A Belief (n.) cannot be doubted. It concerns not metaphysical truths, but the grammatical impossibility of certain sentences. One, for example, cannot say: 'It is raining and I do not believe it'.
Belief (n.) would lose nothing if the Gospels were proved historically false, because the historical proof-game is irrelevant to it; it seizes the message lovingly.
Belief (n.) is remarkably hard where we don't see for ourselves: centuries of praise for Shakespeare still smell of convention until a Milton vouches.
Belief (n.) is marked out from its absence by many different criteria in different circumstances — sometimes nothing that happens while we speak, but actions and experiences before and after.
Belief (n.) would stay unknown to a Frenchman given every experience that accompanied 'It will rain'; a translation tells him, and says nothing about what went on in the speaker.
Belief (n.) is mistakenly thought to confer meaning: we suppose we've given a statement P sense just by saying 'I feel (or believe) that P'.
Belief (n.) that 13 × 13 = 196, on someone's word, shows up as surprise when 196 nuts will not go into thirteen rows of thirteen.
Belief (n.) can live beside its opposite: one can think and act in a fancy one does not believe, knowing better only when asked.
Belief (n.) was not discovered by observing ourselves, as if a phenomenon suddenly got noticed.
Belief (n.) said as I believe it's going to rain means roughly it's going to rain; I believed it would rain does not mean it rained.
Belief (n.) trusted because I am reliable — I believe it, therefore I believe it.
Belief (n.) is read off from observing another; I do not say 'I believe' from observing myself.
Belief (n.) that gravity holds, held all along, is used like knowing; believing all along that I heard a whisper involves listening, doubt, surmise.
Belief (n.) is not inferred from my own words: I conclude another will take an umbrella when he says rain is coming, but not myself.
Belief (n.) written in the soul means I can't get rid of the belief, the idea has taken possession of me.
Belief (n.) is tested not by looking inward but perhaps by asking how much I would bet.
Belief (n.) is no occupation with its object, as fear, longing and hope are.
Belief (n.) said in the first person might exist without any third person; why not a verb found only in the first person present?
Belief (n.) never doubles in the first person: I believe I believe is never said, though I believe he believes is.
Belief (n.) as a symptom: I always believe I hear voices; I always suppose he is unfaithful, but he isn't — here the concept seems to break off abruptly.