Quotes About Faith

Preachers err, he told me, by trying "to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.

each religion is a kind of software that has its own set of signals and will work. If a person is really involved in a religion and really building his life on it, he better stay with the software that he has got.

My definition of mythology is "other people's religion," which suggests that ours must be something else. My definition of religion, then, is "misunderstood mythology"—and the misunderstanding consists in mistaking the symbol for the reference.

MOYERS: But that's not the Christian idea of creation

You must understand that each religion is a kind of software that has its own set of signals and will work.

Life knows us not and we do not know life—-we don't know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put it's trust in life!

O youth! The strenght of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! (...) I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret - as you would think of some one dead you have loved. I shall never forget her.... Pass the bottle.

The earth for us is a place to live in, where we must put up with sights, with sounds, with smells, too, by Jove! - breathe dead hippo, so as to speak, and not be contaminated. And there, don't you see? your strength comes in, the faith in your ability for the digging of unostentatious holes to bury the stuff in - your power of devotion, not to yourself, but to an obscure, back-breaking business.

Rich or poor, strong or weak, who among us has not begged God for a second chance?

I am quite willing to be the blind instrument of higher ends. To give one's life for the cause is nothing. But to have one's illusions destroyed - that is really almost more than one can bear.

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.

The priests talk of consecrated ground! Bah! All the earth made by God is holy; but the sea, which knows nothing of kings and priests and tyrants, is the holiest of all.

in our own hearts we trust for our salvation, in the men that surround us, in the sights that fill our eyes, in the sounds that fill our ears, and in the air that fill our lungs.

Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could only be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to say our last word - the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submission, revolt. The heaven and earth must not be shaken. I suppose - at least, not by us who know so many truths about either.

But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had gone mad. I had - for my sins, I suppose - to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself. No eloquence could have been so withering to one's belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity. He struggled with himself, too. I saw it, - I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself

I believe in children praying--well, women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant. I don't hold with a man everlastingly bothering the Almighty with his silly troubles.

To be hopeful in an artistic sense it is not necessary to think that the world is good. It is enough to believe that there is no impossibility of it being made so.

but heavens! how that man could talk! He electrified large meetings. He had faith—don't you see?—he had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything—anything. He would have been a splendid Ã¢â'¬Å"leader of an extreme party.' 'What party?' I asked. 'Any party,' answered the other. 'He was an—an—extremist.

But the truth was that he died from solitude, the enemy known but to a few on this Earth, and whom only the simplest of us are fit to withstand. The brilliant Costaguanaro of the boulevards had died from solititude and want of faith in himself and others.

As is often the case with lawless natures, Ricardo's faith in any given individual was of a simple, unquestioning character. For man must have some support in life.

Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags—rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief.

It's a long time since God has done anything for the people.

oh youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it!