quotations about faith
No man can be any greater of any stronger, in Christianity, than his faith.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
Faith
Scepticism has never founded empires, established principles, or changed the world's heart. The great doers of history have always been men of faith.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
The Church has consistently and justly refused to allow that reason might stand in opposition to faith, and yet be placed under subjection to it. The human spirit in its inmost nature is not something so divided up that two contradictory elements might subsist together in it. If discord has arisen between intellectual insight and religion, and is not overcome in knowledge, it leads to despair, which comes in the place of reconciliation. This despair is reconciliation carried out in a one-sided manner. The one side is cast away, the other alone held fast; but a man cannot win true peace in this way. The one alternative is, for the divided spirit to reject the demands of the intellect and try to return to simple religious feeling. To this, however, the spirit can only attain by doing violence to itself, for the independence of consciousness demands satisfaction, and will not be thrust aside by force; and to renounce independent thought, is not within the power of the healthy mind. Religious feeling becomes yearning hypocrisy, and retains the moment of non-satisfaction. The other alternative is a one-sided attitude of indifference toward religion, which is either left unquestioned and let alone, or is ultimately attacked and opposed. That is the course followed by shallow spirits.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
Lectures on Philosophy of Religion
Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.
MARTIN LUTHER
The Freedom of a Christian
At bottom, knowledge of God in faith is always this indirect knowledge of God, knowledge of God in His works, and in these particular works in the determining and using of certain creaturely realities to bear witness to the divine objectivity. What distinguishes faith from unbelief, erroneous faith and superstition is that it is content with this indirect knowledge of God.
KARL BARTH
Church Dogmatics
Faith was a longing that pretended to be a conviction.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark
However logical our induction, the end of the thread is fastened upon the assurance of faith.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.
ALEISTER CROWLEY
The Book of Lies
When men are about to commit, or sanction the commission of some injustice, it is not uncommon for them to express pity for the object either of that or some parallel proceeding, and to feel themselves, at the time, quite virtuous and moral, and immensely superior to those who express no pity at all. This is a kind of upholding of faith above works, and is very comfortable.
CHARLES DICKENS
Nicholas Nickleby
Faith ... is a conscious apprehension of something inevident, something which unlike this desk and this chair is not seen to be there, even if it enters into the fabric of our personal relations to reality with at least as much force, relevance, and moment as things which are seen to be there.
BERNARD LONERGAN
A Second Collection
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
Faith I have, in myself, in humanity, in the worthwhileness of the pursuits in entertainment for the masses. But wide awake, not blind faith, moves me.
WALT DISNEY
The Gospel According to Disney
The discoveries of science have proved that the opinions concerning a firmament above, and a flat earth beneath, are completely inaccurate; but faith delights more in sublimity than truth; it soars far above science in its discoveries, and holds accuracy in contempt.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
For, no: not faith by fable lives,
But from the faith the fable springs
-- It never is the song that gives
Tongue life, it is the tongue that sings;
And sings the song.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
Love's Voice
I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.
PHILIP YANCEY
Finding God in Unexpected Places
I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road
BOB DYLAN
"Ain't Talkin'"
Faith may have removed mountains way off somewhere, a long time ago, but it won't remove a wart at home this week.
EDGAR WATSON HOWE
Country Town Sayings
I'm wary of faith outside of actions. I'm wary of religiosity that ignores the wider world.
BONO
Rolling Stone, Nov. 3, 2005
They bring me faith like a closed package in someone else's plate. They want me to accept it so that I don't open it.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
Faith is belief without proof. Faith is fine, but don't call it science.
LOYD AUERBACH
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