Quotes About Belief

The teacher spoke: 'There could of course be some rational explanation. But why shouldn't a karamah operate by rational means? After all, miracles aren't the same as magic.' I asked if he thought al-Shadhili would perform a karamah for a non-Muslim. 'If your intention in visiting him is good, why not?' said the teacher.

Sati was a custom religiously followed by a few, toed halfheartedly by rather more, sidestepped by many and ignored by most

Story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

He believed in mission. But . . . he did not believe in it as an intellectual imperative, or even as a professional standard. Mission . . . was an abstract notion that took meaning in concrete situations.

The things they carried were determined to some extent by superstition.

That's a true story that never happened.

True war stories do not generalize. They do not indulge in abstraction or analysis. For example: War is hell. As a moral declaration the old truism seems perfectly true, and yet because it abstracts, because it generalizes, I can't believe it with my stomach. Nothing turns inside. It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe.

Trust your own story. Get the hell out of the way and let it tell itself

but he just slipped the pantyhose over his nose and breathed deep and let the magic do its work. It turned us into a platoon of believers. You don't dispute facts. But then, near the end of October, his girlfriend dumped him. It was a hard blow. Dobbins went quiet for a while, staring down at her letter, then after a time he took out the stockings and tied them around his neck as a comforter. 'No sweat,' he said. 'The magic doesn't go away.

Can we not believe that two adults, in love, might resolve to make their own miracle?

The whole world worked by subterfuge and the will to believe.

Just because it never happened doesn't mean it isn't true.

If a story seems moral, do not believe it.

Dobbins shrugged his shoulders. What's serious? I was a kid. This thing is, I believed in God and all that, but it wasn't the religious part that interested me. Just being nice to people, that's all. Being decent.

It is important to be faithful to your values and to your opinions, but remember that your opinions are opinions. And remember that your values may reorganize themselves over time.

This next part,' Sanders said quietly, 'you won't believe.' 'Probably not,' I said. 'You won't. And you know why?' He gave me a long, tired smile. 'Because it happened. Because every word is absolutely dead-on true.

They say: Belief is important. I say: No, actions are important. Judge by deed, not by creed.

Our God was made by men, sculptured by savages who did the best they could. They made our God somewhat like themselves, and gave to him their passions, their ideas of right and wrong.

He found he was implicitly confident of a way out…and his face reddened when he realized that it was an axiom called up from early childhood—the conviction that if he cried hard enough and long enough, someone would take him home.

The gospel of perpetual economic growth carries in its train the salvation promise of a life bigger and better for everyone. But this greater good is often mythical. The actual experience of believers rarely bear out the claims of their faith. Even so, many adherents cleave stubbornly, fearfully to orthodoxy. I guess it's what they know.

She wondered if you could love someone too much. If you could it wasn't fair. People didn't have a chance. Love was all you had in the end. It was like sleep, like clean water. When you fell off the world there was still love because love made the world. That's what she believed. That's how it was.

Life was something you didn't argue with, because when it came down to it, whether you barracked for God or nothing at all, life was all there was.

Me? I belong to Jesus Christ. Like it or not. They wet you and get you. Anyway. No other bastard will have me.

The world had kenneled a vicious lie in my brain…