Quotes about faith (4016 quotes, page 31)

“When I was a boy no one seemed to ask where the energies come from. Land, oil, coal, air seemed inexhaustible. Now we are realizing how our very life depends upon restoring not only our balance with nature, but also that balance within ourselves. We are depleting our reserves of spirit, health, courage and faith at an alarming rate. The quiet practice of yoga is, in its humble yet effective way, an antidote.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Source: Sushama Londhe in “A Tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time about India and Her Culture”, p. 341

Life , Health , Way , Boy

“In the midst of possible world war, of wholesale destruction, I find my only question this: are there enough people now who believe? Is there time enough left for the wise to act? It is a contest between ignorance and death, or wisdom and life. My faith in humanity stands firm.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

This I Believe (1951)

Life , Death , Wisdom , War

“We can take a just pride in the great contribution to the common cause by all those who owe allegiance to the British Crown. … In this great contest we are all engaged in a single enterprise. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen from the United Kingdom, from the British Commonwealth and the Empire, from the United States, and from many nations are found fighting side by side in many ocean and theatres of war. They know that they are engaged in a common service and are inspired by a common faith. In the Atlantic Charter the United Nations have declared the faith that is in them. Against the false gods of cruelty, hatred, and domination they have proclaimed their gospel of freedom, justice, and social security.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Message (2 September 1942), quoted in The Times (3 September 1942), p. 2.
War Cabinet

God , War , Justice , Freedom

“If I hadn't an absolute faith in the harmony of creation, I wouldn't have tried for thirty years to express it in a mathematical formula. It is only man's consciousness of what he does with his mind that elevates him above the animals, and enables him to become aware of himself and his relationship to the universe.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 61

Mathematics , Universe , Animals

“The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst—for me, at least—is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.”

Stephen King book Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993), Introduction

Books , Fear , Way , Feeling

“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?
-- Roll The Bones (1991)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Children , Suffering

“27 January 1670: During this month of Ramzan abounding in miracles, the Emperor as the promoter of justice and overthrower of mischief, as a knower of truth and destroyer of oppression, as the zephyr of the garden of victory and the reviver of the faith of the Prophet, issued orders for the demolition of the temple situated in Mathura, famous as the Dehra of Kesho Rai. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers, the destruction of this strong foundation of infidelity was accomplished, and on its site a lofty mosque was built at the expenditure of a large sum. This temple of folly was built by that gross idiot Birsingh Deo Bundela. Before his accession to the throne, the Emperor Jahangir was displeased with Shaikh Abul Fazl. This infidel [Birsingh] became a royal favourite by slaying him [Abul Fazl], and after Jahangir’s accession was rewarded for this service with the permission to build the temple, which he did at an expense of thirty-three lakhs of rupees.
Praised be the august God of the faith of Islam, that in the auspicious reign of this destroyer of infidelity and turbulence [Aurangzeb], such a wonderful and seemingly impossible work was successfully accomplished. On seeing this instance of the strength of the Emperor’s faith and the grandeur of his devotion to God, the proud Rajas were stifled, and in amazement they stood like facing the wall. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels, which had been set up in the temple, were brought to Agra, and buried under the steps of the mosque of the Begam Sahib, in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad.
17 December 1679: Hafiz Muhammad Amin Khan reported that some of his servants had ascended the hill and found the other side of the pass also deserted; (evidently) the Rana had evacuated Udaipur and fled. On the 4th January/12th Zil. H., the Emperor encamped in the pass. Hasan ‘Ali Khan was sent in pursuit of the infidel. Prince Muhammad ‘Azam and Khan Jahan Bahadur were permitted to view Udaipur. Ruhullah Khan and Ekkataz Khan went to demolish the great temple in front of the Rana’s palace, which was one of the rarest buildings of the age and the chief cause of the destruction of life and property of the despised worshippers. Twenty machator Rajputs [who] were sitting in the temple, vowed to give up their lives; first one of them came out to fight, killed some and was then himself slain, then came out another and so on, until every one of the twenty perished, after killing a large number of the imperialists including the trusted slave, Ikhlas. The temple was found empty. The hewers broke the images.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Saqi Mustad Khan, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, translated and annotated by Jadunath Sarkar, Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, 1947, reprinted by Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, Delhi, 1986. quoted in Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers. Different translation: January, 1670. “In this month of Ramzan, the religious-minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura known as the Dehra of Keshav Rai. His officers accomplished it in a short time. A grand mosque was built on its site at a vast expenditure. The temple had been built by Bir Singh Dev Bundela, at a cost of 33 lakhs of Rupees. Praised be the God of the great faith of Islam that in the auspicious reign- of this destroyer of infidelity and turbulence, such a marvellous and [seemingly] impossible feat was accomplished. On seeing this [instance of the] strength of the Emperor’s faith and the grandeur of his devotion to God, the Rajahs felt suffocated and they stood in amazement like statues facing the walls. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels, which had been set up in the temple, were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the mosque of Jahanara, to be trodden upon continually.”
Quotes from late medieval histories, 1670s

Life , Victory , Change , Strong

“It would appear that the Keynesian faithful have foisted on free-market capitalists an unfalsifiable theory. Evidence that contradicts it, Keynesian kooks enlist as evidence for the correctness of their theory.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"John Maynard Keynes: Where’s The Genius?! (Part 2) http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/08/john-maynard-keynes-wheres-genius-part-2.html Economic Policy Journal, August 23, 2013.
2010s, 2013

Appearance

“Alexander Gardner who later became the Colonel of Artillery in the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had travelled extensively in Central Asia from 1819 to 1823 C. E. He saw a lot of slave-catching in Kafiristan, a province of Afghanistan, which was largely inhabited by infields at that time. He found that the area had been reduced to “the lowest state of poverty and wretchedness” as a result of raids by the Muslim king of Kunduz for securing slaves and supplying them to the slave markets in Balkh and Bukhara. He writes:
“All this misery was caused by the oppression of the Kunduz chief, who not content with plundering his wretched subjects, made an annual raid into the country south of Oxus, and by chappaos (night attacks) carried off all the inhabitants on whom his troops could lay their hands. These, after the best had been selected by the chief and his courtiers, were publicly sold in the bazaars of Turkestan. The principal providers of this species of merchandise were the Khan of Khiva, the king of Bokhara (the great hero of the Mohammedan faith), and the robber beg of Kunduz.
“In the regular slave markets, or in transactions between dealers, it is the custom to pay for slaves in money; the usual medium being either Bokharan gold tillahs (in value about 5 or 51/2 Company rupees each), or in gold bars or gold grain. In Yarkand, or on the Chinese frontier, the medium is the silver khurup with the Chinese stamp, the value of which varies from 150 to 200 rupees each. The price of a male slave varies according to circumstances from 5 to 500 rupees. The price of the females also necessarily varies much, 2 tillahs to 10,000 rupees. Even the double the latter sum has been known to have been given.
“However, a vast deal of business is also done by barter, of which we had proof at the holy shrine of Pir-i-Nimcha, where we exchanged two slaves for a few lambs’ skins! Sanctity and slave dealing may be considered somewhat akin in the Turkestan region, and the more holy the person the more extensive are generally his transactions in flesh and blood.””

Alexander Gardner (soldier)

Alexander Gardner subsequently found a Muslim fruit merchant at Multan “who was proved by his own ledger to have exchanged a female slave girl for three ponies and seven long-haired, red-eyed cats, all of which he disposed of, no doubt to advantage, to the English gentlemen at this station.”
Memoirs of Alexander Gardner, edited by Major Hugh Pearce, first published in 1898, reprint published from Patiala in 1970, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1

Money , Travel , Girl , Cats

“If I did not believe that our work was done in the faith and hope that at some day, it may be a million years hence, the Kingdom of God will spread over the whole world, I would have no hope, I could do no work, and I would give my office over this morning to anyone who would take it.”

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

Speech to the British and Foreign Bible Society (2 May 1928); published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 92 - 93
1928

God , World , Hope

“Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. … Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and "swept along by every wind of teaching," looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires… The church needs to withstand the tides of trends and the latest novelties. … We must become mature in this adult faith, we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith.”

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

In a Homily of His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html, during a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica before the conclave of cardinals (18 April 2005)
2005

Christ

“The sentiment on which [papal] infallibility was founded could not be reached by argument, the weapon of human reason, but resided in conclusions transcending evidence, and was the inaccessible postulate rather than a demonstrable consequence of a system of religious faith.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

"The Vatican Council," http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3011302;view=1up;seq=187 The North British Review (1870)

“A hundred years ago, the idea was rampant in public opinion that Pagans were barbarians, grown-up children who worshiped pieces of wood. Today one tends to describe them as villains, as Nazis. In a very subtle way, Paganism is disenfranchised as a faith and presented as a highly dangerous and regressive movement.”

Christopher Gérard (1962)

Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

Children , Way , Idea

“Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

From a speech on the state of the Middle East, September 10, 1968 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/lbjpeace1.html
1960s

Love , Life , Way , Freedom

“Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional "next world" is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Gordy Slack, "The Atheist" http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/30/dawkins/index_np.html (), Salon.com

World , Evil

“Joseph Smith drifting into errors after translating the Book of Mormon, is a stumbling-block to many, but only those of very weak faith would stumble on this account. Greater abominations are recorded of David in the Bible, than is recorded to-day of Joseph Smith; but do you reject the Psalms on this account? Do you reject the Proverbs because Solomon was a polygamist? Stop and think, you who are hasty to condemn. If you desire to know whether or not the Book of Mormon is true, read the book and investigate it, for Christ has promised that he who seeks in the right way shall find the truth of all things. We are commanded to "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."”

David Whitmer (1805–1888) Book of Mormon witness

David Whitmer An Address to All Believers in Christ, page 4, 1887

Truth , Books , Way , Error

“For fifteen centuries the religion of the Western world has been Christianity, Western Christianity, and there is no other religion now known or even imaginable that could take its place. But it is simply an historical fact, which we must deplore but cannot change, that only a small part of our population today, 12 or 15 per cent., really believes that Christ was the son of God, that the soul is immortal, and that our sins will be punished in a future life. That means that the religious instinct, which is a part of our nature, finds in the majority of our people no satisfaction in an unquestioning faith; so that those frustrated instincts are available for exploitation by any halfway clever scoundrel, as the shysters and punks who now occupy the majority of our pulpits well know. When faith is lost, what Pareto calls the religious residue in a people becomes its most vulnerable point, its Achilles heel. It is the unsatisfied need for an unquestioning faith in a superior power.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"What We Owe Our Parasites", speech (June 1968); Free Speech magazine (October and November 1995)
1990s

Life , God , People , World

“And the high mandate of his sire.
Led by the Lord who rules the sky,
The Gods and heavenly saints drew nigh,
And honoured him with worthy meed,
Rejoicing in each glorious deed.
His task achieved, his foe removed,
He triumphed, by the Gods approved.
By grace of Heaven he raised to life
The chieftains slain in mortal strife;
Then in the magic chariot through
The clouds to Nandigráma flew.
Met by his faithful brothers there,
He loosed his votive coil of hair:
Thence fair Ayodhyá's town he gained,
And o'er his father's kingdom reigned.
Disease or famine ne'er oppressed
His happy people, richly blest.”

Vālmīki Legendary Indian poet, author of the Ramayana

Source: King of Siam Rama I "The-Ramayana", p. 28.

Life , God , People , Disease

“Well, we haven’t learnt yet to live together peacefully… But I don’t know what progress really means. Anyway, I think we need to have faith in the fact that there is more out there to be explained. Even the paradigms that we now have, including subjective value theory, for example, are only provisional. Some physicist might believe that ultimately, we will be able to explain everything. To me, that is utterly stupid, just like saying that an atheist is equally dogmatic as a Texas Baptist. It seems to me that, if you accept evolution, you can still not expect your dog to get up and start talking German. And that’s because your dog is not genetically programmed to do that. We are human animals, and we are equally bound. There are whole realms of discourse out there that we cannot reach, by definition. There are always going to be limits beyond which we cannot go. Knowing that they are there, you can always hope to move a little closer – but that’s all.”

James M. Buchanan (1919–2013) American economist

Source: Karen Ilse Horn (ed.) Roads to Wisdom, Conversations With Ten Nobel Laureates in Economics (2009)

Stupidity , Dogs , Hope , Thinking

“Faith in God includes faith in those who help God.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.269

God , Help

“For those who live inside a myth, it seems a self-evident fact. Human progress is a fact of this kind. If you accept it you have a place in the grand march of humanity. Humankind is, of course, not marching anywhere. ‘Humanity’ is a fiction composed from billions of individuals for each of whom life is singular and final. But the myth of progress is extremely potent. When it loses its power those who have lived by it are – as Conrad put it, describing Kayerts and Carlier – ‘like those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do not know what use to make of their freedoms’. When faith in the future is taken from them, so is the image they have of themselves. If they then opt for death, it is because without that faith they can no longer make sense of living.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

An Old Chaos: The Call of Progress (pp. 6-7)
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths (2013)

Life , Death , Sense , Freedom

“Absolute faith is not the place of self-affirmation, but the place of self-negation. Life of faith is not limited to our spiritual life. What is important is how our spiritual sensitivity is applied to our relative environment.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

The Way of God's Will Chapter 3-2 Life of Faith http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/WofGW/wogw3-02.htm Translated 1980.

Life

“I think that the best judges are the ones that seek to apply precedent in good faith. I think most judges do that. But that is something that has to be done in good faith without skewing the precedent one way or the other. At the same time, there has to be a respect for the work of the district courts and not take an ivory tower approach to the review of what happens there. Those judges are the ones that see the people before them. They see the witnesses. The court of appeals just has a cold paper record. I think there has to be a reasonable level of deference given to the judgments of the Article III judge who has the trial before him. And with respect to all of one's colleagues in the judicial system, I think it is very important for a judge to have almost an irrebuttable presumption that every other judge who has looked at a particular issue was doing his or her best to discharge his or her oath just as well as I might be if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed.”

Raymond Kethledge (1966) a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Confirmation of Raymond Kethledge https://www.congress.gov/110/chrg/shrg48894/CHRG-110shrg48894.htm (May 7, 2008)

People , Way , Thinking , Time

“If I love you—
I never behave like a climbing trumpet vine
Using your high branches to show myself off;
If I love you—
I never mimic infatuated little birds
Repeating monotonous songs into the shadows,
Nor do I look at all like a wellspring
Sending out its cooling consolation all year round,
Or just another perilous crag
Augmenting your height, setting off your prestige.
Nor like the sunlight
Or even spring rain.
No, these are not enough.
I would be a kapok tree by your side
Standing with you—
both of us shaped like trees.
Our roots hold hands underground,
Our leaves touch in the clouds.
As a gust of wind passes by
We salute each other
And not a soul
Understands our language.
You have your bronze boughs and iron trunk
Like knives and swords,
Also like halberds;
I have my red flowers
Like heavy sighs,
Also like heroic torches.
We share cold waves, storms and thunderbolts;
Together we savor fog, haze and rainbows.
We seem to always live apart,
But actually depend upon each other forever.
This has to be called extraordinary love.
Faith resides in it:
Love—
I love not only your sublime body
But the space you occupy,
The land beneath your feet.”

Shu Ting (1952) Chinese writer

"To the Oak Tree" [ 致橡树 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZjf9K6KX0, Zhi xiangshu] (27 March 1977), in The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry Since the Cultural Revolution, ed. Edward Morin, trans. Fang Dai and Dennis Ding (University of Hawaii Press, 1990), ISBN 978-0824813208, pp. 102–103.

Love , Soul , Spring , Flowers

“Praise God when we seem to be making progress; trust him when we seem not to be. Remember that it is ultimately God’s job, not ours, to bring the victories. They will come on his timetable and on his terms. Our job is to be faithful — to stand up, speak out, and bear witness. And by the way, no Christian is exempt from that duty. So no excuses.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

2017, Interview with Matthew Bunson (2017)

God , Way , Victory

“The resolute one who moved by the principles of Thy Faith
Extends the prosperity of order to his neighbors
And works the land the evil now hold desolate,
Earns through Righteousness, the Blessed Recompense
Thy Good Mind has promised in Thy Kingdom of Heaven.”

Zoroaster Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism

Spenta Mainyu Gatha; Yasna 50, 3.
The Gathas

Evil

“Certain Laodiceans, and lukewarm persons, think they may accommodate points of religion, by middle way, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements; as if they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes are to be avoided; which will be done, if the league of Christians, penned by our Savior himself, were in two cross clauses thereof, soundly and plainly expounded: He that is not with us, is against us; and again, He that is not against us, is with us; that is, if the points fundamental and of substance in religion, were truly discerned and distinguished, from points not merely of faith, but of opinion, order, or good intention.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Essays (1625)

God , Religion , Way , Thinking

“Some people don't have a family to fall back on, like I have, and that's when something greater than even that comes in, and that's faith and that's what I have for me, that's what keeps me strong.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

BREATHEcast.com http://www.breathecast.com/Christian.Music.News-Hannah.Montana.Star.Says.Faith.Keeps.Her.Grounded/1_2024.htm (March 3, 2008)

People , Family , Strong

“Aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and activities therefore run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. The Muslim Brotherhood is not the only movement that promotes values which appear intolerant of equality and freedom of faith and belief. Nor is it the only movement or group dedicated in theory to revolutionising societies and changing existing ways of life. But I have made clear this government’s determination to reject intolerance, and to counter not just violent Islamist extremism, but also to tackle those who create the conditions for it to flourish.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Muslim Brotherhood Review (20 July 2015)

Life , Law , Way , Democracy

“We Social Democrats dare not be like the other parties, all of whom are equally guilty of the injustices of the present system and equally responsible for them. Every one who suffers under these injustices looks to us for deliverance. Every one of us has had these victims of society after failing to get justice from the courts, from the government, from the Emperor himself, and from all the other parties, come to us as the last and only ones that can help them. They do not know our scientific program; they do not know what capital and capitalism mean; but they have the belief, the feeling, that we are a party that can help when all other parties fail. This belief is for us an inexhaustible source of power. It was a similar faith of despair that spread more and more in the decaying Roman empire and slowly undermined the heathen world until it finally collapsed. We give up this inexhaustible source of power if we ally ourselves with other parties and drive suffering humanity from us by saying to it: “We are not essentially different from the others.””

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

Once the boundary line of the class struggle is wiped away and we have started upon the inclined plane of compromise, there is no stopping. Then we can only go down and down until there is nothing deeper.
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

World , Justice , Feeling , Suffering

““You can’t lose faith you never had to begin with.”
“Ah. So you never believed in the Bright at all?”
“Of course I believed. Even now I believe, in principle. But when I was sixteen, I saw the hypocrisy in all the things the priests had taught me. It’s all very well to say the world values reason and compassion and justice, but if nothing in reality reflects those words, they’re meaningless.””

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 9 “Seduction” (charcoal) (p. 189)

World , Justice , Reality

“In Atlantic City, 60 miles from here, you'll find contractors and small businesses who lost everything because Donald Trump refused to pay his bills. Now remember what the President said last night -- don't boo, vote. People who did the work and needed the money, and didn't get it – not because he couldn't pay them, but because he wouldn't pay them. He just stiffed them. That sales pitch he's making to be your president? Put your faith in him – and you'll win big? That's the same sales pitch he made to all those small businesses. Then Trump walked away, and left working people holding the bag.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), 2016 Democratic National Convention (July 28, 2016)

Money , People , Business , Night

“The Catholic writer really needs only three things to succeed: faith, hope and ingenuity”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

31
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)

Hope

“I would fain ask one of these bigotted Infidels, supposing all the great Points of Atheism … were laid together and formed into a kind of Creed, according to the Opinions of the most celebrated Atheists; I say, supposing such a Creed as this were formed, and imposed upon any one People in the World, whether it would not require an infinitely greater Measure of Faith, than any Set of Articles which they so violently oppose.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 185 http://archive.twoaspirinsandacomedy.com/spectator/spectator.php?line=185 (2 October 1711).
Often misquoted as "To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny."
The Spectator (1711–1714)

People , World

“It is no doubt true that in the administration of justice — whatever the context — the appearance of impartiality as well as its reality should always be our goal. Public confidence in the administration of justice necessarily depends on public understanding. All of this should virtually go without saying. Actions that create a perception of unfairness are to be avoided. But those who administer justice cannot be required to be the guarantor of the public perception of their work. Sometimes that perception is shaped largely by extraneous forces and circumstances that are beyond the control of those who administer justice. And I would suggest that it is a dangerous policy indeed to prohibit actions which the fair administration of justice in fact requires simply because some segment — however large — of the public judges those actions to be other than just. Adopting such a policy promises to reward those who seek to undermine the faithful administration of justice by false charges of unfairness.”

Charles T. Canady (1954) American politician and judge

Some Reflections on Impeachment: Remarks of Congressman Charles T. Canady to the Miami Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/some-reflections-on-impeachment-remarks-of-congressman-charles-t-canady-to-the-miami-lawyers-division-of-the-federalist-society (August 1, 1999)

Justice , Confidence , Understanding , Reality

“At the time and in the country in which the present study was written, it was granted by everyone except backward people that the Jewish faith had not been refuted by science or by history…. one could grant to science and history everything they seem to teach regarding the age of the world, the origin of man, the impossibility of miracles, the impossibility of the immortality of the soul, and of the resurrection of the body, the Jahvist, the Elohist, the third Isaah, and so on, without abandoning one iota of the substance of the Jewish faith.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968), p. 231; from the "Preface" to Spinoza's Critique of Religion

People , Age , World , Soul

“I wanted to learn about Christ – about the Old Testament, which had been his Bible, and the New Testament, which was the Bible about him; about the history of the church, which had been founded on the faith that through him God had not only revealed his innermost nature and his purpose for the world, but had released into the world a fierce power to draw people into that nature and adapt them to that purpose… No intellectual pursuit had ever aroused in me such intense curiosity, and much more than my intellect was involved, much more than my curiosity aroused. In the unfamiliar setting of a Presbyterian church, of all places, I had been moved to astonished tears which came from so deep inside me that to this day I have never fathomed them, I wanted to learn more about the source of those tears and the object of that astonishment.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (1983)

God , People , World , History

“It may seem like hindsight now, but I just knew that Doctor Who was going to be an enormous success. Don't ask me how. Not everybody thought as I did. I was universally scoffed at for my initial faith in the series, but I believed in it. It was magical.”

William Hartnell (1908–1975) English actor

I Felt Like the Pied Piper

Universe , Success

“This railway is the most absurd scheme that ever entered into the head of a man to conceive. Mr. Stephenson never had a plan — I do not believe he is capable of making one. He is either ignorant or something else which I will not mention. His is a mind perpetually fluctuating between opposite difficulties; he neither knows whether he is to make bridges over roads or rivers, or of one size or another; or to make embankments, or cuttings, or inclined planes, or in what way the thing is to be carried into effect. When you put a question to him upon a difficult point, he resorts to two or three hypothesis, and never comes to a decided conclusion. Is Mr. Stephenson to be the person upon whose faith this Committee is to pass this Bill involving property to the extent of £400,000/£500,000 when he is so ignorant of his profession as to propose to build a bridge not sufficient to carry off the flood water of the river or to permit any of the vessels to pass which of necessity must pass under it.”

Edward Hall Alderson (1787–1857) Lawyer and jurist

Edward Hall Alderson, counsel employed in opposition to the proposed Liverpool & Manchester Railway. On 25th April, 1825, George Stephenson gave evidence to the House of Commons committee looking into the proposed railway.

Way , Question , Water , Personality

“My scepticism warns me of the danger of becoming a fanatic, a danger which no faith has yet averted.”

Karlheinz Deschner (1924–2014) German writer and activist

Meine Skepsis bewahrt mich davor, Fanatiker zu werden wovor noch kein Glaube geschützt hat.
deschner.info http://www.deschner.info/index.htm?/de/person/zitate.htm

“Faith and Religiosity is compatible with human nature, The most Wretch man is one who has no religion.»”

Mohammad Khatami (1943) Iranian prominent reformist politician, scholar and shiite faqih.

از کتابِ « احزاب و شوراها ، نشرِ طرحِ نو ، ۱۳۸۸ ، ص ۲۰.

Religion , Nature

“This Prime Minister must be drummed from office and we will use each and every opportunity to make that a reality…But this Prime Minister deserves to be impeached - and we, with others, will present the case that he should be required to answer…I believe that this Prime Minister now operates outside the currency of debate, beyond the pale of decency…I don't just challenge the policies of Tony Blair, I challenge his morality…This is not a question of this Prime Minister - any prime minister - making a judgement call and just being wrong. It is not a matter, as Blair would have us believe, of someone acting in good faith and making an honest mistake. This is a man who buried the intelligence that was inconvenient, manipulated the information to suit his purpose, and entered into a secret pact with the American President to go to war come what may.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Speech at the SNP annual conference (24 September 2004), quoted in The Independent, ' Salmond back with threat to impeach PM http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/salmond-back-with-threat-to-impeach-pm-6160873.html' (25 September 2004).

War , Secret , Intelligence , Question

“I lay awake wondering how I could pray for faith to a God I could not believe in without faith. That seemed to leave me suspended between two questions. These logical puzzles were generated spontaneously within my mind. They didn’t come from my school or my family. Most of my neighborhood friends were Protestants who were not interested in theories about God, apart from the fact that of course he existed.
I bought the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church lock, stock, and barrel, apart from the God problem.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God

God , School , Family , Question

“You know, as God does, how I went about among you from my youth in the faith of truth and in sincerity of heart. As well as to the heathen among whom I live, I have shown them trust and always show them trust. God knows I did not cheat any one of them, nor consider it, for the sake of God and his Church, lest I arouse them and [bring about] persecution for them and for all of us, and lest the Lord's name be blasphemed because of me, for it is written: 'Woe to the men through whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

The Confession (c. 452?)

Men , God , Truth , Youth

“Sören Kierkegaard has another answer: human existence is possible as existence not in despair, as existence not in tragedy; it is possible as existence in faith… Faith is the belief that in God the impossible is possible, that in Him time and eternity are one, that both life and death are meaningful.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition (1993)
1990s and later

Life , Death , God , Time

“When Imam Ali was asked about Faith in Religion, he replied that the structure of faith is supported by four pillars endurance, conviction, justice and jihad.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Religion , Justice , Support

“…my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking; the silent touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality.”

Andre Dubus (1936–1999) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

On Charon’s Wharf.
Broken Vessels (1991)

Love , God , Idea , Thinking

“Other people snap up the riskless profits pretty fast and bid the price of calculable risk opportunities to near their fair values. Things get a lot less crowded if you go for the incalculable risks, leaps of faith that cannot be inspected carefully before takeoff. So that is where you find extraordinary opportunities.”

Aaron C. Brown (1956) American financial analyst

Source: The Poker Face of Wall Street (2006), Chapter 1, The Art of Uncalculated Risk, p. 2

People

“Communism, my friend, is more than Marxism, just as Catholicism … is more than the Roman Curia. There is a mystique as well as a politique…. Catholics and communists have commited great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate…if you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?”

Graham Greene book The Comedians

Pt. 2, ch. 4, sct. 4
The Comedians (1966)

Communication , Water , Indifference

“I that have loved thee thus before thou fadest,
My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning.
The world shall find this miracle in me,
That fire can burn when all the matter's spent.”

Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) Poet and historian

Delia (1592), Sonnet XXXIII.

Love , World , Art

“Q2 Does faith deal only with unseen things, or not?”

Peter Abelard Sic et Non

Sic et Non (1120)

“The Hindu, sickened by idolatry (Islam's and Christianity's common name for Hinduism), turns to the other two religions which surround him, and inquires into their respective claims … we must be ready at hand to meet him with the proofs of our most holy faith… the comparison of the two religIOns, Christianity and Islam, cannot fail to be of essential service, under God's blessings, to lead to practical results.”

John Muir (indologist) (1810–1882) Scottish Sanskrit scholar and Indologist

Calcutta Review in 1845, Quoted from Swarup, Ram (1995). Hindu view of Christianity and Islam.

God , Religion

“We are never less alone than when we are in the society of a single, faithful friend; never less deserted than when we are carried in the arms of the All-Powerful.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 281.

“The brahman Kasibhāradvāja addressed the Blessed One with a verse.
'You say you are a ploughman, but we do not see your ploughing. Being asked, tell us about your ploughing, so that we may know your ploughing.'
'Faith is the seed, penance is the rain, wisdom is my yoke and plough; modesty is the pole, mind is the yoke-tie, mindfulness is my ploughshare and goad….
Thus is this ploughing of mine ploughed. It has the death-free as its fruit. Having ploughed this ploughing one is freed from all misery.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

§ 75-80
Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Khuddaka Nikaya (Minor Collection), Sutta Nipata (Suttas falling down)

Death , Wisdom

“Fear is the opposite of faith.”

Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) American Mormon leader

Do Not Fear http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/do-not-fear Boyd K. Packer, April 2004

Fear

“I do not think we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith based community in Georgia of which my family and I are a part of for all of our lives.”

Nathan Deal (1942) American politician

Remarks on HB 757 https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/28/georgia-governors-wise-veto-of-anti-lgbt-bill-still-raises-a-red-flag/ (March 2016)

Family , Communication , Thinking , Parting

“Though Seas and Land betwixt us both,
Our Faith and Troth,
Like separated soules,
All time and space controules:
Above the highest sphere wee meet
Unseene, unknowne, and greet as Angels greet.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

To Lucasta: Going Beyond the Seas, st. 3.
Lucasta (1649)

Angels , Soul , Time , Sea

“But if there has been on this earth no real, perfect human life, no love that never cooled, no faith that never failed, which may shine as a loadstar across the darkness of our experience, a light to light amidst all convictions of our own meanness and all suspicions of other's littleness, why, we may have a religion, but we have not a Christianity. For if we lose Him as a Brother, we cannot feel Him as a Saviour.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 55.

Love , Life , Religion , Feeling

“In thinking of history in this [progressive & eschatological] way Islam shares common ground with Christianity and with the secular creeds of the modern West. It is misleading to represent Islam and ‘the West’ as forming civilisations that have nothing in common. Christianity and Islam are integral parts of western monotheism, and as such they share a view of history that marks them off from the rest of the world. Both are militant faiths that seek to convert all humankind. Other religions have been implicated in twentieth-century violence—the state cult of Shintō in Japan during the militarist period and Hindu nationalism in contemporary India, for example. But only Christianity and Islam have engendered movements that are committed to the systematic use of force to achieve universal goals.”

John Gray book Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

Enlightenment and Terror in the Twentieth Century: Terror and the Western Tradition
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)

World , Religion , Way , History

“It is this detachment, this use of comparison, his faith in the possibility of applying scientific processes of thought to the organisation of industry, which constitute Babbage's unique contribution to the advancement of management. More than half a century before Taylor was to illuminate the same point, with far greater effect because he was a practising engineer, Babbage had stumbled on the underlying truth that there are general principles applicable to the manufacture of products by machinery, and that it is an understanding of these principles rather than the technical knowledge of how to make a particular article which is of the first importance.”

Lyndall Urwick (1891–1983) British management consultant

Vol II. p. 23 as cited in: Hopf (1947).
1940s, The Making Of Scientific Management, 1945

Truth , Understanding , Knowledge

“Democracy elects men totally lacking in scruples, without any morals; those who will pay better, thus those with a higher power of corruption; magicians, charlatans, demagogues, who will excel in their fields during the electoral campaign. Several good men would be able to slip through among them, even politicians of good faith. But they would be the slaves of the former.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Men , Democracy

“The government of the Israelites was a Federation, held together by no political authority, but by the unity of… faith and founded not on physical force but on a voluntary covenant. The principle of self-government was carried out not only in each tribe, but in every group of at least 120 families; and there was neither privilege of rank nor inequality before the law. Monarchy was so alien to the primitive spirit of the community that it was resisted by Samuel… The throne was erected on a compact; and the king was deprived of the right of legislation among a people that recognised no lawgiver but God, whose highest aim in politics was to… make its government conform to the ideal type that was hallowed by the sanctions of heaven. The inspired men who rose in unfailing succession to prophesy against the usurper and the tyrant, constantly proclaimed that the laws, which were divine, were paramount over sinful rulers, and appealed… to the healing forces that slept in the uncorrupted consciences of the masses. Thus the… Hebrew nation laid down the parallel lines on which all freedom has been won—the doctrine of national tradition and the doctrine of the higher law; the principle that a constitution grows from a root, by process of development… and the principle that all political authorities must be tested and reformed according to a code which was not made by man. The operation of these principles… occupies the whole of the space we are going over together.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Source: The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Men , God , People , Family

“Ah son! compel me not to speak
The sorrows of our race!
That youth the Fates but just display
To earth, nor let him longer stay:
With gifts like these for aye to hold,
Rome's heart had e'en been overbold.
Ah! what a groan from Mars's plain
Shall o'er the city sound!
How wilt thou gaze on that long train,
Old Tiber, rolling to the main
Beside his new-raised mound!
No youth of Ilium's seed inspires
With hope as fair his Latian sires:
Nor Rome shall dandle on her knee
A nursling so adored as he.
O piety! O ancient faith!
O hand untamed in battle scathe!
No foe had lived before his sword,
Stemmed he on foot the war's red tide
Or with relentless rowel gored
His foaming charger's side.
Dear child of pity! shouldst thou burst
The dungeon-bars of Fate accurst,
Our own Marcellus thou!”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book VI, pp. 226–227

Fate , War , Youth , Hope

“[The Mother and myself] do not found ourselves on faith alone, but on a great ground of knowledge which we have been developing and testing all our lives. I think I can say that I have been testing day and night for years upon years more scrupulously than any scientist his theory or his method on the physical plane. That is why I am not alarmed by the aspect of the world around me or disconcerted by the often successful fury of the adverse Forces who increase in their rage as the Light comes nearer and nearer to the field of earth and Matter.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

August 30, 1932
India's Rebirth

World , Knowledge , Thinking , Light

“Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death….. As a matter of doctrine, the Muslim conception of tolerance is one in which non-Muslims have been politically and economically subdued, converted, or put to sword….. Yes, the Bible contains its own sadistic lunacy—but the above [Qur'an] quotations [taken from The End of Faith, pp. 117-123] can be fairly said to convey the central message of the Qur’an—and of Islam at nearly every moment in its history. The Qur’an does not contain anything like a Sermon on the Mount. Nor is it a vast and self-contradictory book like the Old Testament, in which whole sections (like Leviticus and Deuteronomy) can be easily ignored and forgotten. The result is a unified message of triumphalism, otherworldliness, and religious hatred that has become a problem for the entire world. And the world still waits for moderate Muslims to speak honestly about it.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/honesty-the-muslim-worlds-scarcest-resource 2012-03-01 Honesty: The Muslim World’s Scarcest Resource? - SamHarris.com, accessed March 1, 2012
2010s

Death , Books , World , Religion

“The participation we have in the knowledge of truth, such as it is, is not acquired by our own force: God has sufficiently given us to understand that, by the witnesses he has chosen out of the common people, simple and ignorant men, that he has been pleased to employ to instruct us in his admirable secrets. Our faith is not of our own acquiring; 'tis purely the gift of another's bounty: 'tis not by meditation, or by virtue of our own understanding, that we have acquired our religion, but by foreign authority and command wherein the imbecility of our own judgment does more assist us than any force of it; and our blindness more than our clearness of sight: 'tis more by__ the mediation of our ignorance than of our knowledge that we know any thing of the divine wisdom. 'Tis no wonder if our natural and earthly parts cannot conceive that supernatural and heavenly knowledge: let us bring nothing of our own, but obedience and subjection; for, as it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12
Essais (1595), Book II

Wisdom , Men , God , People

“As I tried to understand my desire to “do good” and where it came from, I decided I did it because Jesus commanded that we care for the needy. But after I lost the faith, I remembered that I had always tried to do good and help others, and that the desire to act selflessly for others transcends religion. Though I didn’t have the words for it at the time, I was beginning to cultivate my Humanistic worldview.”

Chris Stedman (1987) American activist

Source: Faitheist (2012), Chapter 6, “Putting My Money Where Other People’s Mouths Are” (p. 109)

Religion , Understanding , Time , Help

“World order will be secured only when the whole world has laid down these weapons which seem to offer us present security but threaten the future survival of the human race. That armistice day seems very far away. The vast resources of this planet are being devoted more and more to the means of destroying, instead of enriching, human life.
But the world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution. Nor has mankind survived the tests and trials of thousands of years to surrender everything — including its existence — now. This Nation has the will and the faith to make a supreme effort to break the log jam on disarmament and nuclear tests — and we will persist until we prevail, until the rule of law has replaced the ever dangerous use of force.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Second State of the Union Address

Life , World , Law , Effort

“In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding “truth”: dogma, authority, and revelation. Science does find truth, faith does not.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" William Lane Craig defends his ridiculous claim that animals don’t suffer http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/william-lane-craig-defends-his-ridiculous-claim-that-animals-dont-suffer/" February 9, 2013

Truth , Way , Science

“As someone who's had the privilege of leading the human genome project, I've had the opportunity to study our own DNA instruction book at a level of detail that was never really possible before. It's also now been possible to compare our DNA with that of many other species. The evidence supporting the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming. I would not necessarily wish that to be so, as a Bible-believing Christian. But it is so. It does not serve faith well to try to deny that.”

Francis S. Collins (1950) Geneticist; Director of the National Institutes of Health

"God Is Not Threatened by Our Scientific Adventures" http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2006/08/God-Is-Not-Threatened-By-Our-Scientific-Adventures.aspx, interview by Laura Sheahen, Beliefnet (undated)

Books , Idea , Support , Study

“His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.”

Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) British writer

On the Death of Crashaw; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, He can't be wrong whose life is in the right", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epilogue iii, line 303.

Life

“Consequently, it became necessary for the rulers of Islam (the Caliphs) to follow the policy of Iranian Emperors in order to ensure the greatness of True Word, the supremacy of the Muslim religion… overthrow of the enemies of the Faith… and maintenance of their own authority.”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Fatawa-i-Jahandari, p.39. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
Fatawa-i-Jahandari

Religion

“The eye of the yeoman and peasant sought in vain the tall form of old Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, as, wrapped in his laced cloak, and with beard and whiskers duly composed, he moved slowly through the aisles, followed be the faithful mastiff, or bloodhound, which in old time had saved his master by his fidelity, and which regularly followed him to church. Bevis indeed, fell under the proverb which avers, ‘He is a good dog, which goes to church’; for, bating an occasional temptation to warble along with the accord, he behaved himself as decorously as any of the congregation, and returned much edified, perhaps, as most of them.”

Walter Scott book Woodstock

Woodstock (1826), Ch.1.

Dogs , Time

“Your Dante! Homer of the Christian age,
The sacred poet of Faith’s mysteries—
Hero of thought—whose gloomy genius plunged
In Styx, and pierced to hell; and whose deep soul
Was like the abyss it fathomed.”

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

Translations, From the French

Age , Soul , Hell

“Every human being is a child of God and has more good in him than evil — but circumstances and associates can step up the bad and reduce the good. I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency — you may say goodness — of the human being.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Interview in Modern Maturity magazine (December-January 1975-76)

God , Evil

“.. As Salmanezer and Nebuchadnezzar had formerly carried the Jews to Babylon, so now from all the frontier provinces of the new kingdom (of Armenia) - from Corduene, Adiabene, Assyria, Cilicia, Cappadocia - the inhabitants, especially the Greek or half-Greek citizens of the towns, were compelled to settle with their whole goods and chattels in the new capital, one of those gigantic cities proclaiming rather the nothingness of the people than the greatness of the rulers, which sprang up in the countries of the Euphrates on every change in the supreme sovereignty at the fiat of the new grant Sultan. the new 'city of Tigranes", Tigranocerta, situated in in the most southern province of Armenia, not far from the Mesopotamian frontier, was a city like Nineveh and Babylon, with walls fifty yards high, and the appendages of palace, garden and park that were appropriate to sultanism In other respects, too, the new great king proved faithful to his part. As amidst the perpetual childhood of the East the childlike conceptions of kings with real crowns on their heads have never disappeared, Tigranes, when he showed himself in public, appeared in the state and costume of a successor of Darius and Xerxes, with the purple fagtan, the half white half-purple tunic, the long plaited trousers, the high turban, and the royal diadem - attended moreover and served in slavish fashion, wherever he went or stoood, by four "kings."”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Part: 1. Chapter 2 Pg. 47 - "Rule of the Sullan Restoration" Translated by W.P. Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

People , Fashion , Appearance , Change

“Doubt is a lack of confidence or assurance that God will keep his promises. Faith is an active confidence that God’s promises are always true.”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 56

God , Confidence

“You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Faith, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXI - Rebelliousness

“After all, in the poets love has its priests, and sometimes one hears a voice which knows how to defend it; but of faith one hears never a word. Who speaks in honor of this passion? Philosophy goes further. Theology sits rouged at the window and courts its favor, offering to sell her charms to philosophy. it is supposed to be difficult to understand Hegel, but to understand Abraham is a trifle. To go beyond Hegel's is a miracle, but to get beyond Abraham is the easiest thing of all.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Problemata: Preliminary Expectoration
1840s, Fear and Trembling (1843)

Love , Understanding , Passion

“If I had to choose between having someone physically faithful to me or having him committed to my preservation, I would opt for the latter because there is no doubt in my mind when I see couples at parties selling each other out which is the worst offense. Physical fidelity is a lovely thing if someone feels that way about you willingly, but relatively meaningless of you exact it for a price. And while it is easy enough to be faithful for the first five or ten years, it is more difficult by twice each year after that, so women as well as men are finding it hard to do.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Love , Women , Men , Way

“Our lives are more like fragmentary dreams than the enactments of conscious selves. We control very little of what we most care about; many of our most fateful decisions are made unbeknownst to ourselves. Yet we insist that mankind can achieve what we cannot: conscious mastery of its existence. This is the creed of those who have given up an irrational belief in God for an irrational faith in mankind.”

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

The Deception: At the Masked Ball (p. 38)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

God , Fate , Dreams , Decision

“For the further western society retreats from its core morality, the more it opens the way for Islam to fill the gaps left by Christianity in full flight from its own beliefs. Multiculturalism is predicated on the idea that all faiths are equal; but the fact is that if enfeebled Christianity no longer identifies itself as the spiritual pastor of the culture it founded, then Islam will move into the vacuum.”

Melanie Phillips (1951) British journalist

"How the West was lost" http://www.melaniephillips.com/how-the-west-was-lost (May 11, 2002)

Way , Idea

“I have a fundamental faith in folk, that people are interesting and good.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

Quoted by Ruth Gledhill in The Times (10 October 2008).

People

“The king, in his zeal to propagate the faith, now marched against the Hindoos of Nagrakote [Nagarkot Kangra], breaking down their idols and razing their temples. The fort, at that time denominated the Fort of Bheem, was closely invested by the Mahomedans, who had first laid waste the country around it with fire and sword.'…'In the year AH 402 (AD 1011), Mahmood resolved on the conquest of Tahnesur [Thanesar (Haryana)], in the kingdom of Hindoostan. It had reached the ears of the king that Tahnesur was held in the same veneration by idolaters, as Mecca by the faithful; that they had there set up a number of idols, the principal of which they called Jugsom, pretending that it had existed ever since the creation. Mahmood having reached Punjab, required, according to the subsisting treaty with Anundpal, that his army should not be molested on its march through his country…'The Raja's brother, with two thousand horse was also sent to meet the army, and to deliver the following message:- "My brother is the subject and tributary of the King, but he begs permission to acquaint his Majesty, that Tahnesur is the principal place of worship of the inhabitants of the country: that if it is required by the religion of Mahmood to subvert the religion of others, he has already acquitted himself of that duty, in the destruction of the temple of Nagrakote. But if he should be pleased to alter his resolution regarding Tahnesur, Anundpal promises that the amount of the revenues of that country shall be annually paid to Mahmood; that a sum shall also be paid to reimburse him for the expense of his expedition, besides which, on his own part he will present him with fifty elephants, and jewels to a considerable amount." Mahmood replied, "The religion of the faithful inculcates the following tenet: That in proportion as the tenets of the prophet are diffused, and his followers exert themselves in the subversion of idolatry, so shall be their reward in heaven; that, therefore, it behoved him, with the assistance of God, to root out the worship of idols from the face of all India. How then should he spare Tahnesur?"… This answer was communicated to the Raja of Dehly, who, resolving to oppose the invaders, sent messengers throughout Hindoostan to acquaint the other rajas that Mahmood, without provocation, was marching with a vast army to destroy Tahnesur, now under his immediate protection. He observed, that if a barrier was not expeditiously raised against this roaring torrent, the country of Hindoostan would be soon overwhelmed, and that it behoved them to unite their forces at Tahnesur, to avert the impending calamity….”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

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. 27-37.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

God , Religion , Communication , Time

“Faith just doesn't have anything to do with what I'm doing as a scientist. It's nice if you can believe in God, because then you see more of a purpose in things. Even if you don't, though, it doesn't mean that there's no purpose. It doesn't mean that there's no goodness. I think that there's a virtue in being good in and of itself. I think that one can work with the world we have.”

Lisa Randall (1962) American theoretical physicist and an expert on particle physics and cosmology

The Discover Interview: Lisa Randall (July 2006)

God , World , Thinking

“The intellect had rejected the rational basis of belief, yet the imagination & sensibility yearn for simple faith.”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

A Proper Gentleman, 1977

Imagination

“You must place your faith in the one indestructible, imperishable God. To do this, you must stop depending on the kings, forces, and armies within you. When you give up all this and stand defenseless and alone, saying, O God, it is all Your will! The sheikh will stand by your side. It is only when you surrender to Allah that the sheikh, who is the explaining wisdom of the Qutbiyyat which guides you on the path of God, will come to stand by your side. 'Son' he will say, 'Now you are ready. Come, let us go.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh (1980)

Wisdom , God , Dependency

“As a people [Jews] still have faith in God, though in their blindness and pride of heart they have stumbled over the humility of God's appointed messenger for the world's salvation; so that, instead of receiving him, they crucified the Savior, the Lord of glory. And yet the apostles and prophets show us that even this flagrant crim, to which their pride and self-will drove them, was not one which could never be forgiven them. Because of it, they have been punished, and that severely. When they condemned the Just One and said, "His blood be upon and upon our children," they little expected the fearful recompense which followed.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 246.

God , Children , People , World

“[E]ither everything is illusion, nature as well as revelation, or experience alone can explain faith.”

Julien Offray de La Mettrie book Man a Machine

p, 125
Man a Machine (1747)

Nature

“Barbie’s one of those fads whose popularity makes you lose all faith in the human race.”

Connie Willis Bellwether

Source: Bellwether (1996), Chapter 3 “Tributaries”, Section 3 (p. 117)

“Christianity excludes malignity, subdues selfishness, regulates the passions, subordinates the appetites, quickens the intellect, exalts the affections. It promotes industry, honesty, truth, purity, kindness. It humbles the proud, exalts the lowly, upholds law, favors liberty, is essential to it, and would unite men in one great brotherhood. It is the breath of life to social and civil well-being here, and spreads the azure of that heaven into whose unfathomed depths the eye of faith loves to look.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 139.

Love , Life , Men , Truth

“I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again; I wasn't my own man anymore; I was my country's.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2008, (2008)

Love , Life , Wisdom , People

“Faith teaches that there is a right and wrong beyond mere opinion or desire. Most importantly, it teaches us that freedom is not an end in itself, that how freedom is exercised matters as much as freedom itself”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

March 15th, 2009.
2009

Exercises , Freedom

“Like the intricately rational web of theology woven around the irrational mysteries of faith, the sober explanations of institutions for hoarding literary relics seem like elegant post-factum justifications for what is essentially a sense of sacred awe. An institution of learning seeks significant manuscripts because they possess qualities that scholarship cannot entirely reproduce — an authentic, holistic connection with the great writers of the past. It is not the intellectual content of the manuscript that is important but its material presence — ink spots, tobacco stains, pinworm holes, and foxing included.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

"The Magical Value of Manuscripts," http://www.danagioia.net/essays/ehop.htm The Hudson Review (Spring 1996); later published as an introduction to The Hand of the Poet: Poems and Papers in Manuscript, ed. Rodney Phillips (1997)
Essays

Sense , Learning , Past