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The believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence. ...
by H. L. Mencken

The believing mind is eternally impervious to evidence.
- H. L. Mencken

Related topics: Cynical

We must respect the other fellow's religion,
but only in the sense and to the extent
that we respect his theory that
his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
- H. L. Mencken

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie.
I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave.
And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
- H.L. Mencken

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.
- H. L. Mencken

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person
to reconcile himself to the idea that
after all God will not help him
- H. L. Mencken

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
- H. L. Mencken

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
- H. L. Mencken

Marriage is a wonderful institution,
but who would want to live in an institution?
- H. L. Mencken

Puritanism. The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- H. L. Mencken

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
- H. L. Mencken

Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- H. L. Mencken

For every complex problem,
there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
- H.L. Mencken

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- H. L. Mencken

For centuries, theologians have been explaining
the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.
- H. L. Mencken

The objection to Puritans is not that
they try to make us think as they do,
but that they try to make us do as they think.
- H. L. Mencken

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers,
looks around for a coffin.
- H. L. Mencken

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
- H. L. Mencken

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
- H. L. Mencken

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
- H. L. Mencken

The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always
a false front for the urge to rule.
- H. L. Mencken

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband
a month before she marries him
and what she thinks of him a year afterward,
and you will have the truth about him.
- H. L. Mencken

Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken

Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.
- H. L. Mencken

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins,
all of them imaginary.
- H. L. Mencken

In spite of unseasonable wind, snow
and unexpected weather of all sorts -
a gardener still plants.
And tends what they have planted ...
believing that Spring will come.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Never be fooled into believing that
there is one speck out of order.
- Byron Katie

Resilience is about believing in yourself,
and trusting your own wisdom rather than
being swayed by the opinions of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Could you risk believing that everything
will unfold just fine if you completely let go
of all concern about everything else,
and simply are here, now - if only for a moment?
- Dmitri Bilgere

Humans do have an amazing capacity
for believing what they choose,
and excluding that which is painful.
- Spock (character in Star Trek television series)

Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW
is only a small step and quickly taken.
- Mark Twain

Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Faith consists in believing when it is
beyond the power of reason to believe.
- Voltaire

Everybody is a genius.
But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- Albert Einstein

Seeing is not always believing.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never stop dreaming your inspired future.
Believing in your dreams is only the first step,
but unless you have a dream that you believe in,
you are leaving your future to random chance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I was wise enough to never grow up
while fooling most people into believing I had.
- Margaret Mead

I want to share with you the three rules
that I have in order to accept an apprentice.
Rule Number 1: Don't believe me.
I don't want you to believe me
but I want you to listen and make choices - your choices.
If what I say, doesn't work for you, leave it.
But if it works for you and that's what you want, then make it yours.
Rule Number 2: Don't believe yourself.
Why? Because most of your belief system is a lie - it's not true.
And by believing yourself, you create all the limitations
that don't allow you to be what you really are.
Don't believe yourself. Listen to what you say,
listen to what you think, listen to what you believe.
And when you listen, open your ears, open your mind,
open your intelligence and make choices.
Rule 3 is, don't believe anybody else.
Don't believe them at all.
Open your ears and your mind; listen and make choices.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
- Mark Twain

The believing we do something when we do nothing
is the first illusion of tobacco.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are born believing.
A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have to be an original individual;
you have to find your innermost core on your own,
with no guide, no guiding scriptures.
It is a dark night, but with the intense fire of inquiry
you are bound to come to the sunrise.
Everybody who has burned with intense inquiry
has found the sunrise.
Others only believe.
Those who believe are not religious,
they are simply avoiding the great adventure
of religion by believing.
- Osho

Is a belief a perception of the five senses,
or is it a perception of emotional feeling?
Is it better to say "I sense" and/or "I feel"?
Is it better to say " I know" than "I believe"?
Is belief based on experience or on a idea?
My thinking is that belief/believing is a very missed used word.
- Anonymous

One of the annoying things about believing in free will
and individual responsibility is the difficulty
of finding somebody to blame your problems on.
And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable
how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.
- P. J. O'Rourke

The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing.
- Publilius Syrus

Beware the Rattlesnake of the Mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To the mind that is still,
the whole universe surrenders.
- Lao Tzu

The mind is not a vessel to be filled
but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch

Bringing a childlike wonder
and a beginner's mind to life
maximizes both success and joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The human mind is our fundamental resource.
- John F. Kennedy

Iron rusts from disuse;
water loses its purity from stagnation...
even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Dare to be naive.
- Buckminster Fuller

The highest possible stage in moral culture
is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.
- Charles Darwin

There is more value in a very good painting
that is completed and on display,
than in an excellent painting
that is still in the artist's studio,
or perhaps still in his mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The mind has exactly the same power as the hands:
not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.
- Colin Wilson

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous
than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The most dangerous phrase in the language is,
"We've always done it this way."
- Grace Hopper

No problem can be solved from the same level
of consciousness that created it.
- Albert Einstein

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -
and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard Feynman

Nurture your mind with great thoughts,
for you will never go any higher than you think.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Within my mind, the sun always shines,
and the sky is always blue.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

All wrong-doing arises because of mind.
If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?
- The Buddha

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed
is more important than any other one thing.
- Abraham Lincoln

Mind what people do, not only what they say,
for deeds will betray a lie.
- Terry Goodkind

Success is a state of mind.
If you want success,
start thinking of yourself as a success.
- Joyce Brothers

Beware the Rattlesnake of the Mind -
A Mind is Only Useful When Tamed..
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
- Carl Jung

The mind is everything.
What you think you become.
- The Buddha

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe,
that lures him to evil ways.
- The Buddha

The moment a person forms a theory,
his imagination sees in every object
only the traits which favor that theory.
- Thomas Jefferson

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie