John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes

Hee stands not surely, that never slips.

A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.

Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.

I could be wrong about salvation. I could be wrong about a lot of things.

Love truth, but pardon error.

If religion is about truth, why is it so afraid of error?

When in doubt, I choose love above any particular ideas offered to me about faith.

America is very tolerant of mistakes.

The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.

I believe in everything - a little bit.

I believe faith is not certainty but the courage to live with uncertainty.

No doubt about it: error is the rule, truth is the accident of error.

Mr. Feld was right; life was like baseball, filled with loss and error, with bad hops and wild pitches, a game in which even champions lost almost as often as they won, and even the best hitters were put out seventy percent of the time.

The person who in shaky times also wavers only increases the evil, but the person of firm decision fashions the universe.

That the sum of a man's life was not where he wound up but in the details that brought him there. That we made mistakes. I closed my eyes, sick of the riddles, and to my surprise all I could see were dandelions-as if they had been painted on the fields of my imagination, a hundred thousand suns. And I remembered something else that makes us human: faith, the only weapon in our arsenal to battle doubt.

Error is certainty's constant companion. Error is the corollary of evidence. And anything said about truth may equally well be said about error: the delusion will be no greater.

I would just like to remember some words of St. Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment. 'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

Courage, ne'er by sorrow broken! Aid where tears of virtue flow; Faith to keep each promise spoken! Truth alike to friend and foe!

William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Muhammad, my friend, I'm getting very scared. Teach me how to love my brothers who don't know the law, and what about the deal on the flying trapeze?

Question: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief. Too final, certain, closed. Itself is a kind of belief. Doubt.

The only saint is that soul that never weakens, faces everything, and determines to die game.

I would like to believe there is a God, but I think it is better to say I'm not sure there is a God and live your life with kindness and respect for people than to say I know there is a God and then do bad things.

All that shakes falles not.

I think you just keep going. I've been that way, my whole life.