — Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890, Dutch painter 4 likes | |
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts. — H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956, American columnist & cultural critic 4 likes | |
Beliefs do not change facts. Facts, if one is rational, should change beliefs. — Ricky Gervais, 1961-, British comedian & screenwriter 4 likes | |
We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly. — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 4 likes | |
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. — Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592, French thinker 4 likes | |
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. — Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970, British philosopher 4 likes | |
Memory believes before knowing remembers. — William Faulkner, 1897-1962, American writer, Nobel 1949 4 likes | |
The isms go, the ist dies, art remains. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 3 likes | |
Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes. — Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister 3 likes | |
He that will only believe what he can fully comprehend must either have a very long head, or a very short creed. — Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832, English cleric & writer 3 likes | |
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact. — William James, 1842-1910, American philosopher 3 likes | |
I've caught belief like a disease. I've fallen into belief like I fell in love. — Graham Greene, 1904-1991, British writer 3 likes | |
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. — Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, French thinker 2 likes | |
At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. — George Orwell, 1903-1950, British writer 2 likes | |
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799, German author of maxims 2 likes | |
Doctrinaires are the vultures of principle. They feed upon principle after it is dead. — David Lloyd George, 1863-1945, British Prime Minister [1916-1922] 2 likes | |
There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child. — Frank A. Clark, 1911-1991, American cartoonist 2 likes | |
The more crap you believe, the better off you are. | |
People who believe in politics are like people who believe in God: they are sucking wind through bent straws. | |
At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded. | |
Faith: a firm belief for which there is no evidence. | |
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. | |
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. | |
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. | |
Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe. | |
Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn't believing. It's where belief stops, because it isn't needed any more. | |
I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t believed it. — Marshall McLuhan, 1911-1980, Canadian academic & media theorist | |
There is no merit in being convinced of something. There is no demerit in not being convinced of anything. | |
I am not skeptical. I don't believe in anything, but I firmly believe in it … | |
Man makes holy what he believes as he makes beautiful what he loves. | |
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever. | |
The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it. — H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956, American columnist & cultural critic | |
At twenty every one is a democrat. | |
At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide. | |
Most people do not believe in anything very much and our greatest poetry is given to us by those who do. | |
When you aren’t sincere you need to pretend, and by pretending you end up believing yourself. That’s the basic principle of every faith. |