“Prophet,’ he said, ‘Your doctrines I do not know; therefore if I accepted them, I would do it out of fear like a coward and a base man. Are you anxious that your faith be professed by cowards and base people?”

“The daily circumstances of life will afford us opportunities enough of glorifying God in trust, without our waiting for any extraordinary calls upon faith, our faith. Let us remember that the extraordinary circumstances of life are but few; that much of life may slip past without their occurrence; and that if we be not faithful and trusting in that which is little, we are not likely to be so in that which is great… Let our trust be reared in the humble nursery of our own daily experience, with its ever recurring little wants and trials, and sorrows; and then, when need be, it will come forth, to do such great things as are required of it.”

“Levi,” Maria called. “Come back. We’re not finished yet.”He paused”What, Maria?””You asked me what I believe in? I believed in you.”He nodded his head sadly. “Yes, you did. And before you met me, you believed in nothing. But that’s the thing with belief, Maria. It’s easy to believe in something when it doesn’t require anything from you. It’s much harder, though, when the object of your belief requires something of you or asks for something you don’t want to give. That’s when real belief occurs.”

“The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no spring within his breast, no inner strength to place him above the need for repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to go on living. He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment, unable to live a day apart from the stimulation which society affords him.”

“Keep marching boys and girls. Keep marching”

“As your faith is strengthened, you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will and that you will flow with them to your great delight and benefit.”

“I am not functioning very well. Living with the knowledge that the baby is dead is painful. I feel so far away from you, God. I can only try to believe that you are sustaining me and guiding me through this. Please continue to stand by my side.”

“Trying to justify a world we don’t hold all the answers to is what bedevils the best of us. Sometimes it’s better just to accept that things are as we see them.”

“Watching you has taught me that a man need not be weak to have a faith, but is made strong by it.”

“I loved my father, but I was not like him. I never needed to believe the best of people. I took them as they were: two-faced, desperate, kind – perhaps all at once. But to Pa, they were all children of god, poor troubled sheep, who only needed love and an even break. He needed the world to back up what his religion told him about people. And when it came down to a choice between reason and faith, he let go of reason.”

“Only hope can keep a man alive in times of hardship.”

“Your sorrow is your sorrow.”

“All men faces troubles.”

“In the silient of his heart, he knows his sufferings.”