Quotes On Faith

These are copied from another blogpost. That blogpost will the the most up-to-date version.

The following are quotations on the topic of "faith." Some are descriptions, definitions, examples et cetera. I haven't documented the authenticity of every quotation, but since the primary reason I quote them is to instruct and inspire, it is not really necessary to do so. This is especially true since faith is such a common subject of discussion that any quotes or conceptions from a famous person on faith may have been something he or she received and repeated from others (either verbatim or with slight modification). Also, I don't necessarily endorse a quotation "as is" without qualification. Faith is multi-faceted. A quotation on faith may address only one facet of faith without addressing other facets. In which case it might need to be balanced by other facets. The quotations below highlights different aspects and types (kinds) of faith. Since there are various senses of the word and/or concept.

I've described at least 15 types of the use of the word "faith" in the following blogpost:

Various Definitions of the Word "Faith"

Note too that I don't necessarily endorse the theological position of a person I quote. Not everyone quoted is (or was) a Christian or a genuine professing Christian (i.e. a person who professed to be Christian but didn't really possess Christ). In Christian theology faith is essential to receive salvation, please God, perform good works acceptable to God and especially in prayer. Justifying faith is non-meritorious. However, after one has been justified, faith (along with works) can be graciously meritorious for rewards. See John H. Gerstner's article "The Nature of Justifying Faith." What he says about post-justification works could also be said of post-justification faith. Related to faith are things like hope, trust, doubt, and unbelief. So, I've also included quotes about those type of topics.

Lastly, I recommend four more of my blogposts that are related to faith and one of my favorite books on prayer. 

  Faith According to C.S. Lewis

  "Unveiling" The Hiddenness of God

Detecting and Finding God

George Mueller Quotes

These include quotes on faith in relation to prayer.

The Life of Prayer by A.B. Simpson

"Hope is a sort of universal blessing, and one of the greatest which God has granted to man. To mankind, in general, life would be intolerable without it; and it is as necessary as faith is even to the followers of God....Hope stands justly among the highest mercies of God."
- Adam Clarke in is Bible Commentary on Rom. 8:25

"When a heathen king objected to the missionary's testimony concerning the one living and true God, that he could not see Him, and therefore could not believe in Him, the missionary took the king into the courtyard, and asked him to look intently upon the sun, which was burning in high noon; and when the monarch replied that the attempt would blind him, the missionary answered, "If you cannot look even upon one of His servants without being dazzled by his brightness, how could you endure looking upon Himself?" "
- W. Pakenham Walsh, The Angel of the Lord, p. 2

"If I was a believer, I would not feel [that] God owed me an explanation. I'm not one of those atheists who thinks you can go around saying...complaining. I mean, if you make the assumption that there is a deity, then all things are possible. You just have to be able to make that assumption."
- atheist Christopher Hitchens in his debate with William Lane Craig at 2:19:55 into the debate.

"The true secret of pleasing God is to trust Him, to believe in His love to us, to be artless children, and to count ourselves beloved of God."
- A.B. Simpson in Wholly Sanctified

"Believe that God hears, and will in due time grant, believe his love and truth; believe that he is love, and therefore will not deny you; believe that he is truth, and therefore will not deny himself."
- Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments

"God is, if I may so say, at the command of the prayer of faith; and in this respect is, as it were, under the power of his people; as princes, they have power with God, and prevail."
- Jonathan Edwards

"Remember, also, that God delights to bestow blessing, but, generally, as the result of earnest, believing prayer."
- George Mueller

"I do not remember who it was, I think it was one of the Wesleys, who said that more men are ruined by despondency than by presumption, that they give up because they do not believe things can be better, therefore they live through their lives in humdrum, half-hearted fashion, and by and by die, never having accomplished the thing that they desire."
- Charles A. Blanchard in Getting Things from God page 269

"Faith is not passive. It is stepping out on the promises of God."
- Tony Evans

"I believe in Christianity as I believe in the sun- not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
- C. S. Lewis

"Every man lives by faith, the nonbeliever as well as the saint; the one by faith in natural laws and the other by faith in God."
- A.W. Tozer

"Faith in faith is faith astray."
- A.W. Tozer

"No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief."
-John Calvin

"Hope is the oxygen of the soul"
- anonymous

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

"A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool."
- G.K. Chesterson

"That is why daily praying and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed."
- C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity book III chapter 11

"Faith is R.I.S.K."
- John Wimber [Attributed to Wimber, though it's not clear he claims to have originated the saying. Most likely it was a popular saying in his theological circles]

"Don’t be afraid to take a big step.You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps."
- David Lloyd George

"Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see."
- William Newton Clarke

"Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God--
Naught else is worth believing.

Though all my heart should feel condemned
For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart
Whose Word cannot be broken.

I'll trust in God's unchanging Word
Till soul and body sever,
For, though all things shall pass away,
HIS WORD SHALL STAND FOREVER!"
- attributed to Martin Luther

"Faith is not believing that God can, but that God will."
- Abraham Lincoln

And to the faith that knows it gets what it asks, prayer is not a work or a burden, but a joy and a triumph; it becomes a necessity and a second nature.
-Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, 31st Lesson

"A faith that hasn’t been tested can’t be trusted."
- Adrian Rogers

"Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things 'above all that we ask or think.' "
-Andrew Murray

"A guilty conscience is one of Satan's great weapons against the children of God: faith can only be bold as the conscience is clean."
- Lilian B. Yeomans

"Faith hears the inaudible, sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible."
- Corrie Ten Boom

"Faith has never yet outstripped the bounty of the Lord."
- Pope Gregory the Great

"We are what we believe we are."
- C.S. Lewis

"Faith is a living deliberate confidence in the grace of God, so certain that for it one could die a thousand deaths, and such confidence and knowledge of divine grace makes us joyous, intrepid, and cheerful towards God and all creation."- Martin Luther
Other versions:
"Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace. It is so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times."
"Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times."
"Faith is a living, bold trust in God’s grace, so certain of God’s favor  that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it."
"Faith is a living and unshakable confidence, a belief in the grace of God so assured that a man would die a thousand deaths for its sake."
"Faith is a living, unshakeable confidence in God's grace; it is so certain, that someone would die a thousand times for it. This kind of trust in and knowledge of God's grace makes a person joyful, confident, and happy with regard to God and all creatures."
- Martin Luther, Preface to Romans

"Faith is a voluntary act of trust in God."
- McCandlish Phillips, The Spirit World p. 184

It is as impossible to separate works from faith as burning and shining from fire.
- Martin Luther from the Preface to his commentary on Romans.

"Not while we are in this life will we move beyond the necessity of livng by faith. Therefore, so long as we live, we will be vulnerable to the satanic argument that our only course is to despair, that faith in an unseen God is foolish."
- Dave Breese, His Infernal Majesty p. 81

"No wavering. This is the principle: He who believes is definite. A definite faith brings a definite experience and a definite utterance."
- Smith Wigglesworth

"The further we get away from our mother's knees, the further do we get away from the true art of praying. All our after-schooling and our after-teachers unteach us the lessons of prayer. Men prayed well in Old Testament times because they were simple men and lived in simple times. They were childlike, lived in childlike times and had childlike faith."
- E.M. Bounds in Prayer and Praying Men

Let a man go to the grammar school of faith and repentance before he goes to the university of election and predestination.
-George Whitefield quoting John Bradford

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."
- Helen Keller

"If we would pray aright, the first thing we should do is to see to it that we really get an audience with God, that we really get into His very presence. Before a word of petition is offered, we should have the definite consciousness that we are talking to God, and should believe that He is listening and is going to grant the thing that we ask of Him."
-Dr. R.A. Torrey

"Faith takes God without any ifs. If God says anything, faith says, "I believe it"; faith says, "Amen" to it."
– D. L. Moody

"Real faith rejoices in the promise of God as if it saw the deliverance and was enjoying it."
– F. F. Bosworth

"Faith’s role is to grasp that which appears impossible or strange to human eyes."
– Andrew Murray

"Faith can only operate where the will of God is known."
– Keith Butler

"Faith is more than agreeing with God’s Word – faith is acting upon that Word."
- Col Stringer

"Unbelief [in God] was the first sin, and pride was the first-born of it."
-Stephen Charnock

"Faith is an action, based on a belief, supported by confidence."
- R. W. Shambach

"Believe that when you come into the presence of God you can have all you came for. You can take it away, and you can use it, for all the power of God is at your disposal in response to your faith."
- Smith Wigglesworth

"His favorite and almost his only subject was faith. No matter what the text, we all knew where he would arrive."
- Donald Gee about his friend Smith Wigglesworth

"Faith is not the price that buys God’s blessing, it is the hand that receives His blessing. The price was paid for us by Jesus Christ on the cross"
– Joyce Meyer

"Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so."
- David Brooks

"The important thing is not the size of your faith – it is the One behind your faith – God Himself."
- Oral Roberts

"Faith is the spark that ignites the impossible and causes it to become possible. When a person's faith is activated, it sets in motion supernatural power that enables that person to do what he normally would never be able to do!"
- Rick Renner

"Is there any reason why you should not have faith in God? Has God ever broken one of His promises? I defy any infidel or unbeliever to place a finger on a single promise of God ever made and failed to fulfill."
- D. L. Moody

"Faith is the hand with which we take from God. When we have met all the conditions and taken what God is offering us, we must believe that we have that thing."
- C. Nuzum

"I believe that there is nothing impossible with God and that He is still God Almighty.  And always remember, no matter what those problems are today, as long as God is still on His Throne hearing and answering prayer, everything will come out all right."
- Kathryn Kuhlman

"I don't respect people who don't proselytize. I don't respect that at all. If you believe that there's a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think that it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward.... How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?"
- atheist Penn Jillette

"Lastly: In what a melancholy condition are those who do not believe there is any providence; or, which comes to exactly the same point, not a particular one! Whatever station they are in, as long as they are in the world, they are exposed to numberless dangers which no human wisdom can foresee, and no human power can resist. And there is no help! If they trust in men, they find them "deceitful upon the weights." In many cases they cannot help; in others, they will not. But were they ever so willing, they will die:"
- John Wesley sermon 67 On Divine Providence

"I believe in the infallible book, in the last analysis, because 'of the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the word in my heart.' "- Cornelius Van Til


No human being can explain in the sense of seeing through all things, but only he who believes in God has the right to hold that there is an explanation at all."
- Cornelius Van Til


I hold that belief in God is not merely as reasonable as other belief, or even a little or infinitely more probably true than other belief; I hold rather that unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else."
- Cornelius Van Til

"The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the Gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The Gospel is—we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope."- Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller in their book The Meaning of Marriage"You know however that our duties by no means depend on our hopes of success, but that it behooves us to accomplish what God requires of us, even when we are in the greatest despair respecting the results."
- John Calvin, letter to Philip Melanchthon, March 5, 1555 (Jules Bonnet, ed., Letters of John Calvin, vol. 6, p. 158).

"To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, "I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge"
-Ravi Zacharias

I would rather believe for something great and receive half of it, than to believe for nothing and receive all of it!
– Joel Osteen

"I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar."
- atheist Friedrich Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols

Purpose gives birth to hope and instills the passion to act.
– Myles Munroe

"You get faith by studying the Word. Study that Word until something in you "knows that you know" and that you do not just hope that you know."
- Carrie Judd Montgomery

"As prayer without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer [is] but a presumptuous bravado. He that promises to give, and bids us trust his promises, commands us to pray, and expects obedience to his commands. He will give, but not without our asking."
- puritan Thomas Lye in "How Are We to Live by Faith on Divine Providence?" Taken from Trusting God: Even When Lift Hurts by Jerry Bridges page 108 which itself takes it from Puritan Sermons 1659-1689, Vol.1 p.374

"Trust...[uses] such means as God prescribes for the bringing about his appointed end...God's means are to be used, as well as God's blessing to be expected."
-Thomas Lye

"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe."
-Augustine

"Faith is the bird that sings while it is yet dark."
-Max Lucado

More quotes will be added periodically.

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