Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind ...
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind. William Wordsworth, Ode Intimations of Immortality, 1807
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. Joseph Conrad
Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens. J R R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust. J M Barrie, Peter Pan
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Carl Sagan
We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone. Martin Luther
Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. Martin Luther
Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. Kurt Vonnegut
Faith – acceptance of which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. Voltaire
There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds. Alfred Lord Tennyson
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith! Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Ancient Sage, 1885
The road to hell isn’t paved with gold, it’s paved with faith. Faith in a dollar that’s backed by a belief that people have faith in other people’s belief in it. Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale
Disbelief is more resistant than faith because it is sustained by the senses. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Of Love and Other Demons
Faith ... must be enforced by reason ... when faith becomes blind it dies. Mahatma Gandhi
Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue. Mahatma Gandhi
Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more. Thomas Merton
The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith. Robert G Ingersoll
The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called ‘faith’. Robert G Ingersoll, On the Gods and Other Essays
Although the far territory of the extreme can exert an intoxicating pull on susceptible individuals of all bents, extremism seems to be especially prevalent among those inclined by temperament or upbringing toward religious pursuits. Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial component of spiritual devotion. And when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
People think of faith as being something that you don’t really believe, a device in helping you believe simply it. Of course that is quite wrong. As Pascal says, faith is a gift of God. It is different from the proof of it. It is the kind of faith God himself places in the heart, of which the proof is often the instrument ...
He says of it, too, that it is the heart which is aware of God, and not reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not be reason. Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom
Religion doesn’t just cloud our minds. It asks us to deliberately deceive ourselves – to replace reason with its opposite, faith. And when men operate on faith, they can no longer be reasoned with, which makes them more dangerous than any sane man, good or evil. (Religion & Faith & Religion) James L Sutter, Death’s Heretic
Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own curse. Sting, Nothing Like the Sun
He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third. Thomas Paine
And I saw other lightnings and the stars of heaven, and I saw how He called them all by their names and they hearkened unto Him. And I saw how they are weighed in a righteous balance according to their proportions of light: (I saw) the width of their spaces and the day of their appearing, and how their revolution produces lightning: and (I saw) their revolution according to the number of the angels, and (how) they keep faith with each other. Enoch 2:43:1-3
Well, World, you have kept faith with me,
Kept faith with me;
Upon the whole you have proved to be
Much as you said you were. Thomas Hardy, He Never Expected Much, 1928
As men’s habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude ... that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits. Baruch Spinoza
O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty? William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention 2 Henry VI V i 164, King Henry
There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men;
All perjured, all forsworn, all naught, dissemblers all. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet III ii 86-87
Fredric March: We must not abandon faith! Faith is the most important thing!
Spencer Tracy: Then why did God plague us with the power to think? Mr Brady, why do you deny the one faculty of man that raises him above the other creatures of the Earth? The power of his brain to reason. Why other merit have we? Inherit the Wind 1960 starring Spencer Tracy & Gene Kelly & Fredric March & Dick York & Donna Anderson & Harry Morgan et al, director Stanley Kramer
It is very evident from their Epistles that it never entered the mind of any of the apostles that the church of this day would separate faith from charity by teaching that faith alone justifies and saves apart from the works of the law, and that charity therefore cannot be conjoined with faith, since faith is from God, and charity, so far as it is expressed in works, is from man. But this separation and division were introduced into the Christian church when it divided God into three persons, and many people like obedience and ritual. Their nominally Christian leaders – I mean Christ would not recognise them as Christian – could stop wars dead. David Halpin, lecture Alternative View II conference 31st May 2009, ‘The Vortex Sucks Ever Louder’
Her: You know, you say you’ve been walking for thirty years, right?
Him: Right.
Her: Have you ever thought that maybe you were lost?
Him: No.
Her: How do you know you are walking in the right direction?
Him: I walk by faith and not by sight. The Book of Eli 2010 starring Denzel Washington & Gary Oldman & Mila Kunis & Ray Stevenson & Jennifer Beals & Tom Waits et al, directors Hughes brothers
I don’t see there’s a contradiction. That’s the thing about faith – if you don’t have it you can’t understand it, and if you do, no explanation is necessary. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s4e17: Accession, Kira to Odo
It doesn’t work like that. Faith has to come first. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s7e9: Covenant
Finest wife a fellah could have. But I don’t understand her faith. I admire it, but I don’t understand it. The Kennedys 2011 I starring Greg Kinnear & Barry Pepper & Katie Holmes & Tom Wilkinson & Chris Diamantopoulos & Charlotte Sullivan & Diane Hardcastle & Krisin Booth & Serge Houde et al, director Jon Cassar, Kennedy senior to secretary
I try not to have faith. 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God, Professor Noam Chomsky
Each religion makes scores of purportedly factual assertions about everything from the creation of the universe to the afterlife. But on what grounds can believers presume to know that these assertions are true? The reasons they give are various, but the ultimate justification for most religious people’s beliefs is a simple one: we believe what we believe because our holy scriptures say so. But how, then, do we know that our holy scriptures are factually accurate? Because the scriptures themselves say so. Theologians specialize in weaving elaborate webs of verbiage to avoid saying anything quite so bluntly, but this gem of circular reasoning really is the epistemological bottom line on which all ‘faith’ is grounded. In the words of Pope John Paul II: By the authority of his absolute transcendence, God who makes himself known is also the source of the credibility of what he reveals.’ It goes without saying that this begs the question of whether the texts at issue really were authored or inspired by God, and on what grounds one knows this. ‘Faith’ is not in fact a rejection of reason, but simply a lazy acceptance of bad reasons. ‘Faith’ is the pseudo-justification that some people trot out when they want to make claims without the necessary evidence.
But of course we never apply these lax standards of evidence to the claims made in the other fellow’s holy scriptures: when it comes to religions other than one’s own, religious people are as rational as everyone else. Only our own religion, whatever it may be, seems to merit some special dispensation from the general standards of evidence.