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The believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence.
- H. L. Mencken
Related topics: Cynical
I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie.
I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave.
And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
- H.L. Mencken
We must respect the other fellow's religion,
but only in the sense and to the extent
that we respect his theory that
his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
- H. L. Mencken
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
- H. L. Mencken
Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- H. L. Mencken
Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken
Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- H. L. Mencken
Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken
Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken
Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken
The objection to Puritans is not that
they try to make us think as they do,
but that they try to make us do as they think.
- H. L. Mencken
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken
The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- H. L. Mencken
Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband
a month before she marries him
and what she thinks of him a year afterward,
and you will have the truth about him.
- H. L. Mencken
Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- H. L. Mencken
Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken
Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- H. L. Mencken
The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken
For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins,
all of them imaginary.
- H. L. Mencken
In spite of unseasonable wind, snow
and unexpected weather of all sorts -
a gardener still plants.
And tends what they have planted ...
believing that Spring will come.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Could you risk believing that everything
will unfold just fine if you completely let go
of all concern about everything else,
and simply are here, now - if only for a moment?
- Dmitri Bilgere
Resilience is about believing in yourself,
and trusting your own wisdom rather than
being swayed by the opinions of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Faith consists in believing when it is
beyond the power of reason to believe.
- Voltaire
Never stop dreaming your inspired future.
Believing in your dreams is only the first step,
but unless you have a dream that you believe in,
you are leaving your future to random chance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Never be fooled into believing that
there is one speck out of order.
- Byron Katie
Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I was wise enough to never grow up
while fooling most people into believing I had.
- Margaret Mead
Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein
Seeing is not always believing.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW
is only a small step and quickly taken.
- Mark Twain
Humans do have an amazing capacity
for believing what they choose,
and excluding that which is painful.
- Spock (character in Star Trek television series)
You have to be an original individual;
you have to find your innermost core on your own,
with no guide, no guiding scriptures.
It is a dark night, but with the intense fire of inquiry
you are bound to come to the sunrise.
Everybody who has burned with intense inquiry
has found the sunrise.
Others only believe.
Those who believe are not religious,
they are simply avoiding the great adventure
of religion by believing.
- Osho
I want to share with you the three rules
that I have in order to accept an apprentice.
Rule Number 1: Don't believe me.
I don't want you to believe me
but I want you to listen and make choices - your choices.
If what I say, doesn't work for you, leave it.
But if it works for you and that's what you want, then make it yours.
Rule Number 2: Don't believe yourself.
Why? Because most of your belief system is a lie - it's not true.
And by believing yourself, you create all the limitations
that don't allow you to be what you really are.
Don't believe yourself. Listen to what you say,
listen to what you think, listen to what you believe.
And when you listen, open your ears, open your mind,
open your intelligence and make choices.
Rule 3 is, don't believe anybody else.
Don't believe them at all.
Open your ears and your mind; listen and make choices.
- don Miguel Ruiz
Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
- Mark Twain
The believing we do something when we do nothing
is the first illusion of tobacco.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We are born believing.
A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Is a belief a perception of the five senses,
or is it a perception of emotional feeling?
Is it better to say "I sense" and/or "I feel"?
Is it better to say " I know" than "I believe"?
Is belief based on experience or on a idea?
My thinking is that belief/believing is a very missed used word.
- Anonymous
One of the annoying things about believing in free will
and individual responsibility is the difficulty
of finding somebody to blame your problems on.
And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable
how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
- P. J. O'Rourke
The mind is not a vessel to be filled
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
Beware the Rattlesnake of the Mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Bringing a childlike wonder
and a beginner's mind to life
maximizes both success and joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
To the mind that is still,
the whole universe surrenders.
- Lao Tzu
Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire.
- William Butler Yeats
The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.
- Publilius Syrus
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as
your own unguarded thoughts.
- The Buddha
Dare to be naive.
- Buckminster Fuller
Know that miracles are the natural way of the Universe
Your only job is to move your doubting mind out of the way.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I can only have peace of mind when I forgive rather than judge.
- Gerald Jampolsky
No problem can be solved from the same level
of consciousness that created it.
- Albert Einstein
We are shaped by our thoughts;
we become what we think.
When the mind is pure, joy follows
like a shadow that never leaves.
- The Buddha
You can do anything you put your mind to.
- Anonymous
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous
than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The human mind is our fundamental resource.
- John F. Kennedy
Do not dwell in the past,
do not dream of the future,
concentrate the mind on the present moment.
- The Buddha
Dream with Powerful Vision:
I open my mind to Spirit,
and trust my intuition to deliver inspiring visions of my future.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you paint in your mind a picture of
bright and happy expectations,
you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.
- Norman Vincent Peale
May your spirit soar throughout the vast cathedral of your being.
May your mind whirl joyful cartwheels of creativity.
May your heart sing sweet lullabies of timelessness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The most dangerous phrase in the language is,
"We've always done it this way."
- Grace Hopper
May your mind whirl joyful cartwheels of creativity.
May your heart sing sweet lullabies of timelessness.
May your essence be the nectar of the open blossom of your joy.
May your spirit soar throughout the vast cathedral of your being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -
and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard Feynman
Instead of dwelling on negative thoughts,
cause your mind to dwell on peace and joy.
- Ernest Holmes
May your mind whirl joyful cartwheels of creativity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The mind has exactly the same power as the hands:
not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.
- Colin Wilson
Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer,
in my mind I am free.
- Stephen Hawking
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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