False Belief

Famous quotes containing the words false and/or belief:

    if thou slip thy troth and do not come at all.
    As minutes in the clock do strike so call for death I shall:
    To please both thy false heart, and rid myself from woe,
    That rather had to die in troth than live forsaken so.
    —Unknown. The Lady Prayeth the Return of Her Lover Abiding on the Seas (l. 19–22)

    When I think of God, when I think of him as existent, and when I believe him to be existent, my idea of him neither increases nor diminishes. But as it is certain there is a great difference betwixt the simple conception of the existence of an object, and the belief of it, and as this difference lies not in the parts or composition of the idea which we conceive; it follows, that it must lie in the manner in which we conceive it.
    David Hume (1711–1776)