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The idea of faith interested him, even fascinated him, not as an intellectual idea, not as a concept or some abstract theoretical framework, but as a way of controlling people, as a way of understanding and so manipulating them. As a flaw, in the end, as something which was wrong with others that was not wrong with him.

— Iain Banks The Algebraist (2004)

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Faith

More quotes by Iain Banks

The news channels are spasming, or frothing, or whatever it is they do.

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Reason shapes the future, but superstition infects the present.

The State of the Art (1991)

Beauty is something that disappears when you try to define it.

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Faith is the eye that sees nothing and rejoices in it.

Feersum Endjinn (1994)

While the forces of repression need to win every time, the progressive elements need only triumph once.

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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)

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