Quotes About Belief

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.

Confidence is the master of fate.

He touched her as though she were something precious and cared for. That was where the terrible power lay—not in his strength, not in some dark bespellment. His power existed because he could make her believe things she had cast away. Things that had cast her away. Things beyond reaching. If he could make her believe, she would be lost. She would never survive. The fear inside her head overwhelmed her.

Hopeful kept close to him,

the children supposed that he was a pilgrim.

Christian could not help smiling,

Teresa [of Avila]'s story dismantles the common belief that all those chosen for sainthood are flawless in personality and character. Indeed, she would want us to consider her contradictions and struggles as integral to her sainthood.

While we know it is possible to work for justice without being religious, we believe that religious faith presupposes a mandate to write, speak, and act for social justice.

Personal religious experience is not necessarily the same as organized religious doctrine. My concern is that as a contemporary women we have lost the capacity to make this distinction.

There's a superstition among falconers that a hawk's ability is inversely proportional to the ferocity of its name. Call a hawk Tiddles and it will be a formidable hunter; call it Spitfire or Slayer and it will probably refuse to fly at all.

I know now that I'm not trusting anyone or anything any more. And that it is hard to live for long periods without trusting anyone or anything. It's like living without sleep; eventually it will kill you.

For even if we don't believe in miracles, they are there, and they are waiting for us to find them.

There are actions we can take that seem impossible and pointless and yet they are entirely, and precisely, and absolutely required. We can exert pressure, we can speak up, we can march and cry and mourn and sing and hope and fight for the world, standing with others, even if we don't believe it. Even if change seems an impossibility. For even if we don't believe in miracles, they are there, and they are waiting for us to find them.

I know now that it is hard to live for long periods without trusting anyone or anything. It's like living without sleep; eventually it will kill you.

It is just that I am tired of being told I look at life too simply. It isn't naïve to believe that good exists, that evil exists. I have known both of them. I've seen them. I've felt them. They aren't just ideas that you can twist into neat phrases. They aren't words to be clever with. They are too vital. We live by them. Or else we make everything meaningless.

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. —REINHOLD NIEBUHR

More than friends, eh? More than friends... You know, my mother once told me that half of the hatred that springs up between people is rooted in this mistaken belief that there's any human relationship more sacred than friendship.

Why do people go to these places, these places that are not for them? It must be that they believe in their night vision. They believe themselves able to draw images up out of the dark. But black wells only yield black water.

And that was what all the expressions felt like— masks. I didn't believe them. They were too thorough, too nuanced; they were never at odds with his subject matter.

He honestly expected her to believe that she could make a bad offering and her ancestors wouldn't mind.

What do you want, Mary Foxe? My husband?" "I believe in him," she said slowly. I wondered if she'd ever told him that, and if so, what he had to say about it. Someone you made up turns around and tells you they believe in you— what response could you possibly make? The scenario is just plain weird. And really kind of impertinent on her part, too. If it happened to me I think I'd be speechless for the rest of my life.

We're friendly toward strangers because of a general belief (I don't know where it comes from) that we're born strangers and that the memory of how that feels never really leaves us.

Maybe she was not really like that. It's just that I would prefer you to think that what happened to her was justified.

With growing disbelief, Jess yet again felt herself slipping into the gap - that gap of perception between what is really happening to a person and what others think is happening.