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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

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Faith

More quotes by Hosea Ballou

Humanity, in the aggregate, is progressing, and philanthropy looks forward hopefully.

Edge-Tools of Speech (1886)

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearsay of little children tends towards the formation of character.

As "unkindness has no remedy at law," let its avoidance be with you a point of honor.

A chaste and lucid style is indicative of the same personal traits in the author.

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Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson Letter to Peter Carr (1787)

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

Colin Wilson Postscript to the Outsider (1967)

Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love."

Jonathan Edwards Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Hosea Ballou (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.