Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Faith
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again, and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, if the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.
Bacon—Of Boldness.
Faith is a higher faculty than reason.
Bailey—Festus. Prœm. L. 84.
There is one inevitable criterion of judgment touching religious faith in doctrinal matters. Can you reduce it to practice? If not, have none of it.
Hosea Ballou—MS. Sermons.
An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
Book of Common Prayer. Catechism.
“Take courage, soul!
Hold not thy strength in vain!
With faith o’ercome the steeps
Thy God hath set for thee.
Beyond the Alpine summits of great pain
Lieth thine Italy.”
Rose Terry Cooke—Beyond.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
II Corinthians. V. 7.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I’m sure, was in the right.
Cowley—On the Death of Crashaw. L. 55.
Faith is a fine invention
For gentlemen who see;
But Microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.
Emily Dickinson—Poems. Second Series. XXX.
To take up half on trust, and half to try,
Name it not faith but bungling bigotry.
Dryden—The Hind and the Panther. Pt. I. L. 141.
We lean on Faith; and some less wise have cried,
“Behold the butterfly, the seed that’s cast!”
Vain hopes that fall like flowers before the blast!
What man can look on Death unterrified?
R. W. Gilder—Love and Death. St. 2.
Die Botschaft hör’ ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube;
Das Wunder ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind.
Your messages I hear, but faith has not been given;
The dearest child of Faith is Miracle.
Goethe—Faust. I. 1. 413.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews. XI. 1.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith’s pure shrine!
Mrs. Hemans—Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.
Mirror of constant faith, revered and mourn’d!
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. IV. L. 229. Pope’s trans.
The German is the discipline of fear; ours is the discipline of faith—and faith will triumph.
Gen Joffre, at unveiling of a statue of Lafayette in Brooklyn, 1917.
If he were
To be made honest by an act of parliament
I should not alter in my faith of him.
Ben Jonson—The Devil Is an Ass. Act IV. Sc. 1.
And we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with what we can understand, but content with what we do not understand—the habit of mind which theologians call—and rightly—faith in God.
Charles Kingsley—Health and Education. On Bio-Geology.
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
Lowell—My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln. 1864.
O welcome pure-ey’d Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!
Milton—Comus. L. 213.
That in such righteousness
To them by faith imputed they may find
Justification towards God, and peace
Of conscience.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. XII. L. 294.
Yet I argue not
Again Heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of right or hope; but still bear up and steer
Eight onward.
Milton—To Cyriac Skinner.
Combien de choses nous servoient hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’hui!
How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which to-day are fables to us!
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. I. Ch. XXVI.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
If faith produce no works, I see
That faith is not a living tree.
Thus faith and works together grow;
No separate life they e’er can know:
They’re soul and body, hand and heart:
What God hath joined, let no man part.
Hannah More—Dan and Jane.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. III. L. 305.
The enormous faith of many made for one.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. III. L. 242.
Be thou faithful unto death.
Revelation. II. 10.
Set on your foot,
And with a heart new-fir’d I follow you,
To do I know not what: but it sufficeth
That Brutus leads me on.
Julius Cæsar. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 331.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.
Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 130.
The saddest thing that can befall a soul
Is when it loses faith in God and woman.
Alexander Smith—A Life Drama. Sc. 12.
Faith is the subtle chain
Which binds us to the infinite; the voice
Of a deep life within, that will remain
Until we crowd it thence.
Elizabeth Oakes Smith—Atheism in Three Sonnets. Faith.
It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.
Sydney Smith—Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. I. P. 53.
Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers;
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
Tennyson—Idylls of the King. Merlin and Vivien. L. 388.
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. XXXIII.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
II Timothy. IV. 7.
Faith, mighty faith the promise sees
And rests on that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities,
And says it shall be done.
Charles Wesley—Hymns. No. 360.
Through this dark and stormy night
Faith beholds a feeble light
Up the blackness streaking;
Knowing God’s own time is best,
In a patient hope I rest
For the full day-breaking!
Whittier—Barclay of Ury. St. 16.
A bending staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt.
Whittier—Questions of Life. St. 1.
Of one in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.
Wordsworth—Excursion. Bk. IV.
’Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of Faith, and round the sufferer’s temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction’s heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow’s keenest wind.
Wordsworth—Weak is the Will of Man.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of Death,
To break the shock blind nature cannot shun,
And lands Thought smoothly on the further shore.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night IV. L. 721.