I enjoy reading quotes from various people, though it seems the virtue in quotes directly relates to the character of the person.

Calvin Coolidge

“The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” 

Coolidge valued his faith and the traditions from which it sprang, and he never ceased to extol the virtues of religious belief and practice among the American people during his time in the White House. He was brought up in New England where Puritan faith had flourished with the teachings of the Bible and who sought to live in accordance with its precepts. Without intimate accounts from close friends or family it is difficult to weigh the heart of very public figures. He was close to his pastor and had sought counsel with him immediately before assuming the Presidency after Hardings death. Believers come in all manners of faith and gifts, but his words ring true.

Blaise Pascal

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” 

“Blaise Pascal was born June 19, 1623, Clermont-Ferrand, France and died August 19, 1662. He was a mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as Pascal’s principle of pressure, and propagated a religious doctrine that taught the experience of God through the heart rather than through reason.”  (Britannica)

He was a brilliant child. Pascal invented the first calculation machine, advanced the knowledge of air pressure and hydrostatics. In mathematics he laid a groundwork for calculus of probability. In his faith, which was Catholic as practically all Christianity was at that time, he expressed personal devotion to God through the heart [where God’s Spirit dwells], rather than reason, which parallels his acceptance of Sovereignty and grace over self-determination and good works. 

C.S. Lewis

“Once people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe in nothing; rather, the problem is that they will believe anything.” 

Lewis was an atheist who set out to prove Christianity wrong and convinced himself it was the only truth. His writings expound this truth in clear and insightful ways. 

Corrie Ten Boom

“You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have.”

Corrie is a treasure of God’s champions, a devout Believer risking life during Nazi occupation to save Jews, she was sent to a death camp with her family who mostly died there, but was released due to a clerical error to later become an evangelist that traveled the world with her story of God’s faithfulness, grace and miraculous provision and forgiveness .

Frederick Douglass

“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason… Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” 

He described his journey to faith, “I was not more than thirteen years old, when in my loneliness and destitution I longed for some one to whom I could go, as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson, was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were by nature rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise. I consulted a good old colored man named Charles Lawson, and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to “cast all my care upon God.” This I sought to do; and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially, did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible.”