“Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
— Ambrose Bierce

“Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr’s death will send them straight to heaven.”
— Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene.”

“A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.”
— Demosthenes, “Third Olynthiac,” (349 BCE).

“Faith: Not wanting to know what is true.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.”
— Alan Watts

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

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” […] “No Pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.”
— Helen Keller

“Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether it’s Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power.”
— Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the daily Christian radio show The Albert Mohler Program, on March 17, 2006, as quoted by Media Matters.

“Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.”
— Eric Hoffer

“He prayed, ‘Lord God, let us be the kind of Christians that you would be if you were a Christian.’ ”
— Sinclair Lewis, from his novel, “The God-Seeker” (1949).

“I would rather live with unanswered questions than unquestioned answers.”
— Valarie Tarico

“In his book ‘The Psychic Mafia,’ [M. Lamar] Keene tells of a psychic medium named Raoul. Some people still believed that Raoul was genuine even after he openly admitted that he was a fake. Keene wrote ‘I knew how easy it was to make people believe a lie, but I didn’t expect the same people, confronted with the lie, would choose it over the truth. … No amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie.’ ”
— Wikipedia entry for ‘True-Believer Syndrome.’

Click below for more quotes on faith.

“Skepticism is the beginning of faith.”
— Oscar Wilde

“To follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“Faith…must be enforced by reason. …When faith becomes blind it dies.”
— Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi

“Reason is the enemy of faith.”
— Martin Luther

“How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.”
— Michel de Montaigne

“I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education.”
— Wilson Mizner

“If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.”
— The Dalai Lama

First, I prepare. Then I have faith.”
— Joe Namath

“There are people with the greatest faith in and love for God and all his marvelous creations who would deny a dollar to a poor panhandler, and then go on to cruelly laugh at him.”
— Harriet Bitters

“Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say.”
— William W. Watt

“I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.”
— Edgar Allan Poe

“I don’t have to have faith, I have experience.”
— Joseph Campbell

“Not even the most avid worshipper leaves it to faith to fix the family car, take out the trash, or unclog the toilet, yet they willingly believe faith and prayer will prevent harm from befalling them, heal them when sick, ward off disease, and transport them to paradise after death.”
— Carleton Quinn

“Has anyone else noticed how much more effective prayer has become since the invention of modern medicine?”
— Scott Hurst

“By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.”
— E.O. Wilson, an American scientist.

“When you’re thirsty and it seems that you could drink the entire ocean that’s faith; when you start to drink and finish only a glass or two that’s science.”
— Anton Chekov

“There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.”
— Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi

“Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.”
— Stanislaw Lem

“Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death.”
— Miguel de Unamuno

“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“If there was no faith there would be no living in this world. We could not even eat hash with any safety.”
— Josh Billings

“In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”
— Blaise Pascal

“Never fear shadows. …that always means there is a light shining somewhere.”
— Jonathan Santos

“Faith in oneself is the best and safest course.”
— Michelangelo

“For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.”
— Alexander Pope

“The other day the President said, I know you’ve had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. He paused, then said, ‘would you like a puppy?’ ”
— Dan Quayle