Quotes Index

"Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the window which hope has opened" -- Charles Spurgeon

Don't tell God how Big your storm is, tell the Storm how Big your God is.

“Faith isn't believing without proof – it's trusting without reservation.” William Sloane Coffin

"Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. Jesus Christ, Mark 11:22-24.
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"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidience of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1, the Bible.
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"You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason." - Plotinus

"By all means rid yourself of an impoverished faith." George MacDonald

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. --Blaise Pascal

Faith...comes only when the outward fact penetrates to the inner heart of man and takes possession of him there -- and this is the work of the Spirit.-- George Hendry

Faith, like sight is nothing apart from God. You might as well shut your eyes and look inside, and see whether you have sight as to look inside to discover whether you have faith.—Hannah Whitall Smith

When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding; even one word is too much. --Fen. Yang.

For those with faith, no explanation is necessary. For those without, no explanation is possible. –Thomas Aquinas

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations. --Elton Trueblood

Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God. --Blaise Pascal

Seeking to know is only too often learning to doubt. –Antionette du Liger de la Garde Deshoulieres

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.—Miguel de Unamuno

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.-- Fyodor Dostoyevski

I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind. --Saint Bernard

The problem with the wise is they are so filled with doubts while the dull are so certain.-- Bertrand Russell

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. --H. L. Mencken

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. --Paul Tillich

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. – Voltaire

Doubt is an incentive to truth, and patient inquiry leadeth the way. --Hosea Ballou

Faith is the master, and reason the maid-servant. --- Martin Luther

Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe. –Augustine

God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him --Hudson Taylor

Fanaticism is...overcompensation for doubt. -- Robertson Davies

Facts are God's arguments; we should be careful never to misunderstand or pervert them.--Tryon Edwards

A single fact can spoil a good argument.—Unknown

Faith does not ignore the facts, it ignores the power of the facts. --Benny Hinn

A miracle is not the suspension of natural law, but the operation of a higher law. --Unknown

We cannot exercise our faith beyond what we believe to be possible. –John G. Lake

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them. --Blaise Pascal

Faith is the refusal to panic. --David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I am not moved by what I see. I am not moved by what I feel. I am moved only by what I believe. --Smith Wigglesworth

Remember that what you believe will depend very much on what you are. --Noah Porter

Man is what he believes.—Anton Chekhov

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe. --John Henry Newman

Only he who believes is obedient. Only he who is obedient, believes. --Deitrich Bonhoeffer

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey. --Soren Kierkegaard

Few really believe. The most only believe that they believe or even make believe.—Napolean Bonaparte

Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts. --F.F. Bosworth

Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge. --Jacques Ellul

Faith is much better than belief. Belief is when someone else does the thinking.--R. Buckminster Fuller

Christianity is not a message which has to be believed, but an experience of faith that becomes a message. --Edward Schillebeeckx

...for Paul faith is always faith in a person. Faith is not the intellectual acceptance of a body of doctrine; faith is faith in a person. --William Barclay

The farther we go, the more the ultimate explanation recedes from us, and all we have left is faith. --Vaclav Hlavaty

Sometimes God doesn't tell us His plan because we wouldn't believe it anyway. -- Carlton Pearson

Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. --Blaise Pascal

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.-- Rainer Maria Rilke

A wise man's questions contain half the answer. –Gabiriol

Now “crises of faith” takes many shapes and forms. I suppose the salient question is whether a crisis occurs within or against faith. –Michael Phillips

We often think of great faith as something that happens spontaneously so that we can be used for a miracle or healing. However, the greatest faith of all, and the most effective, is to live day by day trusting Him. It is trusting Him so much that we look at every problem as an opportunity to see His work in our life. --Rick Joyner

The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid. --G.K. Chesterton

Fight to escape from your own cleverness. If you do, then you will find salvation and uprightness through Jesus Christ our Lord. --John Climacus

For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.--John Ortberg

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking only to learn that it is God shaking them. --Charles West

If knowing answers to life's questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables -- of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and, most of all, things unfair.-- Jeanne Guyon

I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly. --Madeleine L'Engle

God always answers in the deeps, never in the shallows of our soul. –Anonymous

Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time. --Oswald Chambers

Oh, how great peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and place all his confidence in God. --Thomas A. Kempis

It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand. --Madeleine L'Engle

Faith is the light of time, it alone recognizes truth without seeing it, touches what it cannot feel, looks upon this world as though it did not exist, sees what is not apparent. It is the key to celestial treasures, the key to the unfathomable mystery and knowledge of God. Faith conquers all the fantasy of falsehood; through faith God reveals and manifests Himself, defying all things. Faith removes the veil and uncovers eternal truth. When souls are given the understanding of faith, God speaks to them through all creation, and the universe becomes for them a living testimony which the finger of God continually traces before their eyes, the record of every passing moment, a sacred scripture. The sacred books which the Holy Spirit has dictated are only the beginnings of divine guidance for us. Everything that happens is a continuation of the scriptures, expounding for us what has not been written. Faith explains the one through the other, in which souls can discover the key to all its mysteries...... Faith is only living at its best when sensible appearances contradict and attempt to destroy it....... To find God is good in the trivial and most ordinary events as in the greatest; is to have not an ordinary, but a great and extraordinary faith..............How delightful the peace one enjoys when one has learned by faith to see God in this way through all creatures as through a transparent veil. Darkness becomes light and bitterness sweet...........There is nothing that faith does not penetrate and seek out. It passes beyond darkness, and no matter how deep the shadows, it passes through them to the truth which it always finally embraces, and from which it is never separated. --Jean-Pierre de Crussade

Level 1 – Struggling Faith
Characterized as “little faith”
Scriptural reference: “I believe; help my unbelief.”

Level 2 – Reaching Faith
Characterized as “great faith”
Scriptural reference: “If I can only touch the hem of His garment, I'll be healed.”

Level 3 – Resting Faith
Characterized as “perfect faith”
Scriptural reference: Anything you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and you will have it.

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Keep the faith—but not to yourself!

See also Atheism and Agnosticism quotes

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