Such evidence is not the only kind which produces belief; though positivism maintains that it is the only kind which ought to produce so high a degree of confidence as all minds have or can be made to have through their agreements.

The questions of philosophy proper are human desires and fears and aspirations - human emotions - taking an intellectual form.

We receive the truths of science by compulsion. Nothing but ignorance is able to resist them.

Natural Selection never made it come to pass, as a habit of nature, that an unsupported stone should move downwards rather than upwards. It applies to no part of inorganic nature, and is very limited even in the phenomena of organic life.

And we owe science to the combined energies of individual men of genius, rather than to any tendency to progress inherent in civilization.

The pains of disconcerted or frustrated habits, and the inherent pleasure there is in following them, are motives which nature has put into our wills without generally caring to inform us why; and she sometimes decrees, indeed, that her reasons shall not be ours.

Such evidence is not the only kind which produces belief; though positivism maintains that it is the only kind which ought to produce so high a degree of confidence as all minds have or can be made to have through their agreements.

Let one persuade many, and he becomes confirmed and convinced, and cares for no better evidence.

The accidental causes of science are only accidents relatively to the intelligence of a man.

If they are, then the only ultimate truths are the particulars of concrete experience, and no postulate or general assumption is inherent in science until its proceedings become systematic, or the truths already reached give direction to further research.

By what criterion... can we distinguish among the numberless effects, that are also causes, and among the causes that may, for aught we can know, be also effects, - how can we distinguish which are the means and which are the ends?

All observers not laboring under hallucinations of the senses are agreed, or can be made to agree, about facts of sensible experience, through evidence toward which the intellect is merely passive, and over which the individual will and character have no control.

One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture.

That friend a great man's ruin strongly checks, who rails into his belief all his defects.

My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.

It is my belief that one's salary is between an individual and the IRS.

It is my belief that we all have the need to feel special. It is this need that can bring out the best in us, yet the worst in us.

I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me.

The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.

Effective use of Braille is as important to the blind as independent mobility, knowledge in the use of adaptive technology, and the core belief that equality, opportunity and security are truly possible for all people who are blind.

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

I think that the core doctrines of Christianity - the incarnation, the resurrection, life after death-these are as strong as ever. In fact, the belief in life after death has increased in this century.

He was the first to conceive of movies as an art form. His belief was that if the traditional art form would not find room for him, then he would make an art form of his own.

It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print.

If we are going to save this country, if we are going to reestablish that belief in God, it's up to us. If we don't do it, who will?

It's a short step from the belief that every child should be wanted to the belief that a child exists to satisfy our wants.

My parents gave me stability and a belief in myself and in all the possibilities life has to offer. I was told the only limitations I would ever face were those I placed upon myself.

Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief in abstract entities.

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

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.

We have good security. It's hard to get in here. Barring a tactical entry where terrorists come in and hold us hostage, that's about the only thing that could possibly warrant me carrying a gun in the clubhouse. That's highly unlikely, and I admit that. But my personal belief is I don't want to suffer from the poor choices of others.

The scientific and scholarly community is marked by the belief that the truth is to be found in all; none can claim it as their monopoly.

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.

It is my hope and my belief that you will be able to report that I died with dignity, without animal fear and without bravado. I owe that much to myself.

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

The belief in immortality has always seemed cowardly to me. When very young I learned that all things die, and all that we wish of good must be won on this earth or not at all.

I am not wrong in the belief that its public funds are more secure than those of all the European powers.

Those of us who were brought up as Christians and have lost our faith have retained the sense of sin without the saving belief in redemption. This poisons our thought and so paralyses us in action.

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.

Many people and governments share the mistaken belief that science, with new, ingenious devices and techniques, can rescue us from the troubles we face without our having to mend our ways and change our patterns of activity. This is not so.

It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics.

No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence.

The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many.

All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief.

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidiest and most pernicious illusion.