We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn.

To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances.

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.

Namely, we have no right to believe a thing true because everybody says so unless there are good grounds for believing that some one person at least has the means of knowing what is true, and is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.

No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. A awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

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.

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it.

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

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.

If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future.

When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that.

Every rustic who delivers in the village alehouse his slow, infrequent sentences, may help to kill or keep alive the fatal superstitions which clog his race.

If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done from the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest.

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.

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.

This sense of power is the highest and best of pleasures when the belief on which it is founded is a true belief, and has been fairly earned by investigation.

Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.

He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart.

To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.

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.

We feel much happier and more secure when we think we know precisely what to do, no matter what happens, then when we have lost our way and do not know where to turn.

The rule which should guide us in such cases is simple and obvious enough: that the aggregate testimony of our neighbours is subject to the same conditions as the testimony of any one of them.

The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it he has committed it already in his heart.

There is one thing in the world more wicked than the desire to command, and that is the will to obey.

You have your bad moments in your career and your good moments. And it's been a good ride so far, but it's not over yet.

I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together.

His passion has aroused the best and the beast in man. And the beast waited for him in the kitchen.

We all need grace. We all need Christ.

We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.

I was frustrated as a child when I had to use a vacuum. It had a screaming noise and the smell of stale dog and a lack of performance.

Voting is fundamental in our democracy. It has yielded enormous returns.

Human civilization has been no more than a strange luminescence growing more intense by the hour of which no one can say when it will begin to wane and when it will fade away.

They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.

I think most Americans would agree people should be treated equally and everyone ought to be able to pursue a fulfilling life with the ones they love.

Well, I think that it's clear that the Republican Party is a pro-life party. And we do value life. And we do believe that the unborn have a right to life.

She loves relentlessly. It’s the way of her being. She is love and it’s her mightiest strength.

What is the motive to the secret ballot? This, and only this: Like other confederates in crime, those who use it are not friends, but enemies; and they are afraid to be known, and to have their individual doings known, even to each other.

The only album that I listen to upon recording a new one is my 'Cry' album, because sonically, I think it's my best album to date. But other than that, I've never listened to my records, ever.

We must make the masses understand that we have a responsibility to care for our animals and that when things get messed up, it's usually because human hands have caused it.

My father is the man that, he will give you what he doesn't have, still. If he has 10 bucks and you need 10 bucks because you're sick or you don't have nothing to eat, he will give you 10 bucks. He will be at zero, but he will help you. That's the kind of man that my father is.

Better have failed in the high aim, as I, Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed As, God be thanked! I do not.

But to make a long story short, I decided that I was going to run, and I announced that I was going to run for president in Florida, I would be the favorite son from Florida, and that would stop Johnson and Kennedy from dividing up the state.

Love does not just sit there, like a stone; it had to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

All black women aren't sassy, loud, difficult, or subservient. We are, in fact, very complex and very diverse, living very complex and diverse lives. That point cannot be made enough.

I wanted to make a traditional record that had a lot of art and showed my vulnerable side and showed things I'm passionate about.

The time is now. Stop hitting the snooze button on your life.