Belief

Theocracy has always been the synonym for a bleak and narrow, if not a fierce and blood-stained tyranny.
~ William Archer, God and Mr. Wells: A Critical Examination of "God the invisible King" (1917). VI. For And Against Personification

The most turbulent force in the world is the belief in human greatness. That belief involves one desperately in the need of being great oneself, or barring that, in showing others how.
~ William Arrowsmith, in Matrix (1967). The Heart of Education: Turbulent Teachers

Brother, the creed would stifle me
That shelters you.
~ Karle Wilson Baker, from Dreamers on Horseback (1931). Creeds

It is ... in harmony with all we know to entertain a belief in an unseen world, in which myriads of living creatures exist, some with faculties like our own, and others with faculties beneath or transcending our own; and it is possible that the evolutionary development of such a world has run on parallel lines to our own.
~ Sir William Fletcher Barrett, FRS, On the Threshold of the Unseen (1917).

Only one thing was left me,
One only since time began:
To speak the truth that was in me
And play the man.
~ William Rose Benét, from Moons of Grandeur: A Book of Poems (1920). The Heretic

It's grand to have a motto, especially when you're blotto
And the best one I've heard lately is, "What's your's?"
~ Billy Bennett, Mottoes (monologue)

I am glad enough to have something to do that is worth doing; something to believe in; something to hope for. You -- what do you believe in? What is there in heaven or earth that you believe in?
~ William Black, Sunrise: A Story Of These Times (1881). Chapter I. A First Interview

Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

I assert for My self that I do not behold the Outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action; it is as the Dirt upon my feet, No part of Me.
~ William Blake, from A Vision of the Last Judgment (c. 1810).

The moral Christian is the cause
Of the unbeliever and his laws.
~ William Blake, from The Rossetti Manuscript (aka MS. Book; c. 1793-1811). The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1810).

You can succeed if nobody else believes it, but you will never succeed if you don't believe in yourself.
~ William J.H. Boetcker

Whether you realize it or not, I believe there were at least two more airplanes that were headed for major installations in this country. I believe that there was one headed for the White House, and there was one headed for the Capitol, but they were thwarted by the hand of God.
~ Lieutenant General William G. "Jerry" Boykin (on 9-11), Speech at Celebrate America Event, Good Shepherd Church, Sandy OR (21 June 2003).

I have believed many things with all my soul only to find them false.
~ William Cowper Brann, in The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast, Vol. III (1919). Concerning Hell

[M]an should believe nothing, man can believe nothing but what receives the sanction of his reason.
~ William Cowper Brann, in Brann the Iconoclast: A Collection of the Writings of W.C. Brann, Vol. II (1898). Evidences of Man's Immortality

Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief; nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold religious views abhorrent to the authorities.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (majority opinion), Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963).

One miracle is just as easy to believe as another.
~ William Jennings Bryan, testimony in Tennessee v. Scopes (20 July 1925).

There is no more reason to believe that man descended from some inferior animal than there is to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage.
~ William Jennings Bryan, Prepared summation (undelivered), Tennessee v. Scopes (1925).

Believing hath a core of unbelieving.
~ Robert Williams Buchanan, from The Book of Orm (1870). V. Songs of Seeking, XII

Don't let ideologues try to create heaven on earth, because they'll deprive us of freedom and make things a lot worse.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr., quoted in The New York Times (3 March 2008). The Indispensable Man By William Kristol

He considered that immortality was the only goal worth striving for. He knew it was not something you automatically get for believing in some arbitrary dogma like Christianity or Islam. It is something you have to work and fight for, like everything else in life.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands (1987).

Spacecraft Earth is too small and too overcrowded to accommodate lunatic sects.
~ William S. Burroughs, from Roosevelt after Inauguration and Other Atrocities (1979). Behind-ForeEverAfterword: Sects and Death

If they who wear the chains of creeds once knew the happiness of breathing the air of freedom, and of moving with an unincumbered spirit, no wealth or power in the world's gift would bribe them to part with their spiritual liberty.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), in Tracts of American Unitarian Association (September 1837). Extracts From A Letter On Creeds.

Immortality is the glorious discovery of Christianity.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), from Discourses (1832). Discourse IX

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.
~ William Kingdon (W.K.) Clifford, in Contemporary Review (1877). The Ethics of Belief, III. The Limits Of Inference

[I]f 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. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous.
~ William Kingdon (W.K.) Clifford, in Contemporary Review (1877). The Ethics of Belief, I. The Duty Of Inquiry

Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves but for humanity.
~ William Kingdon (W.K.) Clifford, in Contemporary Review (1877). The Ethics of Belief, I. The Duty Of Inquiry

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
~ William Kingdon (W.K.) Clifford, in Contemporary Review (1877). The Ethics of Belief, I. The Duty Of Inquiry

No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.
~ William Kingdon (W.K.) Clifford, in Contemporary Review (1877). The Ethics of Belief, I. The Duty Of Inquiry

While the [Christian] faith takes care of the ultimate incongruities of life, humor does nicely with the intermediate ones.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from Living the Truth in a World of Illusions (1985).

I don't believe in angels, no. ... But I do have a wee parking angel. It's on my dashboard and you wind it up. The wings flap and it's supposed to give you a parking space. It's worked so far.
~ Billy Connolly, quoted in Ananova Ltd (13 August 2001). Connolly says he doesn't believe in angels

Balderdash. I said balderdash. Piffle. Rubbish. Tosh and gibberish. Also twaddle, trash, fudge, flapdoodle, drivel and flummery. I wrote it [an astrological prediction], so I ought to know. But just because I've put this verbiage in print somebody will believe it.
~ Sir William Connor (Cassandra)

It is always easier to take the words of a Jesus, a Gandhi, a Marx, or a Confucius as constituting Holy Writ. This involves less reading, less study, less thought, less conflict, and less independent searching, but it also means less growth toward maturity.
~ William S. Coperthwaite, A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity (2003). Society by Design/Design by Society

Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
E'en let the unknown to-morrow
Bring with it what it may.
~ William Cowper, from Olney Hymns (1779). Book III: On the Rise, Progress, Changes, and Comforts of the Spiritual Life. Joy and Peace in Believing

The few that pray at all pray oft amiss.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

In fine, to believe nothing, is Madness, and to believe any thing, Folly. He is truly happy who walks between these two Extremes, and neither believes too much nor too little.
~ William Darrell, A Gentleman Instructed In The Conduct Of A Virtuous And Happy Life (2nd edition; 1704). Dialogue III

Generous souls are still most subject to credulity.
~ Sir William Davenant, The Tragedy of Albovine, King of the Lombards (1629).

Whether you really are right or not doesn't matter: it's the belief that counts.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, in Peterborough Examiner (16 June 1962). Too Much, Too Fast

As you live, believe in Life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the Great End comes slowly, because time is long.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois (Last message, written 26 June 1957).

If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Gift of Black Folk (1924). Chapter 9

I cannot reconcile the existence of consciousness with a deterministic and mechanistic philosophy. I am skeptical not only of theology but also of philosophy, science, history, and myself. I recognize supersensory possibilities but not supernatural powers.
~ William James "Will" Durant, Will and Ariel Durant: A Dual Autobiography (1977).

Religions are born and may die, but superstition is immortal. Only the fortunate can take life without mythology.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume VII (1961). The Age of Reason Begins

Religious doctrines were determined not by the logic of a few but by the needs of the many; they were a frame of belief within which the common man, inclined by nature to a hundred unsocial actions, could be formed into a being sufficiently disciplined and self-controlled to make society and civilization possible.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume VI (1957). The Reformation

It's often a good idea to let the other fellow believe he's running things, whether he is or not.
~ William Feather

Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink.
~ W.C. Fields

Prayers never bring anything. ... They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal and the lazy -- but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas.
~ W.C. Fields

Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.
~ John William Gardner, The aims of a Free People, Excellence

The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.
~ John William Gardner

[C]reeds are human compositions.
~ William Gilpin, Lectures on the Catechism of the Church of England (1779).

Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling; not a mean and grovelling thing that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny.
~ William Ewart Gladstone, in The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Volume I (1903). Book II. Chapter VI: Characteristics (Address at Hawarden Grammer School; 19 September 1877).

Strangers to conviction, they will never be able to distinguish between prejudice and reason.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).

I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right.
~ Billy Graham

Some believe strongly that each Christian may have his own guardian angel assigned to watch over him or her.
~ Billy Graham, Angels: God's Secret Agents (1975). Hills Full of Horses

Spiritism, Eastern mysticism, reincarnation, and countless other occult beliefs offer seductive answers which remove the fear of death but at the expense of denying God's truth.
~ Billy Graham

We are lamps shining in the darkness. Be attractive and winsome, but do not compromise your convictions for the sake of popularity.
~ Billy Graham, Answers to Life's Problems (1988 edition).

[T]he sphere of our belief is much more extensive than the sphere of our knowledge; and, therefore, when I deny that the Infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying that by us it is, must, and ought to be, believed.
~ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, in Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1858-60). Volume I. Metaphysics. Appendix. V. The Conditioned

Don't believe the man who tells you there are two sides to every question. There is only one side to the truth.
~ William Peter Hamilton, in Worldly Power: The Making of the Wall Street Journal (1986).

Oh, credulity, Thou hast as many ears as fame has tongues, Open to every sound of truth and falsehood!
~ William Havard, King Charles I; A Tragedy. Act V, scene ii (1737).

How loth were we to give up our pious belief in ghosts and witches, because we liked to persecute the one, and frighten ourselves to death with the other!
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker, Volume I (1826). On the Pleasure of Hating

There are different degrees and kinds of belief. The point is not whether we do or do not believe what we see to be a positive reality, but how far and in what manner we believe in it.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

Ever noticed how creationists look really unevolved?
~ Bill Hicks, in The Independent on Sunday (1994).

[W]hatever is established is sacred with those who do not think.
~ William Dean Howells, Criticism and Fiction (1891).

It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Outspoken Essays, First Series (1919). Our Present Discontents

Man must act; and action, if it is not to be utterly futile, must be inspired by beliefs.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Faith and Knowledge (1904). III. Wisdom

[W]e think freely only when we think truly, and we think truly only when we know Him who is the Truth.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from A Pacifist in Trouble (1939). Christianity in Modern Life: III. Freethinkers in Congress

As a rule we believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if we only could.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 2. Chapter XXI: The Perception of Reality

As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
~ William James, An Address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities (published in the New World; June 1896). The Will to Believe

Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer. ... It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
~ William James

Belief creates the actual fact.
~ William James

Beliefs, in short, are really rules for action.
~ William James, Address Before the Philosophical Union, University of California (26 August 1898). The Pragmatic Method

Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. The only difference is that to believe is greatly to your advantage.
~ William James, in The Princeton Review (1882). Rationality, Activity and Faith

Believe in the infinite as common people do, and life grows possible again.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lecture VIII: The Divided Self, And The Process Of Its Unification

But who does not see that in a disbelieved or doubted or interrogative or conditional proposition, the ideas are combined in the same identical way in which they are in a proposition which is solidly believed?
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 2. Chapter XXI. The Perception of Reality

[I] believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are impossible.
~ William James, Letter to Carl Stumpf (1886).

[I]mmortality ... is ... but a way of saying that the determination of expectancy is the essential factor of rationality.
~ William James, in The Princeton Review (1882). Rationality, Activity and Faith

Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.
~ William James

The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal decrees.
~ William James, An Address to the Harvard Divinity Students (1884). The Dilemma of Determinism

[T]he drift of all the evidence we have seems to me to sweep us very strongly towards the belief in some form of superhuman life with which we may, unknown to ourselves, be co-conscious.
~ William James, A Pluralistic Universe (1909). VIII. Conclusions

The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing. Time and space, cause and effect, nature and history, and one's own biography remain untouched. New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Lecture II. What Pragmatism Means

The state of things is evidently far from simple; and pure insight and logic, whatever they might do ideally, are not the only things that really do produce our creeds.
~ William James, An Address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities (published in the New World; June 1896). The Will to Believe

There is nothing so absurd but if you repeat it often enough people will believe it.
~ William James

We believe ourselves immortal because we believe ourselves fit for immortality.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter X: The Consciousness of Self

[W]e have the right to believe at our own risk any hypothesis that is live enough to tempt our will.
~ William James, An Address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities (published in the New World; June 1896). The Will to Believe

A family without prayer, is like a house without a roof. It is uncovered and exposed.
~ William Jay, Morning Exercises for the Closet: For Every Day in the Year (1828). Jan. 1

But I don't want some pretty face
To tell me pretty lies
All I want is someone to believe.
~ Billy Joel, in 52nd Street (1978 album). Honesty

What will it take till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you.
~ Billy Joel, in The Stranger (1977 album). Just the Way You Are

The atheistic idea is so nonsensical that I do not see how I can put it in words.
~ Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), in the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, Volume XXXI (1899).

The best motivation for acting well -- and hence the surest foundation for morality -- is the belief that we have a role to play in life.
~ William Kilpatrick, Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong: And What We Can Do About It (1992).

Your father believed in one thing. I believe in another. You believe in something else. But it doesn't matter a tuppenny damn what one believes in, so long as it's worth believing in. It's faith, sonny, that does it. Faith and purpose.
~ William John Locke, The Fortunate Youth (1914).

So one must believe without doubting
That these are apparent miracles
That Music has made.
It's certainly true.
~ Guillaume de Machaut, Ode à la Musique (c. 1372).

[W]hen doctrine or principle enter the picture, the prospects for compromise and conciliation markedly decline.
~ William B. Macomber, The Angel's Game: A Handbook of Modern Diplomacy (1975).

The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944).

If you do not believe it yourself you cannot make others believe it.
~ Will M. Maupin, from Whether Common or Not (1903). Prose Selections. Brain Leaks

There are millions of normal men and women today who have no mental resistance at all to tales of the weirdly impossible. No supernatural being is too illogical to believe in.
~ William Moulten Marston, in Wonder Woman Masterpiece Edition: The Golden Age of the Amazon Princess (2001).

Too many of our prejudices are like pyramids upside down. They rest on tiny, trivial incidents, but they spread upward and outward until they fill our minds.
~ William McChesney Martin, Jr., in The American Magazine, Volume 131 (1941). Prejudice

Nothing is more irritating to the modern than this dogma of the supernatural, a dogma that cannot ... be demonstrated by human reason; it requires God's revelation to bring to our knowledge this fact that man is supernaturalized.
~ William J. McGucken, The Philosophy of Catholic Education (1951).

Unless this fact of the "Fall of Man" -- or, if you will, the dogma of original sin -- be admitted, Christianity simply collapses like a pricked balloon. ... For without the Fall, there would be no need of the Incarnation and Redemption, the two cardinal points of Christian belief.
~ William J. McGucken, The Philosophy of Catholic Education (1951).

God has given me the ability. The rest is up to me. Believe. Believe. Believe.
~ Billy Mills

No actual skeptic, so far as I know, has claimed to disbelieve in an objective world. Skepticism is not a denial of belief, but rather a denial of rational grounds for belief.
~ William Pepperell (W.P.) Montague, in Philosophy (1937). The Story of American Realism

It's funny, in a human kind of way, how we can convinces ourselves that we're in control at the very moment we are beginning to lose it.
~ William Cope Moyers, Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption (2006).

An agreeable opinion is accepted as true: this is the proof by pleasure (or, as the church says, the proof by strength), that all religions are so proud of, whereas they ought to be ashamed. If the belief did not make us happy, it would not be believed: how little must it then be worth!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).

Belief in truth begins with doubting all that has hitherto been believed to be true.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Belief means not wanting to know what is true.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1888).

Every tradition grows ever more venerable -- the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).

If you believed more in life you would fling yourself less to the moment.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Our most sacred convictions, the unchanging elements of our supreme values, are judgements of our muscles.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Will to Power (1901).

Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared -- this must some day become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. Second Sequel: The Wanderer and His Shadow (December 1879).

Americans will respect your beliefs if you just keep them private. Keep it private.
~ Bill O'Reilly, Comedy Central, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (15 March 2002).

Conservatism and old fogeyism are totally different things; the motto of one is "Prove all things and hold fast that which is good" and of the other "Prove nothing but hold fast that which is old."
~ William Osler, Counsels And Ideals From The Writings Of William Osler (1905). Man's Years of Usefulness, and How He May Prolong Them

We are at the mercy of our wills much more than our intellect in the formation of beliefs, which we adopt in a lazy, haphazard way without taking much trouble to enquire into their foundation.
~ William Osler, in The Canada Lancet; 42:899-912 (1909). The Treatment of Disease

There is no reason to persecute any man in this world about anything that belongs to the next.
~ William Penn

If one believes fifty-one per cent in a cause, I suppose one should give it one hundred per cent support.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, from Autobiography with Letters (1939).

Of the major components of dogma -- truth, falsehood, opinion, and authority -- the greatest is authority. One of the oldest human habits, a habit roundly encouraged by the brain's immeasurable inertia, is to surrender one's mind to a particular dogma, simply because of the dogma's ancient pedigree.
~ Wilmot Robertson, The Dispossessed Majority (1972).

One would logically suppose that the more education one has the less would be one's susceptibility to dogma. it is quite the opposite. ... Indeed the well-educated person or, more precisely, the "most educated," person is often the most dogmatic.
~ Wilmot Robertson, The Dispossessed Majority (1972).

Only a few lonely souls have the stamina, courage, and wisdom to develop their own beliefs from independent observation.
~ Wilmot Robertson, The Dispossessed Majority (1972).

My doctor told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.
~ Wilma Rudolph

Blaming the Victim ... is central in the mainstream of contemporary American social thought, and its ideas pervade our most crucial assumptions so thoroughly that they are hardly noticed. Moreover, the fruits of this ideology appear to be fraught with altruism and humanitarianism, so it is hard to believe that it has principally functioned to block social change.
~ William Ryan, Blaming the Victim (1971).

Various types of belief can be implanted in many people, after brain function has been sufficiently disturbed by accidentally or deliberately induced fear, anger or excitement. Of the results caused by such disturbances, the most common one is temporarily impaired judgment and heightened suggestibility. Its various group manifestations are sometimes classed under the heading of "herd instinct," and appear most spectacularly in wartime, during severe epidemics, and in all similar periods of common danger, which increase anxiety and so individual and mass suggestibility.
~ William Sargant, The Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing (1957).

As I open myself to questions being posed by those from other systems, I gain perspective on how many of my beliefs are system based.
~ Anne Wilson Schaef, Native Wisdom for White Minds (1995).

A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act I, scene iii

I hold you as a thing enskyed and sainted.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act I, scene iv

I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene i

[M]y circumstances
Being so near the truth as I will make them,
Must first induce you to believe.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act II, scene iv

Now I will believe that there are unicorns.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act III, scene iii

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 138

Say what men may, it is doctrine that moves the world. He who takes no position will not sway the human intellect.
~ William Greenough Thayer Shedd, Homiletics, and Pastoral Theology (1867). Chapter I

Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.
~ William Shenstone, in Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. II (1764). Essays on Men, Manners, and Things. Of Men and Manners

Scepticism is, in most cases, the evidence of a hard and selfish nature, which, governed by a pampered self-esteem, believes nothing but itself, and resents, as a personal indignity, the discoveries or counsels of another.
~ William Gilmore Simms, Egeria: Or, Voices of Thought and Counsel for the Woods and Wayside (1853).

Even the upper end of the river
believes in the ocean.
~ William Stafford, from The Way It Is (1993). Climbing Along The River

Worship is the festival of creation.
~ William Stringfellow

Each group thinks its own folkways the only right ones, and if it observes the other groups have other folkways, these excite its scorn.
~ William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (1906).

If we believe the Scripture, we must allow that God Almighty esteemed the life of a man in a garden -- the happiest he could give him, or else he would not have placed Adam in that of Eden; that it was the state of innocence and pleasure; and that the life of husbandry and cities came after the fall, with guilt and with labour.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part II (1690). Upon The Gardens of Epicurus: or, Of Gardening, in the Year 1685

There is only one divine light, and every man is in his measure enlightened by it.
~ William Temple (archbishop), Readings in St. John's Gospel. Volume 1 (1939)

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (1961).

It's fine to believe in ourselves, but we mustn't be too easily convinced.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan (as Burton Hillis), in Better Homes & Gardens

You have to believe in yourself. And you have to, down deep within the bottom of your soul, feel that you can do the job that you have set out to do.
~ William Castle DeVries

If we repent seriously, submit contentedly, and serve him faithfully, afflictions shall turn to our advantage.
~ William Wake (Archbishop of Canterbury)

Face what you think you believe and you will be surprised.
~ William Hale White (aka Mark Rutherford), in Last Pages from a Journal (1915). Part III. Notes

Superstition is a matter of relative evidence.
~ William Hale White (aka Mark Rutherford), Pages From a Journal, With Other Papers (1900). Belief, Unbelief, and Superstition

I must secure more time for private devotion, for self-examination, for meditation, for keeping the heart, and even doing the duties of life, or the most pressing claims will carry it, not the strongest.
~ William Wilberforce, in The Life of William Wilberforce, Volume IV (1838). Chapter XXIX

Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put any thing of thy own to it, and thou spoilest it.
~ Thomas Wilcox, A Choice Drop of Honey (c. 1650).

Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist.
~ Billy Wilder

When lies are repeated often enough, even wise men begin to accept them.
~ Ben Ames Williams, House Divided (1947).

There is a great deal of skepticism in believers; and a good deal of belief in non-believers; the only question is where we decide to give our better energy.
~ Charles (Walter Stansby) Williams

It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time, especially when that belief refers not to the objective fact but to subjective interpretation.
~ Charles (Walter Stansby) Williams, in What the Cross Means to Me: A Theological Symposium (1943 essay).

I've always remained positive. When you believe in God as I do and my son does, you know he will come back home safely.
~ David C. Williams (on the rescue of former POW David S. Williams), The Associated Press (Telephone interview; 14 April 2003).

The strength of Hinduism lies in its infinite adaptability to the infinite diversity of human character and human tendencies. It has its highly spiritual and abstract side suited to the philosopher, its practical to the man of the world, its aesthetic and ceremonial side attuned to the man of the poetic feeling and imagination; and its quiescent contemplative aspect that has its appeal for the man of peace and the lover of seclusion.
~ Sir Monier-Williams

Only the body saves the soul.
~ Dr. Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another (2005).

Life is an unanswered question, but let's still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams

My own creed as a playwright is fairly close to that expressed by the painter in Shaw's play The Doctor's Dilemma, "I believe in Michelangelo, Velásquez and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by beauty everlasting and the message of art that has made these hands blessed. Amen."
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams

I made a terrible error in judgment, and I know I'll have to pay for it as long as I live. But I am not a lesbian and I am not a slut, and somehow I am going to make people believe me.
~ Vanessa Williams, (July 1984).

Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.
~ Edmund Wilson, from Memoirs of Hecate County (1946).

The predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and powerful drive in the human mind, an innate and possibly irreplaceable part of human nature.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, in Free Inquiry magazine. Spring 1987, Volume 7 Number 2. Biology's Spiritual Products

I don't believe anything I write or say. I regard belief as a form of brain damage, the death of intelligence, the fracture of creativity, the atrophy of imagination. I have opinions but no Belief System (B.S.)
~ Robert Anton Wilson, in OMNI's Prime Time Live (Interview; 16 September 1997). High Strangeness

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.
~ Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger, Volume I. The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977).

Human beings are absurdly easy to indoctrinate -- they seek it.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975).

[O]ld beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998).

It is our business to make the most of our own talents and opportunities, and instead of discouraging ourselves by comparisons and imaginary impossibilities, to believe all things possible, -- as indeed, almost all things are, to a spirit bravely and firmly resolved.
~ William Wirt, in Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt, Volume II (1849). Chapter XX. Letter to H.W. Miller (20 December 1833)

One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, -- one only; -- an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book IV: Despondency Corrected

I have believed the best of every man,
And find that to believe it is enough
To make a bad man show him at his best,
Or even a good man swing his lantern higher.
~ William Butler Yeats, Deirdre (1906 play).

What do you think of when alone at night?
Do not the things your mothers spoke about,
Before they took the candle from the bedside,
Rush up into the mind and master it,
Till you believe in them against your will?
~ William Butler Yeats, The Hour-Glass (1912 version).

When all is said and done, how do we not know but that our own unreason may be better than another's truth?
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Celtic Twilight (1893). Belief and Unbelief