“I always said God was against art and I still believe it. Anything obscene or trivial is blessed in this world and has a reward – I ask for no reward – only to live & to hear my work.”

July 4
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Letter X
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: I will be candid. I believe God is a just God, rewarding and punishing us exactly as we act well or ill. I believe that such reward and punishment follow necessarily from His will as revealed in natural law, as well as in the Bible. I believe that as the highest justice is the highest mercy, so He is a merciful God. That the guilty should suffer the measure of penalty which their guilt has incurred, is justice. What we call mercy is not the remission of this, but rather the remission of the extremity of the sentence attached to the act, when we find something in the nature of the causes which led to the act which lightens the moral guilt of the agent. That each should have his exact due is Just — is the best for himself. That the consequence of his guilt should he transferred from him to one who is innocent (although that innocent one he himself willing to accept it), whatever else it be, is not justice. We are mocking the word when we call it such. If I am to use the word justice in any sense at all which human feeling attaches to it, then to permit such transfer is but infinitely deepening the wrong, and seconding the first fault by greater injustice. I am speaking only of the doctrine of the atonement in its human aspect, and as we are to learn anything from it of the divine nature or of human duty.

Shia source: al-Fadhl ibn al-Hasan al-Tabrisi, Majma‘ al-Bayān, vol.9, p. 29
Sunni sources: Ibn Hajar Al-Haythami, Al-Sawā'iq al-Muhriqah, p. 101 ; Ali ibn Abu Bakr al-Haythami, Majma‘ al-Zawa'id, vol.9, p. 146 ; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak ‘alā al-Sahihain, vol.3, p. 172
Religious-based Quotes

Source: The Lightning Thief

Source: The Fountainhead

[Powley, Adam, Robert, Gillan, Shankly's Village: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Glenbuck and its Famous Footballing Sons, https://books.google.com/books?id=Qe7NCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT162&lpg=PT162&dq=%22The+socialism+I+believe+in+is+everyone+working+for+each+other,+everyone+having+a+share+of+the+rewards.+It%27s+the+way+I+see+football,+the+way+I+see+life.%22&source=bl#v=onepage, 2016-08-18, 2015, Worthing, UK, Pitch, 931595421, 9781785310706]

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 2, “Happiness Is a Problem” (p. 40)

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 132
Variant transcription from "Death of a Genius" in Life Magazine: "I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death, or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar."
Context: About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.

This is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery.
1961, Inaugural Address
Context: Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.