“Real devils are the people who don't want to see God forgive the devil on judgment day.”

Source: Reply to a suggestion by Thomas Moore that George Canning might join with the Whigs to pass Catholic emancipation, quoted in Paul Scherer, Lord John Russell: A Biography (1999), p. 24

Source: Demian (1919), p. 168

The small god in Ch. 44 : the visitor
The Visitor (2002)
Context: Occasionally, I will do a conspicuous miracle to save one dying child while a thousand children starve elsewhere. This will convince sensible people I am perverse, and they will curse my name. Be sure to recruit those who do, they'll be invaluable. Only by repudiating both devils and small gods will they ever know the Real One.

Source: Keeping Faith

Source: Living Beyond Your Feelings: Controlling Emotions So They Don't Control You

"Heartattack and Vine", Heartattack and Vine (1980).

Some Reasons Why (1881)
Context: The believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to say, that there was a time when slavery was right, when women could sell their babes, when polygamy was the highest form of virtue, when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy, when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. He is compelled to insist that Jehovah is as bad now as he was then; that he is as good now as he was then. Once, all the crimes that I have mentioned were commanded by God; now they are prohibited. Once, God was in favor of them all; now the Devil is their defender. In other words, the Devil entertains the same opinion to-day that God held four thousand years ago. The Devil is as good now as Jehovah was then, and God was as bad then as the Devil is now.

Wer den Teufel nicht hassen kann, der kann auch Gott nicht lieben.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

The small god in Ch. 44 : the visitor, p. 458
The Visitor (2002)