Virtues

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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."

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Faith creates the foundation for conviction."

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

"Beware of doubt—faith is the subtle chain, Which binds us to the infinite; the voice Of a deep life within, that will remain Until we crowd it thence."

"The saddest thing that can befall a soul Is when it loses faith in God and woman."

"Christian faith merely substitutes, provisionally, for clear knowledge: statements of the Holy Scripture on this subject are unmistakable."

"In People with no faith Bright qualities do not grow, Just as a green sprout Never grows from seeds burned by fire."

"Faith ... is the unspoiled seed, the cause of abilities; Faith grows into the tree of Awakening."

"In science, all conclusions are provisional, subject to new evidence and better arguments, the very antithesis of religious faith."

"Thou almost makest me waver in my faith To hold opinion with Pythagoras, That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men."

"Set on your foot, And with a heart new-fir'd I follow you, To do I know not what: but it sufficeth That Brutus leads me on."

"Lack of faith doesn’t always make people secular. It often makes them seek out substitutes which provide some of the same things found in traditional religions, i.e. an all-encompassing view of the world, a sense of right and wrong, a place in which they belong and feel at home, etc... [T]hose are real human needs that almost everyone feels in some sense or another."

"Reason ambitions only a world; faith gives it infinity."

"[A]re you tough enough to have faith in the things worthy of faith? A belief in your own particular God … an adherence to the tenets of your particular religion … all this with a decent regard and respect for the God and religions of others. Believe without proselytizing. Believe without peddling. Believe without working both sides of the street, trying to sell to others that which is uniquely your own. But most major here, simply believe. There’s no alternative to faith … and God help us, there’s no salvation without it."

"There are three lessons I would write, — Three words — as with a burning pen, In tracings of eternal light Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ now, And gladness hides her face in scorn, Put thou the shadow from thy brow, — No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, — The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, — Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven, The habitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one, But men, as man, thy brothers call; And scatter, like the circling sun, Thy charities on all. Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, — Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find Strength when life's surges rudest roll, Light when thou else wert blind."

"Faith: The opposite of dogmatism."

"Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the thought divine."

"Faith is clearly not enough for many people. They crave hard evidence, scientific proof. They long for the scientific seal of approval, but are unwilling to put up with the rigorous standards of evidence that impart credibility to that seal."

"Faith is cold as ice. Why are little ones born only to suffer for the want of immunity or a bowl of rice? Well, who would hold a price on the heads of the innocent children if there's some immortal power to control the dice?"

"If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather then by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called "education". This last is particularly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defencelessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practiced in greater or less degree in the schools of every civilised country."

"We may define "faith" as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith". We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence."

"What is wanted is not the will-to-believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite."

"And nothing prevents people from believing, when the guidance comes to them, except that they say: Has Allah raised up a mortal to be a messenger? Say: Had there been in the earth angels walking about secure, We would have sent down to them from the heaven an angel as messenger. Say: Allah suffices for a witness between me and you. Surely He is ever Aware of His servants, Seeing. And he whom Allah guides, he is on the right way; and he whom He leaves in error, for them thou wilt find no guardians besides Him. And We shall gather them together on the day of Resurrection on their faces, blind and dumb and deaf. Their abode is hell. Whenever it abates, We make them burn the more. This is their retribution because they disbelieve in Our messages and say: When we are bones and decayed particles, shall we then be raised up into a new creation? See they not that Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth, is able to create the like of them? And He has appointed for them a term, whereof there is no doubt. But the wrongdoers consent to naught but denying."

"“You strong in your faith, then?” she said, as if she couldn’t leave things alone. Oats sighed. “I try to be.” “But you read a lot of books, I’m thinking. Hard to have faith, ain’t it, when you read too many books.”"

"The enormous faith of many made for one."

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."

"We walk by faith, not by sight."

"But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."

"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't."

"It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason."