Quotes about God (10000 quotes, page 13)

“Pimen [writing in front of a sacred lamp]:
One more, the final record, and my annals
Are ended, and fulfilled the duty laid
By God on me a sinner. Not in vain
Hath God appointed me for many years
A witness, teaching me the art of letters;
A day will come when some laborious monk
Will bring to light my zealous, nameless toil,
Kindle, as I, his lamp, and from the parchment
Shaking the dust of ages will transcribe
My true narrations.”

Aleksandr Pushkin Boris Godunov

(Variant translation):
One more story, just one more,
And then my history's completed,
All my chronicles written down
And my sinner's debt repaid to God.
Not for nothing.
The Lord appointed me to bear witness
For many many years and it was he
Taught me the art of creating books.
One day, in the far future,
some hard-working monk
Will find my painstaking,
anonymous writings.
He'll light his lamp,
as I light mine,
He'lll shake the dust of centuries from these scrolls.
Then he'll copy out, carefully, these true accounts,
So the descendants of today's Christians
May know the past of their native land
Remember their mighty Tsars warmly
For their glory and their knidness
And our Lord's mercy on their sins and crimes.
In my old age I live my life anew.
Pushkin, Alexander (2012). Pushkin's Boris Gudunov. Oberon Books.
Boris Godunov (1825)

Age , Art , Light

“I, ……………, do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the union of the States thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified or held void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the Supreme Court. So help me God.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)

Support , Decision , Help

“If truth were not boring, science would have done away with God long ago. But God as well as the saints is a means to escape the dull banality of truth.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Tears and Saints (1937)

Truth , Science

“Last but not least, I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing that I’ve ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn’t mean you’re going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out looking for white folks, although you’d be within your rights—I mean, you’d be justified; but that would be illegal and we don’t do anything illegal. If the white man doesn’t want the black man buying rifles and shotguns, then let the government do its job. […] If he’s not going to do his job in running the government and providing you and me with the protection that our taxes are supposed to be for, since he spends all those billions for his defense budget, he certainly can’t begrudge you and me spending $12 or $15 for a single-shot, or double-action. I hope you understand. Don’t go out shooting people, but any time—brothers and sisters, and especially the men in this audience; some of you wearing Congressional Medals of Honor, with shoulders this wide, chests this big, muscles that big—any time you and I sit around and read where they bomb a church and murder in cold blood, not some grownups, but four little girls while they were praying to the same God the white man taught them to pray to, and you and I see the government go down and can’t find who did it.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

Men , People , Hope , Girl

“We thus become temples of God whenever earthly cares cease to interrupt the continuity of our memory of Him.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

vol. 1, p. 19
Letters

Memory

“[Stalin's] purge caused me to examine the meaning of Communism…. I had always known of course that there were books critical of Communism…. I had never read them because I knew that the party did not want me to read them….. the first book I read… was called I Speak for the Silent [by] Professor Vladimir Tchernavin…. He was a little man in the Communist world, gentle, humane, good…. Suddenly for no reason at all he was arrested and carried away by the secret police…. Now for the first time, I believed that slave labor camps existed…. I said ‘this is evil, absolute evil. Of this evil I am a part.’ … If Communism were evil, what was left but moral chaos? …. The rags that fell from me were not only Communism. What fell was the whole web of the materialist modern mind – the luminous shroud which it has spun about the spirit of man, paralyzing in the name of rationalism the instinct of his soul for God, denying in the name of knowledge the reality of the soul….”

Whittaker Chambers Witness

Source: Witness (1952), pp. 79-83

Secret , Books , World , Soul

“In the beginning, there is just universe. There is no us. There is just God in His or Her universe. Then we separate God from the universe until we are trapped in it, in the universe we have created.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

Universe

“It will be a very hard thing to leave the country that God gave us. Our friends are buried there, and we hate to leave these grounds…. There is something strong for us — that fool band of soldiers that cleared out our lodges and killed our women and children. This is hard on us. There at Sand Creek — White Antelope and many other chiefs lie there; our women and children lie there. Our lodges were destroyed there, and our horses were taken from us there, and I do not feel disposed to go right off to a new country and leave them.”

Little Raven (Arapaho leader) (1810–1889) Southern Arapaho chief

At the signing of the Little Arkansas Treaty (October 1865), as quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), p. 100

Women , Hate , Children , Lie

“Let us, therefore, not live in the summer‑house of emotion, but in the central citadel of the will, wholly yielded and devoted to the will of God.”

Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847–1929) English Baptist pastor and evangelist

The Secret of Guidance (1896)

Summer , Housing

“Frustrated? Yes. Why? Because it is impossible for me to be God — or the universal woman-and-man — or anything much. I am what I feel and think and do. I want to express my being as fully as I can because I somewhere picked up the idea that I could justify my being alive that way.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

1950 entry, quoted in Gayle Wurst, Voice and Vision: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath (1999), p. 158
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000)

Way , Feeling , Idea , Thinking

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love , Men , Children , People

“The true nature of the gods is that of magical images shaped out of the astral plane by mankind's thought, and influenced by the mind.”

Dion Fortune (1890–1946) British occultist and author

Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah

Nature

“That we devote ourselves to God, is seen
In living just as though no God there were.”

Robert Browning Paracelsus

Part 1.
Paracelsus (1835)

“And what would our ideas of God, of religion, be like if they had come to us through the minds of women? Ever think of that?”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

Women , Religion , Idea , Thinking

“No part belonging to any single one of (all) rational beings will be lost, as far as God is concerned, in the preparation of that supernal Kingdom which is prepared for all worlds. Because of that goodness of His nature by which He brought the universe into being (and then) bears, guides and provides for the worlds and (all) created things in His immeasurable compassion, He has devised the establishment of the Kingdom of heaven for the entire community of rational beings — even though an intervening time is reserved for the general raising (of all) to the same level.”

Isaac of Nineveh (640–700) Eastern Orthodox saint

XL, 7, p. 176
‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI

World , Communication , Nature , Universe

“Religions are all founded on miracles — on things we cannot understand, such as the Trinity. Jesus calls himself the Son of God, and yet is descended from David. I prefer the religion of Mahomet — it is less ridiculous than ours.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Letter from St. Helena (28 August 1817); as quoted in The St. Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud, 1815-1818 : Being a Diary written at St. Helena during a part of Napoleon's Captivity (1932) as translated by Norman Edwards, a translation of Journal de Sainte-Hélène 1815-1818 by General Gaspard Gourgaud, t.2, p. 226

Religion , Understanding

“All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.”

Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789) French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist

ibid., chap. 30

Children , Idea

“Sir, I beseech you for all the love that hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right. Take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman, and a stranger, born out of your dominion. I have here no assured friend and much less indifferent counsel. I flee to you, as to the head of justice within this realm. Alas, Sir, where have I offended you? Or what occasion have you of displeasure, that you intend to put me from you? I take God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble and obedient wife, ever comfortable to your will and pleasure. I have been always well pleased and contented with all things wherein you had any delight or dalliance. I never grudged a word or countenance, or showed a spark or discontent. I loved all those whom ye loved, only for your sake, whether I had cause or no, and whether they were my friends or enemies. This 20 years or more I have been your true wife and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them from this world, which hath been no default in me. And when ye had me at first, I take God to my judge; I was a true maid, without touch of man.”

Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) first wife of Henry VIII of England (1485–1536)

Joanna Denny (2006) Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306814749, p. 140.

Love , Children , Pleasure , World

“The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

World , Religion , Feeling , Thinking

“Anxiety was a philosophical concept before it taken up by psychology and psychiatry. The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard (1813-1855) argued that anxiety is part of human nature. Anxiety arises where possibility and actuality come into contact and the present touches the future. Anxiety is a product of having the freedom to make choices and act, and by doing so make a commitment to one’s identity, ways of being in the world, and standing in relation to other people. For Kierkegaard, anxiety can be an avenue to stand in relation to God. This is why he wrote, “Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”
One can bracket out the God dimensions and still learn something valuable from Kierkegaard, namely that anxiety can cause inaction, which is, in its most basic sense, a loss of freedom. What is possible may never actualize and one may lose the present by tending to an imagined future. One becomes immobilized and unable to meet needs and realize goals and aspirations.”

Peg O'Connor (1965) American philosopher

"Anxiety Is a Part of Human Nature" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/philosophy-stirred-not-shaken/201703/anxiety-is-part-human-nature, Psychology Today, (Mar 24, 2017).

People , World , Way , Imagination

“Why, being dead, do you rely on yourself? You were able to die of your own accord; you cannot come back to life of your own accord. We were able to sin by ourselves, and we are still able to, nor shall we ever not be able to. Let our hope be in nothing but in God. Let us send up our sighs to him; as for ourselves, let us strive with our wills to earn merit by our prayers.”
Quid de se praesumit mortuus? Mori potuit de suo, reviviscere de suo non potest. Peccare per nos ipsos et potuimus et possumus nec tamen per nos resurgere aliquando poterimus. Spes nostra non sit, nisi in Deo 14. Ad illum gemamus, in illo praesumamus; quod ad nos pertinet, voluntate conemur, ut oratione mereamur.

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

348A:4 Against Pelagius; English translation from: Newly Discovered Sermons, 1997, Edmund Hill, John E. Rotelle, New City Press, New York, ISBN 1565481038, 9781565481039 pp. 311-312. http://books.google.com/books?id=0XjYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Let+us+send+up+our+sighs+to+him,+let+us+rely+on+him%22&dq=%22Let+us+send+up+our+sighs+to+him,+let+us+rely+on+him%22&hl=en&ei=Q75kTajHBoO8lQfW9cTaBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA Editor’s comment: “This sounds like a slightly Pelagian remark! But it is presumably intended to reverse what one may call the Pelagian order of things; and see the last few sections of the sermon, 9-15, on the effect of the heresy on prayer.” http://books.google.com/books?id=0XjYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22This+sounds+like+a+slightly+Pelagian+remark%22&dq=%22This+sounds+like+a+slightly+Pelagian+remark%22&hl=en&ei=9cBkTYenLsKqlAfs56mVBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA
Sermons

Life , Hope , Dead

“I beg of you, brothers, to look upon me as both brother and servant. 'Majesty' is reserved to God alone and 'the throne' is the throne of the Heavens and Earth.”

Faisal of Saudi Arabia (1906–1975) King of Saudi Arabia

Speech, after he took power, in 1964. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4283169

“When I look at a building, how can I know there was a builder? Can't see him, hear him, touch him, taste him or smell him, so how can I know there was a builder? Well, the building is absolute proof there was a builder. I couldn't want better proof that there was a builder than to have the building as evidence. I don't need faith to believe in a builder, all I need is eyes that can see and a brain that works. Now the same deep, rich, scientific principle works with paintings and painters…. And the same principle works with God. When I look at Creation how can I know there was a creator? Well, creation is absolute proof there was a creator. I don't need faith to believe in a creator, all I need is eyes that can see and a brain that works.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

"The Beauty of a Broken Spirit—Atheism", The Way of the Master season 1 episode 7, 2003-05-12

Faith , Painting

“All my days I have been troubled by the verse: "With all your soul", meaning: Even if God takes your soul. I said to myself: When will the opportunity be afforded me to fulfill this verse?”

Akiba ben Joseph (50–136) Tanna

Talmud Bavli,Berakhot https://www.sefaria.org.il/Berakhot.61b.9?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en|

Soul

“Anybody who performs his necessary duties that God has obliged him perform, he himself will be one of the best worshippers of all.”

Ali Zayn al-Abidin (659–713) Great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad

Muhammad al-Hur al-Aamili, Wasā'il al-Shī‘ah, vol.11, p. 206.
Religious wisdom

“I know that the Communists are atheistic and godless, but I don't think that that's what's primarily the matter with them. What's primarily the matter with them is that they worship a false god. That's much more dangerous than when people don't believe anything; they may be confused, they may not have a sense of the meaning of life, but they're not dangerous. The fanatic is dangerous. The Communists do have a god, the Dialectic of History, which guarantees everything that they're going to do and guarantees them victory; that's why they're fanatic.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)

Life , People , History , Thinking

“We, by our arts may be called the grandsons of God.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), X Studies and Sketches for Pictures and Decorations

Art

“If you know how to launch your ship into God's sea
Oh, what a blessed fate, submerged in it to be”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Fate , Sea

“There's a devil inside me which cries, "You're not the son of the Carpenter, you're the son of King David! You are not a man, you are the Son of man whom Daniel prophesied." And still more: "The Son of God! And still more: God!"”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Last Temptation of Christ

Source: The Last Temptation of Christ (1951), Ch. 10

“Deep down, the problem is not a God that does not exist, but the religion that proclaims Him. I denounce religions, all religions, as harmful to Humankind. These are harsh words, but one must say them.”

José Saramago book Cain

Interview to the newspaper "O Globo" (at the time of the release of his latest book, Cain), in 2009.

Religion , Problem

“We climb mountains because they are there, and worship God because He is not.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Mountain

“I have knelt in the mighty temples,
But the dumb gods make no sign;
They cannot speak to my spirit,
As thy soul speaks to mine.”

Fred Weatherly (1848–1929) English lawyer, author, lyricist and broadcaster

Song Nirvana

Soul

“Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Comment to Maurice O'Connor Drury, as quoted in Wittgenstein Reads Freud : The Myth of the Unconscious (1996) by Jacques Bouveresse, as translated by Carol Cosman, p. 14
Attributed from posthumous publications

Religion

“What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Der Spiegel (17 October 1988)

Law , Way , Universe , Science

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

Stephen Hawking book The Grand Design

The Grand Design (2010)

Law , Light , Universe

“God, the Great Giver, can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single land.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Jivan-smitri

Universe

“I tell you that if natural bodies have it from Nature to be moved by any movement, this can only be circular motion, nor is it possible that Nature has given to any of its integral bodies a propensity to be moved by straight motion. I have many confirmations of this proposition, but for the present one alone suffices, which is this. I suppose the parts of the universe to be in the best arrangement, so that none is out of its place, which is to say that Nature and God have perfectly arranged their structure. This being so, it is impossible for those parts to have it from Nature to be moved in straight, or in other than circular motion, because what moves straight changes place, and if it changes place naturally, then it was at first in a place preternatural to it, which goes against the supposition. Therefore, if the parts of the world are well ordered, straight motion is superfluous and not natural, and they can only have it when some body is forcibly removed from its natural place, to which it would then return by a straight line, for thus it appears that a part of the earth does [move] when separated from its whole. I said "it appears to us," because I am not against thinking that not even for such an effect does Nature make use of straight line motion.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

A note on this statement is included by Stillman Drake in his Galileo at Work, His Scientific Biography (1981): Galileo adhered to this position in his Dialogue at least as to the "integral bodies of the universe." by which he meant stars and planets, here called "parts of the universe." But he did not attempt to explain the planetary motions on any mechanical basis, nor does this argument from "best arrangement" have any bearing on inertial motion, which to Galileo was indifference to motion and rest and not a tendency to move, either circularly or straight.
Letter to Francesco Ingoli (1624)

World , Nature , Thinking , Universe

“But since, if the usefulness of the legislation, and the sequence and beauty of the history, were universally evident of itself, we should not believe that any other thing could be understood in the Scriptures save what was obvious, the word of God has arranged that certain stumbling-blocks, as it were, and offences, and impossibilities, should be introduced into the midst of the law and the history, in order that we may not, through being drawn away in all directions by the merely attractive nature of the language, either altogether fall away from the (true) doctrines, as learning nothing worthy of God, or, by not departing from the letter, come to the knowledge of nothing more divine.”

Origen (185–254) Christian scholar in Alexandria

On First Principles, Bk. 4, ch. 2, par. 15
On First Principles

Law , Beauty , History , Knowledge

“It is thy very energy of thought
Which keeps thee from thy God.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

The Dream of Gerontius http://www.ccel.org/n/newman/gerontius/gerontius.htm, Pt. III (1866).

“If my wife said, I’m not going to be a communist, I’d say, well, forget it, by God, I’ll forget you too.”

Jim Jones (1931–1978) founder and the leader of the Peoples Temple

" http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Tapes/Tapes/TapeTranscripts/Q265.html" FBI No. Q265 (17 October 1978)

Forgetting

“We all must stand together now
A one by one we fall
For all these years you stood by me
God bless
I love you all”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I Love You All, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Kevin Churko and Adam Wakeman.
Song lyrics, Scream (2010)

Love

“I touch God in my song
as the hill touched the far-away sea
with its waterfall.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

42
Fireflies (1928)

Sea

“Intoxicated mentally by the messianic dream of a Greater Israel which will finally achieve the expansionist dreams of the most radical Zionism; contaminated by the monstrous and rooted 'certitude' that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God and that, consequently, all the actions of an obsessive, psychological and pathologically exclusivist racism are justified; educated and trained in the idea that any suffering that has been inflicted, or is being inflicted, or will be inflicted on everyone else, especially the Palestinians, will always be inferior to that which they themselves suffered in the Holocaust, the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Intoxicados mentalmente pela idéia messiânica de um Grande Israel que torne por fim realidade os sonhos expansionistas do sionismo mais radical, contaminados pela monstruosa e arraigada "certeza" de que neste mundo catastrófico e absurdo existe um povo eleito por Deus e, portanto, estão automaticamente justificadas e autorizadas, em nome dos horrores do passado e dos medos de hoje, todas as ações nascidas de um racismo obsessivo, psicológica e patologicamente exclusivista, educados e formados na idéia de que qualquer sofrimento que tenham infligido, inflijam ou venham a infligir aos demais, em especial aos palestinos, sempre será inferior ao que eles padeceram no Holocausto, os judeus arranham sem cessar sua própria ferida para que não deixe de sangrar, para torná-la incurável, e mostram-na ao mundo como se fosse uma bandeira.
Interview with El País (2002); cited in Princípios (Editora Anita Garibaldi, 2002), p. 88; English translation taken from Phillips The World Turned Upside Down (2010), p. 207.

People , World , Education , Dreams

“I do not consider that I have ever accomplished anything without God; and if it is His will that I must die by the hand of an assassin, I must be resigned. I must do my duty as I see it, and leave the rest with God.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in Life on the Circuit with Lincoln (1892) by Henry Clay Witney
Posthumous attributions

“I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgetfulness, never to be remembered against me anymore.”

Jimmy Swaggart (1935) pastor, musician, teacher, television host, televangelist

Source: Address to his congregation (21 February 1988), as quoted in The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal (2001) by George C. Kohn, p. 365

Sea , Forgetting

“He therefore again asked, what was the name of that nation? and was answered, that they were called Angles. "Right", said he, for they have an Angelic face, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the Angels in heaven. What is the name", proceeded he, "of the province from which they are brought?" It was replied, that the natives of that province were called Deiri. "Truly are they De ira", said he, "withdrawn from wrath, and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province called?" They told him his name was Ælla: and he, alluding to the name said, "Hallelujah, the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those parts."”
Rursus ergo interrogavit quod esset vocabulum gentis illius. Responsum est quod Angli vocarentur. At ille: "Bene", inquit, "nam et angelicam habent faciem et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse cohaeredes. Quod habet nomen ipsa provincia, de qua isti sunt adlati?" Responsum est quod Deiri vocarentur idem provinciales. At ille: "Bene", inquit, "Deiri; de ira eruti, et ad misericordiam Christi vocati. Rex provinciae illius quomodo apellatur?" Responsum est quod Aelli diceretur. At ille adludens ad nomen ait: "Alleluia, laudem Dei creatoris illis in partibus oportet cantari".

Bede book Ecclesiastical History of the English People

Rursus ergo interrogavit quod esset vocabulum gentis illius. Responsum est quod Angli vocarentur. At ille: "Bene", inquit, "nam et angelicam habent faciem et tales angelorum in caelis decet esse cohaeredes. Quod habet nomen ipsa provincia, de qua isti sunt adlati?" Responsum est quod Deiri vocarentur idem provinciales. At ille: "Bene", inquit, "Deiri; de ira eruti, et ad misericordiam Christi vocati. Rex provinciae illius quomodo apellatur?"
Responsum est quod Aelli diceretur. At ille adludens ad nomen ait: "Alleluia, laudem Dei creatoris illis in partibus oportet cantari".
Book II, chapter 1
Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People)

Angels , Christ , Parting

“It is no fault in others that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the hospital, and more prayers to Heaven than any. God bless the Methodist Church — bless all the churches — and blessed be to God, who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

To the 1864 general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as quoted in Abraham Lincoln : A History Vol. 6 (1890) by John George Nicolay and John Hay, Ch. 15, p. 324
1860s

“I find in myself by the grace of God a satisfaction without God became man in order to make me God; therefore I want to be changed completely into pure God nourishment, a love without fear”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Love , Fear , Change

“Can you by humble faith look to Jesus and say: "My substitute, my refuge, ray shield; Thou art my rock, my trust; in Thee do I confide? "Then, beloved, to you I have nothing to say, except this: " Never be afraid when you see God's power; for now that you are forgiven and accepted, now that by faith you have fled to Christ for refuge, the power of God need no more terrify you than the shield and sword of the warrior need terrify his wife and child."”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 591.

Faith , Art , Confidence , Christ

“I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight now is against the Americans.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Statement in al-Quds al-Arabi, as quoted in "Bin Laden: I Didn't Do It" CBS News (12 September 2001); also at Positive Atheism's "Big List of Scary Quotes" http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/scar_l.htm
2000s, 2001

Fight

“The first result of redemption is separation, that is, departure, a going out. God never redeems a person and leaves him in the old position to continue living in the world.”

Watchman Nee (1903–1972) Chinese church leader

Source: Separation from the World, p. 3

World , Departure , Personality

“Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew — not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. … What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money… Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man — and turns them into commodities. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.”

Karl Marx book On the Jewish Question

On the Jewish Question (1843)

Money , Religion

“I do not want to go back to God with less knowledge than when I was born. I want my footprints to make an impress on the field of reason. I have no desire to be a cat and walk so lightly that it never creates a disturbance. I want my footprints to be plainly seen by all…”

Andrew Taylor Still (1828–1917) Founder of Osteopathic Medicine

Still. A. T., Journal of Osteopathy, p. 127. https://www.atsu.edu/museum/subscription/pdfs/JournalofOsteopathyVol5No31898August.pdf/.

Cats , Knowledge

“Only in the longing for a world of economic and sexual justice together, and not subordinated to one another, can the encounter with the divine take place. But this is an encounter to be found at the crossroads of desire, when one dares to leave the ideological order of the heterosexual pervasive normative. This is an encounter with indecency, and with the indecency of God and Christianity.”

Marcella Althaus-Reid (1952–2009) Argentine theologian

Indecent Theology, (Routledge, 2002) p. 200

World , Justice

“First offer to God whatever you eat. One must not eat unoffered food. As your food is, so will be your blood. From pure food you get pure blood, pure mind, and strength. Pure mind begets ecstatic love”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

prema-bhakti
Women Saints of East and West

Love , Food

“They went into my closets looking for skeletons, but thank God, all they found were shoes, beautiful shoes.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

Statement made upon opening the Marikina City Footwear Museum in Manila, as quoted in "Homage to Imelda's shoes" at BBC News (16 February 2001) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1173911.stm.

Beauty , Shoe

“God desires to indwell in my whole and total heart and cannot in any way tolerate my having an image in my mind's eye.”

Andreas Karlstadt (1486–1541) German theologian

Source: On the Removal of Images (1522), p. 117

Way , Heart

“He that planteth a tree is the servant of God,
He provideth a kindness for many generations,
And faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The Friendly Trees.

Tree

“I am just a man, not fit to do the work of God… or the Devil.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

Captain Vere
Billy Budd (1962)

“It seems to me proper to adorn the Author's thought here with its conformity to a conception of Plato's regarding the determination of the various speeds of equable motion in the celestial motions of revolution. …he said that God, after having created the movable celestial bodies, in order to assign to them those speeds with which they must be moved perpetually in equable circular motion, made them depart from rest and move through determinate spaces in that natural straight motion in which we sensibly see our moveables to be moved from the state of rest, successively accelerating. And he added that these having been made to gain that degree [of speed] which it pleased God that they should maintain forever, He turned their straight motion into circulation, the only kind [of motion] that is suitable to be conserved equably, turning always without retreat from or approach toward any pre-established goal desired by them. The conception is truly worthy of Plato, and it is to be more esteemed to the extent that its foundations, of which Plato remained silent, but which were discovered by our Author in removing their poetical mask or semblance, show it the guise of a true story.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

I. Bernard Cohen's thesis: Galileo believed only circular (not straight line) motion may be conserved (perpetual), see The New Birth of Physics (1960).
Sagredo, Day Four, Stillman Drake translation (1974) pp.283-284
Dialogues and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)

Nature , Success , Speed

“The law is an expression of God's holy will and as such must be honored and loved," said the preacher piously.
"Rubbish," said the Master. "The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 67

Love , Law , Lovers , Evil

“But surely you trust God! Do you think He would let you come to harm? To be afraid is to distrust.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

To a girl who was frightened of traveling by train
Quoted in Beatrice Hatch, "Lewis Carroll", Strand Magazine (April 1898), p. 421

Thinking

“In estimating worldly values the Jew is not shallow, but deep. With precocious wisdom he found out in the morning of time that some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and that over these ideals they dispute and cannot unite--but that they all worship money; so he made it the end and aim of his life to get it. The cost to him has been heavy; his success has made the whole human race his enemy…”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

Life , Wisdom , Men , Money

“A Loaf holds many grains of corn
And many myriad drops the Sea:
So is God's Oneness Multitude
And that great Multitude are we.”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Sea

“But Virtue will follow fearless wherever destiny summons her. It will be a reproach to the gods, that they have made even me guilty.”
Sed quo fata trahunt virtus secura sequetur. Crimen erit superis et me fecisse nocentem.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia

Book II, line 287 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia

“The eye of perfected friendship with God is aware of deeper dimensions of reality, to which the eyes of the average man and the average Christian are not yet opened.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1965)

Friendship , Reality , Perfection

“I would stand with God against man, rather than with man against God.”

Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885–1954) Portuguese diplomat

Quoted in Bard The Complete History of the Holocaust (2001), p. 327; see also "Aristides de Sousa Mendes" at Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Mendes.html.

“There is no God-Creator, but there is the Cosmos, which creates suns, planets and living beings. There is no omnipotent God, but there is the Universe, which governs the fates of all celestial bodies and their inhabitants. There are no sons of God, but there are mature and thus rational and perfect sons of the Cosmos. There are no personal gods, but there are elected leaders of planets, solar systems, stellar groups, milky ways, islands of ether and the whole Cosmos. There is no Christ, but there is a brilliant man and a greater teacher of mankind.”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857–1935) Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory

Нет бога-творца, но есть космос, производящий солнца, планеты и живых существ. Hет всемогущего бога, но есть вселенная, которая распоряжается судьбой всех небесных тел и их жителей. Нет сынов божьих, но есть зрелые и потому разумные и совершенные сыны космоса. Нет личных богов, но есть избранные правители: планет, солнечных систем, звёздных групп, млечных путей, эфирных островов и всего космоса. Нет Христа, но есть гениальный человек, великий учитель человечества.
from Нет ничего (Мысли безбожника) [There is nothing (Atheist's thoughts)], quoted in Л.В. Шапошникова, Вестники космической эволюции.

Fate , Way , Teachers , Universe

“Unless you live in Christ, you are dead to God.”

Rowland Hill (preacher) (1744–1833) British preacher

P. 90.

Christ , Dead

“I saw a sign on the side of the road in Tennessee once that said 'dirt for sale'…what a great country we live in. DIRT for sale. How would you like to get inside that guys mind and look around for a hour? That guy sees opportunity at every glance, doesn't he? It's a big world for this gentleman. 'Oh my god, honey! Honey quit servin' waffles and come here baby. I'm gunna sell dirt! Look it's everywhere. You need it for our planet, honey!”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

The place was called Land Land.
Sane Man (1989)

World , Guy , Baby , Country

“The years like great black oxen tread the world,
And God the herdsman goads them on behind,
And I am broken by their passing feet.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Countess Cathleen http://www.letras.ufrj.br/veralima/6_referencias/63_e_texts_2005/yeats/countess_cathleen/yeats_countess_cathleen_2005.htm, last lines (1892)

World

“Brethren! God gives the ummah that is skilled in the practice of death and that knows how to die a noble death, an exalted life in this world and eternal felicity in the next. What is the fantasy that has reduced us to loving this world and hating death? If you gird yourselves for a lofty deed and yearn for death, life shall be given to you. Know then that death is inevitable, and that it can only happen once. If you suffer it in the way of God, it will be your profit in this world, and your reward in the next.”

Hassan Banna (1906–1949) Egyptian politician

[Five Tracts of Hasan Al-Banna: A Selection from the Majmu at Rasail al-Imam al-Shahid Hasan al-Banna, University of California Press, 156] translated and annotated by Charles Wendell.

Love , Life , Death , Hate

“In former days all animals could speak and so could the flowers, the trees and the stones and all lifeless things who were all created by the same God who had created man. Therefore man should be kind to all animals, and treat all lifeless things as if they could still hear and understand. On the day of the Last Judgement the animals would be called in first by God to give evidence against the dead man. Only after the animals had had their say would his fellow creatures be called in as witnesses.”

Axel Munthe book The Story of San Michele

Source: The Story of San Michele (1929), Ch. VII

Flowers , Understanding , Tree , Animals

“Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we become Christians, but we are become Christ. My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us? Wonder, rejoice, for we are made Christ! If He is the Head, and we the members, then together He and we are the whole man…. This would be foolish pride on our part, were it not a gift of his bounty. But this is what He promised by the mouth of the Apostle: “You are the body of Christ, and severally His members””

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

1 Cor. 12:27
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, p. 415

Understanding , Christ , Parting

“On the words of Ps. 21:3: "O My God, I shall cry day by day, and Thou wilt not hear."”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

On the Mystical Body of Christ

Cry

“I have not lost my faith; and this I must attribute more to a miracle than to my own wisdom; more to Divine Providence than to my own virtue. Steadfastly, in fact from my earliest childhood, I have made this my prayer, "Lord God… grant me long life, and wisdom, and health of mind and body."”

Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer

The Book of My Life (1930)

Life , Wisdom , Health , Faith

“To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, would be to be a god.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“God's most candid critics are those of his children whom he has made poets.”

Walter Raleigh (professor) (1861–1922) British academic

Preface to Oxford Poetry for 1914 http://books.google.com/books?id=rRcGYxSyobsC&q=%22God's+most+candid+critics+are+those+of+his+children+whom+he+has+made+poets%22&pg=PAvii#v=onepage and 1914–1916 http://books.google.com/books?id=W5iRAAAAIAAJ&q=%22God's+most+candid+critics+are+those+of+his+children+whom+he+has+made+poets%22&pg=PA5#v=onepage.

Children

“After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

Marginalia http://www.easylit.com/poe/comtext/prose/margin.shtml (November 1844)

Soul , Thinking , Reading

“I never saw a useful Christian who was not a student of the Bible. If a man neglects his Bible, he may pray and ask God to use him in His work; but God cannot make much use of him, for there is not much for the Holy Ghost to work upon.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 40.

“We are not teaching some ritualistic process, that "You become Hindu. You become Christian. You become Muhammadan." We are simply teaching, "You try to love God. You have forgotten God. You have declared, 'God is dead.' These are all nonsense. God is there. You are here. You are suffering because you have forgotten God. You try to love God. Your normal life will come back. You will be happy."”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement.
Lecture on Bhagavad-gītā 4.7-10 - Los Angeles, (6 January 1969) Vanipedia http://vaniquotes.org/wiki/You_have_forgotten_God._You_have_declared,_%27God_is_dead.%27_These_are_all_nonsense._God_is_there._You_are_here._You_are_suffering_because_you_have_forgotten_God._You_try_to_love_God._Your_normal_life_will_come_back._You_will_be_happy._This_is_KC_movement
Quotes from other Sources

Love , Life , Suffering , Dead

“Alas, how can the poor souls live in Concord when you preachers sow amongst them in your sermons debate and discord? They look to you for light and you bring them darkness. Amend these crimes, I exhort you, and set forth God's word truly, both by true preaching and giving a good example, or else, I, whom God has appointed his vicar and high minister here, will see these divisions extinct, and these enormities corrected…”

Henry VIII of England (1491–1547) King of England from 1509 until 1547

Last speech to parliament, December 24, 1545. http://englishhistory.net/tudor/h8speech.html
See also: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Great Britain. Public Record Office, John Sherren Brewer, Robert Henry, vol. XX, part 2, p. 513. http://books.google.com/books?id=oBsFAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA4-PA513&dq=%22I,+whom+God+has+appointed+his+vicar+and+high+minister+%22&lr=

Soul , Light

“I present you with a Key : I have not heard of the like yet framed, since it pleased God to bring that mighty continent of America to light. Others of my countrymen have often, and excellently, and lately, written of the country, and none that I know beyond the goodness and worth of it.
This Key respects the native language of it, and happily may unlock some rarities concerning the natives themselves, not yet discovered.”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

Preface
A Key into the Language of America (1643)

Light , Country

“We have electrocuted your God. Don't be a fool.”

Eugene O'Neill Dynamo

Act 2, Scene 1
Dynamo (1929)

Fools

“We then saw what St. Jerome said of those who serve God and those who serve the world: "Each to the other we seem insane": Invicem insanire videmur. There is a never-ending duel between the two.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Port-Royal (1752), as cited by M. A. Screech in Laughter at the Foot of the Cross (1997), p. 69

World

“Where there is devotional music, God with his grace is always present.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

Bei einer andächtigen Musik ist allezeit Gott mit seiner Gnaden Gegenwart.
Annotation in a copy of the Calov Bible, cited from John Butt (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 256; translation from ibid., p. 46

Music

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

Voltaire Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs

Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer.
Variant translation: If there was no God, It would be necessary to invent him.
Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs (10 November 1770)
For the background of the quote see this source: Yeh, Anthony (July 3, 2011). "What did Voltaire mean when he said that "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"?" http://archive.is/Rt53S. Quora. Archived from the original https://www.quora.com/What-did-Voltaire-mean-when-he-said-that-if-God-did-not-exist-it-would-be-necessary-to-invent-him on October 27, 2017. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
Citas

“Well some say life
Will beat you down,
And break your heart,
Steal your crown.So it started out
For God-knows-where.
I guess I'll know
When I get there.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Learning to Fly
Lyrics, Into The Great Wide Open (1991)

Life , Heart

“Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Wallenberg Lecture (2008)

“Again, there are other things associated with these matters, all bearing more or less upon the same points. When God selected Joseph Smith to open up the last dispensation, which is called the dispensation of the fullness of times, the Father and the Son appeared to him, arrayed in glory, and the Father, addressing himself to Joseph, at the same time pointing to the Son, said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."”

John Taylor (Latter Day Saints) (1808–1887) third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Appearance , Time

“My theological beliefs are likely to startle one who has imagined me as an orthodox adherent of the Anglican Church. My father was of that faith, and was married by its rites, yet, having been educated in my mother's distinctively Yankee family, I was early placed in the Baptist sunday school. There, however, I soon became exasperated by the literal Puritanical doctrines, and constantly shocked my preceptors by expressing scepticism of much that was taught me. It became evident that my young mind was not of a religious cast, for the much exhorted "simple faith" in miracles and the like came not to me. I was not long forced to attend the Sunday school, but read much in the Bible from sheer interest. The more I read the Scriptures, the more foreign they seemed to me. I was infinitely fonder on the Graeco-Roman mythology, and when I was eight astounded the family by declaring myself a Roman pagan. Religion struck me so vague a thing at best, that I could perceive no advantage of any one system over any other. I had really adopted a sort of Pantheism, with the Roman gods as personified attributes of deity.... My present opinions waver betwixt Pantheism and rationalism. I am a sort of agnostic, neither affirming nor denying anything.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Maurice W. Moe (16 January 1915), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 10
Non-Fiction, Letters

Education , School , Family , Faith

“When the question of the new coinage came up we looked into the law and found there was no warrant therein for putting 'In God We Trust' on the coins. As the custom, although without legal warrant, had grown up, however, I might have felt at liberty to keep the inscription had I had approved of its being on the coinage. But as I did not approve of it, I did not direct that it should again be put on. Of course the matter of the law is absolutely in the hands of Congress, and any direction of Congress in the matter will be immediately obeyed. At present, as I have said, there is no warrant in law for the inscription.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

Law , Question

“God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am.’ Remove the ’here and now’ the ‘I am’ remains, unassailable. (…). All I can say truly is: ‘I am,’ all else is inference (…). The sense ‘I am’ is the manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. (…).”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

God
Source: I am That, P.199.

Idea , Reality , Sense

“Miracles exist – you just have to believe it. A lot of the time when people pray to God they aren’t specific enough. I always tell people God is the god of details. You have to ask for the detail. So, you want a car – what kind of car do you want? Do you want a Cherokee, a Ford, a Chevy, a Bentley? An off-road vehicle? What about the trim and interior and the wheels? Be specific, then when you get something like that it will be no coincidence. I always prayed to God and that’s why I saw my life as a miracle.”

Fabio Lanzoni (1961) Italian model, actor and author

Fabio: confessions of the original male supermodel https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jul/15/fabio-confessions-original-male-supermodel (July 15, 2015)

Life , People , Cars , Time

“And then the spring of [19]'48 I toddled off to Paris on a Liberty ship... Yes, and arriving in Le Havre on that Liberty ship and seeing all those—the sun was coming up—and seeing all those ships sunk.. It was hardly... I mean, war, war, war, war…. I went to Paris, and I stayed with Zuka and Louis [Mitelberg] [her husband then, the cartoonist 'Tim']. And I looked for a place—and found it on Rue Gallande. Across the river was Notre Dame. That was all of four dollars a month, with a hole on the stairs as a toilet and a spigot with cold water and one light-bulb. That was all the electricity there was. But this view, I mean, God!... Saint Julien le Pauvre [Greek Orthodox Church, oldest in Paris] was right in front of me. And so I painted there.”

Joan Mitchell (1925–1992) American painter

first side of the first tape
1975 - 1992, Oral history interview with Joan Mitchell, 1986

War , Spring , Light , Water

“God created woman. And boredom did indeed cease from that moment — but many other things ceased as well! Woman was God's second mistake.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Antichrist

Sec. 48
The Antichrist (1888)

“Moreover, humour is itself but a superficial view of that which is in truth both tragic and terrible—the contrast between human pretence and cosmic mechanical reality. Humour is but the faint terrestrial echo of the hideous laughter of the blind mad gods that squat leeringly and sardonically in caverns beyond the Milky Way. It is a hollow thing, sweet on the outside, but filled with the pathos of fruitless aspiration. All great humorists are sad—Mark Twain was a cynic and agnostic, and wrote "The Mysterious Stranger" and "What Is Man?" When I was younger I wrote humorous matter—satire and light verse—and was known to many as a jester and parodist. … But I cannot help seeing beyond the tinsel of humour, and recognising the pitiful basis of jest—the world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

"The Defence Remains Open!" (April 1921), published in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 54
Non-Fiction

Truth , World , Sadness , Way

“I was solitary before, but now my solitariness becomes complete and awesome. Hence the dizziness, the vertigo. Like a statue on a plinth-that is how I live now. Jesus also was alone on the cross. I should not seek outside help to absolve me from my duty; my duty is too plain: decide, assume every responsibility for guiding others, even when it seems illogical and perhaps absurd. And to suffer alone… Me and God. The colloquy must be full and endless.”

Pope Paul VI (1897–1978) 262nd Pope of the Catholic Church

private note to himself of the solitude that infallibility and the papal office http://www.ucg.org/world-news-and-prophecy/hitlers-pope-the-roman-church-and-the-third-reich

Suffering , Help

“Modernistic-Abstractionist-Art… consists of 75% explanation and 25% God knows what!”

Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966) American painter and illustrator

Statement to William O. Chessman (27 March 1936); as quoted in Maxfield Parrish by Coy Ludwig (1997)

Art

“God has given to Man an absolute right to take the lives of other animals, for any reasonable cause, such as the supply of food; but He has not given to Man the right to inflict pain, unless where necessary.”

Lewis Carroll book Sylvie and Bruno

Introduction
Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893)

Pain , Food , Animals

Quotes about God page 13

Quotes about God
page 13