Faith

"It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him."

"Faith creates the foundation for conviction."

"As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude … that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits; each would then obey God freely with his whole heart, while nothing would be publicly honoured save justice and charity."

"That's the thing about faith. If you don't have it, you can't understand it. And if you do, no explanation is necessary."

"Faith is the key that unlocks the cabinet of God's treasures; the king's messenger from the celestial world, to bring all the supplies we need out of the fullness that there is in Christ."

"Faith is something that cannot be won through intimidation and fear."

"Faith in a better than that which appears, is no less required by art than by religion."

"I heard once of an American who so defined faith, "that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue." For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe."

"Faith is a beautiful thing. So are forest fires, and the color of gangrene. I think faith—especially capital-F Faith—is more dangerous and more disgusting than either. It is a substitute for thought."

"Now, there remain faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

"By faith Noah, after receiving divine warning of things not yet seen, showed godly fear and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; and through this faith he condemned the world, and he became an heir of the righteousness that results from faith."

"How sweet to have a common faith! To hold a common scorn of death!"

"Whose faith has centre everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form."

"Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers; Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all."

"Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith."

"Whatever answers faith gives, regardless of which faith, or to whom the answers are given, such answers always give an infinite meaning to the finite existence of man; a meaning that is not destroyed by suffering, deprivation or death. This means only in faith can we find the meaning and possibility of life."

"There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so.""

"Doubt, indeed, is the disease of this inquisitive, restless age. It is the price we pay for our advanced intelligence and civilization. It is the dim night of our resplendent day. But as the most beautiful light is born of darkness, so the faith which springs from conflict is often the strongest and the best."

"Those who do not doubt do not believe. Faith is maintained by resolving doubts, and again resolving those further doubts which are suggested by the resolution of previous doubts."

"I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and everything that is bad and evil in the works of men and in men is not from God, and God does not approve of it. But I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better, that is what I keep telling myself. But you must love with a sublime, genuine, profound sympathy, with devotion, with intelligence, and you must try all the time to understand Him more, better and yet more. That will lead to God, that will lead to an unshakeable faith."

"This saving faith is the perceiving, believing, and resting upon a fact — the atoning death of Jesus Christ. The failure to understand this is one fruitful cause of the confusion in many minds about this subject. For not unfrequently persons are looking into their own hearts, and trying to discover whether they have faith or not, instead of looking away from themselves altogether at the object of faith."

"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."

"Faith is seated in the understanding as well as in the will. It has an eye to see Christ as well as a wing to fly to Christ."

"Faith, though it hath sometimes a trembling hand, it must not have a withered hand, but must stretch."

"Everywhere, always, in everything, the social feeling produces a perfect imitation of faith, that is to say perfectly deceptive. This imitation has the great advantage of satisfying every part of the soul. That which longs for goodness believes it is fed. That which is mediocre is not hurt by the light; it is quite at ease. Thus everyone is in agreement. The soul is at peace. But Christ said that he did not come to bring peace. He brought a sword, the sword that severs in two, as Aeschylus says."

"Whatever faith you have, you ought to be willing to confront it with the discoveries of science."

"I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world."

"Faith, mighty faith the promise sees And rests on that alone; Laughs at impossibilities, And says it shall be done."

"Through this dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light Up the blackness streaking; Knowing God's own time is best, In a patient hope I rest For the full day-breaking!"

"A bending staff I would not break, A feeble faith I would not shake, Nor even rashly pluck away The error which some truth may stay, Whose loss might leave the soul without A shield against the shafts of doubt."

"How scrumptious to be faithful! But utterly irrelevant to whether or not the opinion in question is true. Whatever the finer feelings associated with faith, no matter how elevated those who indulge in it, from the point of view of truth and evidence, faith is exactly the same as prejudice. Declaring an opinion to be a matter of faith provides it with no new evidential support, gives no new reason to think it true. It merely acknowledges that you have none."

"Thomas Daggett: Some people lose their faith because Heaven shows them too little. But how many people lose their faith because Heaven showed them too much?"

"The faith of immortality gives to every mind that cherishes it a certain firmness of texture."

"Scepticism is the beginning of faith."

"Religion and science have always been matters of faith in something. It is the same something."

"Of one in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition."

"'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower Of Faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind."

"A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith."

"Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of Death, To break the shock blind nature cannot shun, And lands Thought smoothly on the further shore."

"When the desert asks for water, the sky sends clouds."

"Most people will never know anything beyond what they see with their own two eyes."

"Help me, O Lord, my strength and rock; Lo at the door I hear death’s knock. Uplift Thine arm once pierced for me; That conquered death and set me free. Yet if Thy voice in life’s midday, Recalls my soul, then I obey. In faith and hope Earth I resign; Secure of heaven, For I am Thine!"