You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

The aphorism frames faith less as a guarantee of success than as a prerequisite for action. Butler’s contrast—faith enables “very little,” yet without it one can do “nothing”—suggests that belief (in oneself, in a plan, in the possibility of improvement) is not sufficient on its own, but it is the minimal condition that makes effort, risk, and perseverance possible. The line also carries an ironic, characteristically Butlerian sobriety: faith is not romanticized as omnipotent; it is merely the spark that prevents paralysis. In that sense, the quote speaks to practical psychology as much as to religion: conviction may not move mountains, but the absence of conviction stops us from even attempting to climb.