Anthony Storr Quotes

Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.

We chart delusions through collective agreement.

The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.

My grandfather was a practising Quaker. My father was a nihilist. But nihilism, if you like, is the beginning of faith anyway.

It remains to consider what attitude thoughtful men and Christian believers should take respecting them, and how they stand related to beliefs of another order.

When I was a child, my parents taught a literal creation. By the time I was in my 20s they were accommodating evolution. In other words, less creed, more roll with changing ways of seeing. Maybe adapting is a better way to see this.

What one heart finds hard to believe, a hundred find easy.

A person isn't considered insane if there are a number of people who believe the same way. Insanity isn't supposed to be a communicable disease. If one other person starts to believe him, or maybe two or three, then it's a religion.

They were told what they wanted and they believed it. They can only keep their dream alive by being with others like themselves who will mirror their illusions.

It may well be that a societys greatest madness seems normal to itself.

Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.

People always snap and think they're Jesus. How come no one ever snaps and thinks they're Buddha?

Facts mean little compared to attitudes. To contradict rumor or sentiment is as futile as arguing against a believer's faith in the Immaculate Conception. You have simply become a victim of faith, Comrade Assistant.

We are all apt to believe what the world believes about us.

Atheists don't hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don't exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists - like the painting experts hated the painter - hate God because He does exist.

A man who believes that he eats his God we do not call mad; yet, a man who says he is Jesus Christ, we call mad.

Those who are religious or who have any beliefs have so much to choose from.

Stories are our attempts to share our values & beliefs with the hopes that we may attract those who believe what we believe. This is the basis of forming a trusting relationship. Story telling, therefor, is only worthwhile when it tells what you stand for, not what you do.

The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old. It's not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs.

I don't differentiate much, except in degree, between people who believe in religion from those who believe in astrology, magic or the supernatural.

Religion restricts the play of choice and adaptation, since it imposes equally on everyone its own path to the acquisition of happiness and protection from suffering. Its technique consists in depressing the value of life and distorting the picture of the real world in a delusional manner - which presupposes an intimidation of the intelligence. At this price, by forcibly fixing them in a state of psychical infantilism and by drawing them into a mass-delusion, religion succeeds in sparing many people an individual neurosis. But hardly anything more.

What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.

He [God] just seems so man-made to me. There are so many theories, and not everyone can be right. It's human nature to need a religious crutch, and I don't begrudge anyone that. I just don't need one.

When a paradox is widely believed, it is no longer recognized as a paradox.

Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. IF he worship not the true God, he will have his idols.