quotations about faith
The want of faith, as well as faith itself, is best shewn by works. If a sceptic avoid the fire as much as those who believe it dangerous to go into it, we can hardly avoid thinking his scepticism to be feigned, and not real.
THOMAS REID
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
Without a mythology, faith is impersonal and heartless.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Without faith to act as a governor, the human mind is a runaway worry generator, a dynamo of negative expectations.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Apocalypse
Cleave to no faith when faith brings blood.
ARTHUR MILLER
The Crucible
Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, Jun. 28, 2006
We do not compromise our own faith by admitting the honesty of another's doubt.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Though my sight be lost, I do not yet lose my faith: when I can no longer see, I can still believe.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
To keep a faith pure, man had better retire to a monastery.
WALTER LIPPMANN
The Stakes of Diplomacy
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit.
DAN SIMMONS
Carrion Comfort
If you hate anyone because of your faith, you're doing it wrong.
ANONYMOUS
No piece of evidence--or lack of evidence--can either support or refute faith. Unfortunately, few people realize that. Some people search for proof of spiritual things in the material world. That is foolish and doomed, because nothing material has any bearing on anything spiritual. Spiritual truths can only be learned via spiritual means.
BOB LONSBERRY
A Various Language
A faithful person sees life from the perspective of trust, not fear. Bedrock faith allows me to believe that, despite the chaos of the present moment, God does reign; that regardless of how worthless I may feel, I truly matter to a God of love; that no pain lasts forever and no evil triumphs in the end. Faith sees even the darkest deed of all history, the death of God's Son, as a necessary prelude to the brightest.
PHILIP YANCEY
Reaching for the Invisible God: What Can We Expect to Find?
Faith is reason denying absurdity in the face of the unknown.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
The Blazing Star
Funny thing about faith ... it goes a lot faster than it comes.
ROB THURMAN
Nightlife
Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures.
MARTIN LUTHER
"An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans", Dr. Martin Luthers Vermischte Deutsche Schriften
When men are about to commit, or sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.
CHARLES DICKENS
Nicholas Nickleby
A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for: there is all the difference in the world.
TONY BENN
The Observer, April 16, 1989
Faith is the enemy of discovery.
SIMON MAWER
The Gospel of Judas
It is evident that there are three means for the formation of faith in man: the first is, approaching the Lord; the second, learning truths from the Word; and the third, living in conformity to them. Now these three means being each distinct from the other, it follows that they may be separated; as for instance, a person may approach the Lord, and yet be acquainted with no truths concerning God and the Lord, except such as are historical; so another may be acquainted with abundance of truths derived from the Word, and yet not live in conformity with them; but in such cases, where the three means are separated, that is, where one is without the other, there can be no faith profitable to salvation.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
The True Christian Religion: Containing the Universal Theology of the New Church