In my view, philosophers have shown a great deal more respect for the first-person point of view than it deserves. There's a lot of empirical work on the various psychological mechanisms by way of which the first-person point of view is produced, and, when we understand this, I believe, we can stop romanticising and mythologising the first-person perspective.

My own work has been influenced by my years of teaching in that it's very hard for me to be cynical. When you're working with emerging, brilliant talent, you have to believe in the future. It makes me hungry, as a 65-year-old. I'm not thinking about the time that is behind me. I'm thinking of these people that I watch to catch up with and be in their company.

I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don't think that that's what's primarily the matter with them. What's primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god. That's much more dangerous than when people don't believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the meaning of life, but they're not dangerous.

In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement.

I grew up in a household where the FryDaddy was always bubbling, and butter and salt were never in short supply. I've never been one to choose the healthy option over the non-healthy option if the healthy option was lacking in taste. I believe a little bad is good for you from time to time. When it comes to maintaining a healthy soul, nothing beats traveling.

We believe that climate change must be viewed not only as a danger to natural systems, but also as a direct threat to human survival and well-being. We are convinced that this negotiation process must not be viewed as a traditional series of governmental trade-offs, but as an urgent international effort to safeguard human lives, homes, rights and livelihoods.

I believe that God is the source of all the universal, timeless principles. And to Him, I give all the credit and the glory. However, to a person who is not religious, I believe they can live to the highest level of their conscience and develop spiritual intelligence that surpasses most people, including many religious people, who profess but do not practice.

In less than a century we experienced great movement. The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil rights movement! The peace movement! The solidarity movement! The women's movement! The disability movement! The disarmament movement! The gay rights movement! The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation! Is there any reason to believe we are done?

I say that the United States of America is a unique experiment in history. I believe in American exceptionalism. I wasn't for sending ground forces into Libya. It would have been counterproductive, but we are an inspiration to these people. I know because I've looked them in the eyes, and they looked at me. They look to America for inspiration and leadership.

My ex-husband has been one of my best teachers, and I believe that the areas of our life and the people in our lives that present the most problems to us - they really are our best teachers. They're teaching us lessons that we have to learn anyway, and if we don't accept the lesson from them, there will just be another teacher to step in and take their place.

I think people cast their votes for a number of reasons. I think if you look at your polls, you'll probably find that many, many people think that our views are closer to what they believe the future of America should be. That our views are closer on economic issues. And a lot of those polls come down to demographics, to age, to how much money you are making.

When we talk about the Universe Story we are talking about the acquisition of a totally new paradigm, one which overturns many of the patterns that we unconsciously believe to be true. There is not simply the addition of new metaphors and images, but the metaphors and images themselves flow out of a new consciousness inspired by a new awareness of the cosmos.

You've come to give me a piece of your mind. You know that phrase is really beautiful. The mind is the most powerful thing in the body. Whatever the mind believes, the body can achieve. So to give someone a piece of it... well thank you. Funny how people are always intent on giving it to the people they dislike when it really should be for the ones they love.

Just because I said lyrics are a sign of the inability to sing doesn't mean....A) I believe that, or B) I don't think they're cool. They are cool. Words are great. I sing along with my favorite songs, but when I am drumming and singing, the words become a note that for me. In the process of playing they have more emotional impact as notes then an actual word.

An abuser can seem emotionally needy. You can get caught in a trap of catering to him, trying to fill a bottomless pit. But he's not so much needy as entitled, so no matter how much you give him, it will never be enough. He will just keep coming up with more demands because he believes his needs are your responsibility, until you feel drained down to nothing.

I do think that saving the economy was a pretty big deal. We did a lot of stuff early that ended up having an impact. I believe that the work we've done in moving our energy future in a cleaner direction is going to stick even if some of the individual steps that we took are reversed by future administrations. I think that it's embedded itself in the economy.

I believe that in our own individual ways, God takes us to the grove or the mountain or the temple and there shows us the wonder of what His plan is for us. We may not see it as fully as Moses or Nephi or the brother of Jared did, but we see as much as need to see in order to know the Lord's will for us and to know that He loves us beyond mortal comprehension.

Like I said, I always believed in the spirit realm. Whether or not I understood it or witnessed it or was involved in it. There wasn't an incident that made be believe it was real, like I said I had an interest in it and as I grew older I realized that there are some people that are doing this for real. That's when I realized this isn't just a Hollywood thing.

My father has a way of persuading people without charm that has always confused me. He states his opinions as if they’re facts, and somehow his complete lack of doubt makes you believe him. That quality frightens me now, because I know what he told me: that I was broken, that I was worthless, that I was nothing. How many of those things did he make me believe?

The least Anararchic person in that conversation is the person saying 'you can't be an anarchist if you believe in god.' Because that's not an argument, it's just a statement. Why would somebody accept that? Because they either bow to your authority or they are afraid of your aggression. That's threatening to be another kind of ruler. Does that make any sense?

A group of amazingly high achievers can be brought together and play together, and all believe that they are competing for something bigger than themselves. Those players are so used to being patted on the back and told how good they are. Frankly, those are usually the hardest people to remind that they are aspiring to achieve something bigger than themselves.

Most of us hide behind egocentric biases that generate the illusion that we are special. These self-serving protective shields allow us to believe that each of us is above average on any test of self-integrity. Too often we look to the stars through the thick lens of personal invulnerability when we should also look down to the slippery slope beneath our feet.

Were you somebody different a thousand years ago? Will you be somebody different a thousand years from now? What is this One Self that is forever your own deepest being? Must you believe the lies of time? Must you swallow the insanity that One Spirit does not exist? Can you show me your Original Face, of which there is One and Only One in all the entire World?

I'm an atheist. But I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don't believe in God. We celebrate pretty much every religion in our family with the kids. They love it, and when they say, 'Are we Jewish?' or 'Are we Catholic?' I say, 'Well, I'm not, but you can choose when you're 18. But isn't this fun that we do seders and the Advent calendar?'

Traveling provides occasions for shaking oneself up but not, as people believe, freedom. Indeed it involves a kind of reduction: deprived of one’s usual setting, the customary routine stripped away like so much wrapping paper, the traveller finds himself reduced to more modest proportions - but also more open to curiosity, to intuition, to love at first sight.

The average American thinks billionaire investors are going to be right based on some talking head. They invest and they have no backup plan. Americans think these guys are giant risk-takers. The truth is they believe in taking as little risk as humanly possible, for the maximum amount of upside. They're looking for that spread of disproportionate risk-reward.

I want to use songs that everybody knows or thinks they know. I want to show them a different side of it and open up that world in a more unique way. You have to believe what the words are saying and the words are as important as the melody. Unless you believe the song and have lived it, there's little sense in performing it. I never wanted to be a singer that

I am always shocked to discover how many people believe that hardships are a punishment from God! When people face tests or see others facing tests, they assume Allah must be angry with them. SubhannAllah! Remember which people were tested the most: The Prophets! And they were the closest to Allah. Every hardship is good for you-if it brings you closer to Him!

I am convinced that of all the people on the two sides of the great curtain, the space pilots are the least likely to hate each other. Like the late Erich von Holst, I believe that the tremendous and otherwise not quite explicable public interest in space flight arises from the subconscious realization that it helps to preserve peace. May it continue to do so!

I'm in show business. I believe in illusion and delusions and in holding aloft the bubble of a dream of some sort because, really, there are lots of reasons to look at the chasm. But art and music, these ineffables, they're just - they're the consolations of what human beings can create and make, and delight is accessible, you know, should you care to find it.

There is a certain class of people who prefer to say that their fathers came down in the world through their own follies than to boast that they rose in the world through their own industry and talents. It is the same shabby-genteel sentiment, the same vanity of birth which makes men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels rather than elevated apes.

I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.

...finally men were saved only through God's son dying for them, and that unless human beings believed this silly, impossible and wicked story they were doomed to hell? Can anyone with intelligence really believe that a child born today should be doomed because the snake tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam? To believe that is not God-worship; it is devil-worship.

Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the Pythagorean theorem just waiting to be discovered by Platonic reasoners? Or do people feel revulsion and sympathy when they read accounts of torture, and then invent a story about universal rights to help justify their feelings?

The [Oregon] Journal in its head and heart will stand for the people, be truly Democratic and free from political entanglements and machinations, believing in the principles that promise the greatest good to the greatest number-to ALL MEN, regardless of race, creed or previous condition of servitude... It will be a fair newspaper, not a dull and selfish sheet.

People often say that Trump "speaks the truth," right? But I think what really is happening is he's become a symbol of the kind of cynicism the American public feels towards politicians. He embodies, and he's mobilizing, that cynicism. Because people have no faith in politics anymore. People actually believe that politics is dead, because it's bought and sold.

I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent that I just said, "This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, but it's not for me."

Those individuals from the far left, and I'm talking about the Hollywood elitists and the United Nations and those individuals want us to believe it's because we are contributing CO2 to the atmosphere, that's causing global warming. It's all about money. I mean, what would happen to the Weather Channel's ratings if all the sudden people weren't scared anymore?

I have thought about this issue of abortion time and again. It is not an easy issue for most people. I came to believe over the years that a woman should be able to make this agonizing decision with her doctor and her family and her conscience, and that we should be very careful that we don't make that decision a crime except in the most extreme circumstances.

The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients.

I have everything in the world that is necessary to happiness, good faith, good friends and all the work I can possibly do. I think God's greatest blessing to the human race was when He sent man forth into the world to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. I believe in toil, in the dignity of labor, but I also believe in adequate compensation for that toil.

Even though the press at times made me completely crazy as they followed me around the hall, and asked tough questions over and over again - now believe me, every politician feels this way - it is a necessary part of our life, and we must have a press that isn't cowed and won't be afraid of ratings if they get put to the back of the room at a press conference.

And believe me, to have been in the city of Tuscaloosa in October when you were young and full of Early Times and had a shining Alabama girl by your side--to have had all that and then to have seen those red shirts pour onto the field, and, then, coming behind them, with that inexorable big cat walk of his, the man himself, The Bear--that was very good indeed.

We tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they'll remember it. ... Religions go, "Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day. So get on your knees and repeat it." That's what all religions tell us: "Get on your knees and repeat it 10 or 20 or 15 times a day." Otherwise our minds are like sieves.

If the study of all these sciences which we have enumerated, should ever bring us to their mutual association and relationship, and teach us the nature of the ties which bind them together, I believe that the diligent treatment of them will forward the objects which we have in view, and that the labor, which otherwise would be fruitless, will be well bestowed.

It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you're poor because you're stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you're stupid and ugly because you're Indian. And because you're Indian you start believing you're destined to be poor. It's an ugly circle and there's nothing you can do about it.

Antidepressants are the biggest fraud in the world. Number one, Prozac gives you a royal soft-on like you wouldn't believe, and number two you never know all the side effects. I look at the pharmaceutical companies as the drug barons, the psychopharmcologists as the mules and the patients as the victims. They're innocent because they think they're being cured.

I was raised in a musical family - 5 girls and 1 boy - so all of us girls don't do gender. We were all made to believe that we could do anything we wanted and so we did. One of my early bands was with my sisters. I didn't really come across a lot of problems because I just didn't see it. I took myself seriously and so everyone else did too - this is my mantra.

Never console yourself into believing that the terror has passed, for it looms as large and evil today as it did in the despicable era of Bedlam. But I must relate the horrors as I recall them, in the hope that some force for mankind might be moved to relieve forever the unfortunate creatures who are still imprisoned in the back wards of decaying institutions.

When you think of the KKK, they actually have as their emblem a fiery cross. And they don't see any contradiction between the cross, an instrument of suffering that procured our reconciliation with God, and its use as a symbol for nefarious attacks on black people. But they believe that they are being obedient to God because they can read things that they see.

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