What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

I’ve always believed in God. I also think that’s the sort of thing that either comes as part of the equipment, the capacity to believe, or at some point in your life, when you’re in a position where you actually need help from a power greater than yourself, you simply make an agreement.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

When somewhat at a distance, I cannot hear the high tones of instruments, voices. In speaking, it is not surprising that there are people who have never noticed it, for as a rule I am absent-minded, and they account for it in that way.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

No one loves the man whom he fears.

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.

My age is very insignificant to me. I don’t think about it, but the world does. The world likes young people in general.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

I do believe in the energy and the productivity of the American business world.

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

You know, my faith is one that admits some doubt.

No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.

Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand.

I’m a strict, strict agnostic. It’s very different from a casual, ‚I don’t know.‘ It’s that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can’t present it as fact.

I wouldn’t put myself forward to do a film like ‚Changeling‘ if I thought I couldn’t pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

Sometimes cameras and television are good to people and sometimes they aren’t. I don’t know if its the way you say it, or how you look.

In difficult times, we’re not supposed to quit believing; we’re not supposed to quit growing.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

I do have a vulnerable side. I think a lot of people have a misperception of me. They only see the tough, defensive, aggressive side. But every woman is vulnerable.

I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

First of all, you ask me if the God of Christians forgives one who doesn’t believe and doesn’t seek the faith. Premise that – and it’s the fundamental thing – the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart; the question for one who doesn’t believe in God lies in obeying one’s conscience.

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

I don’t want to impugn the motives of my colleagues, but my attitude is, speaking just for me, you either believe in border security or you don’t.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

If you have enough people sitting around telling you you’re wonderful, then you start believing you’re fabulous, then someone tells you you stink and you believe that too!

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

For most of us, relationship with another is based on dependence, either economic or psychological. This dependence creates fear, breeds in us possessiveness, results in friction, suspicion, frustration.

I do not believe any of the statistical claims that are made about public opinion. I don’t see why anybody does.

God always has patience.

If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.

A cynical young person is almost the saddest sight to see, because it means that he or she has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them. One day I put a post on Facebook that said, ‚God is not mad at you.‘ Within a few hours, we literally had thousands of positive responses from people saying things like, ‚That is exactly what I needed to hear today.‘ Obviously, this is a message we need to hear.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

I hate being called an ‚icon.‘ I just don’t like it. That’s all there is to it.

Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things – he didn’t just command them to believe.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

I don’t think even ungodly people realize what a society would be like that had no godly influence at all.

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.