Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
Interpretation
Faith involves believing in something that doesn't seem likely to happen.
This quote by H. L. Mencken suggests that faith is characterized by believing in outcomes that are improbable or unlikely to occur, emphasizing a sense of commitment to beliefs that defy logic or rational explanation. It highlights how faith often requires embracing uncertainty and the irrational, making it a fundamentally subjective experience that transcends empirical evidence.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about overcoming fears and embracing uncertainty.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die.
Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.
Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts).
Spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.
Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?
There are many different ways to be poor in the world but increasingly there seems to be one single way to be rich.
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