quotations about faith
A man who cannot stand upright, cannot, of course, walk. And a man whose faith has no backbone to it, can do nothing but crawl or float about, to and fro, with the advancing and receding tide.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
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
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Dover Beach
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
Faith makes it possible to achieve that which man's mind can conceive and believe.
BRUCE LEE
Tao of Jeet Kune Do
To keep a faith pure, man had better retire to a monastery.
WALTER LIPPMANN
The Stakes of Diplomacy
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
Faith is a pair of spectacles fitted by God in a dispensary for the poor, whereby the near-sighted can see truth at a distance, and get rid of pain from eye-strain.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
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
If you hate anyone because of your faith, you're doing it wrong.
ANONYMOUS
Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Faith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menace of torture.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
We do not compromise our own faith by admitting the honesty of another's doubt.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Funny thing about faith ... it goes a lot faster than it comes.
ROB THURMAN
Nightlife
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
All of our lives are governed by a certain degree of faith in bullshit.
DAN SIMMONS
Carrion Comfort
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