How I hate these follies of not believing in the Eucharist, etc.... If the Gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there?
But for the miracles there would have been no sin in not believing in Jesus Christ.
_Nisi videritis signa non creditis._ He does not blame them for not believing without there having been miracles, but without their having been themselves witnesses of them.
No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dreams that you wish will come true.
Strong Son of God, immortal Love, / Whom we that have not seen Thy face, / By faith, and faith alone, embrace, / Believing where we cannot prove.
9:26. And when he was come into Jerusalem, he essayed to join himself to the disciples: and they all were afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.
Contrite, I stand at Thy door, Believing that contrite prayer availeth much with Thee. Suppliant, I stretch forth my hands, And with all my soul look up to Thee. Save me, God, from every ill, and be Thy favour ever mine!
I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth — it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever. I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it. And so how can I go wrong? I shall make some slips no doubt, and shall perhaps talk in second-hand language, but not for long: the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me. Oh, I am full of courage and freshness, and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years! Do you know, at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them, but that was a mistake — that was my first mistake! But truth whispered to me that I was lying, and preserved me and corrected me. But how establish paradise — I don't know, because I do not know how to put it into words. After my dream I lost command of words. All the chief words, anyway, the most necessary ones. But never mind, I shall go and I shall keep talking, I won't leave off, for anyway I have seen it with my own eyes, though I cannot describe what I saw. But the scoffers do not understand that. It was a dream, they say, delirium, hallucination. Oh! As though that meant so much! And they are so proud! A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.” This touches on the heart of the argumentum ad populum fallacy. Physical reality does not require belief to sustain it, and belief will not modify the rules of the universe.
A world all sincere, a believing world; the like has been; the like will again be--cannot help being.
There are two antagonistic schools--the one believing in a descending, the other in an ascending development of the human race; the one asserting that the history of the human mind begins of necessity with a state of purity and simplicity which gradually gives way to corruption, perversity, and savagery; the other maintaining that the first human beings could not have been more than one step above the animals, and that their whole history is one of progress towards higher perfection. With regard to the beginnings of religion, the one school holds to a primitive suspicion of something that is beyond--call it supernatural, transcendental, infinite, or divine. It considers a silent walking across this bridge of life, with eyes fixed on high, as a more perfect realisation of primitive religion than singing of Vedic hymns, offering of Jewish sacrifices, or the most elaborate creeds and articles. The other begins with the purely animal and passive nature of man, and tries to show how the repeated impressions of the world in which he lived, drove him to fetichism and totemism, whatever these words may mean, to ancestor worship, to a worship of nature, of trees and serpents, of mountains and rivers, of clouds and meteors, of sun and moon and stars, and the vault of heaven, and at last to a belief in One who dwells in heaven above.
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
He that, by often arguing against his own sense, imposes falsehoods on others, is not far from believing them himself.
Dost thou want nothing? Then I fear thou dost not know thy poverty. Hast thou no mercy to ask of God? Then may the Lord's mercy show thee thy misery. A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus.--_Spurgeon._
If it be a supernatural blindness to live without seeking to know what we are, it is a terrible blindness to live ill while believing in God.
And for the most part it happens that, unable to conceive the relation of two opposite truths, and believing that admission of one involves the exclusion of the other, they embrace the one and exclude the other, thinking that we on the other hand.... Now exclusion is the cause of their heresy, and ignorance that we hold the other truth causes their objections.
I can't help believing that these things that come from the subconscious mind have a sort of truth to them. It may not be a scientific truth, but it's psychological truth.
Nothing more astonishes me than to see that men are not astonished at their own weakness. They act seriously, and every one follows his own mode of life, not because it is, as a fact, good to follow, being the custom, but as if each man knew certainly where are reason and justice. They find themselves constantly deceived, and by an amusing humility always imagine that the fault is in themselves, and not in the art which all profess to understand. But it is well there are so many of this kind of people in the world, who are not sceptics for the glory of scepticism, to show that man is thoroughly capable of the most extravagant opinions, because he is capable of believing that his weakness is not natural and inevitable, but that, on the contrary, his wisdom comes by nature.
Better trust all, and be deceived, And weep that trust and that deceiving, Than doubt one heart, that if believed Had blessed one's life with true believing.
Aglaya had made for the door in terror, but she stopped at the threshold, and listened. "Shall I turn Rogojin off? Ha! ha! you thought I would marry him for your benefit, did you? Why, I'll call out _now_, if you like, in your presence, 'Rogojin, get out!' and say to the prince, 'Do you remember what you promised me?' Heavens! what a fool I have been to humiliate myself before them! Why, prince, you yourself gave me your word that you would marry me whatever happened, and would never abandon me. You said you loved me and would forgive me all, and--and resp--yes, you even said that! I only ran away from you in order to set you free, and now I don't care to let you go again. Why does she treat me so--so shamefully? I am not a loose woman--ask Rogojin there! He'll tell you. Will you go again now that she has insulted me, before your eyes, too; turn away from me and lead her away, arm-in-arm? May you be accursed too, for you were the only one I trusted among them all! Go away, Rogojin, I don't want you," she continued, blind with fury, and forcing the words out with dry lips and distorted features, evidently not believing a single word of her own tirade, but, at the same time, doing her utmost to prolong the moment of self-deception.
We should not examine articles of faith with a curious and subtle spirit. It is sufficient for us to know that the Church proposes them. We can never be deceived in believing them.--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.
_Perpetuity._--That religion has always existed on earth, which consists in believing that man has fallen from a state of glory and of communion with God into a state of sorrow, penitence, and estrangement from God, but that after this life we shall be restored by a Messiah who was to come. All things have passed away, and this has subsisted for which are all things.
It's time to start believing — Oh yes Believing who you are: You are a shining star.
A book for children, like the myths and folktales that tend to slide into it, is really a blueprint for dealing with life. For that reason, it might have a happy ending, because nobody ever solved a problem while believing it was hopeless. It might put the aims and the solution unrealistically high – in the same way that folktales tend to be about kings and queens – but this is because it is better to aim for the moon and get halfway there than just to aim for the roof and get halfway upstairs.
~Superstition.~--A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel.--_George Eliot._
The Divine, if it is to reveal itself at all to us, will best reveal itself in our own human form. However far the human may be from the Divine, nothing on earth is nearer to God than man, nothing on earth more godlike than man. And as man grows from childhood to old age, the idea of the Divine must grow with us from the cradle to the grave, from grace to grace. A religion which is not able thus to grow and live with us as we grow and live, is dead already. Definite and unvarying uniformity, so far from being a sign of honesty and life, is always a sign of dishonesty and death. Every religion, if it is to be a bond between the wise and the foolish, the old and the young, must be pliant, must be high and deep and broad; bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. The more it is so, the greater its vitality, the greater the strength and warmth of its embrace.
The southern Aryans were absorbed in the struggles of thought: their past is the problem of creation, their future the problem of existence, and the present, which ought to be the solution of both, seems never to have attracted their attention, or called forth their energies. There never was a nation believing so firmly in another world, and so little concerned about this. Their condition on earth was to them a problem; their real and eternal life a simple fact. Though this is true chiefly before they were brought in contact with foreign conquerors, traces of this character are still visible in the Hindus as described by the companions of Alexander, nay, even in the Hindus of the present day. The only sphere in which the Indian mind finds itself at liberty to act, to create, and to worship is the sphere of religion and philosophy, and nowhere have religious and metaphysical ideas struck root so deeply in the mind of a nation as in India. History supplies no second instance where the inward life of the soul has so completely absorbed all the other faculties of a people.
_The arrangement._--I should be far more afraid of making a mistake myself, and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not deceiving myself in believing it true.
Direct proof may be given that some parts of the land of the northern hemisphere are at this moment insensibly rising and others insensibly sinking; and there is indirect, but perfectly satisfactory, proof, that an enormous area now covered by the Pacific has been deepened thousands of feet, since the present inhabitants of that sea came into existence. Thus there is not a shadow of a reason for believing that the physical changes of the globe, in past times, have been effected by other than natural causes.
Usually we walk around constantly believing ourselves. "I'm okay" we say. "I'm alright". But sometimes the truth arrives on you and you can't get it off. That's when you realize that sometimes it isn't even an answer--it's a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.
_On the fact that the Christian Religion does not stand alone._--This is so far from being a reason against believing it the true one that, on the contrary, it proves it to be so.
There are two, and only two, forms of possible gospel or "good message"--one, that men are saved by themselves doing what is right; and the other, that they are saved by believing that somebody also did right instead of them. The first of these gospels is eternally true and holy; the other eternally false, damnable, and damning.
People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.
Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor's order about the rice, but Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that his order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his own.
Most people think that faith means believing something; oftener it means trying something, giving it a chance to prove itself
So after a hectic week of believing that war was peace, that good was bad, that the moon was made of blue cheese, and that God needed a lot of money sent to a certain box number, the Monk started to believe that 35 percent of all tables were hermaphrodites, and then broke down.
A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things.
I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude, of groundedness, of enough, even while I’m longing for something more. The longing and the gratitude, both. I’m practicing believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can’t, that he’s weaving a future I can’t even imagine from where I sit this morning.
There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
Do you think that the prophecies cited in the Gospel were reported to make you believe? No, but to prevent your believing.
The merit of originality is not novelty, it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another.
I honor my importance and the importance of others. None of us is dispensable, none of us is replacable. In the chorus of life each of us brings a True Note, a perfect pitch that adds to the harmony of the whole. I act creatively and consciously to actively endorse and encourage the expansion of those whose lives I touch. Believing in the goodness of each, I add to the goodness of all. We bless each other even in passing.
I was wise enough never to grow up, while fooling people into believing I had.
It is more necessary for us to be active than to be orthodox. To be orthodox is what we wish to be, but we can only truly reach it by being honest, by being original, by seeing with our own eyes, by believing with our own heart. Natural Law. p. 364.
Having considered how it comes that there are so many false miracles, false revelations, castings of lots, etc., it has appeared to me that the real cause is that there are true ones, for it would not be possible that there should be so many false miracles unless there were true, nor so many false revelations unless there were true, nor so many false religions unless there were one that is true. For if all this had never been, it is impossible that men should have imagined it, and still more impossible that so many others should have believed it. But as there have been very great things which are true and as they have been believed by great men; this impression has been produced, that almost everybody has been made capable of believing the false also; and thus instead of concluding that there are no true miracles since there are so many false, we must on the contrary say that there are true miracles since there are so many false, and that false miracles only exist for the reason that there are true; so also that there are false religions only because there is one that is true.--The objection to this is that savages have a religion. But this is because they have heard speak of the true, as appears by Saint Andrew's cross, the deluge, the circumcision, etc.--This comes from the fact that the spirit of man, finding itself inclined to that side by truth, becomes therefore susceptible of all the falsehoods of that....
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.
~Individuality.~--There are men of convictions whose very faces will light up an era, and there are believing women in whose eyes you may almost read the whole plan of salvation.--_T. Fields._
There is no reason to believe in Antichrist which there is not to believe in Jesus Christ, but there are reasons for believing in Jesus Christ, which do not exist for the other.
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.
Scepticism is not an end but a beginning, is as the decay of old ways of believing, the preparation afar off for new, wider, and better.
I neither deny nor affirm the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing in it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it.
We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.
This venerable name (Theosophy), so well known among early Christian thinkers, as expressing the highest conception of God within the reach of the human mind, has of late been so greatly misappropriated that it is high time to restore it to its proper function. It should be known once for all that one may call oneself a theosophist without ... believing in any occult sciences and black art.
True humility consists in being content with all that God is pleased to ordain for us, believing ourselves unworthy to be called His servants.-- ST. TERESA.
La moitie du monde prend plaisir a medire, et l'autre moitie a croire les medisances=--One half of the world takes delight in slander, and the other half in believing it.
There are three means of believing--by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration.
I have seen the truth; I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth. I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind. And it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at. But how can I help believing it? I have seen the truth — it is not as though I had invented it with my mind, I have seen it, seen it, and the living image of it has filled my soul for ever.
It would be folly to entertain any ill-feeling towards those neighbours and rivals who, like ourselves, are slaves of Istar; but if somebody is to be starved, the modern world has no Oracle of Delphi to which the nations can appeal for an indication of the victim. It is open to us to try our fortune; and, if we avoid impending fate, there will be a certain ground for believing: that we are the right people to escape. _Securus judical orbis_.
And I feel that something's coming, and it's not just in the wind. It's more than just tomorrow, it's more than where we've been, It offers me a promise, it's telling me "Begin", I know we're needing something worth believing in.
No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dreams that you wish will come true.
You're always believing ahead of your evidence. What was the evidence I could write a poem? I just believed it. The most creative thing in us is to believe in a thing.
If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing him.
But believing in God and having a relationship with Him were two different things.
I have passed much of my life believing that justice existed, and in this I did not deceive myself, for there is justice according as God has willed to reveal it to us. But I did not take it so, and in that I deceived myself, for I believed that our justice was essentially just, and that I had that whereby I was able to know and judge of it. But I so often find that my right judgment was at fault, that at last I have begun to distrust myself, and then others. I saw in all countries that men change, and thus after many changes of judgment concerning true justice, I recognised that our nature was a continual change, and I have not changed since; were I to change I should but strengthen my opinion. The sceptic Archesilas became a dogmatist.
When we consider that the remains of more than three thousand distinct species of aquatic animals have been discovered among the fossils of the chalk, that the great majority of them are of such forms as are now met with only in the sea, and that there is no reason to believe that any one of them inhabited fresh water--the collateral evidence that the chalk represents an ancient sea-bottom acquires as great force as the proof derived from the nature of the chalk itself. I think you will now allow that I did not overstate my case when I asserted that we have as strong grounds for believing that all the vast area of dry land, at present occupied by the chalk, was once at the bottom of the sea, as we have for any matter of history whatever; while there is no justification for any other belief.
I have no _a priori_ objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about _a priori_ difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing anything else, and I will believe that Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force, or the indestructibility of matter. <
The inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of history is just as much a question of pure science as the inquiry into the truth or falsehood of a matter of geology, and the value of evidence in the two cases must be tested in the same way. If anyone tells me that the evidence of the existence of man in the miocene epoch is as good as that upon which I frequently act every day of my life, I reply that this is quite true, but that it is no sort of reason for believing in the existence of miocene man.
Chi con l'occhio vede, di cuor crede=--Seeing is believing (_lit._ he who sees with the eye believes with the heart).
To me, “FEARLESS” is not the absence of fear. It’s not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though you’ve been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again… even though every time you’ve tried before, you’ve lost. It’s FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you can’t breathe without them. I think it’s FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though he’s in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they’ll never stop doing, I think it’s FEARLESS to stop believing them. It’s FEARLESS to say “you’re NOT sorry”, and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alright…That’sFEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. That’s why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.