c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Every person that has lived with purpose has at one time or another answered these questions: Do you remember who you were before the world, and it's evil stole your hope? Do you remember who you wanted to be before a religion, culture or organization told you to be something you were not? Do you remember what your dream was before they told you that it was unachievable? Do you remember the moments God kept taking you back to the one thing you were best at (but you kept denying it)? Do you remember the moments He handed you the opportunity and you walked away, instead? Do you remember the moments He kept closing the doors on the one thing you wanted because it wouldn't help you? Do you remember it was all going to be okay if you simply believed, but you gave up? For every bad moment, we blamed others, kept score, got even and forgot to live. When you remember your "true self", then you can begin to walk forward once again down the road to discovery, childhood dreams and your life purpose. (Writer's Conference, 2012)
— Shannon L. Alder, 300 Questions to Ask Your Parents Before It's Too Late
Of course, that’s how life is. A turn of events may seem very small at the time it’s happening, but you never really know, do you? How can you?
— Tom Xavier, Dark Curses and Faerie Dreams
But can we, should we, let apprehensions about the future immobilize us in the present?
— Arundhati Roy, Broken Republic: Three Essays
Don't look backwards. That never does any good. Think about the future instead.
— Abigail Strom, Cross My Heart
That girl, dead and gone, her spirit trapped forever just inside town limits—she'd come from someplace, was going somewhere. Until destiny had stepped into the road in front of her, stopped her forward motion, drawn a killing claw against the white, fluttering swell of her future. Whispering, 'Oh no, you don't.'When you made plans, the saboteurs came out to play.
— Kat Rosenfield, Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone
Next time!" In what calendar are kept the records of those next times which never come?
— Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona
The past is as important as the future, but we only live in the here and now.
— David Millar, Racing Through the Dark
Dwell in the past, worry about the future and find misery in the present.
— Wayne Gerard Trotman, Veterans of the Psychic Wars
I’m not mad. I already told you that. We all have mistakes in our past...and our future. It’s a fact of life.
— Shannon A. Thompson, November Snow
I hear from afar the shouts of that false wisdom which is ever dragging us onwards, counting the present as nothing, and pursuing without pause a future which flies as we pursue, that false wisdom which removes us from our place and never brings us to any other.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile or On Education
Mattia's voice no longer stirred anything in his stomach, but he was aware of the idea of him and always would be, as the only true benchmark for everything that had come afterward.
— Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers
«“I meant, tell me all about this steampunk thing!” Gavin broke in. “How does that concept work out for you people, here in Brazil?”“You don’t know about steampunk?” shouted Xavier, dubiously.“Well, I don’t read many novels! Because I’m kinda fully-booked already! But, obviously, you’re a science fiction writer at a Futurist conference! And I can see that you’re all dressed up like some fancy guy from the past, from the 19th century! So what gives with that? What is all that about?”»
— Bruce Sterling, Love is Strange
She was afraid of not being able to pull herself out of the dream world, never waking up, never knowing what really happened, never realizing her goals, her hopes, her dreams.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
The past is set down in a thousand thousand indelible scrolls. But the future is a blank parchment forever in wait of a present.
— Andrew Levkoff, The Other Alexander
Children—their untroubled, idyllic vision of the future is almost always shattered. Sooner or later they learn what all youth must—that life is the cruel fate that awaits them while they make plans for a tomorrow that will never be.
— Andrew Levkoff, A Mixture of Madness
«Eliza opened her furry black satchel. She pulled out a portable CD player. “Gav, look here. Once, I loved this machine. Because it plays all my CDs. But nobody buys music in the stores any more! Even I don’t pay for music, and I’m rich! I’m carrying a zombie in my purse!”“Well, yes, that platform is obsolete now, but a new business model will arise for music.”“No it won’t! That’s a lie! Nobody will ever pay! The music business is the walking dead! Don’t lie to me.” Eliza stuffed her doomed device back in her furry purse.Gavin rubbed his chin. “Your Digital Native generation really has some issues.”»
— Bruce Sterling, Love is Strange
Today, tomorrow," she said. "A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.
— Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son
Talk of world peace is heard today only among the white peoples, and not among the much more numerous coloured races. This is a perilous state of affairs. When individual thinkers and idealists talk of peace, as they have done since time immemorial, the effect is negligible. But when whole peoples become pacifistic it is a symptom of senility. Strong and unspent races are not pacifistic. To adopt such a position is to abandon the future, for the pacifist ideal is a terminal condition that is contrary to the basic facts of existence. As long as man continues to evolve, there will be wars...
— Oswald Spengler, Aphorisms
The real problems of our planet are not economic or technical, they are philosophical. The philosophy of unbridled materialism is being challenged by events.
— Ernst F. Schumacher
The hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth – that billions of consumers in India & China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans – is as absurd & dangerous a fantasy as anything dreamt up by Al-Qaeda. It condemns the global environment to early destruction & looks set to create reservoirs of nihilistic rage & disappointment among hundreds of millions of have-nots – the bitter outcome of the universal triumph of Western Modernity, which turns the revenge of the East into something darkly ambiguous, and all its victories truly Pyrrhic.
— Pankaj Mishra, From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia
Are we truly obeying the command to love our neighbor as ourselves if we're storing up money for potential future needs when our neighbor is laboring today under actual present needs?
— Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions and Eternity
When I save, I lay something aside for future need. If I sense God's leading, I will give it away to meet greater needs. When I hoard, I'm unwilling to part with what I've saved to meet others' needs, because my possible future needs outweigh their actual present needs. I fail to love my neighbor as myself.
— Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions and Eternity
The rich can afford to be progressive. Poor people have reason to be afraid of the future.
— Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days
And the Flatline aligned the nose of Kuang's sting with the center of the dark below. And dove. Case's sensory input warped with their velocity. His mouth filled with an aching taste of blue. His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sounds of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine spines. The spines split, bisected, split again, exponential growth under the dome of the Tessier-Ashpool ice.
— William Gibson, Neuromancer
Remember the past, plan for the future, but live for today, because yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come.
— Anonymous
There are two days in the year that you cannot do anything: YESTERDAY & TOMORROW: Only TODAY you can Be Happy, Smile, Dream, Love, Feel, & Be Thankful…
— Pablo
The library refused many downloads, of course, but I succeeded with two Optimists translated from the Late English, Orwell and Huxley;
— David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
The present and the future belong to believers and practitioners of excellence; not the "dinosaurs.
— Rex Resurreccion, Called To Excel
We must cooperate to turn this country around
—  otherwise there will be no more future to speak of for our children.
She liked who she was becoming, despite the pain and frustration it brought.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
It isn't very logical to live my life on goundless supposition. I have to assume the truth of the moment is the truth of the future. - Leah
— Jacquelyn Frank, Adam
And that date, too, is far off?''Far off; when it comes, think your end in this world is at hand!''How and what is the end? Look east, west, south and north.''In the north, where you never yet trod, towards the point whence your instincts have warned you, there a spectre will seize you. 'Tis Death! I see a ship - it is haunted - 'tis chased - it sails on. Baffled navies sail after that ship. It enters the regions of ice. It passes a sky red with meteors. Two moons stand on high, over ice-reefs. I see the ship locked between white defiles - they are ice-rocks. I see the dead strew the decks - stark and livid, green mold on their limbs. All are dead, but one man - it is you! But years, though so slowly they come, have then scathed you. There is the coming of age on your brow, and the will is relaxed in the cells of the brain. Still that will, though enfeebled, exceeds all that man knew before you, through the will you live on, gnawed with famine; and nature no longer obeys you in that death-spreading region; the sky is a sky of iron, and the air has iron clamps, and the ice-rocks wedge in the ship. Hark how it cracks and groans. Ice will imbed it as amber imbeds a straw. And a man has gone forth, living yet, from the ship and its dead; and he has clambered up the spikes of an iceberg, and the two moons gaze down on his form. That man is yourself; and terror is on you - terror; and terror has swallowed your will. And I see swarming up the steep ice-rock, grey grisly things. The bears of the north have scented their quarry - they come near you and nearer, shambling and rolling their bulk, and in that day every moment shall seem to you longer than the centuries through which you have passed. And heed this - after life, moments continued make the bliss or the hell of eternity.''Hush,' said the whisper; 'but the day, you assure me, is far off - very far! I go back to the almond and rose of Damascus! - sleep!' ("The House And The Brain
— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Reign of Terror Volume 2: Great Victorian Horror Stories
... you "met" this Moneta ... or whatever her real name is ... in her past but your future ... in a meeting that's still to come
— Dan Simmons, Hyperion
As one climbs up the ladders in society, one starts feeling more and more like an owner, less like a member of it.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
In the world union, prosperity is a science, self-interest a new religion, peace is at hand and the future has never looked brighter.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
This director could say many things about duty, and self-respect, and dignity, but she knew none of these meant much in the post-modern world.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
You can only rise so far by climbing on others’ shoulders, you know.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
Now, this was a combination that she wouldn’t dare to dream of, even in her worst nightmare.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
Europe is equal to its historical task. Against the anti-spiritual, anti-heroic 'ideals' of America-Jewry, Europe pits its metaphysical ideas, its faith in its Destiny, its ethical principles, its heroism. Fearlessly, Europe falls in for battle, knowing it is armed with the mightiest weapon ever forged by History: the superpersonal Destiny of the European organism. Our European Mission is to create the Culture-State-Nation-Imperium of the West, and thereby we shall perform such deeds, accomplish such works, and so transform our world that our distant posterity, when they behold the remains of our buildings and ramparts, will tell their grandchildren that on the soil of Europe once dwelt a tribe of gods.
— Francis Parker Yockey, The Enemy of Europe/The Enemy of Our Enemies
The future is only the past again, entered through another gate.
— Arthur Wing Pinero
In post-modern finance, everybody took a risk when lending or borrowing.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
It’s more like he was an ant in the land of elephants. Nobody would notice his presence, no matter how much noise he might make.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
I’d likte to welcome you to the land of free, where healthy, wealthy, happy people contribute to the civilization under the protection of the rules of capitalism, laws of science and rights of universal suffrage.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
The worst kind of victim was the kind that was aware of nothing.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
I’m just an apprentice, stuck between these borrowed first and last breaths that I was given, drinking water of life, and chasing the fire of knowledge, and waiting to mingle with my eternal and faithful love, earth.
— B. Barmanbek, Culpa Innata
Wisdom's daughter walks alone—”“Ella!” Frank stood suddenly. “Maybe it's not the best time
— Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena
All those people who are chained here thinking that their reputations matter and this little shit matters are so freaking shortsighted. Dude, what matters is that you're happy. What matters is your future. What matters is that we get out of here in one piece. What matters is finding the truth of our own lives, not caring about what other people think is the truth of us.
— A.S. King, Ask the Passengers
Sometimes the clouds weren't weightless. Sometimes their bellies got dark and full. It was life. It happened. It didn't mean it wasn't scary, or that I wasn't still afraid, but now I knew that as long as I was standing under it with Braden beside me when those clouds broke, I'd be alright. We'd get rained on together. Knowing Braden he'd have a big ass umbrela to shelter us from the worst of it. That there was an uncertain future I could handle.
— Samantha Young, On Dublin Street
No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
— Alan W. Watts
She didn't want to be reminded of her past or how different her present was from the future she'd taken for granted.
— Freya North, Chances
You can't insure against the future, except by really believing in the best bit of you, and in the power beyond it.
— D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . .If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine yound intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them.If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s 
— Paul Harvey
We are told we must choose — the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the
— Susan Sontag
I’ve got a question for you… Are you the person who you thought you’d be by now? I know I am not. The fact is that life may not be what you thought it would be by now (If It is, I congratulate you & applaud you) You may feel stuck in a job you don’t like, not making enough money, jobless, or maybe you are in a bad relationship/marriage, or unhappy because you are out of shape…but don’t let that get you down.The key is 2 focus on what you have (Health,Fam,friends etc) instead of what you don’t have. And also in the things that you have done (Finished a Race-College/Got that Diploma/Raise a Family etc) Instead of the things you haven’t done. yetIF where you are now, it’s not where you want to be…know that where you’re going is far more important than where you are now or where you’ve been.Forgive yourself, Accept the current situation & MOVE ON, knowing that from now on you will focus your time & energy on the possibilities & opportunities that lie ahead 4 you in the near future.
— Pablo
For the last century, almost all top political appointments [on the planet Earth] had been made by random computer selection from the pool of individuals who had the necessary qualifications. It had taken the human race several thousand years to realize that there were some jobs that should never be given to the people who volunteered for them, especially if they showed too much enthusiasm. As one shrewed political commentator had remarked: “We want a President who has to be carried screaming and kicking into the White House — but will then do the best job he possibly can, so that he’ll get time off for good behavior.
— Arthur C. Clarke, Imperial Earth
Happily Ever After starts every time you woke up.
— T.A
One must divide one's time between politics and equations. But our equations are much more important to me, because politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity.
— Albert Einstein
Your future is uncertain, and I can tell you nothing that can help you. You are singular and dangerous, and so it is that you are sought by both the Dark and the Light.
— Alison Croggon, The Naming
Inbetween yesterday's regret and tomorrow's dream is today's opportunity. Seize the chance!
— Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha, Overcoming the Challenges of Life
I'm not going to be one of those people who sits around talking about what they're going to do. I'm just going to do it. Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia.
— John Green, Looking for Alaska
The laziness of adolescence is a rehearsal for the incapacity of old age.
— Idries Shah, Reflections
i am everything • i am nothing • therefore • i can be anything
— Zaji, When We Were One
Invest in the future because that is where you are going to spend the rest of your life.
— Habeeb Akande
Only the weak use "I can't" as an excuse to give up.
— T.A
Never forget,Each day that we have together is a precious gift.In the web of daily living, we are creating character.Let's take the time to create memories, listen and observe.Time flees, and it does not return.If we lose today, it is gone forever.Let's live for the present, and be prepared for the future. Let's grow strong, let's grow bigger, let's grow TOGETHER!
— Lina Cuartas, Come Into My World
To live a more balanced life, glance at the past, live in the present, and focus on the future.
— Todd Stocker
Everyone’s life is an evolution of emotions, spirit and beliefs. The storyline changes, plots thicken, main characters mature and new spiritual journeys begin. This is true of inspirational authors. Their books represent only the stages of their life. New triumphs of the soul have yet to be written!
— Shannon L. Alder
The past is only making you to spill tears, tears of joy or tears pain. But anyway they are making you sad, for the things you had and will never have again.
— T.A
I'm sure that's when you really know you are happy - when you wake up wanting to embrace your future, rather than trying to squirm away from your past.
— Peter James, Perfect People
One more year and I will be closer to wherever I'm going.
— Emma Cameron, Cinnamon Rain
...it saddens me that she has to grow up and make friends with humans. I hear the future coming for her. Stomp, stomp, stomp.
— Catherine Austen, All Good Children
Don't stop until you get enough.
— Michael James Jackson
The future happens. No matter how much we scream.
— Derek Walcott, The Odyssey
Everybody has to start somewhere. You have your whole future ahead of you. Perfection doesn't happen right away.
— Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
We are, perhaps uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take the idea of dying, unable to sit still.
— Lewis Thomas
I applied for the University of Life. Didn't get the grades.
— David Nicholls, Starter for Ten
Am I racially kin to this man? Baynes wondered. So closely so that for all intents and purposes it is the same? Then it is in me, too, the psychotic streak. A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power. How long have we known this? Faced this? And - how many of us do know it?
— Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
Challenge who you can be, don't let fate control your future. Fate can come to rule your life if you don't decide for yourselves exactly what you want. It fills in the bits like a mischievous mistress.
— Steven Redhead, Keys to Creating Your Reality
By the time these students enter the workforce, many of the jobs they will apply for ill be in industries that don't even exist yet. That's a hard future to prepare someone for. Teachers have their sights set on the real goal: not to produce Ivy League graduates, but to encourage the development of naturally curious, confident, flexible, and happy learners who are ready for whatever the future has in store.
— Taylor Mali
When you're about to die, your whole life's supposed to flash before your eyes. When you fall in true love, on the other hand, what you see in the twinkling of an eye is your entire future.
— Tom Holt, You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But it Helps
I don't care what tomorrow brings, as long as I have you.
— Molly Harper, The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf
You can't change the past, only your perception of it; but you can control the future.
— Steven Redhead
What was I supposed to do then I wondered. Was there even a supposed-to for this kind of situation? A situation when when I looked at my receding past everything seemed retrospectively marked by an extreme order and predictability yet all moments since seemed to obey, and promised to continue obeying, their own set of stochastic, undisclosed, and undiscoverable laws. Where I was fully aware of the pitfalls and folly of a finely-tuned narcissism but still the known universe seemed to bend and bend inexorably inward and towards me where it awaited my next move, supremely ready to react accordingly. And how I knew that decisions I would soon make or defer would have near-Sophoclean import and yet nonetheless it all seemed oddly irrelevant.
— Sergio de la Pava, A Naked Singularity
No matter what choice you make, it doesn't define you. Not forever. People can make bad choices and change their minds and hearts and do good things later; just as people can make good choices and then turn around and walk a bad path. No choice we make lasts our whole life. It there's ever a choice you've made that you no longer agree with, you can make another choice . . . you can't change the past. Ah, but the future . . . you own the future. So, tell me . . . what choice do you want to make now?
— Jonathan Mayberry
Children are more than we think they are; they can do more than we think they can do. All they need is a vote of confidence from grownups, whom they will ultimately replace anyway. Their dream today will become the realities of tomorrow.
— Wess Stafford
Just because a prediction is true, doesn't mean that it is not false.
— Lionel Suggs
Sometimes people say that we're living in the future, and time's up for science fiction, but I think that never will be, because science fiction really isn't about the future. It's about change and present-day concerns
— Stephen Baxter
We stand at the onset of a great age of adventure—and always shall, so long as we keep doing science.
— Timothy Ferris
If the world explore all my dark fantasy, will change for the better”.
— Alexandar Tomov
But memories were fragile and not to be trusted. They were a weight that Faolin did not need to carry with him when he set out that morning. Things of the past, like the fragile boy he had been, had no place on a man’s journey towards his future.
— Madeline Claire Franklin
The Future is as avoidable as the past is alterable, for the latter is, after all, a consequence of the former: A combination of choice and fate.
— K.C. King, Anomaly
I am about tribal feminine power. As a leader, I may stumble but my essence lives to the future-- of my people, of my literature, of my art. And when a tribesman turn against its leader, that tribe will become two. It may faulter my course, but it will not stifle my ending. I rule only among my believers.
— Kristie LeVangie
Challenge who you can be, don't let fate control your future.
— Steven Redhead, Keys to Creating Your Reality
Deployed upon that plain they moved in a constant elision, ordained agents of the actual dividing out the world which they encountered and leaving what had been and what would never be alike extinguished on the ground behind them.
— Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
Her family was a relay team racing toward Tomorrowland, but her father died, and in their shock they kept losing the baton.
— Stacy Bierlein, A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends
Every future we imagine is transformed inexorably into a part of our children's understanding of their past, of the assumptions their parents and grandparents could not help but make.The Killer Hook
— Michael Chabon
He died of a breaking heart," Pete said, making a stout log fence of his hands around the glove compartment and leaning forward to peer at the luminous clock, "but he was an old man. He was the king of his Yaquis down there and he couldn't live any more when they took the land away. He couldn't live up in the mountains that way. He hid all the treasures - you understand treasures? - in the mountains down there and he died. Now I'm the king of my Yaquis and someday I'll go down there and dig up the treasures again - maybe soon if they don't catch me too much. Then I buy the land back and we will live in the future like in the past only better." Pete let the fence fall, and sunlight showed the clock to be hours wrong, if not years.
— Douglas Woolf, Wall to Wall
The future is the one thing you can count on not abandoning you, kid, he’d said. The future will always finds you. Stand still, and it will find you. The way the land just has run to sea.
— Marianne Wiggins, Evidence of Things Unseen
His wife spotted the danger in our resolutely bohemian ways."You have only one year left before you qualify as a doctor and yet you're going away? You have no idea when you'll be back? But why?"We couldn't give precise answers to her desperate questions and this horrified her...
— Ernesto Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey
Right now fear, doubt, anxiety, tension and disharmony are reigning supreme.But there shall come a time when this world of ours will be flooded with peace.Who is going to bring about this radical change?It will be you: you and your sisters and brothers.You and your oneness-heart will spread peace throughout the length and breadth of the world.
— Sri Chinmoy, The Wings of Joy: Finding Your Path to Inner Peace
I love books. I’m giving some hard copies of the Sacerdos Mysteries book away because I think there’s something so brilliant about them. The digitisation trend is the future but people will still want the feel and smell of real books.
— Elizabeth Amisu, Sacerdos
Technology enables us to work every minute of every day from any place on the planet.
— Carl Honoré
If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.
— Gordon A. Eadie
I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
— Mahatma Gandhi
If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
— Abraham Lincoln
You have to believe. Otherwise, it will never happen.
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
It's hard to believe in coincidence, but it's even harder to believe in anything else.
— John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe, and then they do not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjuration. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe; and it is that rock solid belief, that makes things happen.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.
— Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.
— Douglas Adams
She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
Believing takes practice.
— Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time: With Related Readings
Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.
— Arthur Rimbaud
We believe in bravery. We believe in taking action. We believe in freedom from fear and in acquiring the skills to force the bad out of our world so that the good can prosper and thrive. If you also believe in those things, we welcome you.
— Veronica Roth, Divergent
It's what you choose to believe that makes you the person you are.
— Karen Marie Moning, Darkfever
It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.
— Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.
— William Faulkner, Light in August
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
— Søren Kierkegaard
You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.
— Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
That's the thing about magic; you've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.
— Charles de Lint
Man is what he believes.
— Anton Chekhov
The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.
— Marcus Garvey
You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth of falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?
— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
You can believe something really hard,' Faith says, 'and still be wrong.
— Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith
What do I believe that I deserve in this life?
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.
— Timothy J. Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
It is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window.
— Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.
— Gerry Spence, How to Argue & Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Everyday
My technique is don’t believe anything. If you believe in something, you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite.
— Terence McKenna
Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief,but it is belief that is the positive, it is beliefthat sustains thought and holds the world together.
— Søren Kierkegaard
If you were an atheist, Birbal," the Emperor challenged his first minister, "what would you say to the true believers of all the great religions of the world?" Birbal was a devout Brahmin from Trivikrampur, but he answered unhesitatingly, "I would say to them that in my opinion they were all atheists as well; I merely believe in one god less than each of them." "How so?" the Emperor asked. "All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own," said Birbal. "And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in 
— Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence
I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble.""But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg."That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.
— Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
I believe in recovery, and as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it.
— Ann Richards
Belief gets in the way of learning.
— Robert A. Heinlein
You could try to believe what you wanted, but it never worked. Your brain and your heart decided what you were going to believe and that was that. Whether you liked it or not.
— Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home
There are times in a person's life when he or she must make a choice to believe. I choose to believe the sun will rise tomorrow. I also choose to believe that if you go to bed hungry you will wake up ready to eat. I've met a group of men in a faraway country who choose to believe that if you stand on a tree stump for an hour you will gain sympathy for trees. I am already quite sympathetic to trees, so I choose to think they are bonkers.
— Obert Skye, Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra
Look, Aerin, preparation is only half the challenge of winning a debate.”“And the other half?”He had her now. “You have to choose the right side.”“Your side, you mean.” She bristled.“No, the losing side.”“What?”“Always choose the weaker side.”“Why would I do that?” Doubt edged her voice, but now she was sitting erect, her feet flat on the floor.“Because then you have further to go to prove your case.” He eased the feet of his chair down. “In a debate, there are two sides. If both make a good argument, then the less popular side wins because that side had further to go to prove its point. Simple logistics.”“If you don’t care which side wins.” She frowned.“It’s a debate. It doesn’t matter which side wins.”“You mean it doesn’t matter to you.” The tone in her voice unsettled him. Or maybe it was the fact that that her criticism disturbed him at all.“It’s a class,” he said. “The point is to flesh out the different sides of an argument.”“And you don’t care if the truth gets lost in the shuffle. Don’t you believe in anything?!
— Anne Osterlund, Academy 7
I have one life and one chance to make it count for something... My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.
— Jimmy Carter
At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty
Belief creates behaviors.
— Neale Donald Walsch, New Revelations:  A Conversation With God
A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses
—  it is an idea that possesses the mind
I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.
— G.I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World: Early Talks Moscow Essentuki Tiflis Berlin London Paris NY Chicago as Recollecte
He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.
— Sigmund Freud
Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.
— Ansel Adams
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
— Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
— George Bernard Shaw
Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.
— Bram Stoker, Dracula
Your greatness is revealed not by the lights that shine upon you, but by the light that shines within you.
— Ray A. Davis
There are those who say that seeing is believing. I am telling you that believing is seeing.
— Neale Donald Walsch, Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends
There are so many things I can't believe. That people deserve what they get, both bad and good. That one day I'll live in a world where people are judged by what they do instead of who they are. That happy endings don't have contingencies and conditions.
— Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home
Nothing will shake a man-or at any rate a man like me-out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself.
— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
I confused things with their names: that is belief.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words
Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.
— David Hume, Letters of David Hume 2 vols
And one more thing: you still believe that man can be good. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have invented all this nonsense to convince yourself otherwise.
— Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym
Don't you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall neve
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them.
— Daniel Handler
Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures. But we must learn to accept who we are and appreciate who we become. We must love ourselves for what and who we are, and believe in our talents.
— Harley King
IT'S THE EXPRESSION ON THEIR LITTLE FACES I LIKE, said the Hogfather. "You mean sort of fear and awe and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?" YES. NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL BELIEF.
— Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
By first believing in Santa Claus, then the Easter Bunny, then the Tooth Fairy, Rant Casey was recognizing that those myths are more than pretty stories and traditions to delight children. Or to modify behavior. Each of those three traditions asks a child to believe in the impossible in exchange for a reward. These are stepped-up tests to build a child's faith and imagination. The first test is to believe in a magical person, with toys as the reward. The second test is to trust in a magical animal, with candy as the reward. The last test is the most difficult, with the most abstract reward: To believe, trust in a flying fairy that will leave money. From a man to an animal to a fairy. From toys to candy to money. Thus, interestingly enough, transferring the magic of faith and trust from sparkling fairy-dom to clumsy, tarnished coins. From gossamer wings to nickels... dimes... and quarters. In this way, a child is stepped up to greater feats of imagination and faith as he or she matures. Beginning with Santa in infancy, and ending with the Tooth Fairy as the child acquires adult teeth. Or, plainly put, beginning with all the possibility of childhood, and ending with an absolute trust in the national currency. 
— Chuck Palahniuk, Rant
There’s no point in believing in things that exist.
— Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
There's something wrong in not appreciating one's own special abilities, my girl. Find your own limitations, yes, but don't limit yourself with false modesty.
— Anne McCaffrey, Dragonsinger
Micro meditations should be performed with very little activity. These practices should not be associated with any goal, concept or belief.
— Amit Ray, Yoga and Vipassana: An Integrated Life Style
I don't believe in anything, Mother," I said. "You told Armand long ago that you believe you'll find answers in the great jungles and forests; that the stars will finally reveal a vast truth. But I don't believe in anything. And that makes me stronger than you think
— Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?"Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?"NO"Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact."THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN...."Really? Then what would have happened, pray?"A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
— Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)
— Anne Lamott, Crooked Little Heart
We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
— John Henry Newman
Because the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination.
— Betty  Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.
— Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
In a brutal country like ours, where human life is 'cheap', it's stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs? High ideas? Only people in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.
— Orhan Pamuk, Snow