Christopher Isherwood Quotes

The way you think either expresses or undermines faith.

People may believe correct things for the damndest and weirdest of wrong reasons.

Our inner weighing of evidence is not a careful mathematical calculation resulting in a probabilistic estimate of truth, but more like a whirlpool blending of the objective and the personal. The result is a set of beliefs - both conscious and unconscious - that guide us in interpreting all the events of our lives.

The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections... What a man had rather were true he more readily believes.

For what a man would like to be true, that he more readily believes.

It's our last chance. No. No, I can't... I, no, I need to believe that it isn't our last chance... Eleanor? Can you hear me? I need you to believe it, too.

You can't reason people out of beliefs they weren't reasoned into.

Men do not often dare to avow, even to themselves, the slow progress reason has made in their minds; but they are ready to follow it if it is presented to them in a lively and striking manner, and forces them to recognize it.

A belief system is nothing more than a thought you've thought over and over again.

Any belief that puts itself beyond doubt nurtures its own collapse.

We believe what we see.’...What do you do when you’re in the dark?

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.

The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.

What a man wishes, he will believe.

Doubt always coexists with faith, for in the presence of certainty who would need faith at all?

The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshiping heart needs none.

Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons - that's philosophy.

A man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.

Men are handicapped when it comes to arguing, 'cause we have a need to make sense.

People try to make sense of things, and if they don’t know the answers, they make them up,because for some, a wrong answer is better than none.

Two types of voices command your attention today. Negative ones fill your mind with doubt, bitterness, and fear. Positive ones purvey hope and strength. Which one will you choose to heed?

Seeing is not believing - it is only seeing.

The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.

It is in numberless instances happier to have a false opinion which we believe true, than a true one of which we doubt.

Our nature is to desperately want to believe and to take what we believe is the quickest path there even against our better judgment.