Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking. R Buckminster Fuller
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. Noam Chomsky
You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. C S Lewis
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it. Neil deGrasse Tyson
What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done. Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
What have I always believed?
That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right. Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
Everybody’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer. W C Fields
I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am. Arthur Rimbaud
We believe in bravery. We believe in taking action. We believe in freedom from fear and in acquiring the skills to force the bad out of our world so that the good can prosper and thrive. If you also believe in those things, we welcome you. Veronica Roth
Belief gets in the way of learning. Robert A Heinlein
I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief. Gerry Spence, How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday
Man is what he believes. Anton Chekhov
It ain’t supposed to make sense; it’s faith. Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe. Archie Bunker, All in the Family
The biggest placebo of them all – God. Derren Brown: Fear and Faith, Channel 4 2012
We’re all born with an inbuilt hard-wired tendency to believe. ibid.
Even atheists often betray a tendency to give purpose and meaning to events in their life that really they shouldn’t. ibid.
We create the idea of an agency – that God takes an interest in us, and is pulling strings in our lives. ibid.
We all find ways of making ourselves happy. ibid.
The road to hell isn’t paved with gold, it’s paved with faith. Faith in a dollar that’s backed by a belief that people have faith in other people’s belief in it. Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale
Only Reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open. Clive Bell, 1881-1964, English art critic
People think of faith as being something that you don’t really believe, a device in helping you believe simply it. Of course that is quite wrong. As Pascal says, faith is a gift of God. It is different from the proof of it. It is the kind of faith God himself places in the heart, of which the proof is often the instrument ...
He says of it, too, that it is the heart which is aware of God, and not reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not be reason. (Reason & God & Faith & Belief) Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom
It’s so hard to believe in anything any more. I mean, it’s like, religion, you really can’t take it seriously, because it seems so mythological, it seems so arbitrary ... but, on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. I guess I wouldn’t believe in anything any more if it weren’t for my lucky astrology mood watch. Steve Martin
I believe that the universe was formed around 15 billion years ago and that humans have evolved from their apelike ancestors over the past few million years. I believe we are more likely to live a good life if all humans try to work together in a world community, preserving planet earth. When decisions for groups are made in this world, I believe that the democratic process should be used. To protect the individual, I believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom from religion, freedom of inquiry, and a wall of separation between church and state. When making decisions about what is right or wrong, I believe I should use my intelligence to reason about the likely consequences of my actions. I believe that I should try to increase the happiness of everyone by caring for other people and finding ways to cooperate. Never should my actions discriminate against people simply because of their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, or national origin. I believe that ideas about what is right and wrong will change with education, so I am prepared to continually question ideas using evidence from experience and science. I believe there is no valid evidence to support claims for the existence of supernatural entities and deities. I will use these beliefs to guide my thinking and my actions until I find good reasons for revising them or replacing them with other beliefs that are more valid. Ronald P Carver
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays
There are always going to be people who believe some outlandish theories, and the notion that we somehow were able to fake the lunar missions is pretty outlandish. Brian Welch, NASA spokesman
And 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
The majority of people believe in incredible things which are absolutely false. The majority of people daily act in a manner prejudicial to their general well-being. Ashley Montagu
What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told – and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs’. The reason is that beliefs guide behaviour which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behaviour may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question. Michael Crichton, The Lost World
Man, my lord, is a being born to believe. Benjamin Disraeli, speech Oxford 25th November 1864
Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune’s greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity. Baruch Spinoza
Approximately 54 million Americans over the age of 18 do not believe in evolution. Friends of God, HBO 2007
If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason for supposing that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. J B S Haldane, Possible Worlds, 1927
It would appear that the left logical hemisphere can be persuaded or manipulated into believing a certain belief or behaviour was logically correct. Once this is established in the mind of the individual, then it appears possible to carry out any form of atrocity under the cloak of it being justifiable. David Pederson, Cameral Analysis
Belief is the death of intelligence. Robert Anton Wilson
It’s important to abolish the unconscious dogmatism that makes people think their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world. My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything. If one can only see things according to one’s own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind. Robert Anton Wilson
Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous. Frank Herbert