Quotes about faith
page 39

“My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12

Idea

“Thus I am bounden to keep it in my faith. For on the same day that it was shewed, what time that the Sight was passed, as a wretch I forsook it, and openly I said that I had raved. Then our Lord Jesus of His mercy would not let it perish, but He showed it all again within in my soul with more fulness, with the blessed light of His precious love: saying these words full mightily and full meekly: Wit it now well: it was no raving that thou sawest this day. As if He had said: For that the Sight was passed from thee, thou losedst it and hadst not skill to keep it. But wit it now; that is to say, now that thou seest it.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

This was said not only for that same time, but also to set thereupon the ground of my faith when He saith anon following: But take it, believe it, and keep thee therein and comfort thee therewith and trust thou thereto; and thou shalt not be overcome.
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 70

Love, Making love, Soul, Light

“The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 11. Memes: the new replicators

“Recourse to God, so infinitely good, is all the more necessary because, far from abating, the struggle grows fiercer and expands unceasingly. It is no longer only the Christian faith that they would uproot at all costs from the hearts of the people; it is any belief which lifting man above the horizon of this world would supernaturally bring back his wearied eyes to heaven. Illusion on the subject is no longer possible. War has been declared against everything supernatural, because behind the supernatural stands God, and because it is God that they want to tear out of the mind and heart of man.”

Pope Pius X (1835–1914) Catholic Pope and saint

Papal encyclical letter "Une foise encore" http://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_06011907_une-fois-encore.html to the French people and clergy on the separation of Church and State, Rome, 6 January 1907.

God, War, People, World

“Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them. It's not the tools that you have faith in — tools are just tools. They work, or they don't work. It's people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I'm still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long. … The world's clearly a better place. Individuals can now do things that only large groups of people with lots of money could do before. What that means is, we have much more opportunity for people to get to the marketplace — not just the marketplace of commerce but the marketplace of ideas. The marketplace of publications, the marketplace of public policy. You name it. We've given individuals and small groups equally powerful tools to what the largest, most heavily funded organizations in the world have. And that trend is going to continue. You can buy for under $10,000 today a computer that is just as powerful, basically, as one anyone in the world can get their hands on.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

1990s, Rolling Stone interview (1994)

Money, People, World, Idea

“Bread has always been one of the oldest subjects of fetishism and obsession in my work, the first and the one to which I have remained the most faithful. I painted the same subject 19 years ago 'Basket of Bread, 1929.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

By making a very careful comparison of the two pictures, everyone can study all the history of painting right there, from the linear charm of primitivism to stereoscopic hyper-aestheticism.
Dali's quote, 1945; as cited by R. Descharnes (1985), in Salvador Dalí. Abrams. p. 94. ISBN 0-8109-0830-1
Dali just finished his second painting 'Basket of Bread, 1945'
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1941 - 1950

Painting

“Well, what if I'm wrong, I mean — anybody could be wrong. We could all be wrong about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the pink unicorn and the flying teapot. You happen to have been brought up, I would presume, in a Christian faith. You know what it's like to not believe in a particular faith because you're not a Muslim. You're not a Hindu. Why aren't you a Hindu? Because you happen to have been brought up in America, not in India. If you had been brought up in India, you'd be a Hindu. If you had been brought up in Denmark in the time of the Vikings, you'd be believing in Wotan and Thor. If you were brought up in classical Greece, you'd be believing in Zeus. If you were brought up in central Africa, you'd be believing in the great Juju up the mountain. There's no particular reason to pick on the Judeo-Christian god, in which by the sheerest accident you happen to have been brought up and ask me the question, "What if I'm wrong?"”

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

What if you're wrong about the great Juju at the bottom of the sea? <br class="br">Answering audience questions after a reading of The God Delusion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mmskXXetcg, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, <br class="br">Posed question: "This is probably going to be the most simplest one for you to answer, but: What if you're wrong?"

God, Mountain, Question, Time

“We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn this iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."”

James Russell Lowell The Present Crisis

St. 9
The Present Crisis (1844)

Fate, Children, Making love, Soul

“Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

The River Duddon, sonnet 34 - Afterthought, l. 13 (1820)

Love, Making love, Hope, Feeling

“What is the Jew?...What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish. What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?!
The Jew — is the symbol of eternity. … He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear. The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Attributed in "The Final Resolution", in Jewish World Periodical (1908), p. 189
Disputed

People, World, Religion, Anger

“One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found — and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

From Nothing Personal, a collaboration with the photographer Richard Avedon (1964). Baldwin's text for the volume can be found " here https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=cibs".

Life, Children, Lovers, Light

“It seems that the snobs at The New York Times would rather see more teens go ahead and off themselves than find salvation through the Christian faith (imaginary or not).”

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/why-does-hollywood-hate-to-save-a-life

Time

“The man was not merely very human; he was humanity. And I reflected that it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 40 : Which Mr. Flaherty Does Not Quite Explain

Making love, Dreams

“The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, a lover's quarrel with the world. In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. If Robert Frost was much honored in his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths. Yet in retrospect, we see how the artist's fidelity has strengthened the fiber of our national life. If sometimes our great artist have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.”

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

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Life, Truth, World, Making love

“There are two qualities that no quality is over; the faith in God and the serving of brothers.”

Hasan al-Askari (846–874) Eleventh of the Twelve Imams

[Baqir Shareef al-Qurashi, Abdullah al-Shahin, The Life of Imam Hasan al-'Askari, Wonderful short maxims, 2005]
Religion, God

God

“On the whole, we will repeat that this Religion of Mahomet's is a kind of Christianity; has a genuine element of what is spiritually highest looking through it, not to be hidden by all its imperfections. The Scandinavian God Wish, the god of all rude men, — this has been enlarged into a Heaven by Mahomet; but a Heaven symbolical of sacred Duty, and to be earned by faith and well-doing, by valiant action, and a divine patience which is still more valiant. It is Scandinavian Paganism, and a truly celestial element superadded to that. Call it not false; look not at the falsehood of it, look at the truth of it. For these twelve centuries, it has been the religion and life-guidance of the fifth part of the whole kindred of Mankind. Above all things, it has been a religion heartily believed.”

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

These Arabs believe their religion, and try to live by it! No Christians, since the early ages, or only perhaps the English Puritans in modern times, have ever stood by their Faith as the Moslem do by theirs, — believing it wholly, fronting Time with it, and Eternity with it.
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Life, Men, God, Truth

“The faith in the nation is a matter for everyone, never a group, a class or an economic clique. The eternal must be distinguished from the temporal. Maintaining a rotten economic system has nothing to do with nationalism, which is an affirmation of the Fatherland. I can love Germany and hate capitalism. Not only can I, I must. Only the annihilation of a system of exploitation carries with it the core of the rebirth of our people.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Love, Hate, People, Making love

“The faculty by which man is differentiated from the lower animals is his reasoning power. But the devout believer renounces reason, refuses to explain the things which surround him, the innumerable natural phenomena, because his religious faith is enough for him. The brain loses the habit of thinking; and this religious sottishness hurls mankind back into animalism.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)

Nature, Thinking, Animals

“Place your only faith, reliance, and trust on Karma”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Vol. I, Letter 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

“Let us have faith.
No, let us not be cast down.
To despair is to desert.
Let us look to the future.
The future,—no one knows what tempests still separate us from port, but the port, the distant and radiant port, is in sight; the future, we repeat, is the republic for all men; let us add, the future is peace with all men.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Napoleon the Little (1852), Conclusion, Part Second, II
Napoleon the Little (1852)

Men, Peace, Distant, Future

“We who combat them are "the eternal enemies of order.". We are—for they can as yet find nothing but this worn-out word—we are demagogues. In the language of the Duke of Alva, to believe in the sacredness of the human conscience, to resist the Inquisition, to brave the state for one's faith, to draw the sword for one's country, to defend one's worship, one's city, one's home, one's house, one's family, and one's God, was called vagabondism... The man is a demagogue in the nineteenth century, who in the sixteenth would have been a vagabond.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Book II, XI
Napoleon the Little (1852)

God, Family, Home, Drawing

“Mental states such as loneliness, compulsion, anguish, attachment, pain, and faith are not just "all in the head" but in the brain as well. Brain, mind, and body are a continuum. Our thoughts—intention, fear, images, suggestion, expectation— alter the brain's chemistry. And it works both ways; thoughts can be altered by changing the brain's chemistry with drugs, nutrients, oxygen. The brain is hopelessly complex.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Six, Liberating Knowledge: News from the Frontiers of Science

Pain, Fear, Way, Change

“We call upon you to witness, however, in the name of the Lord, beloved sons, Catholics who in the kingdom of the Gauls are united, being mindful of your religion and the faith of your fathers, we counsel you from the innermost feelings of our heart lest you secede from it, inasmuch as it is the one and the true religion, which bestows eternal life and protects citizens, even societies, and makes them prosperous. Take special care lest you proffer ears to the insidious voices of this secular sect, whose voices furnish death, and avoid in this way all usurpers whether they are called archbishops, bishops or parish priests, so that there is nothing in common between you and them, especially in divine matters...in one word, cling to us: for no-one can be in the Church of Christ unless he is unified with the visible head of the Church itself and is strengthened in the cathedral of Peter.”

Pope Pius VI (1717–1799) pope and sovereign of the Papal States

Charitas (13 April 1791), quoted in Philip G. Dwyer and Peter McPhee (eds.), The French Revolution and Napoleon: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2002), p. 50

Life, Death, Making love, Religion

“You may ask what then will become of the fundamental principles of equity and fair play which our constitutions enshrine; and whether I seriously believe that unsupported they will serve merely as counsels of moderation. I do not think that anyone can say what will be left of those principles; I do not know whether they will serve only as counsels; but this much I think I do know — that a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will perish. What is the spirit of moderation? It is the temper which does not press a partisan advantage to its bitter end, which can understand and will respect the other side, which feels a unity between all citizens—real and not the factitious product of propaganda—which recognizes their common fate and their common aspirations—in a word, which has faith in the sacredness of the individual.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

"The Contribution of an Independent Judiciary to Civilization" (1942).
Extra-judicial writings

Fate, Feeling, Understanding, Thinking

“In spite of all the dishonour,
the broken standards, the broken lives,
The broken faith in one place or another,
There was something left that was more than the tales
Of old men on winter evenings.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)

Men, Winter

“There is a fine line between public expressions of faith and aggressive declarations thereof, and religious tolerance is inversely proportional to the latter.”

John Allen Paulos book A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

Source: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995), Chapter 50, “Which Way Mecca?” (p. 198)

“Wisdom of what herself approves makes choice,
Nor is led captive by the common voice.
Clear-sighted Reason Wisdom's judgment leads,
And Sense, her vassal, in her footsteps treads.
That thou to Truth the perfect way may'st know,
To thee all her specific forms I'll show:
He that the way to honesty will learn,
First what's to be avoided must discern.
Thyself from flatt'ring self-conceit defend,
Nor what thou dost not know to know pretend.
Some secrets deep in abstruse darkness lie:
To search them thou wilt need a piercing eye.
Not rashly therefore to such things assent,
Which, undeceived, thou after may'st repent;
Study and time in these must thee instruct,
And others' old experience may conduct.
Wisdom herself her ear doth often lend
To counsel offer'd by a faithful friend.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

Source: Of Prudence (1668), line 11

Wisdom, Truth, Lie, Secret

“My faith is strongest when the night sky is clear.”

Cometan

Book: Cometan, the Omnidoxy

Night

“No other action provides me with as much fulfilment of faith than when I look up at the stars and wonder of all there is beyond our small world”

Cometan

Book: Cometan, the Omnidoxy

World, Star

“You wretches detestable on land and sea: you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in the eyes of posterity. However, we will spare your lives if you remain faithful and loyal. Choose now which course you want to follow.”

Richard II of England (1367–1400) King of England

Speech to the peasants at Waltham, Essex (22 June 1381) according to Thomas Walsingham, quoted in Nigel Saul, Richard II (Yale University Press, 1999), p. 74

Sea

“We want Jesus as the visibly resurrected one, as the splendid, transfigured Jesus. We want his visible power and glory, and we no longer want to return to the cross, to believing against all appearances, to suffering in faith … it is good here... let us make dwellings. …
The disciples are not allowed to do this. God's glory comes quite near in the radiant cloud of God's presence, and the Father's voice says: "This is my beloved son; listen to him!" … There is no abiding in and enjoying his visible glory here. Whoever recognizes the transfigured Jesus, whoever recognizes Jesus as God, must also immediately recognize Him as the crucified human being, and should hear him, obey him. Luther's vision of Christ: "the crucified Lord!"”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

… Now the disciples are overcome by fear. Now they comprehend what is going on. They were, after all, still in the world, unable to bear such glory. They sinned against God's glory.

p. 3
Meditations on the Cross (1996), Back to the Cross

God, Making love, Suffering, Appearance

“Jesus is no draughtsman of political blueprints, he is the one who vanquished evil through suffering. It looked as though evil had triumphed on the cross, but the real victory belonged to Jesus. And the cross is the only justification for the precept of non-violence, for it alone can kindle a faith in the victory over evil which will enable men to obey that precept. And only such obedience is blessed with the promise that we shall be partakers of Christ's victory as well as his sufferings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), Revenge, p. 142

Men, Suffering, Evil, Victory

“I am neither a German citizen nor do I believe in anything that can be described as a "Jewish faith."”

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

But I am a Jew and glad to belong to the Jewish people, though I do not regard it in any way as chosen.

Letter to Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, 3 [5] April 1920, as quoted in Alice Calaprice, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein (2010), p. 195; citing Israelitisches Wochenblatt, 42 September 1920, The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Vol. 7, Doc. 37, and Vol. 9, Doc 368.
1920s

“All I can say is that the fake news just doesn’t get it, do they? They don’t get it. [inaudible 00:02:54] They just don’t get it. Hello Charleston, and I’m thrilled to be back in the great state of South Carolina with thousands of hardworking American Patriots who believe in faith, family, God, and country. Thank you. It’s a phenomenal crowd, only topped by the number of people outside that didn’t get in. If anybody would like to give up where you’re standing or your seat, please raise your hand. All right. Then let’s begin, right? Thank you all very much though. This is great. No, they don’t get it. Down the road, they have a rally for one of the people that are going to be running tomorrow. They’re trying to get to a hundred, but they’re not going to make it. So I think they’re going to set up a round table. Well, that’s what they do. So people want to go to a rally, they end up sitting at a round table talking about their definition of impeachment. Crazy.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2020s, 2020, February, Donald Trump Charleston, South Carolina Rally (February 28, 2020)

God, People, Making love, Family

“To me, faith means treating the truth as true.”

Anna J. Cooper (1858–1964) African-American author, educator, speaker and scholar

Source: A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892), p. 298

Truth

“The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 95
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Wisdom, People, Communication, Thinking

“Given the evidence at our disposal, only a fool would put any faith in the organic and the machine living harmoniously for the rest of time.”

Alastair Reynolds book House of Suns

Source: House of Suns (2008), Chapter 38 (pp. 501-502)

Fools, Time

“I think that the fundamental way in which we know Christianity is true is through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. I do not think that arguments and evidence are necessary in order for faith to be rational, or for you to know that God exists and has revealed himself in Christ. So I would say that the fundamental way we know Christianity is true is through the witness of the Holy Spirit and reason and argument then can confirm the Spirit's witness. The person who has good apologetic arguments passes, in a sense, a double warrant for his faith. He has the warrant provided by the Holy Spirit, and then he has the double warrant provided by argument and evidence. But should he lack the argument and evidence he can still be warranted just on the basis of the Holy Spirit. That's knowing Christianity to be true.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

God, Way, Thinking, Sense

“Doubt is never simply an intellectual problem. There is always a spiritual dimension to doubt, as well. There is an enemy of your souls, Satan, who hates you intensely and is bent on your destruction and who will do everything in his power to see that your faith is destroyed. And therefore when we have these intellectual doubts and problems we should never look at them as something that is spiritually neutral or divorce them from the spiritual conflict that we are involved in. Rather we need to take these doubts to God in prayer, to admit them honestly, to talk to our Christian friends about them, to not stuff them or hide them, we need to deal with them openly and honestly and talk to people about them and seek God's help in dealing with them.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Dealing with Doubt

18 November 2007

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-fDyPU3wlQ (2:11 into video)

God, Hate, People, Soul

“Caste is real. The working class is real. Being a Naga is real. But ‘India is just a geographical expression!’ Similarly, being a Muslim of course is real – Islam must be seen and talked of as one block of granite – ... But Hinduism? Why, there is no such thing: it is just an aggregation, a pile of assorted beliefs and practices – ... And anyone who maintains anything to the contrary is a fascist out to insinuate a unity, indeed to impose a uniformity, where there has been none. That is what our progressive ideologues declaim, as we have seen. In a word, the parts alone are real. The whole is just a construct. India has never been one, these ideologues insist – disparate peoples and regions were knocked together by the Aryans, by the Mughals, by the British for purposes of empire. Anyone who wants to use that construct – India – as the benchmark for determining the sort of structure under which we should live has a secret agenda – of enforcing Hindu hegemony.
This is the continuance of, in a sense the culmination of, the Macaulay-Missionary technique. The British calculated that to subjugate India and hold it, they must undermine the essence of the people: this was Hinduism, and everything which flowed from it. Hence the doggedness with which they set about to undermine the faith and regard of the people for five entities: the gods and goddesses the Hindus revered; the temples and idols in which they were enshrined; the texts they held sacred; the language in which those texts and everything sacred in that tradition was enshrined and which was even in mid-nineteenth-century the lingua franca – that is, Sanskrit; and the group whose special duty it had been over aeons to preserve that way of life – the Brahmins. The other component of the same exercise was to prop up the parts – the non-Hindus, the regional languages, the castes and groups which they calculated would be the most accessible to the missionaries and the empire – the innocent tribals, the untouchables.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998)

Life, God, People, Secret

“For unbelief was easier than belief, much less demanding and subtly flattering because the agnostic felt himself to be intellectually superior to the believer. And then unbelief haunted by faith, as she knew by experience, produced a rather pleasant nostalgia, while belief haunted by doubt involved real suffering.”

Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984) English fiction writer

The Scent of Water (1963), Chapter 13.2

Nostalgia, Suffering

“The trouble with you, Ti, lectured Leo kindly, is that you lack teaching experience. If you had, you’d have faith that the most unlikely people can learn the most amazing things.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988), Chapter 9 (pp. 166-167)

People, Learning

“The truth is that after the experiences of my wanderings across all of Latin America, and to top it off, in Guatemala, it didn’t take much to incite me to join any revolution against a tyrant, but Castro impressed me as an extraordinary man. He faced and overcame the most impossible things. He had an exceptional faith that once he left for Cuba, he would arrive. And that once he arrives, he would fight. And that fighting, he would win. I shared his optimism.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

As quoted in It Has Been 50 Years Since Che Guevara Was Murdered http://www.thenation.com/article/archive/it-has-been-50-years-since-che-guevara-was-murdered/, by Bill Ayers and Michael Steven Smith

Truth, Optimism, Fight

“A teacher's major contribution may pop out anonymously in the life of some ex-student's grandchild. A teacher, finally, has nothing to go on but faith, a student nothing to offer in return but testimony.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"Wallace Stegner and the Great Community"
What Are People For? (1990)

Life, Teachers

“If the Islamists managed to Islamize the whole world, it would not be due to their intellectual strength, nor their faith, let alone their military might but the cowardice of their opponents.”

Waleed Al-Husseini (1989) Palestinian essayist and writer

World

“When you have a fundamentalist faith you are certain that you are on the side of the angels.”

Michael Malice (1976) American writer

Interview on Rubin Report https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vV1dPMTU0OTIzMTcyOQ&episode=ZWVhMzI3MzQtNDJjZi0xMWVhLWI0NDktNzNmNjkwNTczNWUw&hl=en podcast, accessed 29 January 2020.

Angels

“One must have faith in the best in men and distrust the worst. One must allow the best to be shown so that it reveals and prevails over the worst. Nations should have a pillory for whoever stirs up useless hate, and another for whoever fails to tell them the truth in time.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Our America (1891)

Men, Hate, Truth, Time

“How unreliable is the woman caught being faithful! Today she is faithful to you, tomorrow to another.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

“Accursed be prayers, to hell with fasts,
and let confession of faith be damned.
O Bullah, I have found the Lord within,
and the world wanders in delusion!”

Bulleh Shah (1680–1757) Punjabi poet

Bulleh Shah, The Love-Intoxicated Iconoclast, p. 130
Stanzas

World, Hell

“I regret giving orders to shoot kar sevaks at Ayodhya. My decision to order firing at kar sevaks was to save Muslim minorities. This decision was needed to keep the faith of Muslims in this country intact.””

Mulayam Singh Yadav (1939–2022) Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh three times

Mulayam Singh Yadav quoted from ‘Mulayam Singh govt buried Karsevaks, conspired to hide actual number of casualties’: Republic TV exposé https://www.opindia.com/2019/02/mulayam-singh-govt-buried-karsevaks-conspired-to-hide-actual-number-of-casualties-republic-tv-expose/amp/

Decision, Country

“Due to having faith one relies on the practices,
Due to having wisdom one truly knows.
Of these two wisdom is the chief,
Faith is its prerequisite.”

Nagarjuna (150–250) Indian philosopher

The Precious Garland, 5

trans. by Jeffrey Hopkins, "Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation: Nagarjuna's Precious Garland" (1998), ISBN 1559398515
Major attributed works, Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland)

Wisdom

“What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us — what convictions, what courage, what faith — win or lose. A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Address to the Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois. (21 July 1952); published in Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952) p. 17

Courage, Wedding

“Faith does not mean paying lip service. Faith requires commitment.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

“Everyone else besides the faithful already knows that religion has nothing useful to say to science.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Science versus religion: Are they “gifts” to each other? https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2019/11/29/science-versus-religion-are-they-gifts-to-each-other/" November 29, 2019

Religion, Science

“As long as there remains the scent of faith in the hearts of our Ghazis,
so long shall the sword of Hindustan flash before the throne of London.”

Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775–1862) Mughal emperor

during in the Indian Mutiny, 1857
Poetry

Heart

“Faith is for the part of the story that superficially isn’t believable.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: The Rock that Is Higher (1993)

Parting

“There was no way he could anticipate every contingency. When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986), Chapter 19 (p. 320)

Way, Time

“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

Statement on Twitter https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau/status/825438460265762816 affirming Canada's commitment to refugee resettlement in the wake of President Donald Trump's controversial executive order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769 banning immigrants, refugees and travelers of primarily Muslim origin from entering the United States, January 28, 2017

War

“May God make us amongst those he allows to do good, and to practice it, and those who see the right path as none of us is without weakness; whosoever sees his weakness will forget those of others. May God make us die in the faith of Muhammad. Amen, Oh Master of the Universes.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibn Hazm's style of ending a work, in Salim al-Hassani, Ibn Hazm’s Philosophy and Thoughts on Science https://muslimheritage.com/ibn-hazm-philosophy-and-science/#_ftnref23

God, Making love, Universe, Forgetting

“Compare yourself, for wealth, status and health to those lower than you. For faith, science, and virtue, compare yourself to those who are higher than you.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

Kitab al-Akhlaq wa’l Siyar ; Trsltd by N. Tomiche under the title: Epitre Morale, Collection UNESCO, Beyrouth, 1961, p. 21.

Health, Science, Wealth

“(en) "I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow. as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today."”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

о религии

Happiness, Age, World, Making love

“While in general use for centuries, one good result of the recent development of mental healing has been to call attention to its great value as a measure to be carefully and scientifically applied in suitable cases. My experience has been that of the unconscious rather than the deliberate faith healer. Phenomenal, even what could be called miraculous, cures are not very uncommon. Like others, I have had cases any one of which, under suitable conditions, could have been worthy of a shrine or made the gem of a pilgrimage.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

The Faith that Heals (1910)

“The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
⁠Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red
⁠On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
⁠And martial music cleaves the sky. Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
⁠They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
⁠They plunged for Freedom and the Righteousness. May we, their grateful children, learn
⁠Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
⁠At last the accolade of God.In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword.”

Joyce Kilmer Trees and Other Poems

"Memorial Day"; this poem was later published in The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920)
Trees and Other Poems (1914)

Death, Men, War, Children

“The pretty game of calling on the children of the audience of "Peter Pan" to declare their faith in fairies seemed to me disastrous—a game of men and women at the expense of children, a cumbersome frolic at best and an artificial, a tyrannous use of the adult sense of sentimental humour against the helpless. I could with better conscience use my superior physical strength upon them than exploit them for love of my own condescension. (And yet Sir J. Barrie has written the most adorable "pretending" story ever written about a child.)No, children love a fairy story not because they think it true, but because they think it untrue, and because it makes no fraudulent appeal to their excellent good sense. That sense they are delighted to put aside while they "pretend." That is their own word.[…] "Let's pretend," not "Let's believe."”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

Their mother does not put "Let's pretend" into the child's mouth; she finds it there. Without it there is no play. But the pretending is always drama and never deception or self-deception.</p>
"V. Fairies", pp. 32–33
Childhood (1913)

Love, Women, Men, Children

“I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Paul of Tarsus book Epistle to the Galatians

2:19-20
Epistle to the Galatians

Love, Life, God, Making love

“Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearnt, so much resign'd —
I come not here to be your foe!
I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,
To curse and to deny your truth; Not as their friend, or child, I speak!
But as, on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before some fallen Runic stone —
For both were faiths, and both are gone.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse (1855)

God, Truth, Forgiveness, Thinking

“People say I'm foolish
People say I'm blinded by faith
But if I run out of air
If I crash I don't care
I'm gonna do it my way”

Aloe Blacc (1979) American soul singer, rapper and musician

Source: Song My Way

People, Way

“Underpriviliged according to Quran doesn't mean poor people, it means faithful who fight tyrants, The Earth's Heirs.”

Ali Khamenei (1939) Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader

2019
Source: https://www.bbc.com/persian/iran-features-50700064
Source: https://farsi.khamenei.ir/others-note?id=44276

People, Fight

“The aims and ideals of the Soviet revolution inspired the patriotic enthusiasm of millions of people in the 1930s, during World War II, and in the postwar reconstruction period. This explains the Soviet Union's great leap forward, the achievement of a high level of industrial capacity in a very short time, the transformation of the Soviet Union into a major power in terms of science and culture. The historic victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, which was a surprise not only for Hitler but also for the Western democracies is also explained by what we have said above. All this is true. But the historical truth is also that the regime and the system abused the faith of the people in these high ideals, turning them to its own advantage. Rule by the people, equality, justice, and the promise of a happy future — all these ideas were utilized for the sake of maintaining and strengthening totalitarianism.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, On My Country and the World (1999)

War, Happiness, People, Truth

“One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Source: Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)

God, Hope, Way, Communication

“I'm your narrator. It's my task to say
Just where and how things happen in our play,
Set the bare stage with words instead of props
And keep on talking till the curtain drops. …
It's an old task — old as the human heart,
Old as those bygone players and their art
Who, in old days when faith was nearer earth,
Played out the mystery of Jesus' birth
In hall or village green or market square
For all who chose to come and see them there,
And, if they knew that King Herod, in his crown,
Was really Wat, the cobbler of the town,
And Tom, the fool, played Abraham the Wise,
They did not care. They saw with other eyes.
The story was their own — not far away,
As real as if it happened yesterday,
Full of all awe and wonder yet so near,
A marvelous thing that could have happened here
In their own town — a star that could have blazed
On their own shepherds, leaving them amazed,
Frightened and questioning and following still
To the bare stable — and the miracle.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Narrator
Source: A Child is Born (1942)

Fools, Art, Star, Birth

“I must painfully record my opinion that grave injury has been done to religion in many minds — not in instructed minds, but in those which are ill-instructed or partially instructed, which have a large claim on our consideration — in consequence of steps which have, unhappily, been taken. Great mischief has been done in many minds through the resistance offered to the man elected by the constituency of Northampton, which a portion of the community believe to be unjust. When they see the profession of religion and the interests of religion ostensibly associated with what they are deeply convinced is injustice, they are led to questions about religion itself, which they see to be associated with injustice. Unbelief attracts a sympathy which it would not otherwise enjoy; and the upshot is to impair those convictions and that religious faith, the loss of which I believe to be the most inexpressible calamity which can fall either upon a man or upon a nation.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

1880s <br class="br">Source: Except from a speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1883/apr/26/second-reading-adjourned-debate-second in the House of Commons (26 April 1883) in support of the atheist Charles Bradlaugh being permitted to take his seat in Parliament.

Religion, Communication, Question, Loss

“We were beaten, we were tear-gassed. I thought I was going to die on this bridge. But somehow and some way, God almighty helped me here. We cannot give up now. We cannot give in. We must keep the faith, keep our eyes on the prize.”

John Lewis (civil rights leader) (1940) American politician and civil rights leader

Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1234277472776183810, (1 March 2020)

God, Way, Tear, Help

“There is a Path which leads to that which is known as Initiation, and through Initiation to the Perfecting of Man; a Path which is recognized in all the great religions, and the chief features of which are described in similar terms in every one of the great faiths of the world. You may read of it in the Roman Catholic teachings as divided into three parts: (1) The Path of Purification or Purgation; (2) the Path of Illumination; and (3) the Path of Union with Divinity. You find it among the Mussulmans in the Sufi — the mystic — teachings of Islam, where it is known under the names of the Way, the Truth and the Life. You find it further eastward still in the great faith of Buddhism, divided into subdivisions, though these can be classified under the broader outline. It is similarly divided in Hinduism; for in both those great religions, in which the study of psychology, of the human mind and the human constitution, has played so great a part, you find a more definite subdivision. But really it matters not to which faith you turn; it matters not which particular set of names you choose as best attracting or expressing your own ideas; the Path is but one; its divisions are always the same; from time immemorial that Path has stretched from the life of the world to the life of the Divine.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Life, Truth, World, Religion

“No one knows better than I with forty years' political experience that policy--particularly a revolutionary policy--has its tactical requirements. I recognised the Soviets in 1924. In 1934, I signed with them a treaty of commerce and friendship. I, therefore, understood that, especially as Ribbentrop's forecast about the non-intervention of Britain and France has not come off, you are obliged to avoid the second front [with Russia]. You have had to pay for this in that Russia has, without striking a blow, been the great profiteer of the war in Poland and the Baltic. But I, who was born a revolutionary and have not modified my revolutionary mentality, tell you that you cannot permanently sacrifice the principles of your revolution to the tactical requirements of a given moment... I have also the definite duty to add that a further step in the relations with Moscow would have catastrophic repercussions in Italy, where the unanimity of anti-Bolshevik feeling is absolute, granite-hard, and unbreakable. Permit me to think that this will not happen. The solution of your Lebensraum is in Russia, and nowhere else... The day when we shall have demolished Bolshevism we shall have kept faith with both our revolutions. Then it will be the turn of the great democracies, who will not be able to survive the cancer which gnaws them...”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1930s
Source: Letter to Hitler, quoted in Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm

Friendship, War, Feeling, Democracy

“Hope, in the more occult sense... is the realization of the inner connectedness of all things; of your life and your daily activity with the cosmic scheme of things. The awareness of who you are, that you are the Self – that gives you faith or hope. Faith and hope stem from the same inner, intuitive realization of who you are, that you are here for a purpose and that nothing on Earth can shake that.... To have hope is to have complete faith in life. It does not mean to say that everything is going to go smoothly. It does not mean that on the outer, physical plane you will have a life of ease... and when you are telephoning people they will always be there and you will never have to try again. Many people think that if everything works easily and smoothly they are somehow on the right track. Following the line of least resistance is not necessarily the right way to live one’s life...”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993)

Life, People, Hope, Way

“The faith commended to their faithful by all religions, and considered by them as a virtue essential for him who hopes for eternal salvation, is nowise approved in the Secret Teachings. Based on the advice given by the Buddha to His disciples, the primary recommendation that the Masters give to neophytes is: Doubt! Doubt is an incitement to research, and research is the Way which leads to Knowledge.”

Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist and writer

Source: The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects (1964)

Secret, Religion, Hope, Way

“I could not in good conscience vote for a party that thinks protecting the most vulnerable people in society, those who are yet to be born, issues around euthanasia, other pro-life issues and indeed generally people who have a faith and want to practice it, I couldn't vote for a party that thinks that is somehow incompatible with the modern world.”

Rob Flello (1966) British politician (born 1966)

Source: 'This is blatant discrimination': Christian politician deselected by Lib Dems says it was because of abortion and gay marriage views https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/this-is-blatant-discrimination-christian-politician-deselected-by-lib-dems-says-it-was-because-of-abortion-and-gay-marriage-views (13 November 2019)

Life, People, World, Thinking

“[T]ogether we shall write an American story of hope, not fear. Of unity, not division. Of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness.May this be the story that guides us, the story that inspires us, and the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history, we met the moment. Democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch, but thrived, that America secured liberty at home and stood once again as a beacon to the world. That is what we owe our forebears, one another, and generations to follow.So, with purpose and resolve, we turn to those tasked of our time, sustained by faith, driven by conviction, and devoted to one another and the country we love with all our hearts. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. Thank you, America.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Love, God, Truth, Age

“History, faith, and reason show the way, the way of unity. We can see each other, not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail. We have never, ever, ever, ever failed in America when we′ve acted together.And so today, at this time, in this place, let′s start afresh, all of us. Let′s begin to listen to one another again.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Peace, Way, History, Time

“Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of short-lived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, "God may consent, but not forever."”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

The delay of the Divine Justice — this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy, — this was the soul of their religion.
"The Fugitive Slave Law", a lecture in New York City (7 March 1854), The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904), p. 238

Men, God, Age, Nature

“It is a new place to live and many new people to get to know, but one thing is always the same, and that is Jesus Christ. Our faith in Christ brings us through whatever we face and whatever he asks of us.”

Stephen D. Parkes (1965) roman-catholic clergyman

Siblings, brother priests, and now brother bishops https://osvnews.com/2020/08/17/siblings-brother-priests-and-now-brother-bishops/ (August 17, 2020)

People, Christ

“Of course we want to be in communion, faithfulness to the universal Church but to also recognise that within the Church we have to react to the realities as they are, not as we wish them or think they should be. We have to start where we are at – to see, to judge, and to act.”

Charles Gauci (1952) Bishop of Darwin

Top End Bishop says Indigenous are ‘the most traumatised people I’ve ever met’ https://catholicleader.com.au/news/shepherd-charles-roams-the-top-end (October 14, 2019)

Thinking, Reality, Universe

“Goodness, generosity and gentleness have been expressed in neighbourliness, voluntarism and the huge sacrifices made by individuals and families. Our faith will not provide easy answers, yet faith will help to provide perspective which will enable us to address the challenges.”

Michael Neary (bishop) (1946) Irish bishop

Ireland: Archbishop Michael Neary`s homily for Reek Sunday https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/40106 (July 26, 2020)

Family, Help

“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

It is not necessary, before all things, that he be good, honest, merciful, charitable and just. Creed is more important than conduct. The most important of all things is, that he hold the Catholic faith. There were thousands of years during which it was not necessary to hold that faith, because that faith did not exist; and yet during that time the virtues were just as important as now, just as important as they ever can be. Millions of the noblest of the human race never heard of this creed. Millions of the bravest and best have heard of it, examined, and rejected it. Millions of the most infamous have believed it, and because of their belief, or notwithstanding their belief, have murdered millions of their fellows. We know that men can be, have been, and are just as wicked with it as without it.
Rome, or Reason? A Reply to Cardinal Manning. Part I. The North American Review (1888)

“I know that God only works for good in the lives of His children. Our responsibility is to search for God's will, find it, and do it to the best of our imperfect ability. The outcome is already decided. And it is always for good. As a matter of faith, I never question outcomes.”

L. Lin Wood (1952) American lawyer

20 May 2021 https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1395227279748255745/photo/1

God, Children, Search, Question

“I think that one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the camp fire, but are lousy in politics.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

1970s, Address to College Republicans, June 24, 1978

Boy, Problem, Thinking, Scouting

“To those who are longing for a higher life, who deeply feel the need of religious satisfactions, we suggest that there is a way in which the demands of the head and the heart may be reconciled. Religion is not necessarily allied with dogma, a new kind of faith is possible, based not upon legend and tradition, not upon the authority of any book, but upon the moral nature of man.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Life and Destiny (1913)

Life, Books, Religion, Way

“The essence of all religions is the recognition of an Authority higher, more comprehensive, more permanent than the human being. The characteristic of Christian teaching, however, is the faith that this Supreme Authority is beneficent as well as powerful. The Christian believes that the Creative Force is a moral force, of more comprehensive morality than the human being that it creates. Under the symbol of a wise and loving parent—the most just, efficient, and attractive image that we know of—we are encouraged to regard this unseen Authority as being in direct relation with every atom of creation, and as desirous of drawing each atom into progressively higher forms of existence.”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

[Elizabeth Blackwell, Essays in Medical Sociology, https://books.google.com/books?id=7VlHAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=religions&f=false, 1, 1899, Library Reprints, Incorporated, 978-0-7222-1823-5]
Essays in Medical Sociology (1899)

Love, Making love, Religion, Parent

“Historically the belief in heaven and the belief in utopia are like compensatory buckets in a well: when one goes down the other comes up. When the classic religions decayed, communistic agitation rose in Athens (430 B.C.), and revolution began in Rome (133 B.C.); when these movements failed, resurrection faiths succeeded, culminating in Christianity; when, in our eighteenth century, Christian belief weakened, communism reappeared. In this perspective the future of religion is secure.”

Will Durant book The Story of Civilization

Source: The Story of Civilization (1935–1975), III - Caesar and Christ (1944), Chapter 28, Part 5 (Footnote 2)

Religion, Communication, Future

“Many of the Dioceses of Papua have been gifted with an old evangelization: the Christian population has grown and has received an excellent education. Today, in the new social and cultural context, opportunities to transmit the faith have decreased and new roads and new ways to bring the Gospel to children, youth and families are needed.”

Stephen Joseph Reichert (1943) American priest

The Church in Papua committed to the new evangelization http://www.fides.org/en/news/31701-OCEANIA_PAPUA_NEW_GUINEA_The_Church_in_Papua_committed_to_the_new_evangelization (11 June 2012)

Children, Youth, Education, Family

“I was a cradle Anglican. The Anglican Church taught me the Christian faith and nurtured and sustained me through many joyful and difficult periods in my life. I firmly believed that the priests of the Anglican Church were Catholic priests, but when “developments” began to occur, such as the ordination of women, I realized that once this had occurred, the priesthood to which women aspired to belong, no longer existed. This “development” opened the way for the liberalization of the Church’s worship, doctrinal belief and the acceptance of a more secularist set of moral and ethical principles. I felt abandoned because it was as if my “mother” had died, but this grieving has been alleviated by the warmth of the welcome and the support I have encountered from members of the Catholic Church.”

Harry Entwistle (1940) Australian priest

Interview with Msgr. Harry Entwistle https://insidethevatican.com/magazine/people/interview/interview-with-msgr-harry-entwistle/

Life, Women, Way, Support

“The support of the communities implies concrete assistance to young couples because it can offer them knowledge and an important wealth of experience, while encouraging them, above all, to open themselves to the presence of God in their lives, a presence that will help them to support their love in a long, faithful, and fruitful marriage. When the parish communities take this responsibility seriously the ministry of marriage preparation has the potential to be a life-giving joy for communities and families. Their love is contagious and does everyone good.”

Peter Doyle (bishop) (1944) Catholic bishop

Marriage Preparation in the light of “Amoris Laetitia”: The experience of the Office for Life, Family, and Marriage of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales http://www.laityfamilylife.va/content/laityfamilylife/en/news/2018/la-preparazione-al-matrimonio-alla-luce-di-amoris-laetitia--lesp.html (23 August 2018)

Love, Life, God, Marriage

“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

People

“The Universal Zulu Nation stands to acknowledge wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, and equality, peace, unity, love, and having fun, work, overcoming the negative through the positive, science, mathematics, faith, facts, and the wonders of God, whether we call him Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, or Jah.”

Afrika Bambaataa (1957) American DJ, record producer and activist

Love, Wisdom, God, Peace

“To choose what is difficult all ones days, as if it were easy, that is faith.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

“I think people who are creative are the luckiest people on earth. I know that there are no shortcuts, but you must keep your faith in something Greater than You, and keep doing what you love. Do what you love, and you will find the way to get it out to the world.”

Judy Collins (1939) American singer and songwriter

Love, People, World, Way

“Religion translates metaphysical or universal truths into dogmatic language; now though dogma is not accessible to all men in its intrinsic truth, which can only be directly attained by the Intellect, it is nonetheless accessible through faith, which is, for the great majority, the only possible mode of participation in the Divine Truths. As for intellectual knowledge, which proceeds neither from belief nor from a process of reasoning, it goes beyond dogma in the sense that, without ever contradicting the latter, it penetrates its internal dimension, that is, the infinite Truth that dominates all forms.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transcendent Unity of Religions

[1993, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, Quest Books, xxxi, 978-0-8356-0587-8]
Miscellaneous, Religion

Men, Truth, Religion, Knowledge

“Misplaced paranoia could be as great a mistake as misplaced faith.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010), Chapter 5 (p. 99)

“If you have faith and keep moving on, things will eventually fall in place.”

Tina Dabi (1993) Indian Administrative Service Officer

Quoted in Indian Express https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/life-positive/if-you-have-faith-and-keep-moving-on-things-will-eventually-fall-in-place-tina-dabi-6178516/

Quotes about faith page 39

Quotes about faith
page 39