Quotes about God
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“Ever since then I have believed that God is not only a gentleman and a sport; he is a Kentuckian too.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“I, while the gods laugh, the world's vortex am;
Maelström of passions in that hidden sea
Whose waves of all-time lap the coasts of me;
And in small compass the dark waters cram.”

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Source: Collected Poems

World, Water, Passion, Time

“We can't look to the world to restore our worth; we're here to restore our worth to the world. The world outside us can reflect our glory, but it cannot create it. It cannot crown us. Only God can crown us, and he already has.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

World

“Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (2002), Ch. 2 : I'm Not an Accident
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Life, Hope

“Those who set up a fictitious worship, merely worship and adore their own delirious fancies; indeed, they would never dare so to trifle with God, had they not previously fashioned him after their own childish conceits.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion

Fashion

“The wizard [of Oz] says look inside yourself and find self. God says look inside yourself and find [the Holy Spirit]. The first will get you to Kansas.
The latter will get you to heaven.
Take your pick.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love

“If God gives you something you can do, why in God's name wouldn't you do it?”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“They wanted them to look like the Gods.
God doesn't look like this.”

James Rollins (1961) American writer

Source: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride."
Always the godfather, never the god".”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.”

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist

Life, Art

“God leads us. God will do the right thing at the right time. And what a difference that makes.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear

Time

“You were not put on this Earth just to get in touch with god”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

“The only way to show a true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God’s existence.”

Karen Armstrong book A History of God

A History of God (1993)
Source: A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Way

“God, sometimes you just don't come through. Do you need a woman to look after you?”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

"God".
Songs
Source: A Tori Amos Collection: Tales of a Librarian

“But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: Don't Waste Your Life

Life, Way, Passion, Christ

“… if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—SOME.”

Eleanor H. Porter book Pollyanna

Source: Pollyanna

Time

“Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

“It is said that men may not be the dreams of the god, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Men, Dreams

“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Anonymous ancient proverb, wrongly attributed to Euripides. The version here is quoted as a "heathen proverb" in Daniel, a Model for Young Men (1854) by William Anderson Scott. The origin of the misattribution to Euripides is unknown. Several variants are quoted in ancient texts, as follows. Variants and derived paraphrases: For cunningly of old was the celebrated saying revealed: evil sometimes seems good to a man whose mind a god leads to destruction. Sophocles, Antigone 620-3, a play pre-dating any of Euripides' surviving plays. An ancient commentary explains the passage as a paraphrase of the following, from another, earlier poet. When a god plans harm against a man, he first damages the mind of the man he is plotting against. Quoted in the scholia vetera to Sophocles' Antigone 620ff., without attribution. The meter (iambic trimeter) suggests that the source of the quotation is a tragic play. For whenever the anger of divine spirits harms someone, it first does this: it steals away his mind and good sense, and turns his thought to foolishness, so that he should know nothing of his mistakes. Attributed to "some of the old poets" by Lycurgus of Athens in his Oratio In Leocratem [Oration Against Leocrates], section 92. Again, the meter suggests that the source is a tragic play. These lines are misattributed to the much earlier semi-mythical statesman Lycurgus of Sparta in a footnote of recent editions of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and other works. The gods do nothing until they have blinded the minds of the wicked. Variant in 'Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) (1906), compiled by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 433. Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad. Publilius Syrus, Maxim 911 The devil when he purports any evil against man, first perverts his mind. As quoted by Athenagoras of Athens [citation needed] quem Iuppiter vult perdere, dementat prius. "Whom Jupiter wishes to destroy, he first sends mad"; neo-Latin version. Similar wording is found in James Duport's Homeri Gnomologia (1660), p. 234. "A maxim of obscure origin which may have been invented in Cambridge about 1640" -- Taylor, The Proverb (1931). Probably a variant of the line "He whom the gods love dies young", derived from Menander's play The Double Deceiver via Plautus (Bacchides 816-7). quem (or quos) Deus perdere vult, dementat prius. Whom God wishes to destroy, he first sends mad. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. This variant is spoken by Prometheus, in The Masque of Pandora (1875) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. As quoted in George Fox Interpreted: The Religion, Revelations, Motives and Mission of George Fox (1881) by Thomas Ellwood Longshore, p. 154 Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad. As quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations 16th edition (1992) Nor do the gods appear in warrior's armour clad To strike them down with sword and spear Those whom they would destroy They first make mad. Bhartṛhari, 7th c. AD; as quoted in John Brough,Poems from the Sanskrit, (1968), p, 67 vināśakāle viparītabuddhiḥ Sanskrit Saying (also in Jatak katha): "When a man is to be destroyed, his intelligence becomes self-destructive." Modern derivatives: The proverb's meaning is changed in many English versions from the 20th and 21st centuries that start with the proverb's first half (through "they") and then end with a phrase that replaces "first make mad" or "make mad." Such versions can be found at Internet search engines by using either of the two keyword phrases that are on Page 2 and Page 4 of the webpage " Pick any Wrong Card http://www.bu.edu/av/celop2/not_ESL/pick_any_wrong_card.pdf." The rest of that webpage is frameworks that induce a reader to compose new variations on this proverb. Misattributed

Madness

“The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.”

Jay McInerney (1955) American writer

Source: The Last of the Savages

Friendship, Family, Way, Family

“You cannot exalt God and yourself at the same time.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Time

“No person [should] walk out into the world to begin the day until he or she has stood beneath the cross to receive God’s love.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Love, World, Personality

“I'll say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I'm not crazy about. I'm pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro-death. I'm not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I…”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Death

“love is the every only god”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

38
50 Poems (1940)

Love

“I felt very close to God…. My friends say that's because I was always on my knees.”

Armistead Maupin (1944) American writer

“… when we say, 'I don't understand,' God replies, 'I don't care.' ”.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

Understanding

“The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, '2001' shows that what some people call 'god' is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don't understand, they call 'god' -Stanley Kubrick, interview, 1963”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

People, Idea, Understanding

“… do you think God made the world to amuse himself because he was bored? Because if so he would have to be mean.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

World, Thinking

“Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Birthday, Mood

“Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying”

Alan Furst book The Spies of Warsaw

Source: The Spies of Warsaw

Flowers

“God alone knows the future, but only an historian can alter the past.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Past, Future

“When God gives an assignment, he also gives the skill. Study your skills, then, to reveal your assignment.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Cure for the Common Life: Living in Your Sweet Spot

Study

“Can you imagine those poor bastards grappling their prey, leaping over the rails, swords in hand, screaming 'Your cats! Give us all your god-damned cats!”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

Imagination, Cats

“We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

As quoted in Christianity (1995) by Joe Jenkins, p. 27

“Devotion to duty is the highest form of worship of God.”

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

“It's not the gods
But our own hearts
We need to fear.
The evil starts
Against all odds
Not there but here.”

Vikram Seth (1952) Indian writer

Source: Arion and the Dolphin

Fear, Evil, Heart

“Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.”

Penn Jillette (1955) American magician

2000s, There Is No God (2005)

People, Memory, Time

“[Bobby Tom] finally understood Gracie's function in his life. She was God's joke on him.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Heaven, Texas

Life

“Love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Love, Beauty

“No matter what you’re going through there's no pit so deep that God can’t reach in and get you out.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“If there was a god, he wouldn't let a guy walk right up and shoot you in the face now would he? That's right, now you get the picture. Truth burns doesn't it?”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Truth, Guy

“The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them.”

Thomas Merton book No Man Is an Island

Source: No Man Is an Island

Love, Men

“The proud wish God would agree with them. They are not interested in changing their opinions to agree with God's.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Change

“Science Fiction: Any scientific acclaim that omits God.”

Johnny Hart (1931–2007) American cartoonist

Science

“Why is it that there are always these problems and misunderstandings between men and women? Surely it would have been better if God had made only one sort of person, and the children had come by some other means, with the rain perhaps.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Kalahari Typing School for Men

Source: The Kalahari Typing School for Men

Women, Men, Children, Problem

“Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Truth

“If you don't feel as close to God today as you did yesterday, who moved?”

Chris Heimerdinger (1963) American writer

Source: Feathered Serpent, Part 1

Feeling

“God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

Sleep, Cry

“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Question

“The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.'

'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

“It’s not so much that nothing means
anything but more that it keeps meaning
nothing.
there’s no release, just gurus and self-
appointed gods and hucksters.
the more people say, the less there is to say.
even the best books are dry sawdust.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

People, Books

“Oh… God. What was a male supposed to do in this situation?
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "If I… uh, hurt your feelings or something."
She glared at him. "I'm not hurt. I'm pissed off and sexually frustrated.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Feeling, Hurt

“Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is Himself the way”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

Religion, Way, Teachers

“The sky is absolutely empty. Beautifully pure and empty.

As if the architects and builders would live in all the houses they built! Or could live in them all. It's obvious, it stares you in the fact. Therebe a God and heknow anything about us.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Housing

“Heartache forces us to embrace God out of desparate, urgent need. God is never closer than when your heart is aching.”

Joni Eareckson Tada (1949) American artist

Heart

“The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him — that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

“The wisdom of God devised a way for the love of God to deliver sinners from the wrath of God while not compromising the righteousness of God.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

Love, Wisdom, Way

“Zeus needed someone to blame, so of course he’d picked the handsomest, most talented, most popular god in the pantheon: me.”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

“God will reward you,' he said. 'You must be an angel since you care for flowers.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Angels, Flowers

“As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Life, People, Way, Sense

“God never does anything accidentally…”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

“I believe in God, God. God, I believe in God.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

For Father

“My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

“When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

Soul, Courage, Joy

“God pity the poor novelist.”

Steven Millhauser (1943) American novelist and short story writer

Source: Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright

“God has made us for Himself, and our hearts can never know rest and perfect satisfaction until they find it in Him.”

Hannah Hurnard (1905–1990) British writer

Heart, Perfection

“Oh, Gods."
His eyes shone with want and predatory satisfaction. "The name's William. It's a common mistake.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Bayou Moon

“There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Existentialism and Human Emotions

Nature

“Gods, I love it when you talk mathy to me.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dark Desires After Dusk

Love

“Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.”

John Bunyan (1628–1688) English Christian writer and preacher

Soul

“An honest man's the noblest work of God”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Man

Source: An Essay on Man

“Of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, alas! and the most darkness.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Miserables

Light, Heart

“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.”

Salman Rushdie book The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

Men

“Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Christ

“God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Girl, Box, Scouting

“Pheoby, yuh got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God and they got tuh find out about livin fuh theyselves.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Context: "Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.""Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo' life and see whut you ever done. They know mo' 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. They done 'heard' 'bout you just what they hope done happened.""If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em than Ah do, they's a lost ball in de high grass."

Janie and Phoeby, Ch. 1, p. 16.