This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way." - Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens
"Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations." - Elton Trueblood, fully David Elton Trueblood
"Supposing a man-hater had desired to render the human race as unhappy as possible, what could he have invented for the purpose better than belief in an incomprehensible being about whom men could never be able to agree?" - Denis Diderot
"Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as of our practice." - Edward Gibbon
"A strict belief, fate is the worst kind of slavery; on the other hand there is comfort in the thought that God will be moved by our prayers." - Epicurus NULL
"The commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will: for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself. For there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning." - Francis Bacon
"Imagination I understand to be the representation of an individual thought. Imagination is of three kinds: joined with belief of that which is to come; joined with memory of that which is past; and of things present." - Francis Bacon
"Weakness of conduct is but the consequence of weakness of conviction; for the strongest of all the springs of human action is human belief." - François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot
"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen." - Frank Lloyd Wright, born Frank Lincoln Wright
"It is impossible for one person to know another so well that he can dispense with belief." - Friedrich Dürrenmatt
"Religion [cannot] maintain itself apart from thought, but either advances to the comprehension of the idea, or, compelled by thought itself, becomes intensive belief - or lastly, from despair of finding itself at home in thought, flees back from it in pious horror, and becomes superstition." - Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"It is not belief that is dangerous in our society: it is belief." - George Bernard Shaw
"The whole record of civilization is a record of the failure of money as a higher incentive. The enormous majority of men never make any serious effort to get rich. The few who are sordid enough to do so easily become millionaires with a little luck, and astonish the others by the contrast between their riches and their stupidity... The belief in money as an incentive is founded on the observation that people will do for money what they will not do for anything else." - George Bernard Shaw
"There is no belief, however grotesque and even villainous, that cannot be made a part of human nature if it is inculcated in childhood and not contradicted in the child’s hearing." - George Bernard Shaw
"Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible." - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular." - George Santayana
"No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which any one can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance." - Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
"Beyond doubt, the worshipper of God shows ignorance when he criticizes others on account of their beliefs. If he understood the saying of Junayd, “The color of the water is the color of the vessel containing it,” he would not interfere with the beliefs of others, but would perceive God in every form and in every belief." - Ibn `Arabi, full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī
"Opinion is a consciously insufficient judgment, subjectively as well as objectively. Belief is subjectively sufficient, but is recognized as being objectively insufficient. Knowledge is both subjectively and objectively sufficient. Subjective sufficiency is termed conviction (for myself); objective sufficiency is termed certainty (for all)." - Immanuel Kant
"No one, it is true, will be able to boast that he knows that he knows there is a God and a future life; for, it he knows this, he is just the man whom I have long wished to find... My conviction is not logical, but moral certainty; and since it rests on subjective grounds (of the moral sentiment), I must not even say: It is morally certain that there is a God, etc., but: I am morally certain, that is, my belief in God and in another world is so interwoven with my moral nature that I am under as little apprehension of having the former torn from me as of losing the latter." - Immanuel Kant
"Fewer beliefs, more belief." - James A. Pike, fully Bishop James Albert Pike
"I confused things with their names: that is belief." - Jean-Paul Sartre
"Four things are required to develop generosity of spirit: (1) The intention to serve God in all our affairs. (2) The belief that if that intention is honored, the Universe will provide all that is required materially and spiritually for our success. (3) The understanding that we receive as we give, and that our own creativity is enhanced through mentoring others. (4) Practical groundedness. God can’t deliver the lottery jackpot unless we buy a ticket!" - Joan Borysenko
"A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things, only on the authority of other without other reason, then, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes heresy." - John Milton
"Superstition is but the fear of belief, religion is the confidence and trust. The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home." - John Milton
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests." - John Stuart Mill
"Belief in the impossible does not bring happiness." - Joseph Albo
"If our belief is passionate enough, the river comes to us and in whatever form the passionate belief makes possible. Belief is causative and passion is formative. Passionate belief is the chaotic attractor that lifts chaos into its particular order." - Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
"Those for whom the belief in immortality is most vivid are the most likely to practice the virtues which have a survival value and the least likely to deviate into either those virtues or those vices which are exclusively human." - Joseph Wood Krutch
"The worst cynicism: a belief in luck." - Joyce Carol Oates
"We are called upon to love in faith – to nurse our firm belief in the stars of sweet reasonableness that continue to shine behind the darkness of events which seem to us our and grim beyond our understanding." - Karl Rahner
"I am speaking of religion as belief colored with emotion, an elemental sense of piety or reverence for life summing up man's certainty as to what is right and noble." - Lin Yutang
"Grief is not natural but a matter of belief or opinion." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL
"A religion which has lost its basic conviction about the interconnection of men with men in their common struggles for the human, will never command belief in the realm of the superhuman." - Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner
"A deeper satisfaction lies in honoring universal ethical values, that is, values that people everywhere believe should inform behavior. That unity between principled belief and honorable behavior is the foundation for real happiness." - Michael S. Josephson
"Drugs are not always necessary, but belief in recovery always is." - Norman Cousins
"Believe that you are receiving answers to your prayers. Belief tends to create that which is held in the mind by faith." - Norman Vincent Peale
"Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and, if believed, it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it, or some failure of energy stifles the movements at its birth." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Let your talk be such as is worthy of belief, and your words such as are commonly used." - Ovid, formally Publius Ovidius Naso NULL
"The belief in immortality depends finally upon the belief in God. If there exists a good and wise God, then there also exists a progress of mankind toward perfection; and if there be no progress of men towards perfection, then there cannot be a good and wise God. We cannot suppose that God’s moral government, the beginnings of which we see in the world and in ourselves, will cease when we leave this life." - Plato NULL
"Faith is belief, and belief has, over and above its intellectual character, an aspect of irmness, persistence, and subjective certainty." - Ralph Barton Perry
"True religion is a matter for belief and not for controversies. It is a matter of experience and not of historical or philosophical demonstrations." - Remy de Gourmont
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
"It was the deep belief of the founders of the republic could succeed only with virtuous citizens. Only if there was a moral law within would citizens be able to maintain a free government." - Robert Bellah, fully Robert Neelly Bellah