Quotes about faith (4016 quotes, page 30)

“Isn’t science, as some maintain, based on a “faith” that it’s good to pursue the truth? Hardly. The notion that knowledge is better than ignorance is not a quasi-religious faith, but a preference: we prefer to know the truth because accepting what’s false doesn’t give us useful answers about the universe.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 211

Truth , Knowledge , Universe , Science

“I, for one, shall speak about those obstinate Greeks, who are with us and against us, united in faith and divided in peace, though in truth their faith may stray from the straight path.”
Ego addo et de pertinacia Græcorum, qui nobiscum sunt, et nobiscum non sunt, juncti fide, pace divisi, quanquam et in fide ipsa claudicaverint a semitis rectis.

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian

De Consideratione http://www.binetti.ru/bernardus/10.shtml (1149-1152), lib. III (1152), c. I; Book of Considerations, part III, ch. I
"Greeks" refers to the (Eastern) Orthodox Church.

Truth , Peace

“Soldiers, by an agreement between General Ironhewer and me, the troops of the Army of Kentucky have surrendered. That we are beaten is a self-evident fact, and we cannot hope to resist the bomb that hangs over our head like the sword of Damocles. Richmond is fallen. The cause for which you have so long and manfully struggled, and for which you have braved dangers and made so many sacrifices, is today hopeless. Reason dictates and humanity demands that no more blood be shed here. It is your sad duty, and mine, to lay down our arms and to aid in restoring peace. As your commander, I sincerely hope that every officer and soldier will carry out in good faith all the terms of the surrender. War such as you have passed through naturally engenders feelings of animosity, hatred, and revenge. But in captivity and when you return home a manly, straightforward course of conduct will secure the respect even of your enemies. In bidding you farewell, rest assured that you carry with you my best wishes for your future welfare and happiness. I have never sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I advise you to a course I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers. Preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to me and, I hope, will be magnanimous.”

Harry Turtledove book Settling Accounts: In at the Death

C.S. Army General George S. Patton's final address to the Army of Kentucky in July 1944, p. 339
Settling Accounts: In at the Death (2007)

War , Sadness , Peace , Hope

“The greatest trust, between man and man, is the trust of giving counsel. For in other confidences, men commit the parts of life; their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair; but to such as they make their counsellors, they commit the whole: by how much the more, they are obliged to all faith and integrity.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Counsel
Essays (1625)

Life , Men , Children , Confidence

“The "new" Fleetwood Mac were singing "Don't Stop". I've got a message for the new Fleetwood Mac: DO Stop! Touring; recording; saying you're legends.
Michael Bolton, big star, popular musician, guess what? You're bald and we all know it. I don't care how long you grow your hair in the back but we all know what's happening on top. I know you sold nine million albums but guess what? I don't know anyone who's got one.
Steve Martin. What about Leap of Faith? I was going to see it but I was sick that day.
I finally sat through The Bodyguard and: [imitates the song] Iiiiiiiii-eee-iiiiiii-want my money back!”

David Spade (1964) American stand-up comedian

Spade in America, Saturday Night Live

Money , Star , Singing

“Of all these offenses the one that is most widely, frequently, and vehemently denounced is undoubtedly imperialism—sometimes just Western, sometimes Eastern (that is, Soviet) and Western alike. But the way this term is used in the literature of Islamic fundamentalists often suggests that it may not carry quite the same meaning for them as for its Western critics. In many of these writings the term "imperialist" is given a distinctly religious significance, being used in association, and sometimes interchangeably, with "missionary," and denoting a form of attack that includes the Crusades as well as the modern colonial empires. One also sometimes gets the impression that the offense of imperialism is not—as for Western critics—the domination by one people over another but rather the allocation of roles in this relationship. What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels over true believers. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law, and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society, and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law. This may help us to understand the current troubles in such diverse places as Ethiopian Eritrea, Indian Kashmir, Chinese Sinkiang, and Yugoslav Kossovo, in all of which Muslim populations are ruled by non-Muslim governments. It may also explain why spokesmen for the new Muslim minorities in Western Europe demand for Islam a degree of legal protection which those countries no longer give to Christianity and have never given to Judaism. Nor, of course, did the governments of the countries of origin of these Muslim spokesmen ever accord such protection to religions other than their own. In their perception, there is no contradiction in these attitudes. The true faith, based on God's final revelation, must be protected from insult and abuse; other faiths, being either false or incomplete, have no right to any such protection.”

Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) British-American historian

Books, The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990)

God , People , Religion , Law

“All sultans were keen on making slaves, but Muhammad Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving people. He appears to have outstripped even Alauddin Khalji and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus:
“The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon infidels… Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners”. Muhammad Tughlaq did not only enslave people during campaigns, he was also very fond of purchasing and collecting foreign and Indian slaves. According to Ibn Battuta one of the reasons of estrangement between Muhammad Tughlaq and his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, when Muhammad was still a prince, was his extravagance in purchasing slaves. Even as Sultan, he made extensive conquests. He subjugated the country as far as Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Kampil, Warangal, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Nagarkot and Sambhal to give only few prominent place-names. There were sixteen major rebellions in his reign which were ruthlessly suppressed. In all these conquests and rebellions, slaves were taken with great gusto. For example, in the year 1342 Halajun rose in rebellion in Lahore. He was aided by the Khokhar chief Kulchand. They were defeated. “About three hundred women of the rebels were taken captive, and sent to the fort of Gwalior where they were seen by Ibn Battutah.” Such was their influx that Ibn Battutah writes: “At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Vazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.” Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India….. Ibn Battutah’s eye-witness account of the Sultan’s gifting captured slave girls to nobles or arranging their marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids, corroborates the statement of Abbas. Ibn Battutah writes that during the celebrations in connection with the two Ids in the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq, daughters of Hindu Rajas and those of commoners, captured during the course of the year were distributed among nobles, officers and important foreign slaves. “On the fourth day men slaves are married and on the fifth slave-girls. On the sixth day men and women slaves are married off.” This was all in accordance with the Islamic law. According to it, slaves cannot many on their own without the consent of their proprietors. The marriage of an infidel couple is not dissolved by their jointly embracing the faith. In the present case the slaves were probably already converted and their marriages performed with the initiative and permission the Sultan himself were valid. Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured by the Muslims in the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor. In short, under the Tughlaqs the inflow of women captives never ceased.”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5 (quoting Masalik-ul-Absar, E.D., III, 580., Battutah)

Women , Men , Marriage , War

“As the journalist Nick Cohen noted about accusations that atheism is like religion, “It’s not a charge I’d throw around if I were seeking to defend faith. When people say of dozens of political and cultural movements from monetarism to Marxism that their followers treat their cause ‘like a religion,’ they never mean it as a compliment. They mean that dumb obedience to higher authority and an obstinate attachment to dogma mark its adherents.””

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 218

People , Religion

“The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in "Israel in the Desert" (1819)
Misattributed

History

“Amyas, my most careful and faithful servant, God reward thee treblefold in the double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Letter to Amias Paulet (August 1586), the gaoler of Mary, Queen of Scots, quoted in Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Rose (eds.), Elizabeth I: Collected Works (The University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 284.

God

“We want this people to be faithful, and you must learn fidelity. We want this people to be obedient, and you must practice obedience. We want this people to be peace-loving but also courageous, and you must therefore be peace-loving and at the same time courageous. We do not want this people to grow soft, but we want it to be hard so that it will be able to withstand the hardships of life. And for this you have to harden yourselves in your youth. You must learn to be hard, to stand privations without breaking down. We want this people to love honor and you already in the days of your youth must live up to this concept of honor.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Speech (14 September 1935), quoted in Gordon W. Prange (1945). Hitler's Words. New York: American Council on Public Affairs, p. 124.
1930s

Love , Life , People , Youth

“A dialogue of respect is the rock-bed of all societies. Attacking and excluding others, insulting other peoples and their faith and convictions — this is no way forward. The future lies in unity and respect, not division and stereotypes.”

Abdullah II of Jordan (1962) King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Address to the European Parliament (2015)

People , Way , Future

“The best explanation I can give of what it is, is this: it is what God does through a rare combination of these qualities found in his people: Passion for his presence; A deep craving to reach the lost; Sincere integrity; Spirit-filled faith; Down-to-earth humility; Brokenness.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

God , People , Passion , Sincerity

“The varieties of religious belief are an advantage, since all faiths are good, so far as they encourage us to lead a religious life. The more sects there are, the more opportunities there are for making a successful appeal to the divine instinct in all of us.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Life , Success

“In these discussions we are not asking you to accept anything on blind faith. We are definitely asking that you not immediately reject anything either. We suggest that you do some research for yourself. Just ponder the basic points, investigate them and, most importantly, try to know better how to protect yourself against subtle forces so that you will not become a casualty. If you take these simple steps, you will be one of those who helps to bring about a new era for humankind.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 3: Angels and Demigods, p. 55

Help

“These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations in this the most critical period of world history.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Essay for This I Believe (1952)
Other speeches and writings

People , World , Hope , History

“All machines knew what would happen to them when their masters lost faith in their infallibility.”

Alastair Reynolds book Absolution Gap

Source: Absolution Gap (2003), Chapter 5 (p. 75)

““Organization theory,” a term that appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, has multiple meanings. When it first emerged, the term expressed faith in scientific research as a way to gain understanding of human beings and their interactions. Although scientific research had been occurring for several centuries, the idea that scientific research might enhance understanding of human behavior was considerably newer and rather few people appreciated it. Simon (1950, 1952-3, 1952) was a leading proponent for the creation of “organization theory”, which he imagined as including scientific management, industrial engineering, industrial psychology, the psychology of small groups, human-resources management, and strategy. The term “organization theory” also indicated an aspiration to state generalized, abstract propositions about a category of social systems called “organizations,” which was a very new concept. Before and during the 1800s, people had regarded armies, schools, churches, government agencies, and social clubs as belonging to distinct categories, and they had no name for the union of these categories. During the 1920s, some people began to perceive that diverse kinds of medium-sized social systems might share enough similarities to form a single, unified category. They adopted the term “organization” for this unified category.”

William H. Starbuck (1934) American academic

William H. Starbuck and Philippe Baumard (2009). "The seeds, blossoming, and scant yield of organization theory," in: Jacques Rojot et. al (eds.) Comportement organisationnel - Volume 3 De Boeck Supérieur. p. 15

People , School , Way , Behavior

“From the far reaches of the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River, the faithful approached the city of Mecca. All had the same objective to worship together at the most sacred shrine of Islam, the Kaaba in Mecca. One such traveler was Mansa Musa, Sultan of Mali in Western Africa. Mansa Musa had prepared carefully for the long journey he and his attendants would take. He was determined to travel not only for his own religious fulfillment, but also for recruiting teachers and leaders, so that his realms could learn more of the Prophet's teachings.”

Mahmud Kati (1468–1593) Malian historian

Travel , Learning , Teachers , Sea

“Science is a search for truth –whatever the truth may turn out to be, even if it’s evidently not what we wanted to believe it was. In science, it doesn’t matter what you believe; all that matters is why you believe it. This is why real science disallows faith, promising instead to remain objective, to follow wherever the evidence leads, and either correct or reject any and all errors along the way even if it challenges whatever we think we know now. But creationist organizations post written declarations of their unwavering obligation to uphold and defend their preconceived notions, declaring in advance their refusal to ever to let their minds be changed by any amount of evidence that is ever revealed. Anti-science evangelists display their statement of faith proudly on their own forums, as if admitting to a closed and dishonest mind wasn’t something to ashamed of or beg forgiveness for. They don’t want to do science. They want to un-do science! They try to segregate experimental science from historical science, ignoring the fact that both are based on empirical observations and both can be checked with testable hypotheses. Worse, they want to redefine science in general so that astrology, subjective convictions of faith, and excuses of magic can supplant the scientific method whenever necessary in defense of their beliefs. They’re only open to critical inquiry so long as that is not permitted to challenge the sacred scriptures nor vindicate any of the fields of study to which they’re already opposed. In short, everything science stands for, -or hopes to achieve- is threatened by the political agenda of these superstitious subversives.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Truth , Hope , Way , Error

“Faith is a universal human phenomenon. All people live by some faith.”

Roger Haight (1936) American theologian

Source: Dynamics Of Theology, Chapter One, Faith As A Dimension of The Human, p. 15

People , Universe

“Evolution’s logical, unlike religion. Even the Church will agree with that. You have to take religion on faith and you can’t test it by common sense.”

Lester del Rey (1915–1993) Novelist, short story writer, editor

Source: The Eleventh Commandment (1962), Chapter 8 (p. 72)

Religion , Sense

“The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution. The Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had they been in a situation to do it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

On the Louisiana Purchase, Letter to John Breckinridge (12 August 1803)
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)

Country

“Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we cannot base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on beliefs, religious or otherwise, to help us make decisions. But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise, we are bound to be wrong.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Speech at the National Press Club (2004)

Understanding , Knowledge , Decision , Help

“…we must go to the poets to see what they all meant by it; but the sum is an emotion — clear and strong as love and much clearer than logic,— whose charm lies in its unstable balance. The Transition is the equilibrium between the Love of God,— which is Faith, and the Logic of God,— which is Reason; between the round arch and the pointed. One may not be sure which pleases most, but one need not be harsh towards people who think that the moment of balance is exquisite. The last and highest moment is seen at Chartres where, in 1200, the charm depends on the constant doubt whether emotion or science is uppermost.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)

Love , God , People , Thinking

“William too closed his eyes and prayed, but his world had lost its anchor. The Calvinist code which had dominated and supported him throughout his life seemed unequal to his present confusion. It was now apparent that predestination was a meaningless concept—certainly to one who had been told that his actions would directly affect the outcome of history for all time. But did that necessarily negate his faith entirely? Copernicus established that the earth orbited around the sun. Did God die in that moment?
Or did man merely understand a little better?”

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 5 (p. 69)

Life , God , World , History

“Faith is the vital artery of the soul. When we begin to believe, we begin to love. Faith grafts the soul into Christ, as the scion into the stock, and fetches all its nutriment from the blessed Vine.”

Richard Watson (1781–1833) British methodist theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 228.

Love , Soul , Christ

“I would give to all men, of every clime and race, of every faith and creed, freedom and equality”

Henry Wilson (1812–1875) Union Army officer, Vice president, politician, historian

As quoted in Colored Patriots of the American Revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=Jy8OAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107 (1855), by William Cooper Nell, p. 107
Speech (June 1853)
Context: A colored battalion was organized for the defense of New Orleans, and General Jackson publicly thanked them for their courage and conduct. When the country has required their blood in days of trial and conflict, they have given it freely, and we have accepted it. But, in times of peace, when their blood is not needed, we spurn and trample them under foot. I have no part in this great wrong to a race. Wherever and whenever we have the power to do it, I would give to all men, of every clime and race, of every faith and creed, freedom and equality before the law. My voice and my voice shall ever be given for the equality of all of the children of men before the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States.

Men , Freedom

“I cannot avoid wondering about the feelings of those who are now the apparent rulers of Iran. They are, despite their mistakes and the crimes which they have instigated, men of faith who claim to be sent by God. I hope they will eventually realize that the revolution which they believe they have brought about is not to the glory of God, but serves the forces of evil.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Page 167
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On Islam and the Islamic Revolution

Men , God , Hope , Feeling

“[Julian]
Why did I try a faith I should have known
Spotless as the white dove. I cannot feel
The beating of her heart. I'll kiss the colour
Back to her cheek. Oh, God! her lip is ice —
There is no breath upon it! —
AGNES, thy JULIAN is thy murderer!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(26th October 1822) Dramatic Scene I
(2nd November 1822) Dramatic Scene II see The Vow of the Peacock (1835) Bacchus and Ariadne
16th November 1822) Fragments in Rhyme I: The Soldier's Funeral see The Improvisatrice (1824
16th November 1822) Fragments in Rhyme II: Lines Written under a Picture of a Girl Burning a Love Letter see The Improvisatrice (1824
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

God , Feeling , Kiss , Heart

“A new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God's gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished-not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty - a new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption that deaden our souls and poison our relationships.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2008, Closing Mass (19 July 2008)

Love , Life , God , Age

“Past sins, if you repent of them, whiten you. They made a great psalmist out of David, a faithful believer out of the prostitute Rahab, a zealous apostle out of the persecutor Saul. I have been a loved preacher and writer with a particular vocation. My sermons and books would not have had the same quality without my past of anarchy, vice, and violent atheism.”

Richard Wurmbrand (1909–2001) Romanian Christian minister of Jewish descent

If Prison Walls Could Speak (1972)

Love , Books , Past

“God, Satan, Paradise, and Hell all vanished one day in my fifteenth year, when I quite abruptly lost my faith. … and afterwards, to prove my new-found atheism, I bought myself a rather tasteless ham sandwich, and so partook for the first time of the forbidden flesh of the swine. No thunderbolt arrived to strike me down. … From that day to this I have thought of myself as a wholly secular person.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

"In God We Trust" (1985)

God , Hell , Swine , Time

“The solution to the Venezuelan “crisis” lies in good faith negotiations between the Government and the opposition, an end to the economic war, and the lifting of sanctions.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2018, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council

War

“You know, friends, so many people have wished me congratulations on a 67-year career in baseball, and they've wished me a wonderful retirement with my family, and now, all I can do is tell you what I wish for you. May God give you, for every storm, a rainbow; for every tear, a smile; for every care, a promise; and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life seems, a faithful friend to share; for every sigh, a sweet song, and an answer for each prayer. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I know, in my heart, I've always needed you more than you've ever needed me, and I'll miss our time together more than I can say. But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball. So, this is Vin Scully wishing you a pleasant good afternoon, wherever you may be.”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

Scully's final sign-off as a Dodger broadcaster.

Life , God , People , Family

“A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion — any religion — is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason — but one cannot have both.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Friday

Friday (1983)

Religion , Strong , Happiness

“Christians, bear your faithful ministers upon your hearts when you are wrestling with God. They can tell when they want your prayers, and when they enjoy your prayers. Did you pray more for them, they might do more for your internal and eternal good than they do now.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Quotes from secondary sources, Smooth Stones Taken From Ancient Brooks, 1860

God , Heart

“Mystics of every faith report contacts with a world that startles and transforms them with its dazzling darkness. Zen stands squarely in this camp, its only uniqueness being that it makes breaking the language barrier its central concern.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

The World's Religions (1991)

World

“When I came to faith, I thought I would have to stop being an actor, because it’s all about artifice and manipulation. But we’re living in a world where God doesn’t really have an influence, unless it’s fundamentalists, so I’ll always be an outsider because of my faith. And when you think about it, faith and acting are all about stories, so the two are not mutually exclusive.”

Tamsin Greig (1966) English actress

About being a Christian
From an interview with the Sunday Times, "The eyebrows have it."

God , World , Thinking

“This, then, is the obedience of faith, whereunto the Holy Ghost sanctifies us, that we should not give ear to the doctrine taught by the world, which is a doctrine of self-righteousness, and that we should keep ourselves altogether “unspotted from the world,” in our daily walk and conversation, and that we join not with the world in any thing that denies God and Christ, be it what it may.”

Hermann Friedrich Kohlbrügge (1803–1874) Dutch minister

Source: Sermons on the First Epistle of Peter (1855), p. 11 (quote from James 1:27)

God , World , Christ

“These sources of strength are also in the faith that sustains so many of us. Across the town of Blacksburg and in towns all across America, houses of worship from every faith have opened their doors and have lifted you up in prayer. People who have never met you are praying for you; they're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers, real power. In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. As the Scriptures tell us, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2007, Virginia Tech Prayer Vigil (April 2007)

Love , God , People , Evil

“In reality, there is no such thing as “absolute truth”. Everything within the capacity of human understanding contains a degree of error, and everything men know to be true is only true to a degree. Everyone is inevitably wrong about something somewhere. We don’t know everything about everything. We don’t know everything about anything! And what we do know, we don’t know accurately on all points nor completely in every detail. Honest men admit this. Anyone claiming to know the absolute truth is not being honest, especially not when they claim to know anything about things which can only be believed on faith. Even if men were given genuine revelations by truly omniscient beings, they must still be filtered and interpreted by weaker minds influenced by our limitations, biases, and misimpressions, as well as linguistic and cultural barriers.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"3rd Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnj7PlqmJ5o, Youtube (December 10, 2007)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men , Truth , Error , Understanding

“Your father has been a man who acted according to his beliefs and certainly has been faithful to his convictions.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Letter to his Children (1965)

“Let me remind you that science is not necessarily wisdom. To know, is not the sole nor even the highest office of the intellect; and it loses all its glory unless it act in furtherance of the great end of man's life. That end is, as both reason and revelation unite in telling us, to acquire the feelings and habits that will lead us to love and seek what is good in all its forms, and guide us by following its traces to the first Great Cause of all, where only we find it pure and unclouded.
If science be cultivated in congruity with this, it is the most precious possession we can have— the most divine endowment. But if it be perverted to minister to any wicked or ignoble purpose — if it even be permitted to take too absolute a hold of the mind, or overshadow that which should be paramount over all, the perception of right, the sense of Duty — if it does not increase in us the consciousness of an Almighty and All-beneficent presence, — it lowers instead of raising us in the great scale of existence.
This, however, it can never do but by our fault. All its tendencies are heavenward; every new fact which it reveals is a ray from the origin of light, which leads us to its source. If any think otherwise, their knowledge is imperfect, or their understanding warped, or darkened by their passions. The book of nature is, like that of revelation, written by God, and therefore cannot contradict it; both we are unable to read through all their extent, and therefore should neither wonder nor be alarmed if at times we miss the pages which reconcile any seeming inconsistence. In both, too, we may fail to interpret rightly that which is recorded; but be assured, if we search them in quest of truth alone, each will bear witness to the other, — and physical knowledge, instead of being hostile to religion, will be found its most powerful ally, its most useful servant. Many, I know, think otherwise; and because attempts have occasionally been made to draw from astronomy, from geology, from the modes of the growth and formation of animals and plants, arguments against the divine origin of the sacred Scripture, or even to substitute for the creative will of an intelligent first cause the blind and casual evolution of some agency of a material system, they would reject their study as fraught with danger. In this I must express my deep conviction that they do injury to that very cause which they think they are serving.
Time will not let me touch further on the cavils and errors in question; and besides they have been often fully answered. I will only say, that I am here surrounded by many, matchless in the sciences which are supposed so dangerous, and not less conspicuous for truth and piety. If they find no discord between faith and knowledge, why should you or any suppose it to exist? On the contrary, they cannot be well separated. We must know that God is, before we can confess Him; we must know that He is wise and powerful before we can trust in Him, — that He is good before we can love Him. All these attributes, the study of His works had made known before He gave that more perfect knowledge of himself with which we are blessed. Among the Semitic tribes his names betoken exalted nature and resistless power; among the Hellenic races they denote his wisdom; but that which we inherit from our northern ancestors denotes his goodness. All these the more perfect researches of modern science bring out in ever-increasing splendour, and I cannot conceive anything that more effectually brings home to the mind the absolute omnipresence of the Deity than high physical knowledge. I fear I have too long trespassed on your patience, yet let me point out to you a few examples.
What can fill us with an overwhelming sense of His infinite wisdom like the telescope? As you sound with it the fathomless abyss of stars, till all measure of distances seems to fail and imagination alone gauges the distance; yet even there as here is the same divine harmony of forces, the same perfect conservation of systems, which the being able to trace in the pages of Newton or Laplace makes us feel as if we were more than men. If it is such a triumph of intellect to trace this law of the universe, how transcendent must that Greatest over all be, in which it and many like it, have their existence! That instrument tells us that the globe which we inhabit is but a speck, the existence of which cannot be perceived beyond our system. Can we then hope that in this immensity of worlds we shall not be overlooked? The microscope will answer. If the telescope lead to one verge of infinity, it brings us to the other; and shows us that down in the very twilight of visibility the living points which it discloses are fashioned with the most finished perfection, — that the most marvellous contrivances minister to their preservation and their enjoyment, — that as nothing is too vast for the Creator's control, so nothing is too minute or trifling for His care. At every turn the philosopher meets facts which show that man's Creator is also his Father, — things which seem to contain a special provision for his use and his happiness : but I will take only two, from their special relation to this very district. Is it possible to consider the properties which distinguish iron from other metals without a conviction that those qualities were given to it that it might be useful to man, whatever other purposes might be answered by them. That it should. be ductile and plastic while influenced by heat, capable of being welded, and yet by a slight chemical change capable of adamantine hardness, — and that the metal which alone possesses properties so precious should be the most abundant of all, — must seem, as it is, a miracle of bounty. And not less marvellous is the prescient kindness which stored up in your coalfields the exuberant vegetation of the ancient world, under circumstances which preserved this precious magazine of wealth and power, not merely till He had placed on earth beings who would use it, but even to a late period of their existence, lest the element that was to develope to the utmost their civilization and energy migbt be wasted or abused.
But I must conclude with this summary of all which I would wish to impress on your minds—* that the more we know His works the nearer we are to Him. Such knowledge pleases Him; it is bright and holy, it is our purest happiness here, and will assuredly follow us into another life if rightly sought in this. May He guide us in its pursuit; and in particular, may this meeting which I have attempted to open in His name, be successful and prosperous, so that in future years they who follow me in this high office may refer to it as one to be remembered with unmixed satisfaction.”

Thomas Romney Robinson

Robinson in his 1849 adress, as quoted in the Report of the Nineteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science https://archive.org/stream/report36sciegoog#page/n50/mode/2up, London, 1850.

Love , Life , Wisdom , Men

“"Old" and "new" are the perennial poles of all feeling and sense of orientation in the world. We cannot do without the old, because in what is old is invested all our past, our wisdom, our memories, our sadness, our sense of realism. We cannot do without faith in the new, because in what is new is invested all our energy, our capacity for optimism, our blind biological yearning, our ability to forget — the healing ability that makes reconciliation possible.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)

Wisdom , World , Sadness , Feeling

“Our hopes are high. Our faith in the people is great. Our courage is strong. And our dreams for this beautiful country will never die.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Farewell speech to the Liberal Party http://www.primeministers.ca/trudeau/bio_9.php?context=b (14 June 1984)

People , Beauty , Dreams , Hope

“Christ is known only by them that receive Him into their love, their faith, their deep want; known only as He is enshrined within, felt as a Divine force, breathed in the inspirations of the secret life.”

Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 90.

Love , Life , Secret , Christ

“But if we hide ourselves away, afraid to grow and learn, we might wake up in the flames of the ignorance that burns and we’ll never be much more than only casualties of war in a struggle we can’t win if we have no faith to begin. We’ve got to tip the lid and let some sunlight in.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"The People of The Boxes"
The Prophet's Hands (2003)

War , Learning

“Piero was the sort of person that every religion needs but no religion likes. Thoughtful, rational, scientific. He asked questions and did not accept the easy answers on faith.”

Pat Murphy book There and Back Again

Source: There and Back Again (1999), Chapter 10 (pp. 197-198)

Religion , Question , Personality

“Inquiry shall likewise be made about the professions and trades of those who are brought to be admitted to the faith. If a man is a pander, he must desist or be rejected.”

Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church

Apostolic Tradition

“What good is a martyr, Captain Bastable? A martyr shows us the power of faith. But what if that faith is misinformed? While people believe in heroes and the magic power of an individual to save them from the human condition, they will never be free.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 8 “Revolutions” (p. 422)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

People

“You ask a faith, — they are content with faith;
You ask to have, — but they reply "IT hath."
There is no end, there need be no path.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Life Without and Life Within (1859), The One In All

“In succeeding to the throne of Mysore, I follow a great ruler who loved you all, and who won your love by his love of God, by his wisdom, his graciousness, his humility, his faithfulness to his duty and his Kingly greatness; …called upon people to ‘consecrate themselves in the spirit of unity and self sacrifice.”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

On the occasion of his coronation, In Jaya Chamaraja Wodeyar http://www.mysoresamachar.com/j_wadiyar_ann1.htm

Love , Wisdom , God , People

“Brethren, are you in earnest? If so, though your faith be weak, and your struggles unsatisfactory, you may begin the hymn of triumph now, for victory is pledged. Thanks be to God, which " — not shall give, but "giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 110.

God , Victory , Christ

“Religious fundamentalists see themselves as having remedies for the maladies of the modern world. In reality they are symptoms of the disease they pretend to cure. They hope to recover the unreflective faith of traditional cultures, but this is a peculiarly modern fantasy. We cannot believe as we please; our beliefs are traces left by our unchosen lives. A view of the world is not something that can be conjured up as and when we please.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Human: Against fundamentalism ― religious and scientific (p. 18)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

World , Disease , Hope , Reality

“The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Frequently attributed to Bevan as his own words, and sometimes sourced to remarks to NHS patients in 1948 ( example http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/9106880/Read-this-and-prepare-to-fight-for-your-NHS.html), but believed to have been misattributed. The statement was not written down until the television play about Bevan, 'Food for Ravens' by Trevor Griffiths. Griffiths himself attributes it to Bevan: "I have no written source for it, but old Bevanites in the coalfields were saying something like it during the strikes of the 80s and often quoting Nye as the source." ( The truth of Nye Bevan’s words on the NHS https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/02/the-truth-of-nye-bevans-words-on-the-nhs) In the script, a dying Bevan is asked by a young boy if he will be remembered for creating the NHS:
Bevan: Maybe, if it lasts.
Boy: (looking at press cuttings) Says here it will last forever.
Bevan: No such thing as forever, boy. It will last only as long as there's folk with faith left to fight for it.
Food for Ravens https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/volume-1-issue-8-summer-1998/food-for-ravens/ by Marc Karlin.
Misattributed

Fight

“The precept of the koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

John Quincy Adams, in The American Annual Register for the Years 1827–8–9 (New-York: E. & G. W. Blunt, 1830), Chapter X, p. 274

God , War , Peace , Fraud

“If we had strength and faith enough to trust ourselves entirely to God, and follow Him simply wherever He should lead us, we should have no need of any great effort of mind to reach perfection.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 240.

God , Effort , Perfection

“(Bairam Khan said): ‘This is your first war (ghazd), prove your sword on this infidel, for it will be a meritorious deed.’ Akbar replied: ‘He is now no better than a dead man, how am I to strike him? If he had sense and strength, I would try my sword.’ Then in the presence of them all, the Khan as a warrior of the faith, cut him down with the sword.”

Hemu (1501–1556) General and Chief Minister of Adil Shah Suri

Abdul Kadir Badauni. Elliott and Dowson, The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians, Vol. V, p 253.

War , Sense , Dead

“Work without faith and prayer is like an artificial flower without fragrance.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Flowers

“They saw themselves, you could see, as real grown-up devotchkas already, what with the old hipswing when they saw your Faithful Narrator, brothers, and padded groodies and red all ploshed on their goobers…. They viddied themselves as real sophistoes…. They had the same ideas or lack of, and the same colour hair — a like dyed strawy. Well, they would grow up real today…. No school this afterlunch, but education certain, Alex as teacher.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Education , School , Idea , Teachers

“Here you will find a pleasant and agreeable style, of a natural simplicity. The narrative is pure and the good faith of the author shines from it, exempt from the vanity of talking about oneself, and from partiality or envy when speaking of others. His ideas and exhortations are accompanied more by good zeal and truth than by any fine ability; and all throughout there is an authoritative tone and gravity proper to a man of good background, brought up in great affairs.”

Philippe de Commines (1447–1511) writer and diplomat

Vous y trouverez le langage doux et aggreable, d'une naïfve simplicité, la narration pure, et en laquelle la bonne foy de l'autheur reluit evidemment, exempte de vanité parlant de soy, et d'affection et d'envie parlant d'autruy : ses discours et enhortemens, accompaignez, plus de bon zele et de verité, que d'aucune exquise suffisance, et tout par tout de l'authorité et gravité, representant son homme de bon lieu, et élevé aux grans affaires.
Michel de Montaigne Essais Bk. II, ch. 10: "Des Livres"; translation from Serge Hughes (trans.) The Essential Montaigne (New York: New American Library, 1970) p. 293.
Criticism

Truth , Idea , Nature , Envy

“I profess implicit faith in two articles of my creed. This country of ours is the true land of promise. This race of ours is the chosen race.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

At his 100th Anniversary lecture delivered in 1943 on Ranade, Gandhi & Jinnah by Dr. Ambedkar

Country

“When a miner looks at the rope that is to lower him into the deep mine, he may coolly say, "I have faith in that rope as well made and strong." But when he lays hold of it, and swings down by it into the tremendous chasm, then he is believing on the rope. Then he is trusting himself to the rope. It is not a mere opinion — it is an act. The miner lets go of every thing else, and bears his whole weight on those well braided strands of hemp. Now that is faith.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 225.

Strong

“Muhammad seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning, Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 6.4 (trans. Anton C. Pegis)

Wisdom , Men , People , Pleasure

“When faith is lost, when honor dies
The man is dead!”

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery

Ichabod, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Dead

“While scientists themselves may be religious men of many different faiths, their methodology was designed to be the antithesis of faith because it requires that all assumptions be questioned, that all proposed explanations be based on demonstrable evidence, and that all hypotheses be must be testable and potentially falsifiable. Blaming magic is never acceptable because miracles aren’t explanations of any kind, and there has never been a single instance in history when assuming the supernatural has ever improved our understanding of anything. In fact such excuses have only ever impeded our attempts at discovery. This is one of many reasons why science depends on methodological naturalism; because unlike religion, science demands some way to determine who’s explanations are the more accurate, and which changes would actually be corrections. Science is a self-correcting process which changes constantly because its always improving. Only accurate information has practical application. So it doesn’t matter what you wanna believe. All that matters is why we should believe it too, and how accurate your perception can be shown to be. So you can’t just make up stuff in science (like you can in religion) because you have to substantiate everything, and be able to defend it even against peers who may not want to believe as you do. Be prepared to convince them anyway. Its possible to do that in science because science is based on reason. That means you must be ready to reject or correct whatever you hold true should you discover evidence against it.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"5th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzmbnxtnMB4, Youtube (January 14, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men , Religion , Way , History

“How many times have you sat across from me?
And how many times have you told me you were leaving?
I'm not trying to listen cuz it's all the same.
And why, why are you constantly believing
That I, I could ever give you what you needed?
Baby, baby please don't put your faith in me.”

Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter

Catch Me While I'm Sleeping, written by Pink and Linda Perry
Song lyrics, Try This (2003)

Time , Baby

“In the year AH 710 (AD 1310), the King again sent Mullik Kafoor and Khwaja Hajy with a great army, to reduce Dwara Sumoodra and Maabir in the Deccan, where he heard there were temples very rich in gold and jewels' They found in the temple prodigious spoils, such as idols of gold, adorned with precious stones, and other rich effects, consecrated to Hindoo worship. On the sea-coast the conqueror built a small mosque, and ordered prayers to be read according to the Mahomedan faith, and the Khootba to be pronounced in the name of Allaood-Deen Khiljy. This mosque remains entire in our days at Sett Bund Rameswur, for the infidels, esteeming it a house consecrated to God, would not destroy it.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

John Briggs, Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, pp. 213-14.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

God , Reading , Housing , Sea

“[The] idea of sharing the gospel with Muslims simply will not work. (1) Islam is famously strict against apostasy, and Christians influence very few from their side in any case. (2) Muslim theology is much more efficient at gaining converts. That’s why they’re the fastest-growing religion, remember? More Christians turn Muslim than vice versa. (3) Christianity can’t even hang onto the people they already have. Religion is not the same thing as ‘race’. You can’t change your ancestors, but you can discard their traditions. Even if Christians did out-reproduce Muslims, statistics indicate that less than half of those kids would still be Christian by the time they grew up. A few might adopt some other religion; most of the rest will likely reject all religions, and that trend is rising. Therein lies the answer. You can’t fight religion with religion. Everything Christians do trying to fuse church and state, all the power they give to their own faith, –will be used to pave the way for the next dominant dogma. Every time any religion has had power to enforce their own laws, the result has invariably been a violation of human rights. The only answer –and the founding fathers said this from the beginning- is a secular government with a “wall of separation” between church and state. Maintain that and you might keep mosque and state separate too.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Muslim Demographics http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2013/06/08/muslim-demographics/ (June 8, 2013)

People , Religion , Law , Way

“The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"No TIme for Neutrality", p. 107
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

God

“Islam never had its own version of the Reformation and the Enlightenment or a consequent acceptance of pluralism and the separation of church and state. Fortunately there are numerous Muslim leaders who think their faith needs to modernise from the kill-or-be-killed milieu of the Prophet Mohammed.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

2015, The religion of Islam must reform (December 9, 2015)

Thinking

“Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2006, Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections (2006)

God , Books , Communication , Idea

“Every bit of truth clawed from nature over the last four centuries has involved completely ignoring God, for even religious scientists park their faith at the laboratory door.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 216

God , Truth , Nature

“In the city of Agra there was a large temple, in which there were numerous idols, adorned and embellished with precious jewels and valuable pearls. It was the custom of the infidels to resort to this temple from far and near several times in each year to worship the idols, and a certain fee to the Government was fixed upon each man, for which he obtained admittance. As there was a large congress of pilgrims, a very considerable amount was realized from them, and paid into the royal treasury. This practice had been observed to the end of the reign of the Emperor Shah Jahan, and in the commencement of Aurangzeb's government; but when the latter was informed of it, he was exceedingly angry and abolished the custom. The greatest nobles of his court represented to him that a large sum was realized and paid into the public treasury, and that if it was abolished, a great reduction in the income of the state would take place. The Emperor observed, 'What you say is right, but I have considered well on the subject, and have reflected on it deeply; but if you wish to augment the revenue, there is a better plan for attaining the object by exacting the jizya. By this means idolatry will be suppressed, the Muhammadan religion and the true faith will be honoured, our proper duty will be performed, the finances of the state will be increased, and the infidels will be disgraced.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

'This was highly approved by all the nobles; and the Emperor ordered all the gold en and silver idols to be broken, and the temple destroyed.
Kanzul-Mahfuz (Kanzu-l Mahfuz), in: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. VIII, pp. 38 -39.
Quotes from late medieval histories

Religion , Time

“Here comes Jesus, and sees the man, and shows to him, in the light of faith, that He is according to His Godhead immeasurable and incomprehensible and inaccessible and abysmal, transcending every created light and every finite conception. And this is the highest knowledge of God which any man may have in the active life: that he should confess in this light of faith that God is incomprehensible and unknowable. And in this light Christ says to man’s desire: Make haste and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house. This hasty descent, to which he is summoned by God, is nothing else than a descent through desire and through love into the abyss of the Godhead, which no intelligence can reach in the created light. But where intelligence remains without, desire and love go in. When the soul is thus stretched towards God, by intention and by love, above everything that it can understand, then it rests and dwells in God, and God in it. When the soul climbs with desire above the multiplicity of creatures, and above the works of the senses, and above the light of nature, then it meets Christ in the light of faith, and becomes enlightened, and confesses that God is unknowable and incomprehensible. When it stretches itself with longing towards this incomprehensible God, then it meets Christ, and is filled with His gifts. And when it loves and rests above all gifts, and above itself, and above all creatures, then it dwells in God, and God dwells in it.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

From Evelyn Underhill, http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/asm/index.htm Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Love , Life , God , Soul

“We're all capable if we have faith and passion.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

Passion

“Young people of every continent, do not be afraid to be the saints of the new millennium! Be contemplative, love prayer; be coherent with your faith and generous in the service of your brothers and sisters, be active members of the Church and builders of peace.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Message of the Holy Father to the Youth of the World on the Occasion of the 15th World Youth Day, From the Vatican, 1999

Love , People , Peace , Sister

“I would say that, whenever religion has rule over law, that madness will reign, with automatic violations of human rights, but maybe I'm being alarmist. What do they say? How can we know what sort of society they envision?.. We know that they are nearly all republicans, and that that party has been virtually assimilated by them, and we know they will speak more freely when they feel the safety of numbers. So let's look at the Republican Party platform of one of the red states, a very red state… Of course, they want to make pornography illegal (no surprises there), they also want to be able to filibuster the US senate again… Regarding the environment, they strongly support the immediate repeal and abolishment of the Endangered Species Act. Remember that these people don't believe in evolution, so they don't understand the importance of biodiversity and they don't care about the rights of animals either. They want to dominate and subdue the earth, just like their abominable doctrine demands, so they strongly oppose all efforts of environmental groups that stymie business interests, especially those of the oil and gas industry… Texas republicans not only want marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman (despite what the Bible says), but they insist it must be a natural man and a natural woman… So transgender people would be completely ostracized under the law should they get their way. There's no civil union options for gay couples either, because the platform also opposes the creation, recognition or benefits of partnerships outside marriage that are provided by some political subdivisions. As if that weren't enough, they also want to define the word "family" such that it excludes homosexual couples. They say they deplore sensitivity training (think about that for a moment), and they state very clearly that they want homosexuality condemned as unacceptable. They mean that very strongly too, so strongly in fact that they oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality as a reaction of religious faith. In fact, they go so far as to urge the immediate repeal of the hate crimes law specifically where that relates to sexual orientation… If you're uncertain whether that includes acts of violence, there at least two members of the current State Board of Education who implied that it should, and we know of a few Tea Partiers who insist that homosexuals should be executed, murdered by the state. I am alarmed at how popular this abominable sentiment is… Under the heading "supporting motherhood", they strongly support women who "choose" to devote their lives to their families and raising their children, but they implicitly object to women choosing other options such as college, careers, or not having children at all. A woman's ambition beyond the confines of the kitchen and obeisance to her husband is decried by conservatives as a deplorable assault on the family which, of course, they blame on liberals. Regarding the right to life, they say that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death. Notice a few subtle caveats here: the qualifier of protecting only innocent life is how Texas republicans justify having executed more prisoners than any other state in the union, nearly five times as many as the next deadliest state in fact. Says something about Christian forgiveness, doesn't it!”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Life , Death , Women , Hate

“Indeed, faithful is the one who - when pleased and glad, his pleasure does not make him enter into sin and falsehood; and when unhappy and angry, his anger does not oust him from the world of righteousness; and when he gains power, his power does not make him commit excess, nor opression, nor make him go for a thing upon which he does not have any right.”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.2, p. 234

Pleasure , World , Anger

“Truth is a rock, and on that rock faith plants its foot, and feels secure. But even on the rock you cannot live long without an atmosphere, and the believer's atmosphere is love. That atmosphere, is viewless, invisible, often forgotten; still it is real, and it is vital. " The words that I speak are spirit," says the Saviour. Over and above the resting place which weary spirits have found at His feet, which guilty consciences have found in His arms, there is an afflatus gone forth from those words of His, which to inhale and be surrounded with is like entering heaven's vestibule.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 92.

Love , Truth , Feeling

“St. Jerome, whose heir methinks I am in the endurance of foul slander, says in his letter to Nepotanius: "The apostle says: 'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' He no longer seeks to please men, and so is made Christ's servant" (Epist. 2). And again, in his letter to Asella regarding those whom he was falsely accused of loving: "I give thanks to my God that I am worthy to be one whom the world hates" (Epist. 99). And to the monk Heliodorus he writes: "You are wrong, brother, you are wrong if you think there is ever a time when the Christian does not suffer persecution. For our adversary goes about as a roaring lion seeking what he may devour, and do you still think of peace? Nay, he lieth in ambush among the rich."
Inspired by those records and examples, we should endure our persecutions all the more steadfastly the more bitterly they harm us. We should not doubt that even if they are not according to our deserts, at least they serve for the purifying of our soul. And since all things are done in accordance with the divine ordering, let every one of true faith console himself amid all his afflictions with the thought that the great goodness of God permits nothing to be done without reason, and brings to a good end whatsoever may seem to happen wrongfully. Wherefore rightly do all men say: "Thy will be done." And great is the consolation to all lovers of God in the word of the Apostle when he says: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. viii, 28). The wise man of old had this in mind when he said in his Proverbs: "There shall no evil happen to the just" (Prov. xii, 21). By this he clearly shows that whosoever grows wrathful for any reason against his sufferings has therein departed from the way of the just, because he may not doubt that these things have happened to him by divine dispensation. ///Even such are those who yield to their own rather than to the divine purpose, and with hidden desires resist the spirit which echoes in the words, "Thy will be done," thus placing their own will ahead of the will of God. Farewell.”

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician

Source: Historia Calamitatum (c. 1132), Ch. XV

Love , Men , God , Hate

“Tears never yet saved a soul. Hell is full of weepers weeping over lost opportunities, perhaps over the rejection of an offered Saviour. Your Bible does not say " Weep, and be saved." It says, "Believe, and be saved."”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Faith is better than feeling.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 244.

Feeling , Soul , Hell , Tear

“His chapters inspire me with more enthusiasm than even poetry itself. And the noble canon, with what true chivalrous feeling he confines his beautiful expressions of sorrow to the death of the gallant and high-bred knight, of whom it was a pity to see the fall, such was his loyalty to his king, pure faith to his religion, hardihood towards his enemy, and fidelity to his lady-love! – Ah, benedicite! how he will mourn over the fall of such a pearl of knighthood, be it on the side he happens to favour, or on the other. But, truly, for sweeping from the face of the earth some few hundreds of villain churls, who are born but to plough it, the high-born and inquisitive historian has marvellous little sympathy.”

Jean Froissart (1337–1405) French writer

Claverhouse, in Walter Scott's Old Mortality (1816), ch. 35.
Criticism

Love , Death , Religion , Beauty

“Pure love is in the will alone; it is no sentimental love, for the imagination has no part in it; it loves, if we may so express it, without feeling, as faith believes without seeing.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 399.

Love , Feeling , Imagination , Parting

“Ye come and go incessant; we remain
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past;
Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot,
Of faith so nobly realized as this.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

The Cathedral, st. 9 (1869)

Past

“Einstein repeatedly argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. Much of the complexity he must master is arbitrary complexity [… ] because they were designed by different people, rather than by God.”

Fred Brooks No Silver Bullet

Page 184.
No Silver Bullet (1986)

God , People , Nature

“We are nations forged from many traditions and faiths, proving year after year that diversity is our strength. From vastly different origins and experiences, we have come to the same conclusions: that freedom and democracy are the strongest bases for both peace and prosperity, and that they are universal aspirations, constrained neither by culture nor levels of economic development.”

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924–2018) 10th Prime Minister of India

New York September 7, 2000 Asia Society Annual Dinner
Quotes from ataljee.org

Peace , Democracy , Freedom , Universe

“The spoken Word, the written Poem, is said to be an epitome of the man; how much more the done Work. Whatsoever of morality and of intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of Strength the man had in him will lie written in the Work he does. To work: why, it is to try himself against Nature, and her everlasting unerring Laws; these will tell a true verdict as to the man.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Lie , Law , Intelligence , Nature

“The cruelest revenge of a woman is to remain faithful to a man.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

La plus cruelle vengeance d'une femme est quelquefois de nous rester fidèle.
Physiologie de l'Amour Moderne http://books.google.com/books?id=5H5cAAAAMAAJ&q=%22La+plus+cruelle+vengeance+d'une+femme+est+quelquefois+de+nous+rester+fid%C3%A8le%22&pg=PA326#v=onepage (1889)

Revenge

“The king's majesty desires nothing more than concord…; he knows there are those who would stir up strife, and that in many places in his field tares have sprongen to harm the wheat. The forwardness and carnal lust of some, the inveterate corruption and superstitious tenacity of opinion of others, excite disputation and quarrels most horrible to good Christian men; one side calls the other papists, and the other again calls them heretics, both naughty and not to be borne; and that the less so because they miserably abuse the Holy Word of God and the Scriptures which the same most noble prince of his gentleness and for the salvation and consolation of his people has permitted them to read in the vulgar tongue. They twist God's sacred gift, now into heresy and now into superstition. [The king] favours nor one side nor the other but, as becometh a Christian prince, profess the true Christian faith [therefore the king desires the] true doctrine and rule of the Gospel shall be published clear and established [and] the pious observation of ceremonies shall be distinguished from the impious, their use taught and their abuse abolished.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Speech to the reassmbled Parliament, 12 April 1540. (Journal of the House of Lords: I, pp. 128-9.)

Men , God , People , Reading

“Now, surely, when we want to educate ourselves for the purpose of citizenship…If you can clear the mind of cant and detect the fallacy, whatever guise it may be wearing, I think you have made a long step forward in the education that every citizen in a democracy that may hope to endure must have. I think that we all of us realise to-day that no civilised community is bound necessarily and by an inscrutable fate to progress, and there are such things in civilisation as checks, that there is such a thing as retrogression, and that the mere existence of a civilised community is no guarantee either for its continuance or for its progress— in other words, that unless we are the faithful guardians of such civilisation as we have already attained to, we run the risk of seeing the whole of the progress that has been made with such infinite labour up to our own time gradually slipping back and back and back.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Philip Scott College (27 September 1923), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 150-151.
1923

Fate , Education , Hope , Democracy

“Defiling their shadows, infidels, accursed of Allah, with fingernails that are foot-long daggers, with mouths agape like cauldrons full of teeth on the boil, with eyes all fire, shaitans possessed of Iblis, clanking into their wars all linked, like slaves, with iron chains. Murad Bey, the huge, the single-blowed ox-beheader, saw without too much surprise mild-looking pale men dressed in blue, holding guns, drawn up in squares six deep as though in some massed dance depictive of orchard walls. At the corners of the squares were heavy giins and gunners. There did not seem to be many horsemen. Murad said a prayer within, raised his scimitar to heaven and yelled a fierce and holy word. The word was taken up, many thousandfold, and in a kind of gloved thunder the Mamelukes threw themselves on to the infidel right and nearly broke it. But the squares healed themselves at once, and the cavalry of the faithful crashed in three avenging prongs along the fire-spitting avenues between the walls. A great gun uttered earthquake language at them from within a square, and, rearing and cursing the curses of the archangels of Islam on to the uncircumcized, they wheeled and swung towards their protective village of Embabeh. There they encountered certain of the blue-clad infidel horde on the flat roofs of the houses, coughing musket-fire at them. But then disaster sang along their lines from the rear as shell after shell crunched and the Mamelukes roared in panic and burden to the screams of their terrified mounts, to whose ears these noises were new. Their rear dissolving, their retreat cut off, most sought the only way, that of the river. They plunged in, horseless, seeking to swim across to join the inactive horde of Ibrahim, waiting for. action that could now never come. Murad Bey, with such of his horsemen as were left, yelped off inland to Gizeh.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Napoleon Symphony (1974)

Men , War , Way , Waiting

“I am an optimist about America. But how can I maintain that optimism after Vietnam, after the murder of so many who fought for civil rights, after the Red scare and after the abusive tactics planned by government today? I can because we have regretted our mistakes in the past, relearning every time that no ruler can be trusted with arbitrary power. And I believe we will again.… But after all, this has always been a country of unbounded optimism, a country that struggles with itself and conquers corrupting habit.… In the end I believe that faith in reason will prevail. But it will not happen automatically. Freedom under law is hard work. If rulers cannot be trusted with arbitrary power, it is up to citizens to raise their voices at injustice.”

Anthony Lewis (1927–2013) American journalist

[Anthony, Lewis, w:Anthony Lewis, Abroad at Home; Hail And Farewell, 2001-12-15, Boston, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/15/opinion/abroad-at-home-hail-and-farewell.html] [Lewis's final column].

Law , Optimism , Freedom , Time

“I think we each come out of the womb with some unique way of looking at the world and if we don't express it, we loose faith in ourselves.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Revolution From Within

World , Way , Thinking

“Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Faith in America speech, 2007

“Thou, Everlasting Strength, hast set Thyself forth to bear our burdens. May we bear Thy cross, and bearing that, find there is nothing else to bear; and touching that cross, find that instead of taking away our strength, it adds thereto. Give us faith for darkness, for trouble, for sorrow, for bereavement, for disappointment; give us a faith that will abide though the earth itself should pass away — a faith for living, a faith for tying.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 107

Disappointment

“I believe there are hundreds and thousands of stories just waiting to be written by organizations and companies who have leaders that inspire people to accomplish things that seem impossible. The only way that can happen, though, is if the leader believes it is possible—has even a mustard seed of faith—and can convince his people that the seemingly impossible is indeed possible.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 106.
On Leading Well

People , Way , Waiting

“I think I entirely agree with you on the subject of Portugal; all the probabilities were, and in my opinion still are, against eventual success there. I have no faith even in the promised victory…I could not deny that such a success would be worth the sacrifices we had made for it. But a doubtful or indecisive victory, and protracted operations, I should think little less ruinous (I am not sure they would not be more so) than an immediate defeat.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Letter to Lord Grenville (9 November 1810), quoted in Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 (Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 136-137.
1810s

Thinking , Success , Victory , Indecision

“Be a sincere effort never so misguided, to laugh at it is a breach of faith with decency.”

Henry S. Haskins (1875–1957)

Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 82

Effort , Sincerity

Quotes about faith page 30

Quotes about faith
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