Quotes about God
page 18

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved.”

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

Tears and Saints (1937)

John Lydon photo
W.B. Yeats photo

“And God stands winding His lonely horn,
And time and the world are ever in flight;
And love is less kind than the grey twilight,
And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.”

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

Into The Twilight http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1519/, st. 4
The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

Joseph Stalin photo

“God's not unjust, he doesn't actually exist. We've been deceived. If God existed, he'd have made the world more just… I'll lend you a book and you'll see.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

A teenaged Stalin after reading The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 49
Contemporary witnesses

Eminem photo

“They threw me out the Ramada Inn, I said: 'It wasn't me, I got a twin! Oh my god it's you, not again!”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"As The World Turns" (Track 17).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Michio Kaku photo

“We actually have a candidate for the mind of God. The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.”

Michio Kaku (1947) American theoretical physicist, futurist and author

Math is the Mind of God http://bigthink.com/dr-kakus-universe/math-is-the-mind-of-god?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bigthink%2Fblogs%2Fdr-kakus-universe+%28Dr.+Kaku%27s+Universe%29 (29 December 2012)

Herman Melville photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Not enough evidence God! Not enough evidence!”

As quoted in Wesley C. Salmon's "Religion and Science: A New Look at Hume's Dialogues," Philosophical Studies 33 (1978), p. 176.
Also in the New York Times article So God's Really in the Details? (May 11, 2002) by Emily Eakin: "Asked what he would say if God appeared to him after his death and demanded to know why he had failed to believe, the British philosopher and staunch evidentialist Bertrand Russell replied that he would say, 'Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence.'
The original source of this quote is an article by Leo Rosten published in Saturday Review/World (February 23, 1974) which features an interview with Bertrand Russell. There, Rosten writes http://www.unz.org/Pub/SaturdayRev-1974feb23-00025: "Confronted with the Almighty, [Russell] would ask, 'Sir, why did you not give me better evidence?'"
Disputed

Barack Obama photo

“And at some point, I know that one of my daughters will ask, perhaps my youngest, will ask, "Daddy, why is this monument here? What did this man do?" How might I answer them? Unlike the others commemorated in this place, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not a president of the United States — at no time in his life did he hold public office. He was not a hero of foreign wars. He never had much money, and while he lived he was reviled at least as much as he was celebrated. By his own accounts, he was a man frequently racked with doubt, a man not without flaws, a man who, like Moses before him, more than once questioned why he had been chosen for so arduous a task — the task of leading a people to freedom, the task of healing the festering wounds of a nation's original sin. And yet lead a nation he did. Through words he gave voice to the voiceless. Through deeds he gave courage to the faint of heart. By dint of vision, and determination, and most of all faith in the redeeming power of love, he endured the humiliation of arrest, the loneliness of a prison cell, the constant threats to his life, until he finally inspired a nation to transform itself, and begin to live up to the meaning of its creed.
Like Moses before him, he would never live to see the Promised Land. But from the mountain top, he pointed the way for us — a land no longer torn asunder with racial hatred and ethnic strife, a land that measured itself by how it treats the least of these, a land in which strength is defined not simply by the capacity to wage war but by the determination to forge peace — a land in which all of God's children might come together in a spirit of brotherhood.
We have not yet arrived at this longed for place. For all the progress we have made, there are times when the land of our dreams recedes from us — when we are lost, wandering spirits, content with our suspicions and our angers, our long-held grudges and petty disputes, our frantic diversions and tribal allegiances. And yet, by erecting this monument, we are reminded that this different, better place beckons us, and that we will find it not across distant hills or within some hidden valley, but rather we will find it somewhere in our hearts.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Groundbreaking Ceremony (13 November 2006)
2006

Pythagoras photo

“Work at these things, practice them, these are the things you ought to desire; they are what will put you on the path of divine virtue — yes, by the one who entrusted our soul with the tetraktys, source of ever-flowing nature. Pray to the gods for success and get to work.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook. (1999)
The Golden Verses

Juan Antonio Villacañas photo

“God borders my incredulity
constantly.
And my incredulity is so much God, that I am almost sure
to adore Him.”

Juan Antonio Villacañas (1922–2001) Spanish poet, essayist and critic

“Revolt of a Newborn”, from Revolt of a Newborn (1973)

Horatio Nelson photo

“Now I can do no more. We must trust to the Great Disposer of all Events and the Justice of our Cause. I thank God for this great opportunity of doing my Duty.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

In response to the cheer that was raised after he sent the signal "England expects every Man will do his Duty.", as quoted in The Life of Admiral Lord Nelson, K.B. from His Lordship's Manuscripts (1810) by James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, p. 667
The Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

Mikhail Kalashnikov photo

“When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, "All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed" … So this has been my lifetime motto – I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable.”

Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013) Soviet and Russian small arms designer

"Kalashnikov, 90, decries 'criminal' use of rifle" by Dmitry Solovyov, at Reuters (26 October 2009) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLQ148454

Mark Twain photo
Alexander Smith photo

“The saddest thing that befalls a soul
Is when it loses faith in God and woman.”

Alexander Smith (1829–1867) Scottish poet and essayist

Scene 12.
A Life Drama and other Poems (1853)

Emil M. Cioran photo
Thomas à Kempis photo

“There is no creature so small and abject, that it representeth not the goodness of God.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 261.

Bertrand Russell photo
John Taylor (Latter Day Saints) photo
Paul Lafargue photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Robert Browning photo
Richard Garnett photo

“Love is God’s essence; Power but his attribute: therefore is his love greater than his power.”

Richard Garnett (1835–1906) British scholar, librarian, biographer and poet

De Flagello myrteo. iv.

Richard Wagner photo

“I believe in God; and Mozart, and Beethoven as his only sons.”

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) German composer, conductor

Last words of the hero in "The Life's End of a German Musician in Paris" (1840), a short story written for the Gazette Musicale, as quoted in Autobiographical Sketch (1843) http://users.belgacom.net/wagnerlibrary/prose/wagauto.htm

“But he whom reason, not anger, animates is a peer of the gods.”
Dis proximus ille est,<br/>quem ratio non ira movet.

Claudian (370–404) Roman Latin poet

Dis proximus ille est,
quem ratio non ira movet.
Panegyricus dictus Manlio Theodoro consuli, lines 227-228 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Claudian/Manlio_Theodoro*.html#227.

Fernando Pessoa photo

“God gave the sea the danger and the abyss,
but it was in it that He mirrored the sky.”

Poem "Mar Português", Verses 11-12
Message
Original: Deus ao mar o perigo e o abismo deu,
Mas nele é que espelhou o céu.

António de Oliveira Salazar photo

“Do not discuss God and his reason, does not discuss the motherland and the nation.”

António de Oliveira Salazar (1889–1970) Prime Minister of Portugal

Quoted in From myth to romance: a reading of the Gospel according Saramago - Page 76, of Conception Flores - Published by Publisher of UFRN, 2000 - 239 pages

James Hudson Taylor photo

“Real trust in God cannot be confounded.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Four: Survivors’ Pact. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1984, 346).

Norman G. Finkelstein photo

“Speaking as a devout atheist, thank God in his Almighty wisdom that he made us mortal.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/movies/11radical.html
Other sourced statements

Yukteswar Giri photo

“Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows.”

Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936) Indian yogi and guru

Autobiography of a Yogi (1946)

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Aldo Capitini photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Kary Mullis photo
Martin Luther photo

“I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels’ judge through this teaching (as St. Paul says [1 Cor. 6:3]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved - for it is God’s teaching and not mine.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops Falsely So Called, July 1522.
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

John Chrysostom photo
Jules Verne photo

“"Men, Pencroft, however learned they may be, can never change anything of the cosmographical order established by God Himself.""And yet," added Pencroft, "the world is very learned. What a big book, captain, might be made with all that is known!""And what a much bigger book still with all that is not known!" answered Harding.”

<p>Les hommes, Pencroff, si savants qu’ils puissent être, ne pourront jamais changer quoi que ce soit à l’ordre cosmographique établi par Dieu même.</p></p><p>— Et pourtant, ajouta Pencroff, qui montra une certaine difficulté à se résigner, le monde est bien savant! Quel gros livre, monsieur Cyrus, on ferait avec tout ce qu’on sait!</p><p>
Et quel plus gros livre encore avec tout ce qu’on ne sait pas, répondit Cyrus Smith.</p>
Part III, ch. XIV
The Mysterious Island (1874)

Rich Mullins photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Elizabeth I of England photo
Sai Baba of Shirdi photo

“Trust is sadguru fully. This is the only sadhana. Sadguru is all the gods.”

Sai Baba of Shirdi (1836–1918) Hindu and muslim saint

Saying stated to his disciples

John Cassian photo
Richard Salter Storrs photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Negro equality! Fudge!! How long, in the government of a God, great enough to make and maintain this Universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagougeism as this?”

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

Fragments: Notes for Speeches, September 1859, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953) Vol. III; No transcripts or reports exist indicating that he ever actually used this expression in any of his speeches.
1850s

Louis Comfort Tiffany photo

“God has given us our talents, not to copy the talents of others, but rather to use our brains and imagination in order to obtain the revelation of true beauty.”

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) American stained glass and jewelry designer

The Art Work of Louis C. Tiffany [biography dictated to Charles de Kay] (Doubleday, Page & Co New York, 1916)

Thomas à Kempis photo

“If thou knewest the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it profit thee without the love of God and without grace?”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 365.

Leo Tolstoy photo

“The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God; and this can be done only by means of the acknowledgment and profession of the truth by each one of us.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Variant translation: The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man.
Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Ch. 12

Hasan al-Askari photo

“Your daily subsistence which has been assured by God, should not prevent you from rising in obedience and performing your duties.”

Hasan al-Askari (846–874) Eleventh of the Twelve Imams

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 374
Religious Wisdom

Charles Manson photo
Martin Luther photo

“For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel…Thus is the Devil ever God's ape.”

67. Compare "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part III, section 4, member 1, subsection 1
Table Talk (1569)

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“Since He is the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus has been made Head of the Church, and the faithful are His members. Wherefore He says: "For them I hallow Myself" (John 17:19). But when He says, "For them I hallow Myself," what else can He mean but this: "I sanctify them in Myself, since truly they are Myself"? For, as I have remarked, they of whom He speaks are His members, and the Head of the body are one Christ. … That He signifies this unity is certain from the remainder of the same verse. For having said, "For them I hallow Myself," He immediately adds, "in order that they too may be hallowed in truth," to show that He refers to the holiness that we are to receive in Him. Now the words "in truth" can only mean "in Me," since Truth is the Word who in the beginning was God.
The Son of man was Himself sanctified in the Word as the moment of His creation, when the Word was made flesh, for Word and man became one Person. It was therefore in that instant that He hallowed Himself in Himself; that is, He hallowed Himself as man, in Himself as the Word. For there is but one Christ, Word and man, sanctifying the man in the Word.
But now it is on behalf of His members that He adds: "and for them I hallow Myself." That is to say, that since they too are Myself, so they too may profit by this sanctification just as I profited by it as man without them. "And for them I hallow Myself"; that is, I sanctify them in Myself as Myself, since in Me they too are Myself. "In order that they too may be hallowed in truth." What do the words "they too" mean, if not that thy may be sanctified as I am sanctified; that is to say, "in truth," which is I Myself?”

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

Quia et ipsi sunt ego. "Since they too are myself"
Source: On the Mystical Body of Christ, pp. 431-432

Robert Browning photo
C.G. Jung photo

“You can take away a man's gods, but only to give him others in return.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

p 63
The Undiscovered Self (1958)

Jordan Peterson photo
William Wilberforce photo

“God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

morality
William Wilberforce (2007)
Variant: God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners (morality).

Swami Vivekananda photo
Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo

“When Firuz Tughluq invaded Orissa in 1359 and learned that the region's most important temple was that of Jagannath located inside the raja's fortress in Puri, he carried off the stone image of the god and installed it in Delhi 'in an ignominious position.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Richard Eaton: "Temple desecration and Indo-Muslim states, Essays on Islam and Indian History." And: "Temple desecration in pre-modern India"

Suman Pokhrel photo

“Thank God,
my name isn't in the list of those
who died or were
killed yesterday!”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Every Morning http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/every-morning-7/</span>
From Poetry

Edgar Cayce photo
Charles Spurgeon photo
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto photo
John Glenn photo

“I pray every day and I think everybody should. I don't think you can be up here and look out the window as I did the first day and look out at the Earth from this vantage point. We're not so high compared to people who went to the moon and back. But to look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is, to me, impossible. It just strengthens my faith.”

John Glenn (1921–2016) American astronaut and politician

As quoted in Roger D. Launius. 2004. Frontiers of Space Exploration. Greenwood Publishing Group, p. 181. Interview: An American hero returns to space: John Glenn and the Sts-95 Shuttle Mission News Conference on Orbit (5 November 1998).

Benjamin Franklin photo
Patrick Pearse photo

“When I was a child of ten, I went on my bare knees by my bedside one night and promised God that I should devote my Life to an effort to free my country. I have kept the promise. I have helped to organise, to train, and to discipline my fellow-countrymen to the sole end that, when the time came, they might fight for Irish freedom. The time, as it seemed to me, did come, and we went into the fight. I am glad that we did. We seem to have lost; but we have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on its tradition to the future. I repudiate the assertion of the Prosecutor that I sought to aid and abet England’s enemy. Germany is no more to me than England is. I asked and accepted German aid in the shape of arms and an expeditionary force; we neither asked for nor accepted German gold, nor had any traffic with Germany but what I state. My object was to win Irish freedom. We struck the first blow ourselves, but I should have been glad of an ally’s aid. I assume that I am speaking to Englishmen who value their freedom, and who profess to be fighting for the freedom of Belgium and Serbia. Believe that we too love freedom and desire it. To us it is more than anything else in the world. If you strike us down now, we shall rise again, and renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland; you cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

Patrick Pearse at his court-martial.Publish by the 75th Anniversary Committee, Dublin, 1991.

Konrad Adenauer photo

“In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity.”

Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967) German statesman, Federal Chancellor of Germany, politician (CDU)

As quoted in A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965) by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., p. 291 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=uFhNxX5lrNEC&pg=PA291&dq=stupidity

Charles Spurgeon photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“I am a monarch of God's creation, and you reptiles of the earth dare not oppose me. I render an account of my government to none save God and Jesus Christ.”

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

Addressing members of the Catholic clergy assembled during ‘Bonaparte's Conference with the Catholic and Protestant clergy at Breda,’ May 1, 1810 (originally reported in the Gazette of Dorpt), as quoted in The life of Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of the French: with a preliminary view of the French revolution, Sir Walter Scott, Philadelphia: Leary & Getz, 1857, p. 91 http://books.google.com/books?id=6yEMAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA91&dq=%22you+reptiles+of+the+earth%22&lr=&cd=1#v=onepage&q=%22you%20reptiles%20of%20the%20earth%22&f=false
Variant translation: God placed me on the throne, and you reptiles of the earth dare oppose me. I owe no account of my administration to the pope,— only to God and Jesus Christ.
As quoted in The Christian Observer, Volume 10, 1861, p. 261 http://books.google.com/books?id=mc8WAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA261&dq=%22you+reptiles+of+the+earth%22&lr=&cd=2#v=onepage&q=%22you%20reptiles%20of%20the%20earth%22&f=false

Martin Luther photo
Algernon Charles Swinburne photo
John of the Cross photo

“One human thought alone is worth more than the entire world, hence God alone is worthy of it.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

The Sayings of Light and Love

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God.”

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

De Libero Arbitrio (388 - 395)

Jordan Peterson photo
Rich Mullins photo
Paul of Tarsus photo
Rumi photo

“God's joy moved from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)

Matka Tereza photo

“I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Statement of 1977, as quoted in Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2011) by Susan Ratcliffe, p. 373
1970s

George Washington photo

“I am sure there never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe, that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God, who is alone able to protect them.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to John Armstrong, 11 March 1782, in Ford's Writings of George Washington (1891), vol. XII, p. 111. This is frequently attached to part of a letter to Brigadier-General Nelson of 20 August 1778, as in this 1864 example from B. F. Morris, The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, pp. 33-34:
I am sure that there never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency which was so often manifested during the Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them. He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.
1780s

Aga Khan III photo
Georges Clemenceau photo

“Mr. Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points; why, God Almighty has only Ten!”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

As quoted in The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero-worship (1941) by Dixon Wecter, p. 402
As quoted in Clemenceau and the Third Republic (1946) by John Hampden Jackson
Original French, as quoted in The End of an Age, and Other Essays (1948) by William Ralph Inge, p. 139: Quatorze? Le bon Dieu n'a que dix.
Prime Minister
Variant: Fourteen? The good Lord had only ten.

Sathya Sai Baba photo

“God can do anything. He has all power in the palm of His Hand. My Body, like all other bodies, is a temporary habitation; but, My Power is eternal, all-pervasive, ever-dominant.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Christmas Day Discourse, Bombay 1970. page 136, US ed. of Kasturi's Sathyam Sivam Sundaram Vol 3.

Benny Hinn photo

“Adam was a super being when God created him…he had dominion over the fowls of the air which means he used to fly…well of course how could you have dominion over the birds and not be able to do what they do. Adam flew into space, with one thought he would be on the moon.”

Benny Hinn (1952) American-Canadian evangelist

[The Underground Christian Network, "Benny Hinn and Beyond: Word Faith movements hidden agenda: The Joker, The Guru and the Jack of Spades" http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=420067844, CD Edition 1 of 2, SermonAudio.com, 2006-04-21]

John Locke photo
Martin Luther photo

“Paul calleth the Galatians foolish and bewitched, comparing them to children, to whom witchcraft doth much harm. As though he should say: It happeneth to you as it doth to children, whom witches, sorcerers, and enchanters are wont to charm by their enchantments, and by the illusions of the devil. Afterwards, in the fifth chapter, he rehearseth sorcery among the works of the flesh, which is a kind of witchcraft, whereby he plainly testifieth, that indeed such witchcraft and sorcery there is, and that it may be done. Moreover, it cannot be denied but that the devil, yea, and reigneth throughout the whole world. Witchcraft and sorceru therefore are the works of the devil; whereby he doth not only hurt men, but also, by the permission of God, he sometimes destroyeth them. Furthermore, we are all subject to the devil, both in body and goods; and we be strangers in this world, whereof he is the prince and god. Therefore the bread which we eat, the drink which we drink, the garments which we wear, yea, the air, and whatsoever we live by in the flesh is under his dominion.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians https://books.google.com/books?id=zeCWncYgGOgC&pg=PA37&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false by Martin Luther, Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Tischer, Samuel Simon Schmucker Chapter 3, p. 286
Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535)

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“Love of God is dormant in every living entity.”

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

Multiple books, 1970 to 1977. Vanipedia http://vaniquotes.org/wiki/Love_of_God_is_dormant_in_every_living_entity
Quotes from Books: Loving God

Francis Xavier photo
Billie Holiday photo

“Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own.”

Billie Holiday (1915–1959) American jazz singer and songwriter

God Bless The Child
Context: Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own.

Ja'far al-Sadiq photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo

“How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off the force of the question). “He was preparing hell,” he said, “for those who pry too deep.” It is one thing to see the answer; it is another to laugh at the questioner--and for myself I do not answer these things thus. More willingly would I have answered, “I do not know what I do not know,” than cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed--and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer.”
Ecce respondeo dicenti, 'quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?' respondeo non illud quod quidam respondisse perhibetur, ioculariter eludens quaestionis violentiam: 'alta,' inquit, 'scrutantibus gehennas parabat.' aliud est videre, aliud ridere: haec non respondeo. libentius enim responderim, 'nescio quod nescio' quam illud unde inridetur qui alta interrogavit et laudatur qui falsa respondit.

Ecce respondeo dicenti, 'quid faciebat deus antequam faceret caelum et terram?' respondeo non illud quod quidam respondisse perhibetur, ioculariter eludens quaestionis violentiam: 'alta,' inquit, 'scrutantibus gehennas parabat.'
aliud est videre, aliud ridere: haec non respondeo. libentius enim responderim, 'nescio quod nescio' quam illud unde inridetur qui alta interrogavit et laudatur qui falsa respondit.
Book XI, Chapter XII; translation by E.B. Pusey
Confessions (c. 397)

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“We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.”

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

Quoted from the Discovery Channel, 15 August 2011.
"Stephen Hawking There is no God. There is no Fate." from episode 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7VTdzuY7Y · [Curiosity: Did God Create the Universe?, http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/did-god-create-the-universe.htm, Discovery Communications, LLC., 7 August 2011, 4 July 2013]
Curiosity (2011)

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Neville Chamberlain photo

“You have sat here too long for any good you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Leo Amery, concluding his speech in the "Norway debate" (7-8 May 1940), in the British Parliament's House of Commons. In saying these words, he was echoing what Oliver Cromwell had said as he dissolved the Long Parliament in 1653. As quoted in Neville Chamberlain: A Biography by Robert Self (2006), p. 423
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“Had I served my God as faithful as I have served my king, he would not thus have forsaken me in my old age.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. II.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776&ndash;1783)