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"In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts."
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Exlpore more Belief quotes
"Rather than feeling lost and unimportant and meaningless, set against galaxies which go beyond the reach of the furthest telescopes, I feel that my life has meaning. Perhaps I should feel insignificant, but instead I feel a soaring in my heart that the God who could create all this - and out of nothing - can still count the hairs of my head."
"I can . . . I can't. How do you speak to yourself? Do you ever feel as though you have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other? And they continually argue over your self-worth, competence, and personal value? Which one usually wins the debate?"
"Though man needs to live to believe, he does not need to believe to live."
"You don't so much as become an atheist as find out that's what you are. There's no moment of conversion. You don't suddenly think 'I don't believe this anymore.' You essentially find you don't believe it."
"Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them."
"Common people tend to term any kind of bizarre phenomenon as "paranormal or "supernatural. They often exaggerate it as the work of the Gods. Behind this belief is nothing but primitive ignorance. Social progress means that people must (a necessity, not a luxury) align their beliefs and behavior to new knowledge and understanding of nature."
Explore more quotes by William Kingdon Clifford
"A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions."
"If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future."
"To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
"To consider only one other such witness: the followers of the Buddha have at least as much right to appeal to individual and social experience in support of the authority of the Eastern saviour."
"The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs."
"Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it."
"No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe."
"There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician, who will not tell you that he found ready made his discovery or poem or picture - that it came to him from outside, and that he did not consciously create it from within."
"An atmosphere of beliefs and conceptions has been formed by the labours and struggles of our forefathers, which enables us to breathe amid the various and complex circumstances of our life."
"We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra."
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