Jacques Barzun Quotes

I don't believe in God. I do believe in Judaism. I believe in ethics, morals.

Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose … Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom.

Intuitive faith and reasoned judgment are not the same. Spirit is not always thought. But, in the everyday business of living, secular or otherwise, these variant aspects of personality find inseparable expression in a thousand ways. They cannot be altogether parted in law more than in life.

To give religion two minutes a day, in its own space, isn't exactly selling general morality or atheism short.

Holding true to what you believe - even in a big city - is so important.

We want to represent the things we believe.

I don't like to say I'm not a believer because I still feel like a believer in a lot of things, primarily hope and grace and the power of human connection.

Morality may exist in an atheist without any religion, and in a theist with a religion quite unspiritual.

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.

When you want to believe in something, you also have to believe in everything that's necessary for believing in it.

The many of us who attain what we may and forget those who help us along the line we've got to remember that there are so many others to pull along the way. The farther they go, the further we all go.

A climate in which belief may flourish

Beliefs create behaviors, and the dysfunctional behaviors of the human race, observable everywhere every day, are the product of our non-workable beliefs. Chief among these is the belief in separation, which has arisen out of our ancient Separation Theologies. This is a way of looking at God that insists that we are "over here" and God is "over there."

A belief may be larger than a fact. A faith that is overdefined is the very faith most likely to prove inadequate to the great moments of life.

Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may.

You may be frustrated with religion, but don't take that out on God.

The true determining factor of our belief system is not what we're saying, but how we are living.

In the past, when I saw bike messengers, I would just see them as individuals. Then, I realized that they're all tied together.

You exist but as a part inherent in a greater whole. Do not live as though you had a thousand years before you. The common due impends; while you live, and while you may, be good.

We are far too willing to reject the belief that much of what we see in life is random.

What a doctor or healer tells you is a reflection of the beliefs and expectations you hold. Change your beliefs and you change the prognosis. Who is the doctor? The mind of the patient.

Illusion starts between the ears. If the person doing illusion doesn't believe it, then the audience doesn't believe it. Seeing the picture in your head will allow the audience to see it in their heads.

You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.

[On Werner Erhard, founder of est:] If I wanted a new belief system, I'd choose to believe in God - He's been in business longer than Werner, and He has better music.

A belief in God and a belief in astrology cannot be reconciled.