Belief Change Quotes

Immigration was a huge force in changing my outlook. I moved to America 30 years ago. I had to reassess my beliefs, especially about women's roles.

The private experience that you perceive forms your world, period. But which world do you inhabit? For if you altered your private sensations of reality, then that world, seemingly the only one, would also change. You do go through transformations of beliefs all the time, and your perception of the world is different. You seem to be, no longer, the person you that you were. You are quite correct — you are not the person that you were, and your world has changed, and not just symbolically.

It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown.

Your present negative beliefs were formed by thought PLUS feelings. Generate enough emotion, or deep feeling and your new thoughts and ideas will cancel them out.

Miracles are doomed; they will drop out like fairies and witchcraft, from among the matter which serious people believe.

I think you can change your belief, but sometimes your behavior takes a lot longer.

Hostility to religion is having an effect. In 1963, the number of Americans who said that they believed the Bible is literally true was 65%. Today, the number has dropped to 32%.

I'm very proud that I was a Goldwater Girl. And then my political beliefs changed over time.

Now, you'll hear people call here on my show claiming they used to be lib and they've changed their minds. That happens, but it happens naturally. It's not because I've focused on trying to persuade people. I think while it's a noble objective to try to help people to see things the right way, this is a different psychological collection of human beings, and they are walled off from anything that's not them.

What evidence would you need to see to change your mind about this?

Generally, people don't change their minds about fundamentally deeply held beliefs; it doesn't happen in an instant - it's a process.

All personal breakthroughs being with a change in beliefs. So how do we change? The most effective way is to get your brain to associate massive pain to the old belief.

Communication always makes demands. It always demands that the recipient become somebody, do something, believe something. It always appeals to motivation.

Stop trying to change your behavior; instead, rethink your beliefs

The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.

As for my own views, they've of course evolved over the years. This conception of 'renouncing beliefs' is very odd, as if we're in some kind of religious cult. I 'renounce beliefs' practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Having learned something, we tend to cling to that belief, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. New information comes in all time, and the thing we ought to be thinking about doing is changing our beliefs as that new information comes in.

You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don't like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.

When people change their irrational beliefs to undogmatic flexible preferences, they become less disturbed.

All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs.

...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.

My teacher in first grade said that long ago people used to believe all kinds of things, because they didn't know any better. Like you shouldn't take a bath, because it could make you sick. And then someone saw germs under a microscope and started to think differently. You can believe something really hard, and still be wrong. (Faith White)

If you change the belief first, changing the action is easier.

My goal is to get people to really believe that the impossible is real, and not that I'm responsible for it. I want them to believe that they're having the most unusual, magical and bizarre days of their lives.

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.