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.
Your name or your body, what is dearer? Your body or your wealth, what is worthier?
If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal. But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.
What the poor need is not charity, but capital, not caseworkers but coworkers.
Spirits that live throughout, Vital in every part, not as frail man, In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins, Cannot but by annihilating die.
Guilt, regret, resentment, sadness & all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past & not enough presence.
Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal.
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