This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Nobody can tell you who you are. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle." - Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tolle
"Many people think it impossible for guerillas to exist for long in the enemy’s rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water and the latter to the fish who inhabits it." - Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao
"Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." - United Nations NULL
"All instruction, all criticism, every reduction in choice, every manifestation of hierarchy, every act of secrecy subtly lowers people’s self-belief. Coaching, trust, openness, respect, authentic praise, freedom of choice and, of course, success raise it." - John Whitmore, fully Sir John Whitmore
"Science is neither a philosophy nor a belief system. It is a combination of mental operations that has become increasingly the habit of educated peoples, a culture of illuminations hit upon by a fortunate turn of history that yielded the most effective way of learning about the real world ever conceived." -
"Prayer is not a monologue. It speaks to God and to the community. In the last analysis, religion is not what goes on inside a soul. It is what goes on in the world, between people, between us and God. To trap faith in a monologue, and pretend that it resides solely inside the self, undermines the true interchange of all belief." - David J. Wolpe
"Religious liberty includes freedom to change one’ religion or belief without consequent social, economic and political disabilities. Implicit in this right is the right freely to maintain one’s belief or disbelief without external coercion or disability." - World Council of Churches NULL
"I am not going to question your opinions. I am not going to meddle with your belief. I am not going to dictate to you mine. All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you." - Frances Wright, known as Fanny Wright
"Replacing religious institutions that are thousands of years old and hostile to reason with a reason-based belief system would transform society in a positive way more than any mere political change or economic-policy change ever could." - David B Anthony
"The established religious institutions are bastions of ignorance in a world where knowledge has become the most valuable commodity. Well-entrenched, these institutions hold back social progress, dividing people who otherwise have no reason to oppose one another, fanning the flames of militarism and nationalism. Most of all, however, they are promoting ignorance and falsehoods at the expense of truth. How can society advance under such erroneous belief systems?" - David B Anthony
"During the last century, and part of the one before, it was widely held that there was an irreconcilable conflict between knowledge and belief." - Albert Einstein
"Reason provides a means of escaping from the constraints of belief-systems backed by authority and from the resentment which clever people feel at the power of their own passions. Because reason--in admittedly varying degrees--is available to everybody, it has a potential advantage over the truth you feel and the truth you are told." - Felipe Fernández-Armesto
"Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I shall 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." -
"Gratitude is the intention to count-your-blessings every day, every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible, the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances." - Timothy Miller, fully Timothy S. Miller
"It is certain that the two World Wars in which I have participated would not have occurred had we been prepared. It is my belief that adequate preparation on our part would have prevented or materially shortened all our other wars beginning with that of 1812. Yet, after each of our wars, there has always been a great hue and cry to the effect that there will be no more wars, that disarmament is the sure road to health, happiness, and peace; and that by removing the fire department, we will remove fires. These ideas spring from wishful thinking and from the erroneous belief that wars result from logical processes. There is no logic in wars. They are produced by madmen. No man can say when future madmen will reappear. I do not say that there will be no more wars; I devoutly hope that there will not, but I do say that the chances of avoiding future wars will be greatly enhanced if we are ready." -
"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief." - Gerry Spence
"Unless man is committed to the belief that all of mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality." - Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
"Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality." - Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
"Belief is harder to shake than knowledge." - Adolph Hitler
"Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things." -
"Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things." -
"Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things." -
"Faith is belief without evidence, in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
"Ideas, when vented in a book, carry with them a kind of dignity and certainty which awe many into implicit belief." - Amos Bronson Alcott
"The belief that becomes a truth for me... is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting my virtues into action." - André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide
"The belief that becomes truth for me -- is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting my virtues into action." - André Gide, fully André Paul Guillaume Gide
"Your values are your belief systems about right and wrong, good and bad. Our values are the things we all fundamentally need to move toward... Our values change when we change goals or self-image... There is no real success except in keeping your basic values." - Anthony "Tony" Robbins
"Christianity has this peculiar disadvantage, that unlike other religions, it is not a pure system of doctrine: its chief and essential feature is that it is a history, a series of events, a collection of facts, a statement of the actions and sufferings of individuals: it is this history which constitutes dogma, and belief in it is salvation." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"The way of exoteric religion is to progressively replace egoism by submission to the will of God. Its four cardinal demands are faith, love, humility, and good deeds. In so far as they are complied with, they effectively bring a man towards Self-realization, even though he does not consciously envisage this. True, the Goal is not likely to be attained in this lifetime, but in God’s patience a lifetime is very little. Faith strengthens the intuitional conviction of the reality of God or the Self. Humility, its counterpart, weakens the belief in the ego and lessens the importance attached to it. Love strives to surrender the ego to God and its welfare to others. Good deeds deny egoism in practice and are alike the fruit and proof of love and humility." - Arthur W Osborn
"What roots are to a tree, belief is to the soul. Great oak trees have great roots. Great souls have great faith. However, the faith that holds has spiritual qualities. The stable man has that intangible confidence in himself with capacities to be and to do, a recognition of God who may transform and empower his life, and a determined effort to realize man's highest ideals." - Author Unknown NULL
"Nothing gives such force in getting rid of evil as this belief that the good is the only reality." - Bernard Bosanquet
"A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"There can never be any reason for rejecting one instinctive belief except that it clashes with others. It is of course possible that all or any of our beliefs may be mistaken, and therefore all ought to be held with at least some element of doubt. But we cannot have reason to reject a belief except on the ground of some other belief." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.'" - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is." - Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL
"A belief is a wise wager. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He Exists." - Blaise Pascal
"True fear comes from faith; false fear comes from doubt. True fear is joined to hope, because it is born of faith, and because men hope in the God in whom they believe. False fear is joined to despair, because men fear the God in whom they have no belief. The former fear to lose Him; the latter fear to find Him." - Blaise Pascal
"Will is one of the principal organs of belief, not that it forms belief, but because things are true or false according to the side on which we look at them." - Blaise Pascal