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Quotes about faith

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The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.
Richard Dawkinsborn 1941The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 11. Memes: the new replicators
- Anti-Religion
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
Richard Dawkinsborn 1941Speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (15 April 1992)
- Anti-Religion
Duty cannot exist without faith.
Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881Tancred (1847), Bk. II, Ch. 1
Reason is our soul’s left hand, Faith her right.
John Donne1572–1631
If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not with truth.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Letter to Mme. N. D. Fonvisin (1854), in Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends (1914), trans. Ethel Colburn Mayne, Letter XXI, p. 71
- Christianity
- Truth & Lies
Atheism should always be encouraged (i.e. rationalistic not emotional atheism) for the sake of the Faith.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965Letter to Richard Aldington (24 February 1927)
- Atheism
But suddenly, at the edge of her mind, Religion appeared, poor little talkative Christianity, and she knew that all its divine words from “Let there be Light” to “It is finished” only amounted to “boum.”
E. M. Forster1879–1970A Passage to India (1924), Part II: Caves, Chapter XIVIn context
- Christianity
Peace is an awareness of reserves from beyond ourselves, so that our power is not so much in us as through us. Peace is the gift, not of volitional struggle, but of spiritual hospitality.
Harry Emerson Fosdick1878–1969On Being Fit to Live With: Sermons on Post-War Christianity (1946)
The Way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason: The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790“July. VII Month.”, Poor Richard’s Almanack (1758), Philadelphia: B. Frankin and D. Hall
- Thinking
The true believer is in a high degree protected against the danger of certain neurotic afflictions, by accepting the universal neurosis he is spared the task of forming a personal neurosis.
Sigmund Freud1856–1939The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 8
- Anti-Religion
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Harijan, 10 August 1947, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 89, p. 137.
We are less than atoms, I say, because the atom obeys the law of its being, whereas we in the insolence of our ignorance deny the law of nature. But I have no argument to address to those who have no faith.
Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948Young India (24 September 1931)
To those who have an active belief, reasoned proofs are needless and probably useless.
Anthony the Great251–357Athanasius, Life of Antony (c. 360), ch. 77
The trouble is I don’t believe my unbelief.
Graham Greene1904–1991Remark (8 July 1987), reported in Leopoldo Durán, Graham Greene: An Intimate Portrait (1994), p. 97
Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.
Nathaniel Hawthorne1804–1864The Marble Faun (1860), Chapter XXXIII: Pictured Windows
- Christianity