Quotes about angels page 2
“Evolution is more grounded in my experience than angels.”
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
Interview by David Remnick at the American Magazine Conference (23 October 2006) http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/magazines/barack_obama_i_inhaled_that_was_the_point_46068.asp <br class="br">2006
Mary Butts (1890–1937) Novelist
The Water Lily, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
Mais qu’un marchand de chameaux excite une sédition dans sa bourgade; qu’associé à quelques malheureux coracites il leur persuade qu’il s’entretient avec l’ange Gabriel; qu’il se vante d’avoir été ravi au ciel, et d’y avoir reçu une partie de ce livre inintelligible qui fait frémir le sens commun à chaque page; que, pour faire respecter ce livre, il porte dans sa patrie le fer et la flamme; qu’il égorge les pères, qu’il ravisse les filles, qu’il donne aux vaincus le choix de sa religion ou de la mort, c’est assurément ce que nul homme ne peut excuser, à moins qu’il ne soit né Turc, et que la superstition n’étouffe en lui toute lumière naturelle.
Referring to Muhammad, in a letter to Frederick II of Prussia (December 1740), published in Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Vol. 7 (1869), edited by Georges Avenel, p. 105
Citas
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy (1925). p. 86
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Citing the television program 24 to support torture. Last Week Tonight http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/15/john-oliver-and-helen-mirren-take-the-u-s-and-24-s-jack-bauer-to-task-over-torture.html <br class="br">2000s
Dave Grohl (1969) American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter
Maxim Magazine (January 2008)
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
As quoted in The Rumi Collection : An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (2000) by Kabir Helminski
Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments
Magnus Bane, to Jace Herondale, pg. 47-48
The Mortal Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire (2014)
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So Called, July 1522. <br class="br">Luther's Works, Church and Ministry I, Eric W. Gritsch, Helmut T. Lehman eds., Concordia Publishing House, 1986, ISBN 0800603397, ISBN 9780800603397, vol. 39, p. 249. http://books.google.com/books?id=2YnYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22so+that+whoever+does+not+accept+my+teaching+may+not+be+saved%22&dq=%22so+that+whoever+does+not+accept+my+teaching+may+not+be+saved%22&hl=en&ei=9ow_TOntFoL78AbVqMW_Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA
“Men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels, rather than elevated apes.”
William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian
Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter III, "Liberty"
Ali book Nahj al-Balagha
Nahj al-Balagha
John Taylor (Latter Day Saints) (1808–1887) third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) Muslim religious person
a
Ja‘far ibn Muhammad ibn Qulawayh, Kāmil al-Ziyarat, ch.42, p. 393
Religous Wisdom
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
" The Haunted Palace http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/poe/17478" (1839), st. 1.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), On the musicians of the Ospedale della Pieta (book VII)
Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) Muslim religious person
Ja‘far ibn Muhammad ibn Qulawayh, Kāmil al-Ziyarat, p. 119
Religous Wisdom
James Martineau (1805–1900) English religious philosopher
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 592.
Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist
Religion—a Reality part II. Secondly, "It is not a vain thing"—that is, IT IS NO TRIFLE. (June 22nd, 1862) http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0457.HTM
Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era
A Death in the Desert (1864)
Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church
Section 231
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel
Oliver Cowdery (1806–1850) American Mormon leader
Letter from Oliver Cowder to W.W. Phelps (Letter I), (September 7, 1834). Published in Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, Vol. I. No. 1. Kirtland, Ohio, October, 1834. Published in Letters by Oliver Cowdery to W.W. Phelps on the Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Liverpool, 1844.
“And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.”
John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal
The Pillar of the Cloud http://www.bartleby.com/236/75.html, st. 3 (1833).
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist
T. Paine: http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/reason2.htm |title=The Age of Reason: Part 1 Section 2 |publisher= |author=Thomas Paine |date= |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821230002/http://www.ushistory.org///paine/reason/reason2.htm |deadurl=no
Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments
Clary snapped.
Simon, Jace, and Clary, pg. 146-147
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
Alyson Hannigan (1974) American actress
About.com, "American Wedding's" Bride and Groom Discuss the Third "Pie" Movie http://movies.about.com/cs/americanwedding/a/amwedjbah.htm.
“I don't know where he [ Marc Chagall ] gets those images; he must have an angel in his head.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
As quoted in Marc Chagall, – a Biography, by Sidney Alexander, Cassell, London, 1978, p. 33
Attributed from posthumous publications
“By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,”
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic
"Dreamland", st. 1 (1845).
Context: By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule —
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE — out of TIME.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
Context: I account in part for the civilization of America by the fact that our fathers were wise enough, and jealous of each other enough, to absolutely divorce church and state. They regarded the church as a dangerous mistress—one not fit to govern a president. This divorce was obtained because men like Jefferson and Paine were at that time prominent in the councils of the people. There is this peculiarity in our country—the only men who can be trusted with human liberty are the ones who are not to be angels hereafter. Liberty is safe so long as the sinners have an opportunity to be heard.
Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)
1970s, Remarks on pardoning Nixon (1974)
Context: My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquillity but to use every means that I have to insure it.
I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right.
I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy.
Finally, I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer, no matter what I do, no matter what we, as a great and good nation, can do together to make his goal of peace come true.
“To equip a dull, respectable person with wings would be but to make a parody of an angel.”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer
Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: All error, not merely verbal, is a strong way of stating that the current truth is incomplete. The follies of youth have a basis in sound reason, just as much as the embarrassing questions put by babes and sucklings. Their most antisocial acts indicate the defects of our society. When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the Church of England, discovered the cure of all evils in universal atheism. Generous lads irritated at the injustices of society, see nothing for it but the abolishment of everything and Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a young fool; so are these cocksparrow revolutionaries. But it is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God’s sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself! As for the others, the irony of facts shall take it out of their hands, and make fools of them in downright earnest, ere the farce be over. There shall be such a mopping and a mowing at the last day, and such blushing and confusion of countenance for all those who have been wise in their own esteem, and have not learnt the rough lessons that youth hands on to age. If we are indeed here to perfect and complete our own natures, and grow larger, stronger, and more sympathetic against some nobler career in the future, we had all best bestir ourselves to the utmost while we have the time. To equip a dull, respectable person with wings would be but to make a parody of an angel.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
1910s, Principles of Research (1918)
Context: In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is why we love him.
I am quite aware that we have just now lightheartedly expelled in imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly, responsible for the buildings of the temple of science; and in many cases our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances.
Now let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult question and no single answer will cover it.
“I don’t suppose that was a good thing for them to say. You might not have believed in angels.”
Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy
Will and Mary in Ch. 33 : Marzipan
His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Context: They lay back, well fed and comfortable in the flower-scented night, and listened to Mary tell her story.
She began just before she first met Lyra, telling them about the work she was doing at the Dark Matter Research group, and the funding crisis. How much time she’d had to spend asking for money, and how little time there’d been left for research!
But Lyra’s coming had changed everything, and so quickly: within a matter of days she’d left her world altogether.
"I did as you told me," she said. "I made a program — that’s a set of instructions — to let the Shadows talk to me through the computer. They told me what to do. They said they were angels, and — well…"
"If you were a scientist," said Will, "I don’t suppose that was a good thing for them to say. You might not have believed in angels."
"Ah, but I knew about them. I used to be a nun, you see. I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn’t any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway. The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that’s all."
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
"I Died as a Mineral", as translated in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 125
Variant translation: Originally, you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable. From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man. During these periods man did not know where he was going, but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless. And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.
As quoted in Multimind (1986) by Robert Ornstein
Context: I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
Federalist No. 51 (6 February 1788)
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
“I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us.
I would like an abundance of peace.”
Brigit of Kildare (451–525) Irish abbess and saint
Prayer traditionally attributed to St. Brigit, as quoted in Prayers of the Saints: An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (1996), by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, p. 77
Context: I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us.
I would like an abundance of peace.
I would like full vessels of charity.
I would like rich treasures of mercy.
I would like cheerfulness to preside over all.
I would like Jesus to be present.
I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts.
I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me.
I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, First Inaugural Address (1861)
Aurelius Augustinus book The City of God
XIX, 9
The City of God (early 400s)
Context: The philosophers who wished us to have the gods for our friends rank the friendship of the holy angels in the fourth circle of society, advancing now from the three circles of society on earth to the universe, and embracing heaven itself. And in this friendship we have indeed no fear that the angels will grieve us by their death or deterioration. But as we cannot mingle with them as familiarly as with men (which itself is one of the grievances of this life), and as Satan, as we read, sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light, to tempt those whom it is necessary to discipline, or just to deceive, there is great need of God’s mercy to preserve us from making friends of demons in disguise, while we fancy we have good angels for our friends; for the astuteness and deceitfulness of these wicked spirits is equalled by their hurtfulness.
“O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire”
Robert Browning The Ring and the Book
Book I : The Ring and the Book <!-- line 1391 -->.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Context: O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire, —
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face, —
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart—
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory — to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die, —
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Aurelius Augustinus book The City of God
XI, 9
The City of God (early 400s)
Context: For when God said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called “Day,” in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made. “The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” — this Light lighteth also every pure angel, that he may be light not in himself, but in God; from whom if an angel turn away, he becomes impure, as are all those who are called unclean spirits, and are no longer light in the Lord, but darkness in themselves, being deprived of the participation of Light eternal. For evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name “evil.”
John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman
Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1855/feb/23/supply-ministerial-explanations to the House of Commons (23 February 1855) opposing the Crimean War. <br class="br">1850s <br class="br">Context: The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two sideposts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on; he takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor and the lowly, and it is on behalf of all these classes that I make this solemn appeal.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien book On Fairy-Stories
On Fairy-Stories (1939)
Context: The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. … But this story has entered History and the primary world; … It has pre-eminently the "inner consistency of reality." There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation.... this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men — and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
As quoted in The Life and Public Service of Abraham Lincoln (1865) by Henry J. Raymond
Posthumous attributions
Context: If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)
Context: Many of his questions seemed highly out of place to his visitor, especially those which tried to connect the latter with strange cults or societies; and Wilcox could not understand the repeated promises of silence which he was offered in exchange for an admission of membership in some widespread mystical or paganly religious body. When Professor Angell became convinced that the sculptor was indeed ignorant of any cult or system of cryptic lore, he besieged his visitor with demands for future reports of dreams.
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)
Zinedine Zidane (1972) French association football player and manager
Jean-Louis Murat, 2004 http://www.theguardian.com/football/2004/apr/04/sport.features
“Last night Alexis got his script for Angel.”
Alyson Hannigan (1974) American actress
I was like, "Oh, I would have been getting a Buffy script right now." <br class="br">About.com, "American Wedding's" Bride and Groom Discuss the Third "Pie" Movie http://movies.about.com/cs/americanwedding/a/amwedjbah.htm.
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
The Prophecy of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven relates to the second coming of Christ; that of the Prince of the host relates to his first coming: and this Prophecy of the Messiah, in explaining them, relates to both comings, and assigns the times thereof.
Vol. I, Ch. 10: Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Robert Browning The Ring and the Book
And Law does listen and compose the strife,
Settle the suit, how wisely and how well!
On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault,
Law bends a brow maternally severe,
Implies the worth of perfect chastity,
By fancying the flaw she cannot find.
Book IX : Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Variant: The question is this— Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new fanged theories.
Variant: Is man an ape or an angel? Now, I am on the side of the angels!
Source: Speech at Oxford Diocesan Conference (25 November 1864), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (1929), p. 108
Brigit of Kildare (451–525) Irish abbess and saint
Prayer traditionally attributed to St. Brigit, as quoted in Prayers of the Saints: An Inspired Collection of Holy Wisdom (1996), by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, p. 77
Friedrich Schiller Wallenstein
Act V, sc. xi
Wallenstein (1798), Part II - Wallensteins Tod (The Death of Wallenstein)
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Source: 1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Context: At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just: politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely and eternally right, — but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him.
But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern himself. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.
“What hope is there?" I asked. "If even angels fall, what hope is there for the rest of us?”
Richelle Mead (1976) American writer
Source: Succubus Dreams
“I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape.”
Desmond Morris (1928) English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter
Source: The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
“Did God ever cry over his lost angel, I wonder?”
Libba Bray book Rebel Angels
Variant: Do you think they missed him terribly when he fell? Did God cry over his lost angel, I wonder?
Source: Rebel Angels
“takes a devil to make a decent angel.”
Tom Spanbauer (1946) American writer