quotations about faith
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
Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts.
BARACK OBAMA
speech, Jun. 28, 2006
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
The church has never been asked to explain anything, our speciality, along with ballistics, has always been the neutralisation of the overly curious mind through faith.
JOSé SARAMAGO
Death at Intervals
However logical our induction, the end of the thread is fastened upon the assurance of faith.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Faith was a longing that pretended to be a conviction.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark
All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit.
DAN SIMMONS
Carrion Comfort
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
Faith is a coat against ... nakedness. For most of us, most of the time, faith functions so as to screen off the abyss of mystery that surrounds us. But we all at certain times call upon faith to provide nerve to stand in the presence of the abyss--naked, stripped of life supports, trusting only in the being, the mercy and the power of the Other in the darkness. Faith helps us form a dependable "life space," an ultimate environment. At a deeper level, faith undergirds us when our life space is punctured and collapses, when the felt reality of our ultimate environment proves to be less than ultimate.
JAMES W. FOWLER
introduction, Stages of Faith
Noble faith, thou giant power,
Leading men to action high,
Source of every grand endeavor,
And the deeds that deify--
May you stand throughout the ages
Towering o'er the wrecks of time,
Bearing fruit of thy inspiring
In the deeds that are sublime.
WILLIAM HENRY SMITH
Ornithoidichnites
Without a mythology, faith is impersonal and heartless.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Faith enables many of us to endure life's difficulties with an equanimity that would be scarcely conceivable in a world lit only by reason.
SAM HARRIS
The End of Faith
Walking is easy ... but it requires faith to find the right path.
JOHN TWELVE HAWKS
The Traveler
Funny thing about faith ... it goes a lot faster than it comes.
ROB THURMAN
Nightlife
If you hate anyone because of your faith, you're doing it wrong.
ANONYMOUS
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
We may still say perhaps "faith governs the world"--but the faith of the present is no longer in revelation or in the priest--it is in reason and science.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
I believe faith is a human universal. We are endowed at birth with nascent capacities for faith. How these capacities are activated and grow depends to a large extent on how we are welcomed into the world and what kinds of environments we grow in. Faith is interactive and social; it requires community, language, ritual and nurture. Faith is also shaped by initiatives from beyond us and other people, initiatives of spirit or grace. How these latter initiatives are recognized and imaged, or unperceived and ignored, powerfully affects the shape of faith in our lives.
JAMES W. FOWLER
introduction, Stages of Faith
Faith comes in different tempers: there's the hard, brittle faith that shatters when it meets an obstacle it can't cut through, and the tough, springy faith that bounces off unchipped.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires