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A belief is a conviction that something exists or is true

• Belief: An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.  Oxford Dictionary
• Belief: Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something. American Heritage Dictionary
• Belief: Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.  Dictionary.com
• Belief: A feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true.  Merriam Webster
• Belief: The feeling of being certain that something exists or is true.  Cambridge Dictionary
• Self-belief,  Faith,  Truth,  Reality,  Illusion,  Perception,   Assumption,  Self-confidence,  Opinion

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Our beliefs determine what is true for us …

• What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.  Gary Zukav
• In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true, or becomes true.  John Lilly
• What we sincerely believe regarding ourselves is true for us.  Orison Swett Marden
• What really matters is what you believe.  Dan Brown
• “What is real?” asks the voice of Truth to the spirits of all who have lived. Like the sound of a raging river, I hear the voices of millions, each proclaiming their truth – all different with many contradictions. Silence fills the air and there is great expectation. Then The Book of Law falls open. Its pages are empty. And the voice of Truth answers: “As thou hast believed, so it is true. Whatever you believe within, that you will see without. All power belongs to those who believe.”  John Kehoe
• Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.  [Obi-Wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars]  George Lucas
• Truth

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  … and rule our lives for the better or worse…

• And basically, our choices of what to believe in life, makes our life the way it is now. We are shaped by the beliefs we choose to carry.  Frederik Kerling
• You see everything is about belief, whatever we believe rules our existence, rules our life.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.  James Allen
• There is a force that controls all your decisions. It influences how you think and feel every moment you’re alive. It determines what you will do and what you will not do. It determines how you feel about anything that occurs in your life. That force is your beliefs.   Tony Robbins
• The belief system is like a Book of Law that rules our mind. Without question, whatever is in that Book of Law, is our truth. We base all of our judgments according to the Book of Law, even if these judgments go against our own inner nature. Even moral laws like the Ten Commandments are programmed into our mind in the process of domestication. One by one, all these agreements go into the Book of Law, and these agreements rule our dream.  Don Miguel Ruiz

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…for our beliefs create our reality

• Whatever you believe with feeling becomes your reality.  Brian Tracy
• The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.  Frank Lloyd Wright
• You can always tell what you believe by what you are getting.  Alan Cohen
• The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.  James Allen
• Your belief creates the fact. James Allen
• Your perceptions have the power to change your genetic makeup—your beliefs can and do control your biology.  Wayne Dyer
• Your beliefs are your reality.  If you don’t like the reality you see, change your beliefs!   Stephen C. Paul
• People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct and true. That’s how they define Reality. But what does it mean to be “correct” or “true”? Merely vague concepts… Their Reality may all be a mirage. Can we consider them to simply be living in their own world, shaped by their beliefs?  Masashi Kishimoto
• Reality

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Great power belongs to those with empowering beliefs…

• Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you as soon as you can change your beliefs.  Maxwell Maltz
• What wonderful power, what a newness of life and of power of expression, is waiting for those who really believe.  Ernest Holme
• One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.  John Stuart Mill
• The voice of Truth answers: “As thou hast believed, so it is true. Whatever you believe within, that you will see without. All power belongs to those who believe.”  John Kehoe
• Power

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… while negative beliefs can disempower us, and make us miserable

• The biggest mental roadblocks that you will ever have to overcome are those represented by your self- limiting beliefs.  Brian Tracy
• There is only one cause of unhappiness; the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.  Anthony de Mello
• Our negative thoughts are valuable messages to us about our deeper fears and negative attitudes.  These usually are so basic to our thinking and feeling that we don’t realize they are beliefs at all.  We assume that they are simply “the way life is.”  We may be consciously affirming and visualizing prosperity, but if our unconscious belief is that we don’t deserve it, then we won’t create it. Once we become aware of our core negative beliefs, they begin to heal.  Shakti Gawain
• Suffering

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Our beliefs determine what we experience in life

• What you believe you experience.  Jiddu Krishnamurti
• We attract experiences that are consistent with our beliefs.   Arielle Ford
• Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself.  We cannot outperform our level of self-esteem.  We cannot draw to ourselves more than we think we are worth.  Iyanla Vanzant
• Believe in poverty and you will be poor. Believe in wealth and you will be rich. Believe in love and you will have love.  Believe in health and you will be healthy. Napoleon Hill
• Whether your beliefs are true or totally insane, if you accept them, then that’s what your life will be about.  Robert Anthony
• If we believe in magic, we’ll live a magical life.  If we believe our life is defined by narrow limits, we’ve suddenly made those beliefs real.  Tony Robbins
• Your basic energy signature is the sum of all your thoughts and beliefs.  You define your personality, physical attributes, and behavior.  You are the only one who can create or change your thoughts and your beliefs. And your beliefs create what you experience as life.  Bruce I. Doyle III
• If you have an unconscious belief that you will be abused or put down, you will attract into your life those who will abuse you or be critical of you. Your mind seeks to be validated in this way. “See,” it will say to itself, “I knew I was a victim. I was right all along.” If deep down you feel unlovable, you will attract into your life those who are incapable of loving you. And even those who happen along who are very loving, will suddenly find themselves being unloving towards you. If you have a belief that the people who love you will leave you, then sure enough, it will happen. Over and over again. So you had better become aware of your unconscious beliefs. They are creating your experience of life. They are based on your past experiences, and mostly they are formed in your early childhood. As long as these beliefs remain unconscious, there is no way to be released from them.  Leonard Jacobson
• The world is your mirror and your mind is a magnet. What you perceive is in this world is largely a reflection of your own attitudes and beliefs. Life will give you what you attract with your thoughts think, act and talk negatively and your world will be negative. Think and act and talk with enthusiasm and you will attract positive results.  Michael LeBeuf
• Experience

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Our beliefs determine what we see and hear…

• Most people believe they see the world as it is. However, we really see the world as we are.
• Your beliefs control what you see and where you’re heading. If you don’t believe that you’re awesome, then you won’t accomplish awesome things.  Henri Junttila
• Those who believe in ghosts always see them.  Charles V. Roman
• All you see in your world is the outcome of your idea about it.  Neale Donald Walsch
• Whatever I believe within, that will I see without. All power belongs to those who believe.  John Kehoe
• You’ll see it when you believe it.  Wayne Dyer
• A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.  Goethe
• The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.  Robertson Davies
• The way we see the problem is the problem.  Stephen Covey
• Our beliefs are so powerful that they color our entire world.  We literally see what we believe, but we can–and most of us do–fail to take responsibility for what we see, especially what we see within.  Hugh Prather
• Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.  Flannery O’Connor
• Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.  St. Augustine
• We only see what we want to see; we only hear what we want to hear. Our belief system is just like a mirror that only shows us what we believe. Miguel Angel Ruiz
• What we believe about ourselves can hold us hostage.  Over the years I have come to respect the power of people’s beliefs.  The thing that has amazed me is that a belief is more than just an idea–it seems to shift the way in which we actually experience ourselves and our lives.  According to Talmudic teaching, “We do not see things as they are.  We see them as we are.”  A belief is like a pair of sunglasses.  When we wear a belief and look at life through it, it is difficult to convince ourselves that what we see is not real. . . . Sometimes because of our beliefs we may have never seen ourselves or life whole before.  No matter.  We can recognize life anyway.  Our life force may not require us to strengthen it.  We often just need to free it where it has gotten trapped in beliefs, attitudes, judgment, and shame.  Rachel Naomi Remen
• It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away.  Kenich Ohmae
• Perception

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… for believing is seeing

• You must understand that seeing is believing, but also know that believing is seeing.  Denis Waitley
• Faith is to believe in what you do not yet see, the reward for faith is to see what you believe.
• There are those who say that seeing is believing. I am telling you that believing is seeing.  Neale Donald Walsch
• Seeing is not believing; believing is seeing! You see things, not as they are, but as you are.  Eric Butterworth
• Some things have to be believed to be seen.  Ralph Hodgson
• What you see is evidence of what you believe. Believe it and you’ll see it.  Wayne Dyer

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Our beliefs determine what we think

• Once your subconscious has accepted a belief or idea, wether true or not, it will continually feed you thoughts to support that belief.  John Kehoe
• Thinking

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Our beliefs determine our attitude

• Your attitude is an expression of your values, beliefs and expectations.   Brian Tracy
• Success is an attitude that comes from a framework of powerful beliefs and empowering thoughts.  Because what you think and believe about your life largely determines how you feel (your attitude), what actions you take (your behavior), and what you achieve (the end result.)  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• Your ‘attitude’ is the costume your subconscious mind makes you wear, based on your beliefs.  Che Garman
• Attitude

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Our beliefs determine how we act and behave

• Belief creates behaviours.  Neale Donald Walsch
• It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential.   Sam Harris
• Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.  Mahatma Gandhi
• If you think you can’t, you will likely prove it by not even trying.  Che Garman
• Our daily behaviors broadcast our deepest beliefs.  Robin Sharma
• As a man believes, so he will act.   Sam Harris
• Out of our beliefs are born deeds; out of our deeds we form habits; out of our habits grows our character; and on our character, we build our destiny.  Henry Hancock
• Action

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Our beliefs determine the meaning we find in life

• It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.  Tony Robbins
• Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.  Tony Robbins
• We are the only beings on the planet who lead such rich internal lives that it’s not the events that matter most to us, but rather, it’s how we interpret those events that will determine how we think about ourselves and how we will act in the future.  Tony Robbins
• You see, it’s never the environment; it’s never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events – how we interpret them – that shapes who we are today and who we’ll become tomorrow.  Tony Robbins
• And this I do believe above all, especially in times of greater discouragement, that I must BELIEVE—that I must believe in my fellow people—that I must believe in myself—that I must believe in God—if life is to have any meaning.  Margaret Chase Smith
• Saying yes means getting up and acting on your belief that you can create meaning and purpose in whatever life hands you.   Susan Jeffers
• Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing — faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.  Terry Tempest Williams
• Meaning

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Our beliefs determine the abundance in our lives – or lack of it

• Abundance is a state of mind, but when felt within our hearts; we open the door to receive the gifts of heaven. Abundance is our Soul’s natural state, and the only thing that stops its flow is our beliefs. When we accept that we are worthy of all the wonderful things in heaven and earth, we open the door for their arrival.  Carolyn Greenleaf
• If you believe you are plenty, you will validate that belief and create plenty of abundance.  T. Harv Eker
• Abundance

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Our beliefs determine our happiness or misery …

• Upon this little word belief hang all your sorrows and joys.   James Allen
• The therapist does not treat patients by simply giving them another set of beliefs.  He or she tries to help them see which kinds of ideas and beliefs have led to their suffering.  Many patients want to get rid of their painful feelings, but they do not want to get rid of their beliefs, the viewpoints that are the very roots of their feelings.  Thich Nhat Hanh
• Examine what (usually false) beliefs are fuelling your emotion.  Once you have figured out what is causing the feelings you are experiencing, you can then begin to let them go and replace them with positive beliefs and emotions.   Amanda Harvey
• Happiness,  Unhappiness

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… or do they?

• The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed; each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.  Bertrand Russell

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Our beliefs determine what we are and what we become

• We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• A man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.  Bhagavad Gita
• Man is what he believes.   Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
• You become what you believe – not what you wish or want but what you truly believe. Wherever you are in life, look at your beliefs. They put you there. Oprah Winfrey
• What you believe yourself to be, you are.  Claude M. Bristol
• The most important thing about a man is what he believes in the depth of his being. This is the thing that makes him what he is. Hugh Stevenson Tigner
• You are what you are by what you believe.  Oprah Winfrey
•   People are made by their beliefs.  As they believe, so they are.  The Bhagavad Gita
• Our beliefs about what we are and what we can be, precisely determine what we will be.  Tony Robbins
• It’s what you choose to believe that makes you the person you are.  Karen Marie Moning
• People are made by their beliefs.  As they believe, so they are.  the Bhagavad Gita
• Attitudes and beliefs eventually sculpt the face.  Che Garman

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Our beliefs determine our success or failure

• Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that ensures the successful outcome of the venture.  William James
• Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. Norman Vincent Peale
• Enthusiasm is that ingredient of vitality mixed with a firm belief in what you are doing that ensures the success of any project you undertake.  Dale Carnegie
• Here is the first step toward success. It’s a basic step. It can’t be avoided. Step One: Believe in yourself, believe you can succeed.  David Schwartz
• How successful you will be at anything is inexorably tied to the words and beliefs about yourself that you have stored in your subconscious mind.  Shad Helmstetter
• If we can once believe that success is possible, success becomes possible.  Frank Chapman Sharp
• People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success. Norman Vincent Peale
• Success is an attitude that comes from a framework of powerful beliefs and empowering thoughts.  Because what you think and believe about your life largely determines how you feel (your attitude), what actions you take (your behavior), and what you achieve (the end result.)  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• The thing always happens that you really believe in and the belief in a thing makes it happen.  And I think nothing will happen until you thoroughly and deeply believe in it.  Frank L. Wright
• The ‘Okay-I’ll-give-it-a-try-but-I-don’t-think-it-will-work’ attitude produces failures.  David J. Schwartz
• Until you understand your Core Story, whatever it is, and how it made you who you are today, your foundation will reflect only your unconscious beliefs about yourself, real or imagined, positive or negative.  When you delve into your subconscious beliefs about your lot in life, whether you believe you deserve to be happy or sad, successful or unsuccessful, only then do you have the chance to change the story that is replaying over and over in your head and determining how you go through life.   Lucinda Bassett
• Do not allow yourself to believe that you might fail at something. If you believe you might fail at something you plant the seed of failure which grows very quickly.  Jerry Bruckner
• A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize.  Martin Seligman
• Success,  Failure

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Our beliefs create our limits in life …

• What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.  Tony Robbins
• You are given the gifts of the gods; you create your reality according to your beliefs. Yours is the creative energy that makes your world. There are no limitations to the self except those you believe in.  Jane Roberts
• The only limits in our life are those we impose on ourselves.  Bob Proctor
• There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.  Napoleon Hill
• Belief in limitation is the one and only thing that causes limitation.  Thomas Troward
• Belief in limits creates limited people.  Tony Robbins
• Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.  Mary Kay Ash
• You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind.  Darwin P. Kingsley
• There are no limitations to the self except those you believe in.  Jane Roberts
• The only lack or limitation is in your own mind.  N. H. Moos
• The only limits that you have are the limits which you have set for yourself in your own mind.  Adam McLeod
• Inside each of us are thoughts and beliefs that hinder our dreams from coming true.  Conway Stone
• It’s not what you are that holds you back, it’s what you think you are not.  Denis Waitley
• It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.  Hanoch McCarty
• We are all capable of infinitely more than we believe. In truth, the only restrictions on our capacity to astonish ourselves and each other are imposed by our own minds.  David Blaine
• The will to disbelieve is the strongest deterrent to wider horizons.  Hans Holzer
• The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it- as long as you believe 100 percent.  Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Limitation

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… and our possibilities

• Anything is possible if a person believes.  The Bible (Mark 9:23)
• Anything’s possible. You can be told you have a 90% chance or a 50% chance or a 1% chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight.  Lance Armstrong
• Beliefs are what we think are possible.  Jerry Bruckner
• I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.  Whoopi Goldberg
• If we can once believe that success is possible, success becomes possible.  Frank Chapman Sharp
• If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believeth.  Bible
• Nothing is impossible unless you think it is.  Paramahansa Yogananda
• The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible. Richard M. DeVos
• We can escape the prison of our own beliefs and enter the Palace of Possibilities when we allow ourselves to be astonished by everything.  Gary Craig
• What each of us believes in is up to us, but life is impossible without believing in something.  Kentetsu Takamori
• What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are.  Tony Robbins
• When you say that something is impossible, you have made it impossible.  Bruce Lee
• Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
• Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you as soon as you can change your beliefs. Maxwell Maltz
• You are where you are in life because of what you believe is possible for yourself.   Oprah Winfrey
• Belief is the thermostat that regulates what we accomplish in life.  David J. Schwartz
• Possibility

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To change your experience of the world, you need to change your beliefs

• Your external reality is merely a reflection of your internal beliefs. Change your beliefs and your reality will follow suit.  Celestine Chua
• The most powerful thing you can do to change the world is to change your own beliefs about the nature of life, people, reality, to something more positive… and to begin to act accordingly.  Shakti Gawain
• You have the power in the present moment to change limiting beliefs and consciously plant the seeds for the future of your choosing. As you change your mind, you change your experience.  Serge Kahili King
• You are given the gift of God, you create your reality according to your beliefs. Yours is the creative energy that makes your world.  Seth-Jane Roberts
• There is little sense in attempting to change external conditions, you must first change inner beliefs, then outer conditions will change accordingly.  Brian Adams

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You have the power to consciously choose what to believe …

• The real challenge in life is to choose, hold, and operate through intelligent, uplifting, and fully empowering beliefs.  Michael Sky
• The art of living deliberately is the art of examining this vast storehouse of beliefs, dropping the out-moded ones, consciously choosing those that serve your goals, and carefully crafting new ones in greatest alignment with your desires.  Richard Bishop
• What I believe, I will see in reality. I have the free will to believe or not believe what I choose. A master’s beliefs are not based on his experience, his experience is based on his beliefs. I use thoughts creatively to create beliefs – then I let go of thoughts and move to experience.  Neale Donald Walsch
• Always keep in mind that no single person, place, or thing can force you to believe or disbelieve anything. Perhaps this was true when you were a child, but not now. Now you have the independence to choose what you believe. Your knowing is yours.   Wayne Dyer
• Be sure to choose what you believe and why you believe it, because if you don’t choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very credible one, will choose you.  Robertson Davies
• Belief is something you choose to do. It’s hard. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth as much.  Mel Odom
• Weak people believe what is forced on them. Strong people what they wish to believe, forcing that to be real.  Gene Wolfe
• Yes, there are some subconscious thoughts that you can’t control. But the things that you really think about, your beliefs and your ideals are concepts you have chosen to accept and believe in.  Jim M. Allen
• You have a choice. Mind-sets are just beliefs. They’re powerful beliefs, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change your mind.  Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
• Choice

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… and you have the power to consciously change your beliefs for the better

• You have the power in the present moment to change limiting beliefs and consciously plant the seeds for the future of your choosing. As you change your mind, you change your experience.  Serge Kahili King
• A belief is only a thought you continue to think. A belief is nothing more than a chronic pattern of thought, and you have the ability –  if you try even a little bit – to begin a new pattern, to tell a new story, to achieve a different vibration, to change your point of attraction.  Abraham-Hicks
• If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?  Dr. Robert Anthony
• Your mind is right now filled with old thoughts. Not only old thoughts, but mostly someone else’s old thoughts. It’s important now, it’s time now, to change your mind about some things.  Neale Donald Walsch
• The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.  Gerald G. Jampolsky
• Limiting beliefs are like a cage locked tight with no opening in sight.  But when you realize that you are the one who holds the key in releasing these beliefs, only then can you find freedom.  Freedom comes from within.  It comes from getting to know who you really are, releasing all limiting beliefs.  And as you release your limiting beliefs and stand in your truth, your example shines a light for the whole world to see. Freedom will be yours when you give yourself permission to live authentically.  Terri Amos
• One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.  Nathaniel Branden
• Healing ourselves on the spiritual level involves developing a strong connection with our soul.  We heal ourselves on the mental level as we become aware of our core beliefs, release those that limit us, and open to more supportive ideas and greater understanding.  Shakti Gawain
• Living consciously,  Choice

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First, examine your current beliefs in all areas of your life …

• Many people haven’t taken the time and done the inner work to identify what they truly believe. Without this work, you are a product of the beliefs that were instilled in you long ago.  Brad Swift
• Ninety-nine percent of people will die having not examined their conditioning and beliefs in a meaningful way.  Brent Kessel
• Re-examine all that you have been told in school, or in church or in any book. Dismiss whatever insults your soul.  Walt Whitman
• Face what you think you believe and you will be surprised.  William Hale White
• Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.  Walter Lippman
• An extremely important part of our work toward emotional growth and change will come from examining our belief systems regarding all areas of life.  To gain the courage to be yourself, you need to address the beliefs that are keeping you stuck where you are.  What beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes are you holding onto even though they no longer enhance your life?  It is possible to free yourself from worn-out beliefs and acquire ones that bring happiness, strength, and self-esteem.  What we believe we may become.  Sue Patton Thoele
• Knowing what our beliefs are requires confronting ourselves, our fears, and our resistance to change. Once we know what our real beliefs are, we can allow them to evolve and change if they do not serve us.  Pat. B. Allen
• So the next step is to develop awareness of all the self-limiting, fear-based beliefs that make you unhappy. You take an inventory of all that you believe, all your agreements, and through this process you begin the transformation. The Toltecs called this the Art of Transformation, and it’s a whole mastery. You achieve the Mastery of Transformation by changing the fear-based agreements that make you suffer, and reprogramming your own mind, in your own way.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• I re-examine every belief I possess. Does it empower me? Awaken within me my sacred song? All the beliefs that fail are halved and quartered by the Warrior. I choose my beliefs from within.  John Kehoe
• Reflection

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… especially your unconscious beliefs about yourself

• On the path of awakening, it is necessary to become aware of your unconscious beliefs. It is not a difficult task. Just become watchful. If you are alert and watchful, without any judgment, your day to day life will reveal those unconscious beliefs to you. Be a watcher of yourself. Be an impartial observer of who you are at the level of mind which is programmed with your unconscious beliefs. It helps to have a sense of humour.   Leonard Jacobson
• Until you understand your Core Story, whatever it is, and how it made you who you are today, your foundation will reflect only your unconscious beliefs about yourself, real or imagined, positive or negative.  When you delve into your subconscious beliefs about your lot in life, whether you believe you deserve to be happy or sad, successful or unsuccessful, only then do you have the chance to change the story that is replaying over and over in your head and determining how you go through life.  Lucinda Bassett
• Self-knowledge

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Identify these beliefs by looking at your relationships with others

• The people we are in relationship with are always a mirror, reflecting our own beliefs, and simultaneously we are mirrors, reflecting their beliefs. So… relationship is one of the most powerful tools for growth…. If we look honestly at our relationships, we can see so much about how we have created them.  Shakti Gawain
• Principles for healthy relationships

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Identify these beliefs by reflecting on the way you act

• What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which habitually acts.  George Bernard Shaw
• If you want to know what your true beliefs are, take a look at your actions.  Robert Anthony
• The essence of a belief is the establishment of a habit.  Charles S. Pearce
• Action,  Habit

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Identify which beliefs are empowering you and disempowering you

• A complete restructuring of my belief system is required. I re- examine every belief I possess. Does it empower me? Awaken within me my sacred song? All the beliefs that fail are halved and quartered by the Warrior. John Kehoe
• Whether we will listen or agree with our inner voice or not is clearly within our power. Ask yourself: Is this belief hurting or helping me? Is it getting me closer to what I want or further away? Is it empowering me to take action or freezing me with fear and self- doubt?  J. Michael Zenn
• My old, limiting beliefs must be changed. Every belief I possess about myself and my world must be re-  examined in this new light. Will it strengthen the temple? Empower me? Awaken within me my sacred song? Assist me on my path? All the beliefs that fail must be halved and quartered by the Warrior. I am prepared to deny my reality. Turn heaven and earth upside down. I need not accept what others have previously accepted.   John Kehoe
• All belief that does not make us more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, a mistaken and superstitious belief.  John K. Lavater
• The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness.  James Anthony Froude

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Consciously let go of the beliefs that disempower you …

• I suggest making it a common practice to identify at least one belief each week that doesn’t serve you in living a Life on Purpose. Then, go to work to weed it out from your consciousness and choose a new belief to take its place.  Brad Swift
• It is the same thing when we are cleaning our mental house. There is no need to get angry just because some of the beliefs in it are ready to be tossed out. Let them go as easily as you would scrape bits of food into the trash after a meal. Would you really dig into yesterday’s garbage to make tonight’s meal? Do you dig into old mental garbage to create tomorrow’s experiences? If a thought or belief does not serve you, let it go!  Louise L. Hay
• The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.  Joseph Campbell
• The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes. So do the spirits who are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be spirit.  Nietzsche
• If any area of your life is not working, one of your beliefs in that area needs to be changed.  Sanaya Roman
• Do not dismantle the house, but look at each brick, and replace those which appear to be broken, which no longer support the structure.  Neale Donald Walsch
• It is hard to let old beliefs go. They are familiar. We are comfortable with them and have spent years building systems and developing habits that depend on them. Like a man who has worn eyeglasses so long that he forgets he has them on, we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away.   Kenich Ohmae
• After you have made your commitment to say no to what no longer serves you, you will probably be invited to demonstrate that you really mean it.  Alan Cohen
• I recreate my beliefs. Thus, I have the power to recreate my reality. For what I believe, I experience. This is original power. I change beliefs that don’t belong. Like beliefs of need, separateness, scarcity, failure, judgement, conditionality of love, condemnation and superiority.  Neale Donald Walsch
• Any thought that makes you feel uncomfortable – be it fear, guilt, anger, worry, frustration – is backed by a negative belief. Let it go!   Che Garman
• The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what it untrue.  Antisthenes
• Letting go

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… especially by taking the legs from under them

• Make a list of the “misbeliefs” that you hold as true and that do not enhance life. Begin to punch holes in the evidence you’ve accumulated to prove your misbelief. Brad Swift
• Be certain to notice and remember all the little things that suggest that your negative core belief is not 100% true. Noticing small positive experiences is particularly important to counteract an automatic tendency to remember the small negative experiences that support our core beliefs. By actively looking for small experiences that contradict our negative core belief, we ensure a better balance to our views.  Dennis Greenberger, PHD and Shristin A. Padesky
• Dispute or challenge your pessimistic thoughts.  Identify any negative beliefs triggered by the adversity or problem.  Dispute the negative belief, challenging it, thinking of other possible reasons for the problem.  Sonja Lyubomirsky
• A belief is a thought with a lot of emotion behind it.  To drop a belief, become still and get in touch with the emotion behind it.  Then let the emotion go.  Do this often enough, and the belief will fall away.  Nic Modonesi
• Facts,  Questions

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Approach 1 – by Tina Su

• 1.  Identify a limiting belief 2.  Find a counter instance – look for one specific example where the statement is not actually true, where you did something or experienced something – even through someone else – that was not in alignment with your belief 3.  How has this belief worked against you?  Pain can be an effective motivator to catapult and accelerate our desire for change. 4.  Find the Source – dig deep into memories from your past. What instance or instances brought you to this conclusion? 5.  Alternative meaning – brainstorm for other perspectives that could also explain the external event you identified. It may be helpful to pretend you are other people, viewing the situation from multiple angles. 6.  Write down a statement that has the opposite meaning from your belief statement. 7.  Close your eyes, and see yourself living with this statement you just constructed.

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Approach 2 – by Albert Ellis

Questions to Ask Yourself

• 1.  What self-defeating irrational belief do I want to dispute and surrender? 2.  Can I rationally support this belief? 3.  What evidence exists of the falseness of this belief? 4.  Does any evidence exist for the truth of this belief? 5.  What are the worst things that could actually happen to me if I don’t get what I think I must (or do get what I think I must not get)? 6.  What good things could I make happen if I don’t get what I think I must (or do get what I think I must not get)?”

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Approach 3 – by Byron Katie

For each negative belief or thought, ask these questions?

• 1. Is it true? 2.  Can you absolutely know that it’s true? 3.  How do you react when you believe that thought? 4.  Who would you be without the thought? 5.  Turn the belief around

• Once you’ve walked yourself through the four questions, turn the thought around by finding opposites to the statement you wrote.  To do the turnaround, rewrite your statement. This time, write it as if it were written about you. Where you have written someone’s name, put yourself. Instead of “he” or “she,” put “I.” For example, “Paul should be kind to me” turns around to “I should be kind to myself” and “I should be kind to Paul.” Another type is a 180-degree turnaround to the extreme opposite: “Paul shouldn’t be kind to me.” He shouldn’t be kind, because he isn’t (in my opinion). This isn’t an issue of morality but of what’s actually true.
• There are three ways to do the turnaround. A judgment can be turned around to yourself, to the other, and to the opposite.
• How does it apply to you in your life? Own it. If that seems difficult for you, add the word “sometimes” to the turnaround.
• Turn the original statement around any way you want to until you find the turnarounds that penetrate the most.
• Consider whether or not the turned-around statement is as true as or truer than your original statement.
• The point is not to find the most turnarounds, but to find the ones that bring you the shift to self- realization, the enlightenment that sets you free from the nightmare you’re innocently attached to.

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Replace your negative beliefs with new beliefs that empower you …

• Create new, more supportive beliefs. Remind yourself that you can voluntarily plant in your subconscious mind any thought or belief you desire, and your mind will accept it provided it is introduced with enough feeling and re-inforced through repetition.  John Kehoe
• Beliefs are the key. Affirming beliefs spur us to action towards our dreams. Associate pleasure with affirming beliefs. Look for legs to support them and build them up. Cast doubt on beliefs that hold you back.  Tony Robbins
• A complete restructuring of my belief system is required. I am called to build a temple with new, more powerful spiritual beliefs.  My temple will be a strong vessel, able to withstand the most vigorous journeys, for I intend to explore vigorously through unknown waters both within and without.  John Kehoe
• You can change your beliefs so they empower your dreams and desires. Create a strong belief in yourself and what you want. Marcia Wieder
• It’s not about what’s true and untrue. It’s about what I choose to activate and turn into truth.  Abraham-Hicks

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… and beliefs that serve you

• Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.  Bruce Lee
• Absorb what is useful, disregard the rest.  Bruce Lee
• Nothing is true unless it works. And it has to work for you, not for someone else.  Raymond Charles Barker

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Choose beliefs that speak to your heart …

• In building my temple, I draw from many sources. I drink deeply from the well of my ancestors. I choose the finest beliefs I can find. Beliefs that speak to my heart. I feel no restraint in borrowing, adding or deleting from one system to the next. Do I believe it? It doesn’t matter! Do I choose to believe it! My beliefs are chosen from within, not imposed from without.  John Kehoe
• Don’t let the voice of other people’s opinions drown your inner voice.  Steve Jobs
• There is a terrible alienation in the ordinary man between what he is being told and what he secretly believes.  John le Carre
• The heart

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… rather than beliefs imposed on you by others

• As soon as anyone tries to ‘impose’ their beliefs on me, attempting to convince or convert me, I walk away; for this is someone who wishes to control my mind, not enlighten it. Remember, learn from everyone you meet, but let no one ‘tell you’ what or how to think.  Eric Allen
• Don’t let the voice of other people’s opinions drown your inner voice.  Steve Jobs
• Read and listen with an open mind, an open heart, but with a firm belief that you are the only final authority on what you choose to believe and accept.  Amanda Harvey

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Choose beliefs that are in harmony with life’s principles

• There are fundamental laws of life (Truths) that operate with unerring consistency – and you are better off to the degree to which you learn to live according to them.  Stephen Covey
• I live my life by True North principles – the Laws of Life. I connect with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart.  Stephen Covey

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Have a belief in magic and miracles

• Miracles happen to those who believe in them.  Bernhard Berenson
• At the back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: It comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur. Henry Miller
• Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.  Roald Dahl
• Magic,  Life is a miracle and marvel

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Have a belief in your ideas

• You need a stubborn belief in an idea in order to see it realised.  James Dyson
• Ideas

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Have a belief in healing

• You build your state of health every day through your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours. Your cells believe every word you say!  Dr. Christiane Northrup
• What the mind believes, the body manifests. Dozens of research studies have shown that what a person believes about their health leads to that belief becoming real for them.  Will Bowen
• Drugs are not always necessary.  Belief in recovery always is.  Norman Cousins
• The greatest force in the human body is the natural drive of the body to heal itself–but that force is not independent of the belief system.  Everything begins with belief.  What we believe is the most powerful option of all.  Norman Cousins
• Healing

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Imprint new beliefs through repetition and affirmation

• Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted.  Robert Collier
• True imprinting requires one to three months before its effects are firmly fixed in the mind.  John Kehoe
• Through repetition, a thought can become concentrated and directed, and its force can be magnified many times.  John Kehoe
• One comes to believe whatever one repeats to oneself sufficiently often, whether the statement be true or false. It comes to be the dominating thought in one’s mind.  Robert Collier
• All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Affirmations are positive statements of what you would like to believe, and with enough repetition, can be extremely effective in replacing harmful beliefs and thought patterns.   Amanda Harvey
• It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.  Claude M. Bristol
• Positive affirmations work by reprogramming your thinking and beliefs. The way to get effective results is with constant repetition.  Amanda Harvey
• Everything you believe is a result of repeating something frequently and often enough that your subconscious accepts it as a fact. If your beliefs are not making you happy, or helping you to create the life that you want, it is time to change them.  Amanda Harvey
• Affirmations (self-talk)

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Imprint new beliefs through reflection and contemplation

• I choose my beliefs from within. Daily, like eating and bathing, I focus and meditate upon the things I wish to believe. Imagine them to be true. Use simple affirmations. To imprint these onto my consciousness in much the same way as the times table. I know that any thought or concept, which is fed and nourished through repetition, will take hold within me.   John Kehoe
• Reflection,  Contemplation

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Imprint new beliefs through the power of emotion

• To truly believe you can do something it’s not enough to just say the words in your mind or out loud that you believe it. You must pack emotional content into your beliefs for them to be accepted by your mind and affect your actions. Learn to feel your beliefs not just know them.  Jerry Bruckner
• Emotion

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Imprint new beliefs by associating great pain with the old belief and pleasure with the new belief

• All personal breakthroughs being with a change in beliefs. So how do we change? The most effective way is to get your brain to associate massive pain to the old belief. You must feel deep in your gut that not only has this belief cost you pain in the past, but it’s costing you in the present and, ultimately, can only bring you pain in the future. Then you must associate tremendous pleasure to the idea of adopting a new, empowering belief.  Tony Robbins
• Identify a negative belief.  What has the negative belief cost you in the past?  How is it limiting you now?  What pain has it brought?  If you don’t shed it, what pain will it continue to bring?  Tony Robbins
• Pain,  Pleasure

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Imprint new beliefs through cognitive therapy

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has two advantages over medication: there are no side effects, and If you can change our unhealthy beliefs and thoughts and replace them with more healthy and realistic beliefs and thoughts, you can therefore change your emotions (anxiety) and hence your behaviour.   Nancy Schimelpfening
• Positive thinking

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Imprint new beliefs by living according to them …

• Live by what you believe so fully that your life blossoms, or else purge the fear- and-guilt producing beliefs from your life. When people believe one thing and do something else, they are inviting misery. If you give yourself the name, play the game. When you believe something, you don’t follow with your heart, intellect, and body, it hurts. Don’t do that to yourself. Live your belief, or let that belief go. If you are not actively living a belief, it’s not really your belief, anyway.  John Roger
• To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.  Mahatma Gandhi
• Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.  Henry David Thoreau

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… for we can only be said to truly believe something once it is consistently reflected in our actions

• In the last analysis, we must be judged by what we do and not by what we believe.  We are as we behave – with a very small margin of credit for our unmanifested vision of how we might behave if we could take the trouble.  Geoffrey L. Rudd
• He does not believe who does not live according to his belief.  Thomas Fuller
• What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which habitually acts.  George Bernard Shaw
• If you want to know what your true beliefs are, take a look at your actions.  Robert Anthony
• The essence of a belief is the establishment of a habit. Charles S. Pearce
• Being authentic means being true to your values, and beliefs regardless of what other people think, having the courage to be honest and real with yourself, choosing what you feel comfortable disclosing, and taking 100% responsibility for your thoughts and actions.  Lorraine Cohen
• Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behaviour with your beliefs.  Stephen Covey
• When you at last give your life – bringing into alignment your beliefs and the way you live then, and only then, can you begin to find inner peace.  Peace Pilgrim
• Action

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Here are examples of some empowering beliefs you may choose to adopt

• Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.  Henry James
• I think there’s an invisible principle of living too. If we believe we’re guided through every step of our lives, we are. It’s a lovely sight, watching it work. Richard Bach
• Believe in your dreams. Believe in today. Believe that you are loved. Believe that you make a difference. Believe we can build a better world. Believe when others might not. Believe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Believe that you might be that light for someone else. Believe that the best is yet to be. Believe in each other. Believe in yourself. I believe in you.  Kobi Yamada
• I trust in the ebb and flow of the universe. I trust that life’s bigger than what I can see. I trust that there is a divine order beyond my control. And I trust that no matter what happens, I will be all right.  Oprah Winfrey
• Think that it’s fun, that you’re guided, and that all is well. Think that there’s time, that life is easy, and that the best is yet to come. Think that the reasons that elude you will one day catch up, that the lessons that have stumped you will one day bring joy, and that the sorrows that have crippled you will soon give you wings. Think that you’re important, that you cannot fail, and that happiness always returns. And think that you’re beautiful.  Mike Dooley
• I do believe we’re all connected. I do believe in positive energy. I do believe in the power of prayer. I do believe in putting good out into the world. And I believe in taking care of each other.  Harvey Fierstein
• If you’re gonna make a change, you’re gonna have to operate from a new belief that says life happens not to me but for me.  Tony Robbins
• Believe that the world is a good place and that good things will happen to you if you make the most of yourself — and they will.  Jerry Bruckner
• Nature always takes you at your own valuation.  Believe you are the child of God—really believe it.  Believe that you express Divine Life, Divine Truth, and Divine Love.  Believe that Divine Wisdom guides you. Believe that God is your supply.  Believe that God is helping and blessing humanity through you.  Believe that you are a special enterprise on the part of God and that he is opening your way—and what you really believe, that you will demonstrate.  Emmet Fox
• One of my patients who survived three major surgeries in five weeks described himself as “born again.”  When I asked him about this, he told me that his experience had challenged all of his ideas about life.  Everything he had thought true had turned out to be merely belief and had not withstood the terrible events of recent weeks.  He was stripped of all he knew and left only with the unshakable conviction that life itself was holy.  This insight in its singularity and simplicity had sustained him better than the multiple, complex system of beliefs and values that had been the foundation of his life up until this time.  It upheld him like stone and upholds him still because it has been tested by fire.  At the depths of the most unimaginable vulnerability he has discovered that we live not by choice but by grace.  And that life itself is a blessing.  Rachel Naomi Remen
• 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
• What have I always believed? That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.  Terry Pratchett
• This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.  Terry Tempest Williams
• Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling; not a mean and groveling thing that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny.  William E. Gladstone
• Deep, solemn optimism, it seems to me, should spring from this firm belief in the presence of God in the individual; not a remote, unapproachable governor of the universe, but a God who is very near every one of us, who is present not only in earth, sea and sky, but also in every pure and noble impulse of our hearts.  Helen Keller
• We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. Marie Curie
• Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.  Viktor Frankl
• One of the most powerful concepts, one which is a sure cure for lack of confidence, is the thought that God is with you and helping you. This is one of the simplest teachings in religion, namely, that Almighty God will be your companion, will stand by you, help you, and see you through. No other idea is so powerful in developing self-confidence as this simple belief when practiced. To practice it simply affirm “God is with me; God is helping me; God is guiding me.” Spend several minutes each day visualizing his presence. Then practice believing that affirmation.  Norman Vincent Peale
• My deepest belief is that to live as if we’re dying can set us free. Dying people teach you to pay attention and to forgive and not to sweat the small things.  Anne Lamott
• I think that our fundamental belief is that for us growth is a way of life and we have to grow at all times.  Mukesh Ambani
• So, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.  Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Your ability to shape your destiny is directly proportional to your belief that it is a matter of will and determination–however much or little that belief may be.  James A. Owen

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Beliefs are all that stand between us and what we desire

• And my personal belief is that the only thing keeping you from freedom is all the beliefs you have about what has to happen before you can be there. Tony Robbins
• The only thing keeping you from what you want is your story about why you can’t have it.   Tony Robbins
• The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible. Richard M. DeVos
• You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it.  Robert Anthony
• Desire,  Know what you want

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A belief you can do something is self-fulfilling …

• If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.  Mahatma Gandhi
• He is able who thinks he is able.  Gautama Buddha
• Believe you can and you’re halfway there. Theodore Roosevelt
• Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.  Napoleon Hill
• You can accomplish anything within your ability if you believe with all your heart and mind that you can.  Jerry Bruckner
• Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.  David J. Schwartz
• When you believe, your mind finds ways to do.  David J. Schwartz
• I can.’ … People can do what they believe they can do.  Richard M. DeVos
• Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.  James Allen
• What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible, is rarely a function of our true capability. It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are. Tony Robbins
• If you believe you can then you can.  Stephen Richards
• Whether you believe you can do a thing or believe you cannot, you are right.  Henry Ford
• When you believe you can do it, the ‘how-to-do-it’ develops.  Eric Butterworth
• They can because they think they can.  Virgil
• They conquer who believe they can.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• If you believe you can do a thing, you can do it.  Claude M. Bristol
• If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believeth.  Bible
• If you persuade yourself that you can do a certain thing, provided this thing be possible, you will do it, however difficult it may be.  If, on the contrary, you imagine that you cannot do the simplest thing in the world, it is impossible for you to do it, and molehills become for you unscalable mountains.  Emile Coue

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… while the opposite is also true

• When you say that something is impossible, you have made it impossible.  Bruce Lee
• People often become what they believe themselves to be.  If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it.  But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.  Mohandas Gandhi
• If you think you can’t, you will likely prove it by not even trying. Che Garman
• [Luke:] I can’t believe it. [Yoda:] That is why you fail.  Yoda

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Believe in yourself  

• Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. Norman Vincent Peale
• Believing in yourself never goes out of style.  Elle Woods
• You can change your beliefs so they empower your dreams and desires.  Create a strong belief in yourself and what you want.   Marcia Wieder
• Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can make anything happen.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• You have to believe in yourself.  Sun Tzu
• For everyone, well-being is a journey. The secret is committing to that journey and taking those first steps with hope and belief in yourself.   Deepak Chopra
• Don’t look for someone in whom to believe. Believe in yourself. The only authentic authority is your own original nature.  Vernon Howard
• Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day. Ching Ning Chu
• Here is the first step toward success. It’s a basic step. It can’t be avoided. Step One: Believe in yourself, believe you can succeed.  David Schwartz
• Self-confidence is self-determinism. One’s belief in one’s ability to determine his own course. As long as one has that, he’s got the universe in his pocket.  L. Ron Hubbard
• Until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t gonna have a life!   Rocky Balboa
• Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.  E. E. Cummings
• The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.  Thomas Carlyle
• People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.  Norman Vincent Peale
• Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.  Bruce Barton
• Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. Gail Devers
• Every achiever that I have ever met says, my life turned around when I began to believe in me.  Robert H. Schuller
• I view self-worth as a measure of the availability of our Spirit or Being Self to believe in ourselves. Self-worth comes from a source on the INSIDE of us.  We create it through Faith, by acting on the singular belief that we matter. Self-worth is the foundation of our ability to believe in ourselves.  Leo Bogee, Jr.
• Self-belief

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Have a belief you can do it

• Always think that your goals are possible. Believe you can accomplish them.  Jerry Bruckner
• Free yourself of the chains stamped ‘I can’t!’ and you will be able to achieve any height you desire. You can do anything … if you believe you can! Easy? Of course not. Nothing in life worth achieving is easy. Can you pull it off? Yes, but you will never know, unless you try and keep trying.  Og Mandino
• Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution. Dr. David Schwartz
• No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish.  Napoleon Hill
• Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail. Charles F. Kettering
• Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, ‘Certainly, I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.  Theodore Roosevelt
• Believe you can and you’re halfway there.  Theodore Roosevelt
• There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish. Open- mindedness is essential for belief. Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage and belief.  Napoleon Hill
• The secret of making something work in your lives is first of all, the deep desire to make it work; then the faith and belief that it can work; then to hold that clear definite vision in your consciousness and see it working out step by step, without one thought of doubt or disbelief.  Eileen Caddy
• Hope, modern researchers are finding, does more than offer a bit of solace amid affliction; it plays a surprisingly potent role in life. Hope is believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be.  Daniel Goleman
• The Law of Faith: Faith is a belief in the favourable outcome of anything undertaken. Faith gives life, power and action to your plan. Faith inspires you with absolute confidence to demonstrate your plan, and qualifies you to turn your ideas into money.  Earl Prevette

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Have a belief it’s possible

• Step forward into your life as you did when you were a child, when you believed anything was possible. Vince Gowmon
• Always think that your goals are possible. Believe you can accomplish them. Jerry Bruckner
• Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. Gail Devers
• Possibility

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Have a belief it will happen

• The power of expectation—the kind of expectation that embraces a deep belief that what is expected will actually occur—has long been recognized as a significant mental and emotional force. Herbert Benson
• You have to believe. Otherwise, it will never happen.  Neil Gaiman, Stardust
• You must begin with a belief and then act as if that which you believe or visualize were already your reality.  Wayne Dyer
• The thing always happens that you really believe in and the belief in a thing makes it happen.  And I think nothing will happen until you thoroughly and deeply believe in it.  Frank L. Wright
• At the back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: It comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.  Henry Miller
• First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, I believe.  Norman Vincent Peale

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Increase the power of your belief by combining it with a strong desire

• Desire and belief, those are the components that are necessary for anything that you want to achieve. Abraham-Hicks Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.  Jean Vanier
• If your desire is strong enough, it doesn’t matter what your beliefs are. If you have a desire that is strong enough, that desire will be the dominant vibration, and it will over-ride any other vibration that you have.  Abraham-Hicks
• So, it seems obvious that the perfect creative situation is to really, really want something that you truly believe is possible. And when that combination of desire and belief is present within you, things will quickly and easily unfold in your experience.  Abraham-Hicks
• For any desire to be realized by you, or before anything can manifest in your experience, there must be vibrational compatibility between your desires and your beliefs.  Esther and Jerry Hicks
• Desire

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As humans, we fall into belief easily for it is in our nature to believe

• Human beings believe just as they breathe — in order to survive.  Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good ground for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.  Bertrand Russell
• We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• With how much ease believe we what we wish!  John Dryden
• What each of us believes in is up to us, but life is impossible without believing in something.  Kentetsu Takamori

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Belief frees us from the discomfort of doubt and uncertainty …

• Any belief worth having must survive doubt.  Douglas Adams
• Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief, but it is belief that is the positive, it is belief that sustains thought and holds the world together.  Soren Kierkegaard
• If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order.  Frank Herbert
• Where is the world whose people don’t prefer a comfortable, warm, and well-worn belief, however illogical, to the chilly winds of uncertainty.  Isaac Asimov
• The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.  Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Doubt,  Let go of the need for certainty

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… or does it?

• The presence of a doubt indicates, by definition, the presence of a belief underneath it. Belief and doubt always come together.  Rupert Spira
• Belief and doubt are two sides of the same coin. Rupert Spira

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The problem is that we can get addicted to our beliefs and cling to them

• The biggest addiction, and one we least often talk about, is being addicted to beliefs.  We really get hooked into thinking what we believe is true and right.  Martha Boesing
• I’ve caught belief like a disease. I’ve fallen into belief like I fell in love.  Graham Greene
• We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing them becomes too high.  Ransom Riggs
• Most people are too slow to believe, but once you get them going, they believe too much.  Lewis F. Korns
• Many people have died for their beliefs. The real courage is living and suffering for what you believe.  Christopher Paolini
• Martyrdom has always been a proof of intensity, never of the correctness of a belief.  Arthur Schnitzler
• The less depth a belief system has, the greater the fervency with which its adherents embrace it. The most vociferous, the most fanatical are those whose cobbled faith is founded on the shakiest grounds.  Dean Koontz
• Closed-mindedness

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With time, our beliefs set and harden …

• He who thinks with difficulty believes with alacrity. A fool is a natural proselyte, but he must be caught young, for his convictions, unlike those of the wise, harden with age.  Ambrose Bierce

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… imprisoning us in a vicelike grip…

• I’ll tell you what’s the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion–the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That’s the steam that is to work the engines.  George Eliot
• The Buddha spoke gently, “Once a person is caught by belief in a doctrine, one loses all one’s freedom.  When one becomes dogmatic, that person believes his or her doctrine is the only truth and that all other doctrines are heresy.  Disputes and conflicts all arise from narrow views.  They can extend endlessly, wasting precious time and sometimes even leading to war.  Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.  Bound to narrow views, one becomes so entangled that it is no longer possible to let the door of truth open.  Thich Nhat Hanh
• A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind.  Elly Roselle
• Dogmas–religious, political, scientific–arise out of erroneous belief that thought can encapsulate reality or truth. Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of “I know.”  Eckhart Tolle
• What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise.  William James

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… making us closed and inflexible

• They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.  Louise Erdrich
• The more we justify our beliefs, the more narrow-minded we become.  Lin Yutang
• Being rigid in our beliefs and inflexible in our attitudes means we are unable to flow with life. If we do not bend, we are more likely to break.  Amanda Harvey

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Our beliefs can cause our minds to stagnate …

• Beware! The mind of the believer stagnates. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe.  Frank Herbert

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… keeping us from learning and acquiring new ideas and knowledge …

• We are trained to believe and not to know.  Brian Herbert
• Belief is the wound that knowledge heals.  Ursula K. Le Guin
• The less you know the more you believe.  U2, “Last Night on Earth”
• The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.  Pema Chodrun
• Belief gets in the way of learning.  Robert A. Heinlein
• Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.  Ray Bradbury
• A mind that’s open and spacious can absorb lots of useful information. On the other hand, a mind that’s already full—of assumptions, beliefs about the intentions of others, preconceived ideas—misses important details or contexts, jumps to conclusions, and has a hard time learning anything new.  Rick Hanson
• Learning,  Knowledge,  Ideas,  Explore new ideas

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… stifling creativity …

• A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind.  Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Creative power has to filter through our beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and habits. The more negative and constricted our beliefs and patterns are, the more they block the creative energy.  Most people hope that by ignoring negativity, it will go away, but the reverse is actually true.  Through recognizing, acknowledging, and experiencing it, the blocked energy can be released.  You are then free to replace it with positive beliefs and attitudes.  Shakti Gawain
• Creativity

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… often even blinding us from the real truth

• We don’t see the truth because we are blind. What blinds us are all those false beliefs we have in our mind. We have the need to be right and to make others wrong. We trust what we believe, and our beliefs set us up for suffering.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.  Frantz Fanon
• Truth

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We defend our beliefs out of a need to be right …

• When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem that is threatened.  James Harvey
• When your self-identity and beliefs merge, differences feel threatening.  You are likely to defend your turf, become righteous and angry, and possibly shame or abuse other people who see things differently.  When people adopt a belief–be it about religion, politics, sex roles, or whatever–as the one, correct belief, their minds get locked up in a rigid box, and other people with differing beliefs are seen as the enemy.  And what do you do to the enemy?  Abuse them, shame them, hate them, or even kill them. . . .  Listen to your beliefs, think about how you learned them, and realize that they are not genetic, nor are they the “only way.”  You are free to acquire new perspectives, to absorb new ideas, and to question everything you were taught to believe.  As your mind opens to exploration and change, you’ll feel a new lightness and more joy.  Charlotte Davis Kasl
• Let go of the need to be right

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… sometimes even to the death …

• Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.  James Russell Lowell
• The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don’t mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed.  Sarah Vowell
• There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.  Isaak Asimov
• Attachment to beliefs and ideologies have led to global war, famine, political, social and economic upheavals, destruction of our habitat and general dysfunction on all levels of society because they divide us from each other.  St.Clair
• Death

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… and impose our beliefs on others …

• Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.  Richard Feynman
• Ah well, I suppose that’s the problem with trying to make others follow your own beliefs: what starts out as spiritual ardor too often becomes arrogance and bigotry.  Persia Woolley
• Live and let live

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Sometimes, we believe what we wish to be true …

• Human psychology has a near universal tendency to let belief be coloured by desire.  Richard Dawkins
• With how much ease believe we what we wish!  John Dryden

, Cleopatra

• What we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.  Thomas Henry Huxley
• 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

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… blindly …

• With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
• At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.  Ludwig Wittgenstein
• He who believes needs no explanation.  Euripides
• Belief is the death of intelligence.  Robert Anton Wilson
• On any longer view, man is only fitfully committed to the rational — to thinking, seeing, learning, knowing. Believing is what he’s really proud of.   Martin Amis

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… without question …

• Many of our ideas and beliefs about ourselves and the world are so deeply ingrained that we are unaware that they are beliefs and take them, without question, for the absolute truth. Rupert Spira
• What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.  George Eliot, Middlemarch

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… even when there is no rational logic or proof for the belief

• Belief was immune to logic; it operated by its own laws.  James Siegel, Detour
• I prefer to have some beliefs that don’t make logical sense.  Louise Erdrich
• Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence.  Brian Herbert
• Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.  John Dewey
• Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.  Samuel Butler
• Rationality,  Logic,  Reason

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We inherit many of our beliefs from our parents and society when we are very young

• Sometimes we adopt certain beliefs when we’re children and use them automatically when we become adults, without ever checking them out against reality.  This brings to mind the story of the woman who always cut off the end of the turkey when she put it in the oven.  Her daughter asked her why, and her mother responded, “I don’t know.  My mother always did it.”  Then she went and asked her mother, who said, “I don’t know.  My mother always did it.”  The she went and asked her grandmother, who said, “The oven wasn’t big enough.”  Charlotte Davis Kasl
• Creeds, like other goods, pass by inheritance to descendants.  Amos Bronson Alcott
• The child learns to believe a host of things. I.e. it learns to act according to these beliefs. Bit by bit there forms a system of what is believed, and in that system some things stand unshakeably fast and some are more or less liable to shift. What stands fast does so, not because it is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it is rather held fast by what lies around it.   Ludwig Wittgenstein
• You don’t need to blame your parents for teaching you to be like them. What else could they teach you but what they know? They did the best they could, and if they abused you, it was due to their own domestication, their own fears, their own beliefs. They had no control over the programming they received, so they couldn’t have behaved any differently.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• Most of our beliefs are inherited from childhood and we never even chose to believe them.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• And this is all based on a belief system that we never chose to believe. These beliefs are so strong, that even years later when we are exposed to new concepts and try to make our own decisions, we find that these beliefs still control our lives.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second- hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.  Mark Twain
• Customs form us all, our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed beliefs; are consequences of our place of birth.  Aaron Hill
• Conformity

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In effect, we have been conditioned to believe what we do

• One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.  Aldous Huxley

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Resolve to only adopt a belief after reflection and inquiry

• To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.  Henri Poincaré
• If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.  William Kingdon Clifford
• There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.  Alfred Korzybski
• Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.  Albert Ellis
• To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them.  Friedrich Nietzsche
• Maturity of mind is best shown in slow belief.  Baltasar Gracian
• Reflection

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Resolve to only adopt a belief where there is evidence

• A wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence.  David Hume
• It was not right to believe anything you couldn’t see or hold in your hands or test with your teeth.  Flannery O’Connor

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Resolve to only adopt a belief that agrees with your reason and common sense

• Accept nothing as true that is not your truth. Vernon Howard
• Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. Gautama Buddha
• Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it. . . or because it is traditional, or because you yourself have imagined it.  Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher.  But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings–that doctrine you believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.  Gautama Buddha
• Believe nothing because a wise man said it. Believe nothing because it is generally held. Believe nothing because it is written.  Believe nothing because it is said to be divine. Believe nothing because someone else believes it. But believe only what you yourself judge to be true.  Gautama Buddha
• People may be heretics to the truth if they believe things only because their pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason; though their beliefs be true, yet the very truth they hold become their heresies.  John Milton
• Reason,  Common sense

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Hold your beliefs lightly without too much attachment

• Do you hold your beliefs lightly or tightly? When I hold them tightly, I arrogantly believe everyone should believe as I do. When I hold them lightly, I appreciate other’s perspectives/points-of-view, even if they may not be mine. The spiritual path is not about trying to get rid of or not have beliefs. It is about holding them lightly because you know that they are simply one perspective among billions. When we cling to a belief, we are stuck. When we hold it lightly we are not stuck… we are free.  Michael Jeffreys
• Whatever you do, you must remain nimble in your thinking. Do not become so attached to any one belief that you cannot see past it to another possibility.  Christopher Paolini
• No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self-centred idea.  Shunryu Suzuki-roshi
• Non-attachment

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Be open to new beliefs and ideas

• Most philosophies wrap their seekers in a strict belief system. By virtue of what they include, they exclude everything else, especially some vital realizations.  Periodically revising our philosophy of life as we live it is, therefore, a critically valuable exercise.  Charles Bates
• When the old creeds are threadbare, and worn through, / And all too narrow for the broadening soul,  / Give me the fine, firm texture of the new,  /  Fair, beautiful and whole!  Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• 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
• Having an open mind does not mean that one never comes to any convictions in life. It is perfectly possible to have an open mind and live a very principled life, without holding one’s beliefs dogmatically. Having an open mind means being prepared to question even your most central beliefs if there is occasion to do so. It means being open, when the time comes, to having your mind changed by an argument better than one’s own. It means being able to think both sides of an issue, both the side you think is true and the side you think is false. It also means being able to suspend your beliefs, to play devil’s advocate, and to detach yourself somewhat from your own beliefs, actions and feelings. Only living with an open mind gives us a chance to grow and change, for change is inevitable, while growth, unfortunately, is not.  Jeff Mason
• A mind that’s open and spacious can absorb lots of useful information. On the other hand, a mind that’s already full—of assumptions, beliefs about the intentions of others, preconceived ideas—misses important details or contexts, jumps to conclusions, and has a hard time learning anything new.   Rick Hanson
• Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.  Leo Tolstoy
• Judge less–or at least later.  Give new ideas and images a chance. Understand that everyone has his own truth or her own. Remember: you are not married to any belief, opinion, or ideology. Expect to discover something delicious every day.  Victoria Moran
• Open-mindedness,  Explore new ideas and perspectives

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Question your beliefs periodically

• Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those “truths” we once believed.  Friedrich Nietzsche
• Dare to question old ways, rules and taken for granted beliefs.  Dr Irene C. Kassorla

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Leave some space for doubt

• Most men appear wiser in their doubts than in their belief. Norman Macdonald
• One’s belief in truth begins with doubt of all truths one has believed hitherto.  Friedrich Nietzsche
• A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a belief; it is a superstition.  Jose Bergamin
• Doubt

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Break free of outdated beliefs

• And you can break yourself free from your hereditary patterns, cultural codes, social beliefs; and prove once and for all that the power within you is greater than the power that’s in the world.  Michael Beckwith
• Can you imagine experiencing the world as a great sandbox given for us to play in like we did as children? As we play, we can also open ourselves to the exploration of our edges, always creating new adventures of self- exploration as we let go of old out- dated beliefs about ourselves.  Judith-Annette Milburn
• Loyalty to a petrified belief never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.  Mark Twain

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Celebrate the diversity there is in different beliefs

• Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth.  Theodore Roosevelt
• Diversity

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Most of all, let go of your belief there is only one truth and that you own it

• The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.  Max Born
• Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.  Andre Gide
• Believing ourselves to be possessors of absolute truth degrades us:  we regard every person whose way of thinking is different from ours as a monster and a threat and by so doing turn our own selves into monsters and threats to our fellows.  Octavio Paz
• The person who thinks he has found the ultimate truth is wrong.  Joseph Campbell

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Be comfortable with mystery and not knowing …

• I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here. I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.   Richard P. Feynman
• Most of us encounter a great deal more Mystery than we are willing to experience.  Sometimes knowing life requires us to suspend disbelief, to recognize that all our hard-won knowledge may only be provisional and the world may be quite different than we believe it to be.  This can be very stressful, even frightening.  But if we are not willing to wonder, we may have to hang up the phone on life.  Rachel Naomi Remen
• Mystery,  Let go of the need for certainty,  Let go of the need to know

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… for it’s far better to have a mind opened by wonder and curiosity than closed by belief

• Magic is a sudden opening of the mind to the wonder of existence.  It is a sense that there is much more to life than we usually recognize; that we do not have to be confined by the limited views that our family, our society, or our own habitual thoughts impose on us; that life contains many dimensions, depths, textures, and meanings extending far beyond our familiar beliefs and concepts.  John Welwood
• I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.  Gerry Spence
• Curiosity is more flexible and practical than belief.  Steve Pavlina
• Wonder,  Curiosity

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Some spiritual teachers state that all beliefs are illusions of the mind …

• All the concepts and beliefs we possess, no matter how precious, are part of the illusion too.  Adyashanti
• All thoughts achieve the same outcome. They take you out of the truth of life, out of the present moment, and into a world of illusion.  Leonard Jacobson
• Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is illusion. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly. Richard Bach
• Why is silence the greatest teacher? Because real truth never speaks. What would be the point? Truth simply is and so does not need to be reminded of this. On the other hand, illusion cannot be convinced for it doesn’t actually exist except as a thought, belief or concept.  Michael Jeffreys
• We never stop to consider that our beliefs are only a relative truth that’s always going to be distorted by all the knowledge we have stored in our memory.  Miguel Angel Ruiz
• Illusion

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… illusions that hide the truth …

• Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief.  Adyashanti
• Don’t seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions.  Zen saying
• Truth

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… and keep us from awakening spiritually to the awareness that exists beyond thought and belief

• Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.  Thich Nhat Hanh
• Awareness (or spirit) is something that has no form, no shape, no colour, no gender, no age, no beliefs.  Adyashanti
• The most remarkable event in the history of humanity is the phenomena of people dissolving their identification with the prevailing systems of thoughts, beliefs, rituals, and practices, and entering an experience of unconditioned awareness.  Peter Fenner
• Awaken to who you really are,  Awareness,  Belief

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Spiritual truth reveals itself when all beliefs fall away …

• Finding the Truth is aloneness as all shared beliefs and concepts fall away.  Adyashanti
• I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color– something which exists before all forms and colours appear… No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it, your belief will be based more or less on a self- centered idea.  Shunryu Suzuki
• Learn to shake yourself loose from what the world believes is the only reality.  Neville Goddard
• Reality can only be seen in the absence of thought and belief.  Scott Kiloby
• The real work that brings about awakening, rather than merely granting the external appearance of “being spiritual,” while actually embroiling us ever more deeply in the dream, is a rigorous, daily commitment to the identification and elimination of every self- serving belief from which our personal dream-lives are constructed.  Vincent Casspriano, Jr
• To expound and propagate concepts is simple, to drop all concepts is difficult and rare.  Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Truth is freedom. Truth requires no belief, no effort. It is what is. Of course, words cannot express this. But truth is freedom.  Tom Thompson

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… creating freedom and aliveness

• Why is it that so few people are truly free? Because they try to conform to ideas, concepts, and beliefs in their heads. They try to concentrate their way to heaven. But freedom is about the natural state, the spontaneous and un- self- conscious expression of beingness. If you want to find it, see that the very idea of “a someone who is in control” is a concept created by the mind. Take one step backward into the unknown.  Adyashanti
• Aliveness is about the freedom to use whatever works in the moment. Right action at right time. Which is another name for true compassion. A freedom that is only fully felt when one is completely immersed in the present moment of now, and free of the burden of beliefs, which manifest as thoughts. A clear mind fully aware of reality as it is now, and operating with absolute synchronicity within time and space, that is the real beginning of Aliveness.   Matt Thornton
• Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called “God.” As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.  Eckhart Tolle
• I don’t have to run from anything because I don’t believe in anything.  Flannery O’Connor
• Freedom,  Being fully alive,  Vitality

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The truth is you are not your mind’s belief of who you are

• You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion.  Eckhart Tolle
• It can be quite transformative to realize that you are not what you thought you were, that you are not your beliefs, that you are not your personality, that you are not your ego. You are something other than that, something that resides on the inside, at the innermost core of your being.  Adyashanti
• Nobody can tell you who you are. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle. It does not even require your realization since you already are who you are. But without realization, who you are does not shine forth into the world.  Eckhart Tolle
• The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.  Eckhart Tolle
• We realize–often quite suddenly–that our sense of self, which has been formed and constructed out of our ideas, beliefs and images, is not really who we are. It doesn’t define us, it has no center.  Adyashanti
• When we really start to take a look at who we think we are… we start to see that while we may have various thoughts, beliefs, and identities, they do not individually or collectively tell us who we are. And yet it is astounding how completely we humans define ourselves by the content of our minds, feelings, and history.  Adyashanti
• You are not who you believe yourself to be. Who you are cannot be devised. Who you are cannot be imagined. Who you are is before, during, and after all thoughts. Stop for a moment and realize who you are.  Gangaji
• The ego, or more accurately, the belief that one is the ego, obscures the Realization of the Reality of the Self as the Oneness of All That is. The dissolution of the ego results in liberation from the bondage of the illusions that create suffering.  David R. Hawkins
• Who is the experiencer of all I experience?

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Here are some limiting beliefs that hinder spiritual awakening and well-being

• Behind most spiritual practices is the belief that you have to get someplace you’re not – a destination called realization or enlightenment. But realization isn’t someplace else; it’s the naturally occurring human state. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s who we all are.  Suzanne Segal
• Spiritual seekers look for self-realization or enlightenment in the future. To be a seeker implies that you need the future. If this is what you believe, it becomes true for you: you will need time until you realize that you don’t need time to be who you are.  Eckhart Tolle
• The biggest barrier to awakening is the belief that it is something rare.  Adyashanti
• The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.  Daniel Boorstin
• The only thing standing between you and self-realization is the belief that you are not already fully realized.  Ramana Maharshi
• The search depends on a deep belief that The All is not present now.  That this moment is not as it should be.  Adyashanti
• Behind most spiritual practices is the belief that you have to get someplace you’re not – a destination called realization or enlightenment.
• If you want to be happy, simply let go of your belief in those thoughts that cause you to suffer
• Any thought is harmless unless you believe it.   Byron Katie
• Don’t believe everything you think.  Byron Katie
• When you believe your painful thoughts, you suffer, and when you don’t, you’re free.  Byron Katie
• A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.  Byron Katie
• You don’t have to believe everything your thoughts tell you. Just become familiar with the particular thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness. Becoming familiar with your stressful thoughts will show you the way home to everything you need.  Byron Katie
• So, how do you get back to heaven? To begin with, just notice the thoughts that take you away from it. You don’t have to believe everything your thoughts tell you. Just become familiar with the particular thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness. It may seem strange at first to get to know yourself in this way, but becoming familiar with your stressful thoughts will show you the way home to everything you need. Byron Katie
• Trauma is nothing more than being stuck in what you believe.  Byron Katie
• There is nothing that isn’t true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not.  Byron Katie

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Let go of your belief that things should be different from what they are

• The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.  Byron Katie

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Let go of the belief there’s something missing

• You’re just suffering from the belief that there’s something missing from your life. In reality, you always have what you need.  Byron Katie

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Let go of the belief you should be able to control everything

• We often create enormous amounts of stress with our ridiculous expectations of ourselves and with the belief that we can, and should be able to, control everything that is going on around us.  Amanda Harvey
• Control

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Let go of your belief that everything should work out exactly as you want it to

• Attachment creates fear that gets in your way: What if I lose? What if the deal doesn’t go through? What if I’m rejected? Your belief that everything must work out exactly as you want it to with no glitches creates enormous pressure. Nonattachment, on the other hand, works like magic. It allows you to have fun in your efforts, to enjoy the process. It takes the pressure off. You win regardless of the outcome.  Richard Carlson
• Expectation

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Let go of the belief that you are not creative

• We are all creative. Creativity is the hallmark human capacity that has allowed us to survive thus far. Our brains are wired to be creative, and the only thing stopping you from expressing the creativity that is your birth right is your belief that there are creative people and uncreative people and that you fall in that second category.  Shelley Carson
• Creativity

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Let go of the belief that the world will fall apart without you

• One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.  Bertrand Russell
• The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.  Robert Swan

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Let go of your belief that life has to be complicated

• Life is very, very simple and easy to understand, but we complicate it with the beliefs and ideas that we create.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• In our development, as we grow throughout our lives, the structure of our beliefs becomes very complicated, and we make it even more complicated because we make the assumption that what we believe is the absolute truth.   Don Miguel Ruiz
• Simplicity,  Complexity

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Let go of your false beliefs around happiness

• One of the great obstacles to attaining happiness is that most of our beliefs about what will make us happy are in fact erroneous.  Sonja Lyubomirsky
• There is an unfortunate belief that happiness is a reward, a reward that comes only after spending many years struggling in the pursuit of happiness.  Martin Boroson
• Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.  Thich Nhat Hanh
• Another belief: Happiness is in the future. Not true. Right here and now you are happy and you do not know it because your false beliefs and your distorted perceptions have got you caught up in fears, anxieties, attachments, conflicts, guilt and a host of games that you are programmed to play. If you would see through this you would realize that you are happy and you do not know it.  Anthony De Mello
• One of life’s great misconceptions is the belief if I get what I want, I’ll be happy.  Years of research, and your own experience if you look at it carefully, will tell you that’s not so:  if you get what you want you will quickly get used to it and want something else instead.  But we have a hard time remembering this.  Advertising and the media play into these desires, telling us we can be happy if we just buy the right things, wear the right clothes, get the latest home entertainment or kitchen gadget.  Richard O’Connor
• Happiness

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Beliefs may be more powerful sometimes than facts …

• There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.  Maya Angelou
• Beliefs are more powerful than facts.  Brian Herbert
• Many a prophecy, by the mere force of its being believed, is transmuted to fact.  Isaac Asimov
• The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished; they did not engender those beliefs, and they are powerless to destroy them. Marcel Proust
• Belief has nothing to do with facts, especially for the unbelievable facts.  Toba Beta
• The strong belief can make things out of imagination. But that can also make facts as if they were fairy tales.  Toba Beta
• Facts

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… but truth is always truth regardless of belief …

• No matter what you believe, it doesn’t change the facts.  Al Kersha
• Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.  Philip K. Dick
• The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.  Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Truth is. Belief is not required.  Gerry Roston
• A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.  Franz Kafka
• It will be whatever it is, no? Nothing, something — our believing one thing or another will matter not at all in the end.  Scott Smith
• Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.  W. Clement Stone
• 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 widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.  Bertrand Russell
• Truth

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… no matter how widespread that belief may be

• The truth, of course, is that a billion falsehoods told a billion times by a billion people are still false.  Travis Walton
• The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.  William Somerset Maugham
• The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.  Bertrand Russell
• It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.  Giordano Bruno

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Some argue we should stick to a belief in what is true, even if it has a detrimental effect

• You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.  Veronica Roth, Allegiant
• The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favour of its truth.  Bertrand Russell
• The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.  George Bernard Shaw
• False beliefs can be every bit as consoling as true ones, right up until the moment of disillusionment.  Richard Dawkins
• The difficulty with pragmatic arguments for a religion is that truths do not always ‘work’, and beliefs that ‘work’ are by no means always true.  John Warwick Montgomery

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The truth is that almost all of the beliefs that cause us to suffer are based on lies

• The Judge in the mind is wrong because the belief system, the Book of Law, is wrong. The whole dream is based on false law. Ninety-five percent of the beliefs we have stored in our minds are nothing but lies, and we suffer because we believe all these lies.   Don Miguel Ruiz
• The dream of the planet is just a dream. It is not even real. If you go into the dream and start challenging you beliefs, you will find that most of the beliefs that guided you into the wounded mind are not even true. You will find that you suffered all those years of drama for nothing. Why? Because the belief system that was put inside you mind is based on lies.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• If you go into the dream and start challenging your beliefs, you will find that most of the beliefs that guided you into the wounded mind are not even true.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. That shades implicit memory—your underlying feelings, expectations, beliefs, inclinations, and mood—in an increasingly negative direction.  Rick Hanson
• But nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves, and it is the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system that make us do this.  Don Miguel Ruiz
• What has happened is that we have the Book of Law, the big Judge and the Victim who rule our lives. We are no longer free because the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system don’t allow us to be who we really are. Once our minds have been programmed with all that garbage, we are no longer happy.  Miguel Ruiz
• Illusion,  Suffering

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Faith is unquestioning belief where there isn’t clear proof

• Faith:  Confident or unquestioning belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.  American Heritage Dictionary
• For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see?  Augustine
• Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.  Voltaire
• Faith can also be defined as the ability to trust our beliefs, even when we have no such proof that such beliefs are accurate or true.  Andrew Newberg
• Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.  Ambrose Bierce
• Fanatics do not have faith – they have belief. With faith, you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.  Yann Martel
• Faith

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Faith is a belief in what you cannot fully understand

• Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.  Saint Augustine
• Men that believe only what they understand can write their creed on a postage stamp.  Austin O’Malley
• Faith is a devout belief in what one does not understand.  Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamron
• He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend, must have a very long head, or a very short creed.  Charles Caleb Colton

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Many argue in favour of the power of faith …

• The ultimate human goal is faith without belief.  Beliefs can mislead us, but faith is the pure, deep well that knows no bounds.  Earon Davis
• The rigidity of one’s religious beliefs diminishes with the presence of faith.  Fanatacism is a grasping for order in a mind without peace and without faith.  Earon Davis
• Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.  St. Augustine
• Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be… a prudent insurance policy.  Elizabeth Gilbert
• Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations.  Elton Trueblood
• Faith is the belief of the heart in that knowledge which comes from the unseen.  Muhammad ben Kafif
• Belief is truth held in the mind; faith is a fire in the heart.  Joseph Fort Newton
• Though my sight be lost, I do not yet lose my faith: when I can no longer see, I can still believe.  Ivan Panin

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… and warn against the lack of it

• Christ never failed to distinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is can’t believe; unbelief is won’t believe. Doubt is honesty; unbelief is obstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with darkness.  Henry Drummond
• Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Talk unbelief, and you will have unbelief; but talk faith, and you will have faith. According to the seed sown will be the harvest.  Ellen G. White

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Faith, they argue, is belief in action

• Faith is not so much something we believe; faith is something we live.  Joseph B. Wirthlin
• Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.  Edith Hamilton
• Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.  Mitch Albom

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Others warn against the dangers of blind faith

• If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called “education”. This last is particularly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defencelessness of immature minds. Unfortunately, it is practiced in greater or less degree in the schools of every civilised country.  Bertrand Russell

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However, very few would argue that faith in oneself is a bad thing

• The Law of Faith: Faith is a belief in the favourable outcome of anything undertaken. Faith gives life, power and action to your plan. Faith inspires you with absolute confidence to demonstrate your plan, and qualifies you to turn your ideas into money.  Earl Prevette
• It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believe in myself.  Muhammad Ali
• At the back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: It comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.  Henry Miller
• Faith… If we don’t have faith that we’re making the best decision we can, then we will be swallowed up in doubt. And doubt, at least as far as your brain is concerned, is a precarious state in which to live. Faith is equivalent with hope, optimism, and the belief that a positive future awaits us.  Andrew Newberg
• Self-belief,  Self-confidence

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• I am good enough. I am not restricted by old, limiting beliefs from my family or from society.  Louise L. Hay
• I have taken time to explore my beliefs to be certain they are of my own choice, rather than what others think I should believe.  Brad Swift
• Affirmations (self-talk)

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• There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.  Frank A. Clark
• Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?  Groucho Marx
• A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.  Henry Ellis
• Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.  George Carlin
• Don’t believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose.  Douglas Adams
• An atheist is one who hopes the Lord will do nothing to disturb his disbelief.   Franklin Jones
• Everybody’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.  W.C. Fields
• Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
• Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion. Ambrose Bierce
• If Your Beliefs Fit On A Sign – Think Harder   Protest sign
• Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel.  Ambrose Bierce
• Atheism is a fervid belief in disbelief.Dr Laurence Peter
• Democracy:  The belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.  Carlyle Thomas
• Liberal: One who tolerates all beliefs and opinions except those with which he disagrees.
• I have my doubts about disbelief.
• The old English belief that if a thing is unpleasant it is automatically good for you.  Osbert Lancaster
• There is no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.   Lewis Carroll
• We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients but we can’t scoff at them personally to their faces and this is what annoys me.   Jack Handey
• One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.   Bertrand Russell
• The greatest American superstition is belief in facts.   Hermann Keyserling
• Hallucination: A belief owned exclusively by one person.
• I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.  Dick Gregory
• Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.  George Carlin

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