…[B]elief is not the supernatural sleight of hand designed to save us from the exigencies of life. “There are those who say in winter,” the Sufi story teaches, “‘I shall not wear warm clothes. I will trust in God to keep me warm.’ But they forget,” the story says, “that the God who made winter gave human beings the power to protect themselves from it.” Belief is not fantasy. Belief is not an excuse for irrationality. Faith is not what gives us the tricks it takes to control God. Belief is a basis for personal develop-ment and a topographical map of life that signals a way through the valleys and plains, raging rivers and vast oceans of experience in which we grow. Belief makes a life more a quest than a place.

–Joan Chittister, In Search of Belief

It is terribly important to realize the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action. For while in many matters it is first we must see, then we will act, in matters of faith it is first we must do, then we will know; first we will be, and then we will see. One must, in short, dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty.

–William Sloan Coffin, Credo