Faith quotes
Scripture from the public-domain World English Bible alongside prayers, hymns and reflections from writers of many traditions. Every verse carries its reference.
The library has 5,276 quotes on this topic. Here are 60 of the most quoted, no more than four from any one writer.
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60 faith quotes
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Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry.
Benjamin Franklin The Way to Wealth (Poor Richard Improved) -
A cheerful heart makes good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Bible (World English Bible) Proverbs, 17:22 -
Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Bible (World English Bible) Proverbs, 3:5–6 -
Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you.
Bible (World English Bible) 1 Thessalonians, 5:16–18 -
This is the day that Yahweh has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!
Bible (World English Bible) Psalms, 118:24 -
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Book iv. Line 677 -
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.
William Shakespeare Henry V, Act ii. Sc. 4 -
Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name.
Alexander Pope Moral Essays. Epistle iii, Line 285 -
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle i, Line 267 -
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
William Shakespeare King John, Act iv. Sc. 2 -
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows.
William Shakespeare Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3 -
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.
William Shakespeare Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2 -
God helps them that help themselves.
Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Almanack -
Good the more Communicated more abundant grows.
John Milton Paradise Lost -
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Bk. I -
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Henry David Thoreau Walden -
By rousing himself, by earnestness, by restraint and control, the wise man may make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 25 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iii. Stanza 107 -
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Alexander Pope Essay on Criticism, Part ii. Line 325 -
’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.
William Wordsworth Weak is the Will of Man -
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a Heaven for?
Robert Browning Andrea del Sarto, Men and Women -
’Tis heaven alone that is given away; ’Tis only God may be had for the asking.
James Russell Lowell The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First -
The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn: God’s in his heaven— All’s right with the world!
Robert Browning Pippa Passes, 1841 (Pippa’s song) -
Where’er we tread, ’tis haunted, holy ground.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 88 -
Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays: First Series -
Humility is the altar upon which God wishes that we should offer him his sacrifices.
François de La Rochefoucauld Maxims (supplement), Supplement, LXXIX · translated by J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell -
Neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By His permissive will, through Heaven and Earth.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Bk. iii., Line 682 -
O Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto i. Stanza 15 -
Nor less I deem that there are Powers Which of themselves our minds impress; That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness.
William Wordsworth Expostulation and Reply -
One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition.
William Wordsworth The Excursion, Book iv -
The gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
William Wordsworth Laodamia -
Let us, then, be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things Keep ourselves loyal to truth and the sacred professions of friendship.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 6 -
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl, The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Alexander Pope Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace, Satire i. Book ii. Line 127 -
Whose faith has centre everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form.
Alfred Tennyson In Memoriam. xxxiii, Stanza 1 -
Some hae meat and canna eat, And some would eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit.
Robert Burns Grace before Meat -
But sad as angels for the good man’s sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in.
Thomas Campbell Pleasures of Hope, Part ii. Line 357 -
There is a method in man’s wickedness,—It grows up by degrees.
Beaumont and Fletcher A King and No King, Act v. Sc. 4 -
For truth is precious and divine,—Too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
Samuel Butler Hudibras, Part ii. Canto ii. Line 257 -
This world is all a fleeting show, For man’s illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—There’s nothing true but Heaven.
Thomas Moore This World is all a fleeting Show -
And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.
William Cowper Exhortation to Prayer -
The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.
Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. vi, Chap. viii -
For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?
Ralph Waldo Emerson Good Bye -
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea And rides upon the storm.
William Cowper Light shining out of Darkness -
Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale!
Oliver Wendell Holmes Old Ironsides -
Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of eternity.
James Russell Lowell Sonnet vi -
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.
Abraham Lincoln April 28 -
One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves.
Alfred Tennyson In Memoriam. Conclusion, Stanza 36 -
As for believing things, I can believe anything provided that it is quite incredible.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
There is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all; And where it cometh, all things are; And it cometh everywhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays. First Series. Epigraph to History -
With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.
Abraham Lincoln March 10 -
He who wishes to put on the yellow dress without having cleansed himself from sin, who disregards temperance and truth, is unworthy of the yellow dress.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 9 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Abraham Lincoln Address, New York City, Feb. 21, 1859 -
Self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 380 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Nothing shall be wanting on my part, if sustained by the American people and God.
Abraham Lincoln May 12 -
Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one’s mind, that is the teaching of the Awakened.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 183 · translated by F. Max Müller -
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.
Mark Twain Following the Equator -
The spirit of wrath—not the words—is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.
Mark Twain Following the Equator -
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s, face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms
Who wrote most about faith
- William Shakespeare 168
- Thomas Carlyle 152
- Blaise Pascal 135
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 108
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 101
- John Ruskin 72
- Alexander Pope 57
- John Milton 55
- Epictetus 51
- Friedrich Schiller 46
- William Cowper 41
- Alfred Tennyson 39