Faith

"As it is with all matters of faith, though, I found nothing that could not sustain at least two interpretations."

"I believe it was Magellan who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.""

"Never confuse faith, or belief — of any kind — with something even remotely intellectual."

"Our faith begins at the point where atheists suppose it must be at an end. Our faith begins with the bleakness and power which is the night of the cross, abandonment, temptation and doubt about everything that exists! Our faith … must be born of nothingness, it must taste this nothingness and be given it to taste in a way that no philosophy of nihilism can imagine."

"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble."

"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."

"It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true."

"I have long defended to my own students the lawfulness of voluntarily adopted faith; but as soon as they have got well imbued with the logical spirit, they have as a rule refused to admit my contention to be lawful philosophically, even though in point of fact they were personally chock full of some faith or other themselves."

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

"Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, "Be taken up and cast into the sea," it shall happen."

"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"

"The German is the discipline of fear; ours is the discipline of faith — and faith will triumph."

"Be thou faithful unto death."

"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves."

"If he were To be made honest by an act of parliament I should not alter in my faith of him."

"Our faith is a light by nature coming of our endless Day, that is our Father, God. In which light our Mother, Christ, and our good Lord, the Holy Ghost, leadeth us in this passing life. This light is measured discreetly, needfully standing to us in the night. The light is cause of our life; the night is cause of our pain and of all our woe: in which we earn meed and thanks of God. For we, with mercy and grace, steadfastly know and believe our light, going therein wisely and mightily."

"Charity keepeth us in Faith and Hope, and Hope leadeth us in Charity. And in the end all shall be Charity."

"It's faith, Hawkgirl. You're not supposed to understand it... you just have it."

"The general rule is, that Truth should never be violated, because it is of the utmost importance to the comfort of life, that we should have a full security by mutual faith; and occasional inconveniences should be willingly suffered that we may preserve it. There must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone, you may tell him what is not true, because you are under a previous obligation not to betray a man to a murderer."

"Religion is based on faith alone, and faith stands in no need of logical demonstrations, but is itself justified in postulating its content as a necessary hypothesis."

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true."

"Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person."

"The believer humanly comprehends how heavy the suffering is, but in faith’s wonder that it is beneficial to him, he devoutly says: It is light. Humanly he says: It is impossible, but he says it again in faith’s wonder that what he humanly cannot understand is beneficial to him. In other words, when sagacity is able to perceive the beneficialness, then faith cannot see God; but when in the dark night of suffering sagacity cannot see a handbreadth ahead of it, then faith can see God, since faith sees best in the dark."

"Whoever has the world’s treasures has them no matter how he got them. In the world of the spirit it is otherwise."

"The ethical as such is the universal, and as the universal it applies to everyone, which from another angle means that it applies at all times. It rests immanent in itself, has nothing outside itself that is its τέλος but is itself the τέλος for everything outside itself, and when the ethical has absorbed this into itself, it goes not further. The single individual, sensately and psychically qualified in immediacy, is the individual who has his τέλος in the universal, and it is his ethical task continually to express himself in this, to annul his singularity in order to become the universal. As soon as the single individual asserts himself in his singularity before the universal, he sins, and only by acknowledging this can he be reconciled again with the universal. ... Faith [in contrast to the ethical] is namely this paradox that the single individual is higher than the universal ... so that after having been in the universal he as the single individual isolates himself as higher than the universal."

"But faith, it keeps the lamp alight; in waiting and in expectation keeps the lamp alight to the end; and if fulfilment comes, still keeps the lamp alight, in not forgetting that it was impossible."

"The belief that God will do everything for man is as untenable as the belief that man can do everything for himself. It, too, is based on a lack of faith. We must learn that to trust God with the expectation that he will do everything while we do nothing, is not faith, but superstition."

"In a real sense faith is total surrender to God."

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you're scared shitless and don't see the whole goddamn staircase."

"We fall from womb to tomb, from one blackness and toward another, remembering little of the one and knowing nothing of the other... except through faith."

"And we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with what we can understand, but content with what we do not understand—the habit of mind which theologians call—and rightly—faith in God."

"For those who are born into atheism, it's a faith like any other. The only real atheist is an ex-believer."

"Reason is the linking together of truths, but particularly (when it is compared with faith) of those to which the human mind can attain naturally without being helped by the light of faith."

"The object of faith is the truth, which God has revealed in an extraordinary way"

"Aside from the human reasons for faith, or motives of credibility, a certain internal operation of the Holy Spirit is required which gives it the name Divine Faith and which confirms the mind in truth."

"Faith … is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods."

"Conan Antonio Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fortr––"

"The faith for which God justifieth, is not an empty speculation, but a faith joined with repentance, and working by love. And for this, which was, in effect, to return to God himself, and to their natural allegiance due to him, and to advance as much as lay in them, the glory of the kingdom, which he had promised his Son ; God was pleased to declare, he would accept them, receive them to grace, and blot out all their former transgressions. This is evidently the covenant of grace, as delivered in the scriptures [...] It is a law of faith, whereby God has promised to forgive all our sins, upon our repentance and believing something ; and to impute that faith to us for righteousness..."

"The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience."

"Ye children of promise, who are awaiting your call to glory, take possession of the inheritance that now is yours. By faith take the promises. Live upon them, not upon emotions. Remember feeling is not faith. Faith grasps and clings to the promises. Faith says, "I am certain, not because feeling testifies to it, but because God says it.""

"Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it has been tested."

"The atheists have the greatest faith: they believe that God does not exist."

"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable."

"“I know, I know,” Moore said. “Mad beliefs like that, eh? Must be some metaphor, right? Must mean something else?” Shook his head. “What an awfully arrogant thing. What if faiths are exactly what they are? And mean exactly what they say?”"

"Not Truth, but Faith, it is That keeps the world alive."

"O welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!"

"That in such righteousness To them by faith imputed they may find Justification towards God, and peace Of conscience."

"Yet I argue not Again Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of right or hope; but still bear up and steer Eight onward."

"Combien de choses nous servoient hier d'articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd'hui!"