quotations about faith
The struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.
RONALD REAGAN
speech for National Association of Evangelicals, March 8, 1983
Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue. You don't have to make the case for what you believe. If somebody announces that it is part of his faith, the rest of society, whether of the same faith, or another, or of none, is obliged, by ingrained custom, to "respect" it without question; respect it until the day it manifests itself in a horrible massacre like the destruction of the World Trade Center, or the London or Madrid bombings.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
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
If faith ever rises to manly vigour, it must be by enlarging the mind's acquaintance with the whole extent of saving truth. Believers who would be strong and healthy, must not be detained upon the milk of babes, but must aspire to strong meat, and go on unto perfection. For faith to be strong and conquering, we must have variety of food. The entire truths of religion must enter into the regimen.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
Faith
The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
WILLIAM JAMES
"The Dilemma of Determinism"
How necessary it is for our happiness now, and to come, that we possess faith. The dog has faith in its master, the child in its parent, then why have we not more childlike faith in God? Let us try and bear in mind the implicit faith of Abraham, and strive more to imitate the partriarch of old. We are too apt to put faith in man, and how often we have to bitterly regret it when too late; and man only turns to God when he has tried every other source and found it fail. Why not, from the beginning, trust in God, and God alone; for he who puts his trust in man, God help him. May God give us strength, then, to nourish in all its perfection and simplicity, the faith of the patriarchs who feared and trusted God alone.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Faith", Short Essays
I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.
ALEISTER CROWLEY
The Book of Lies
I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain,
And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;
I shall believe the heights for which I strive
Are only reached by anguish and by pain;
And though I groan and tremble with my crosses,
I yet shall see, through my severest losses,
The greater gain.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Faith"
The discoveries of science have proved that the opinions concerning a firmament above, and a flat earth beneath, are completely inaccurate; but faith delights more in sublimity than truth; it soars far above science in its discoveries, and holds accuracy in contempt.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
Faith doth both admit and reject disputation with difference.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
Faith may have removed mountains way off somewhere, a long time ago, but it won't remove a wart at home this week.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.
MARTIN LUTHER
The Freedom of a Christian
Faith and optimism are contagious.
THOM S. RAINER
Surprising Insights from the Unchurched
Faith is belief without proof. Faith is fine, but don't call it science.
LOYD AUERBACH
Esp
I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road
BOB DYLAN
"Ain't Talkin'"
I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world.
BONO
Rolling Stone, Nov. 3, 2005
In the isolation of his clear, cold intellect, the sceptic abides in a glacial and spectral universe. No glow from the affections lights up the frost and shadow of the grave. He feels no prophecy in the thrill of the human heart--in the incompleteness of nature. He believes merely in things tangible, and sees only in the daytime. He will not confess the authenticity of that paler light of faith which was meant to shine when the sunshine of reason falls short, and the firmament of mystery is over our heads.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
All the answers you may wish for lie within faith, but it demands a complete and incontinent surrender, an immersion as total as any baptism. Indeed baptism is a kind of enactment of the surrender: you bathe in faith, you swim in it, you live by it, surrounded by it, buoyed up by it, engulfed by it. You drown in it, for at times it takes your breath away as entirely as any lungful of water.... All the answers lie in faith; and when you lose your faith you have no choice but to substitute for if a philosophy that deliberately and coldly offers no answers at all.
SIMON MAWER
The Gospel of Judas
Faith ... is a conscious apprehension of something inevident, something which unlike this desk and this chair is not seen to be there, even if it enters into the fabric of our personal relations to reality with at least as much force, relevance, and moment as things which are seen to be there.
BERNARD LONERGAN
A Second Collection
Faith is like an inner tube shaped by unseen air. In the same way, faith fills our life and shapes each circumstance.
MEL CURTISS
Inkspirations: Devotions for a Lifetime