Quotes about God
page 45

“The first to be summoned to Paradise on the Day of Resurrection will be those who praise God in prosperity and adversity.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 730
Sunni Hadith

“…the central message of the Bible is about God redeeming a humanity that is in trouble and suffering.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

Suffering

“If you will take the second chapter — let me have the book. [Reaches for a Bible. ] The fourth verse of the second chapter says: "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens," the word day there in the very next chapter is used to describe a period. I do not see that there is any necessity for construing the words, "the evening and the morning," as meaning necessarily a 24-hour day, "in the day when the Lord made the heaven and the earth."… I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in 6 million years or in 600 million years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other. … My impression is they were periods, but I would not attempt to argue against anybody who wanted to believe in literal days.”

William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925) United States Secretary of State

Scopes Trial (1925), Day 7

Books, Thinking

“(Henry Clarendon IV:) "Is God happy with the poisoned cat dying alone in convulsions behind the billboard? Is God happy that life is cruel and that only the fittest survive? The fittest for what? Oh no, far from it. If God were omnipotent and omniscient in any literal sense, he wouldn’t have bothered to make the universe at all. There is no success where there is no possibility of failure, no art without the resistance of the medium. Is it blasphemy to suggest that God has his bad days when nothing goes right, and that God’s days are very, very long?"”

Raymond Chandler book Playback

Source: Playback (1958), chapter 17

Life, Happiness, Art, Cats

“For me, I have seen worlds and people begin and end, actually and metaphorically, and it will always be the same. It’s always fire and water.
No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you’re an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is rafted on top of that. So, when it comes to the day-to-day sensations of living, from mixing a cup of coffee to flying a kite, you treat with the four ideal elements of the old philosophers: earth, air, fire, water.
Let’s face it, air isn’t very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I’d hate to be without it, but it’s invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored. Earth? The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity.
Not so fire and water, however. They’re formless, colorful, and they’re always doing something. While suggesting you repent, prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of your ways. Primitive man was really on his way when he learned to kindle the one and had enough of the other nearby to put it out. It is coincidence that we’ve filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? I don’t think so. Both principles are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 6 (pp. 137-138)

Life, Hate, People, World

“Pandora, waking: …
I am alone. These faces in the mirrors
Are but the shadows and phantoms of myself;
They cannot help nor hinder. No one sees me,
Save the all-seeing Gods…
She lifts the lid. A dense mist rises from the chest
and fills the room. Pandora falls senseless on
the floor. Storm without.

Chorus of Dreams from the Gate of Horn: …
Fever of the heart and brain,
Sorrow, pestilence, and pain,
Moans of anguish, maniac laughter,
All the evils that hereafter
Shall afflict and vex mankind,
All into the air have risen
From the chambers of their prison;
Only Hope remains behind.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875)

Pain, Dreams, Hope, Laughter

“[Unnamed actress on the set of Grand Prix] never had eyes for me. Hell, she wouldn't even talk to me, after she'd found out that I was just an unimportant actor. Good grief! Then, this is what happened: We were sitting in the foyer of the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. She, myself and Antonio. Then an assistant director crossed our path. That actress was trying to get him to take us to the theatre where they were showing the rushes of the day before. After some discussion, she persuaded him. He said: `Be quiet, I'm gonna lose my job…' So we hid in the balcony, looking down, where that wonderful director Frankenheimer was sitting. After some minutes of racing cars, finally her scene came, and she was doing a phone call - she was playing a sophisticated magazine editor -, and suddenly you could hear the director, who had this loud, resonant voice, howling in rage, because he didn't like her at all. `Oh my God, she's awful! She can't walk, she can't talk, look at her hair!' So he turned to that faggot hairdresser, who was like Katherine the Great, and this guy said: `Well, usually she plays this peasant types. I don't know why you cast her for this role in the first place!”

Donald O'Brien (actor) (1930–2003) Italian film and TV actor

And remember, this actress was sitting there with us, and she nearly went crazy! She was squirming with embarrassment. This is an actor's nightmare, you know. The next day she was fired.
Euro Trash Cinema magazine interview (March 1996)

Cars, Guy, Hell, Rage

“Horsed upon hippogriffs, the hags of night
Shall come to visit me; and once an age
Some desperate wight, or wizard, gaunt and grey,
Shall seek this spot by help of hidden lore,
To ask of things forgotten or to come.
But who, beholding me, shall dare defy
The wrath of Jove? Since vain is wisdom's boast,
And impotent the knowledge that o'erleaps
The dusky bourne of time. Twere better far
That gods should quaff their nectar merrily,
And men sing out the day like grasshoppers,
So may they haply lull the watchful thunder.”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Prometheus
Poems (1851), Prometheus

Wisdom, Men, Age, Knowledge

“The great error of traditional proofs of the existence of god is that they try to take a symbolic truth for a literal truth, a truth of fact, and then try to prove that it is a fact.”

Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) British civil servant, educator and philosopher.

p. 149.

Truth, Error

“The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), The Ethos of Woman's Professions (1930)

Love, Life, Motivation, Forgetting

“What obstacle are you facing? Ask God for breakthrough thinking. Don't think about small changes. Think radically.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Thinking, Change

“Darwin's theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it's been under attack since day one. That's just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we'd still be debating Newton with idiots too.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian 2 August 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/02/television.television <br class="br">Guardian columns

Books, Beauty

“Religion may be a quest for the truth, but it has no way of finding the truth, or verifying what it claims to find. Our knowledge of what God is like has not advanced one iota over the ideas of the 1500s.
And insofar as theological interpretation has changed, it’s done so not as a result of faith’s quest for truth, but of pressure from science and secular morality. Really, can any theologian, philosopher, or scientist tell me anything about God now that we didn’t know 500 years ago? Then ask a scientist what we know now about science that we didn’t know in 1500.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Do both science and faith produce truth? http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/do-both-science-and-faith-produce-truth/" August 11, 2012

Truth, Faith, Religion, Way

“The Bible is different from all other books; other books are written by man, but the Bible not only contains the sayings and commandments of God, but was also written entirely under divine inspiration. So we might say that it is God's book, which he gave to man to lead him to everlasting life.”

Matta El Meskeen (1919–2006) Egyptian monk

Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way

Life, Books

“We must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

As quoted in "Sci-fi legend "Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels'" by John Blake, CNN : Living (2 August 2010), p. 3

War, Universe

“Yes, [science is my God] in a sense. I'm comfortable with the unknown, that's the point of science. There are places out there, billions of places out there that we know nothing about. And the fact that we know nothing about them excites me, and I want to go out and find out about them. And that's what science is. So I think if you're not comfortable with the unknown, then it's difficult to be a scientist. So I don't need an answer; I don't need answers to everything. I want to have answers to find.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

Johnathan Ross Show 26 March 2010 BBC One

Thinking, Sense, Science

“I almost never go to temples. I don't find the time. I'm not religious in that sense. My religion is my music. Lord Krishna is my God. Whenever I want to pray, whenever I want to meditate and concentrate, I take my flute. I can feel God. The feeling is difficult to explain, but I feel lost when I'm in it.”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia in Hinduism Today

Religion, Music, Feeling, Sense

“By the principles of the Declaration of Independence, majority rule in a free society is not an end in itself, nor is it a source of the purposes served by free government. Majority rule exists to secure the rights with which all human persons are "endowed by their Creator." The recognition of the origin of these rights, in God and nature, comes before any action of any majority. Only as we all recognize that "the just powers of government" exist to secure the equal rights possessed by every human being, whether in the majority or minority, can tyranny be prevented.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)

Nature, Personality

“God bless him. He will be remembered forever.”

Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982) Polish-American classical pianist

Alexander Schneider — reported in Lon Tuck (August 29, 1983) "Emperor at the Keyboard", The Washington Post, p. C1.
About

“Judaism, Christianity’s parent sect, is the most powerful of protests against nature. The Old Testament asserts that a father god made nature and that the differentiation into objects and gender was after the fact of his maleness. Judeo-Christianity, like Greek worship of the Olympian gods, is a sky-cult. It is an advanced stage in the history of religion, which everywhere began as earth-cult, veneration of fruitful nature.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 8

Religion, History, Nature, Parent

“You are a man. Is it necessary for you to tell others that you are a man? No. But if you are living among donkeys, you would vehemently declare that you are a man. In the same way, I am God, but I have not to speak of it, because it is quite natural. Yet sometimes, I have to declare it.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

p. 5729 http://www.lordmeher.org/index.jsp?pageBase=page.jsp&nextPage=5729 <br class="br">Lord Meher (1986)

Way, Nature

“In the bourgeois' world, … if some respect was shown to God, it was on condition that he in turn would respect the general laws governing the universe and refrain from acting contrary to the plans of the middle class, who used their reason and demanded their share in the governance of the world.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 15

World, Law, Universe

“Only the idea of God gives me the confidence that morality will become reality on earth. And because I cannot live without this confidence, I cannot live without God.”

Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) German philosopher

Source: Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen (1971), p. 5

Confidence, Idea, Reality

“We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.”

Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon (1648–1717) French mystic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 194.

Forgetting

“I die the king's faithful servant, but God's first.”

Thomas More (1478–1535) English Renaissance humanist

Words on the scaffold, attributed in The Essentials of Freedom : The Idea and Practice of Ordered Liberty in the Twentieth Century as explored at Kenyon College (1960) by Paul Gray Hoffman, p. 43
First reported in indirect speech in the Paris Newsletter (1535): « Apres les exhorta, et supplia tres instamment qu'ils priassent Dieu pour le Roy, affin qu'il luy voulsist donner bon conseil, protestant qu'il mouroit son bon serviteur et de Dieu premierement. » ("Afterward he exhorted them, and besought them very earnestly to pray to God for the King, that He should give him good counsel, protesting that he died his good servant, and God's first.")

Faith, Faith

“Human learning, with the blessing of God upon it, introduces us to divine wisdom; and while we study the works of nature the God of nature will manifest himself to us; since, to a well-tutored mind, “The heavens,” without a miracle, “declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handy-work.””

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

George Horne (bp. of Norwich.) (1799). Discourses on several subjects and occasions. Vol. 1,2, p. 357; As quoted in Allibone (1880)

Wisdom, Nature, Study, Learning

“Yes, India is the land of the Gods par excellence… The experience of the divine presence in India is within the reach of anyone who searches even a little bit. The temples are full of flowers and offerings, and you only have to flow along with the crowd, melt into it and place yourself in the hands of the Gods. I do not advocate conversion to Hinduism, but I do recommend its inspiration. I told this to the brahmins that took me into their homes. One said, 'Establish your reawakened Paganism on a valid foundation and there'll come a day when it will catch on. It won't be long.”

Christopher Gérard (1962)

As true Pagans, they feel no need to convert anyone.
Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

Feeling, Home, Search, Flowers

“The word of God is solid; it will stand a thousand readings; and the man who has gone over it the most frequently and the most carefully is the surest of finding new wonders there.”

James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 36.

Reading

“We have all swallowed the cultural punch that believes institutions are both the means and the end of God's mission in the world.”

Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)

World

“Normally, anyone disreputable enough to flatly affirm such positive proclamations without adequate support would lose the respect of his peers and be accused of outright fraud; anyone but a religious advocate that is. When allegedly holy men do the exact same thing, then its not called fraud anymore. Its called “revealed truth” instead. That’s quite a double-standard, innit? Like when some minister gets on stage at one of those stadium-sized churches -to state as fact who God is and what God is, and what he wants, hates, needs, won’t tolerate, or will do -for whom, how, and under what conditions; they don’t have any data to show they’re correct about any of it, yet they speak so matter-of-factly. Even when they contradict each other they’re all still completely confident in their own empty assertions! So why do none of these tens of thousands of head-bobbing, mouth-breathing, glassy-eyed wanna-believers have the presence of mind to ask, “how do you know that?” Well, for all those who never asked the question, here’s the answer; they don’t know that! There’s no way anyone could know these things. They’re making it up as they go along. These sermons are the best possible example of blind speculation; asserted as though it were truth and sold for tithe. If anyone or everyone else would be called liars for claiming such things without any evidentiary basis then why make exceptions for evangelists? For these charlatans are obviously liars too! The clergy are in the same category of questionable credibility as are commissioned salesmen, politicians, and military recruiters.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"4th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80nhqGfN6t8, Youtube (December 25, 2007) <br class="br">Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Men, Hate, Truth, Way

“Vital is the relation between earthly sorrow and eternal satisfaction. The travail to which God's saints are subjected results in the birth of nobler natures and more sanctified spirits. Pain always promotes progress, and suffering invariably ensures success.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 556.

Pain, Birth, Nature, Suffering

“It is one of the advantages of the revelations which we acknowledge, that whilst they reject idolatry with its many pernicious accompaniments, they introduce the Deity to human apprehension, under an idea more personal, more determinate, more within its compass, than the theology of nature can do. And this they do by representing him exclusively under the relation in which he stands to ourselves; and, for the most part, under some precise character, resulting from that relation, or from the history of his providences. Which method suits the span of our intellects much better than the universality which enters into the idea of God, as deduced from the views of nature.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 24 : Of the Natural Attributes of the Deity.

History, Idea, Nature, Universe

“Darkness is strong, and so is Sin,
But surely God endures forever.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Villa Franca.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Strong

“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 22

Wisdom

“This paucity of actors on the stage reflects the liturgical roots of Greek theater, which continued to stick close to its religious origins. … [A] machine, called the mēchanē, was a sort of crane that swung an actor playing a god over the parapet of the skēnē and out above the stage (thus the Latin phrase deus ex machina for a solution from nowhere, an unforeseen answer to prayers).”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.IV The Politician and the Playwright: How to Rule

“Religious ritual invariably offers a sacrificial display of commitment to supernatural agents that is materially costly and emotionally convincing. Such ritual conveys willingness to cooperate with a community of believers by signaling an open-ended promise to help others whenever there is true need. These expensive and sincere displays underscore belief that the gods are always vigilant and will never allow society to suffer those who cheat on their promises. Such a deep devotion to the in-group habitually generates intolerance toward out-groups. This, in turn, leads to constant rivalry and unending development of new and syncretic religious forms.”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 16
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

Communication, Suffering, Help, Cheating

“Bob: To God, homosexuality is no joke!”

Jack T. Chick (1924–2016) Christian comics writer

Chick tracts, " Sin City http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/5003/5003_01.asp" (2001)

“As God blesses your ministry with it, remember that those without it tend to criticize those with it, especially when you do things differently.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

“Learn from Ali how to fight
without your ego participating.
God's lion did nothing
that didn't originate
from his deep center.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"Ali in Battle" an account of Ali ibn Abi Talib's explanation as to why he declined to kill someone who had spit in his face as Ali was defeating him in battle, in Ch. 20 : In Baghdad dreaming of Cairo
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)

Learning, Fight

“You cannot be too active as regards your own efforts; you cannot be too dependent as regards Divine grace. Do every thing as if God did nothing; depend upon God as if He did every thing.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 241.

Effort, Dependency

“Then there was this extra on the set who runs up to me and says, "Oh, I know you! I know who you is, I seen you before. You that comedienne, Margaret Cho! I saw you at the Comedy Store. You was wearin' a kimono and you was bowin'." "No, that's the other one." "Oh, right! Now I remember. I just didn't recognize you because you've put on a little weight since your show." And it didn't piss me off that she said that, but it was that she said, "You put on a lot of *gestures* weight!" so I'll know exactly where I put it. And it pissed me off, so I just sort of talked about it to everybody for the whole day. The next day I come into work and the assistant producer comes over to me and says, "Uh, you know that lady from the other day? Well, don't worry. We took care of her."”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

Oh my God! What did you do?! Suddenly I felt like I was running around like this tyrant, all drunk with power- "Nobody can call me fat on this set!"
From Her Tours and CDs, Drunk With Power CD

“Now the creed to which I subscribe is like a battle cry, engraved on my heart - the Credo of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Before, in those former times, I could say, "I shall sleep in the dust: and if thou seek me in the morning, I shall not be" (Job 7:21). Now I can say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and the last day I shall rise out of the earth. And I shall be clothed with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God. Whom I myself shall see and my eyes shall behold, and not another: this my hope is laid up in my bosom" (Job 19:25-27).”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

From Union Square to Rome (1938), p. 145

Hope, Sleep, Time, Heart

“A man can enjoy a terrestrial paradise after eighty, but it is not to be obtained, except by strict temperance in food and drink, virtues acceptable to God, and friends to reason.”

Luigi Cornaro (1484–1566) Italian philosopher

Discourses on the Sober Life

Food, Drink

“Let us learn wisdom from this illustrious example. We have passed the Red Sea of slaughter; our garments are yet wet with its crimson spray. We have crossed the fearful wilderness of war, and have led our four hundred thousand heroes to sleep beside the dead enemies of the Republic. We have heard the voice of God amid the thunders of battle commanding us to wash our hands of iniquity, to 'proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.' When we spurned his counsels we were defeated, and the gulfs of ruin yawned before us. When we obeyed his voice, he gave us victory. And now at last we have reached the confines of the wilderness. Before us is the land of promise, the land of hope, the land of peace, filled with possibilities of greatness and glory too vast for the grasp of the imagination. Are we worthy to enter it? On what condition may it be ours to enjoy and transmit to our children's children? Let us pause and make deliberate and solemn preparation. Let us, as representatives of the people, whose servants we are, bear in advance the sacred ark of republican liberty, with its tables of the law inscribed with the 'irreversible guaranties' of liberty. Let us here build a monument on which shall be written not only the curses of the law against treason, disloyalty, and oppression, but also an everlasting covenant of peace and blessing with loyalty, liberty, and obedience; and all the people will say, Amen.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Speech in the House of Representatives (1866)

Wisdom, War, Children, People

“Imagine buying a toy for a child's pleasure and having him love the toy more than he loves you. Yet, isn't that what you've done with God?… Isn't it true that you have been guilty of ingratitude?… Have you ever humbly thanked God for the gift of life?”

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

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Love, Life, Pleasure, Imagination

“So far, the game has done a really good job of not throwing a lot of jumpscares at me, and that worries me even more. [goes to open door] If you blow your load too quickly with jumpscares—"
[TB opens door. Cue jumpscare. ]
"AHHHHH! Jesus Christ. F**k! I hate you so much right now! God-dammit! Anyway!”

TotalBiscuit (1984–2018) British game commentator

Other videos, An Early Look at Outlast

Hate, Game, Christ

“I have returned. By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

On landing in Leyte, Philippines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv1PF0tAE1s (20 October 1944)

“These Gentlemen must be told, that they take too much upon themselves when they pretend to appoint how far and no farther Men shall go in their Searches, and to set bounds to other Mens Industry; as if they knew the Marks that God has placed to Knowledge…”

Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher

Book 1, p. 8
Cosmotheoros (1695; publ. 1698)

Men, Search, Knowledge

“Walter Kasper, a German cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, said: "A democratic state has the duty to respect the will of the people; and it seems clear that, if the majority of the people wants such homosexual unions, the state has a duty to recognize such rights." So if the people of Germany voted tomorrow to renew the Holocaust, would the cardinal say the German state is duty-bound to re-open the death camps? That kind of spurious legalism helped goose-step Germany into Hell in the last century. Do German cardinals now propose to do the same to the Roman Catholic Church in this one?
I must assume that Cardinal Kasper would join me in saying, "Forbid it, Almighty God!"”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

He will probably bridle, however, at the temerity of comparing homosexuality to the Holocaust.
[2015-06-04, Cardinals Surrender to Iniquitous Spirit of the Time, WorldNetDaily, http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/cardinals-surrender-to-iniquitous-spirit-of-the-time/, 2014-06-08]
2009

Death, People, Hell, Help

“Faith, then, generically, is confidence in a personal being. Specifically, religious faith is confidence in God, in every respect and office in which He reveals Himself. As that love of which God is the object, is religious love, so that confidence in Him as a Father, a Moral Governor, a Redeemer, a Sanctifier, in all the modes of His manifestation, by which we believe whatever He says because He says it, and commit ourselves and all our interests cheerfully and entirely into His hands, is, religious faith.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 238.

Love, Faith, Confidence, Personality

“I don't want Church to be like all those dead pets! I don't want Church to ever be dead! He's my cat! He's not God's cat! Let God have His own cat! Let God have all the damn old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine!”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Ellie on her fears for Church
Pet Sematary (1983)

Cats, Dead

“Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Source: Quaestiones disputatae: De caritate (ca. 1270) http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVirtutibus2.htm#4

Love, Friendship, Perfection

“I'm not disgusted. I'm a citizen of the United States of America and I'm no second-class citizen either and no man here is, unless he thinks like one and reasons like one and performs like one. This is my country and I believe in her, and I will serve her, and I'll contribute to her welfare whenever and however I can. If she has any ills, I'll stand by her until in God's given time, through her wisdom and her consideration for the welfare of the entire nation, she will put them right.”

Daniel James Jr. (1920–1978) United States general

As quoted in The Right to Fight: A History of African Americans in The Military (1998), by Gerald Astor, De Capo Press, pp. 440–443

Wisdom, Thinking, Time, Country

“There are in every man, at all times, two simultaneous tendencies, one toward God, the other toward Satan.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Il y a dans tout homme, à toute heure, deux postulations simultanées, l'une vers Dieu, l'autre vers Satan.
Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Mon cœur mis à nu (1864)

Time

“God's enemies from the Jews, Christians, atheists, Shiites, apostates and all of the world's infidels have dedicated their media, money, army and munitions to fight Muslims and jihadists in the State of Nineveh after they witnessed it become one of the bases of Islam and one of its minarets under the Caliphate.”

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019) leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Audio message as quoted in ISIS leader releases rare audio message as Iraqi troops enter Mosul by Euan McKirdy, CNN (November 3 2016)
Attributed
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/02/middleeast/al-baghdadi-audio-mosul/

Money, World, Fight

“This victory took place in the year 878, eight hundred and seventy-eight; the island of Sankhodar was never conquered in any age by any king of the past. It is related that the Sultan performed two genuflexions of namaz out of thanksgiving at the time of demolishing the temple and breaking the idols of Jagat. He grew eloquent in recitation of praise out of gratitude to God. The Muslims raised calls to namaz (azan) by loud voice from top of temples… He built a masjid there.”

Mahmud Begada (1458–1511) Sultan of Gujarat

Sankhodhar (Gujarat) Mirat-i-Ahmdi, translated into English by M.F. Lokhandwala, Baroda, 1965,pp 47-52

Age, Time, Past, Victory

“What is inevitable is not death but change. Change is the only abiding reality. The metaverse evolves, fractally and forever. Saints become sinners, sinners become saints. Dust becomes men, men become gods, gods become dust.”

Robert Charles Wilson book Vortex

Source: Vortex (2011), Chapter 32 (p. 327)

Death, Men, Reality, Change

“In our making, God, Almighty, is our Nature’s Father; and God, All-Wisdom, is our Nature’s Mother; with the Love and the Goodness of the Holy Ghost: which is all one God, one Lord. And in the knitting and the oneing He is our Very, True Spouse, and we His loved Wife, His Fair Maiden: with which Wife He is never displeased. For He saith: I love thee and thou lovest me, and our love shall never be disparted in two.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 58

Love, Wisdom, Nature

“We're so familiar with written language that we sometimes forget how outlandish a concept it must have seemed to our ancestors. Writing allowed people to copy and transfer their thoughts and their tribal codes of conduct to others, even unto generations they themselves would not live to personally instruct, affect or control. The words themselves must have seemed alive and immortal and as "holy" as ghosts. Written law was thus a way of mastering time and influencing the future, a weapon greater than fire and steel, I hope you'll agree. When read, the written word made the head buzz and ring and fill up with voices and commands from nowhere, as if God Himself had come thundering down through the symbols, off the page and into the room, fertilising and impregnating the mind with his Ghostly, unmistakable presence.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

2005
http://suicidegirls.com/words/Grant+Morrison/
On writing

People, Law, Hope, Way

“Howiver, I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Chapter 53 http://books.google.com/books?id=0OU8AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Howiver+I'm+not+deny+in+the+women+are+foolish+God+Almighty+made+em+to+match+the+men%22&pg=PA530#v=onepage <br class="br">Adam Bede (1859)

Women, Men

“Tarzan of the Apes had decided to mark his evolution from the lower orders in every possible manner, and nothing seemed to him a more distinguishing badge of manhood than ornaments and clothing.
To this end, therefore, he collected the various arm and leg ornaments he had taken from the black warriors who had succumbed to his swift and silent noose, and donned them all after the way he had seen them worn.
About his neck hung the golden chain from which depended the diamond encrusted locket of his mother, the Lady Alice. At his back was a quiver of arrows slung from a leathern shoulder belt, another piece of loot from some vanquished black.
About his waist was a belt of tiny strips of rawhide fashioned by himself as a support for the home-made scabbard in which hung his father's hunting knife. The long bow which had been Kulonga's hung over his left shoulder.
The young Lord Greystoke was indeed a strange and war-like figure, his mass of black hair falling to his shoulders behind and cut with his hunting knife to a rude bang upon his forehead, that it might not fall before his eyes.
His straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god, told at a glance the wondrous combination of enormous strength with suppleness and speed.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes (1912), Ch. 13 : His Own Kind

War, Way, Home, Fashion

“When men cease to be faithful to their God, he who expects to find them so to each other will be much disappointed. The primitive sincerity will accompany the primitive piety in her flight from the earth, and then interest will succeed conscience in the regulation of human conduct, till one man cannot trust another further than he holds him by that tie: hence, by the way, it is, that although many are infidels themselves, yet few choose to have their families and dependents such; as judging—and rightly judging—that true Christians are the only persons to be depended on for the exact discharge of their social duties.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

Source: The Works of the Right Reverend George Horne, 1809, p. 64; As quoted in Allibone (1880)

Men, Family, Faith, Disappointment

“I see myself in the contestants. I’m not the one to tell people, ‘You have to sing this way or that way.’ Talent is something God gave you when you were born. I don’t want to give them technical advice. I love mistakes. When talking about art, the most important thing is to not be perfect, … I want to be a fan, and to be a fan you have to conquer my heart. I don’t want to give marketing advice.”

Laura Pausini (1974) Italian singer

Los Angeles Daily News (October 16, 2014)

Love, People, Art, Way

“The precept to worship God 'in spirit and in truth' recommand to worship him as an inward and moral force, without physical attributes and with no relation to fears and egoist wishes.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 40 The quotation is from the Gospel of John, VII, 24.

Truth, Fear

““I knew God had heard my prayer when I learned that it was you and no other who drew this case.”
“One judge is coughing his life out into bloody handkerchiefs and the other is burying his wife, and you think this is how God answers your prayers?””

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 11.

Life, Thinking, Learning

“We ask God to have mercy on the Muslims, whom we did not intend to target, even if they were in hotels which are centres of immorality.”

Abu Musab Zarqawi (1966–2006) Jordanian jihadist

On the 2005 Amman bombings. Zarqawi in his own words http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5058474.stm BBC News (November 2005)

“Fear ye God that ye may not identify yourselves with aught but the truth, inasmuch as ye have been exalted in the Bayán for being recognized as the bearers of the name of Him Who is the eternal Truth.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

XVII, 4
The Kitáb-I-Asmá

Truth, Fear

“There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

L 16
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook L (1793-1796)

People

“Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

As quoted in Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005) by James Lee Christian, p. 556

People, Fear

“This had been no great cause more to reject the one than thother, for ye know by histories of the bible that god may by his revelation dispense with his own Law.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Letter to Fisher. (Merriman, i. p. 376.)

Law, History

“Have you hit an obstacle that appears impenetrable? Maybe God will guide you to see something that you couldn't have seen if he'd just removed the wall.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Appearance

“[In casual conversation] The reason why I feel relatively indifferent to [the Anglican Church of England] is it's lost its power, and it's so desperately keen to solicit support that they're willing to throw God out of the window in order to retain it. God for the many of the Anglicans is nothing more than a sort of awkward geriatric relative, kept upstairs, who might be embarrassingly coming downstairs, incontinently, and cause trouble.”

Jonathan Miller (1934–2019) British theatre director (born 1934)

Episode one: "Shadows of Doubt".
Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief (2004)

Feeling, Support, Indifference

“Mysticism is the search for and recovery of our oneness with God.”

Flower A. Newhouse (1909–1994) American mystic

Lecture discussing esoteric Christian mysticism
Mysticism

“It is the occupation of a Christian to glorify God.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance (2000, Harvest House Publishers)

“God is at home and is content, it is we who are looking and are not at one in ourselves.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All Will be Well (2004)

Home

“God had no need for Ecclesiastes to acquaint Him with vanity.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“You shall do as God of Origin wills and comply with My demand. I shall save all humankind if you will listen to Me; but if you should object to it, I shall destroy this house so completely that not a trace of it will remain.”

Nakayama Miki (1798–1887) Founder of Tenrikyo

The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, p. 6
The Life of Oyasama

Housing

“I talked to Paul McCartney over the years ranging from 1967 to 2004. … At the landmine show he did "God Only Knows" with me and I did "Let It Be" with him. And then I called him about four months ago asking him if he could come out and do — sing a song called "A Friend Like You," which I wrote for him, me and my collaborator wrote for him. And he said he'd love to come out. And he came to the studio and that was one of the bigger thrills of my life to tell you the truth, to produce Paul McCartney. And that was a thrill for me. That was a thrill.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

CNN interview (2004)

Love, Life, Truth, Singing

“When Satan attempts to draw you to sin by presenting God as a God all made up of mercy, oh then reply, that though God's general mercy extend to all the works of his hand, yet his special mercy is confined to those who are divinely qualified, to those who love him and keep his commandments, to those who trust in him, that by hope hang upon him, and who fear him; and that you must be such a one here, or else you can never be happy hereafter; you must partake of his special mercy, or else eternally perish in everlasting misery, notwithstanding God's general mercy.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

page 44
Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 1652

Love, Happiness, Fear, Hope

“In the time of the First Manifestation the Primal Will appeared in Adam; in the day of Noah It became known in Noah; in the day of Abraham in Him; and so in the day of Moses; the day of Jesus; the day of Muḥammad, the Apostle of God; the day of the ‘Point of the Bayán’; the day of Him Whom God shall make manifest; and the day of the One Who will appear after Him Whom God shall make manifest. Hence the inner meaning of the words uttered by the Apostle of God, ‘I am all the Prophets’, inasmuch as what shineth resplendent in each one of Them hath been and will ever remain the one and the same sun.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Dalá’Il-I-Sab‘ih

Appearance, Time, Sun

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.”

Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j

Quoted by Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus in The Spirit of Saint Francis de Sales, ch. 1, Pg. 3 (1880)

Love, Way, Thinking, Study

“The Roman god, Lucifer, was the bearer of light, the spirit of the air, the personification of enlightenment. […] It has been said "the truth will make men free". The truth alone has never set anyone free. It is only DOUBT which will bring mental emancipation. Without the wonderful element of doubt, the doorway through which truth passes would be tightly shut, impervious to the most strenuous poundings of a thousand Lucifers.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Men, Truth, Light

“God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible.”

James Clavell (1921–1994) American novelist

André Delambre
The Fly (1958)

Intelligence, Nature

“It just gripes me hollow, the way God always sneaks in to take the credit.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 12.

Way

“So, my brethren, let us do our work, that others entering on it may carry it forward through after generations. Thus shall the work of the fathers become the glory of fheir children; and in the end, when the mystery of God shall be finished, we shall see, in its completed beauty and proportion, the great fabric into which we put our little all; and we shall rejoice at once in the skill of the Architect and the diligence of the successive builders.”

William Mackergo Taylor (1829–1895) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 126.

Children, Beauty, Success

“The God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Catch-22 (1961)

Stupidity

“I do know that there are some things that exist in this world that you just can't prove. That could be the case with God or whoever might be up there, but I don't follow any one religion.”

Katie Melua (1984) British singer-songwriter

[Portia Colwell, Not just anybody: Katie Melua, http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/body_and_soul/article566962.ece, The Times, 2005-09-17]

World, Religion

“The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits. But scripture here helps us out with an excellent argument when it teaches us that we must not think of man’s real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 37.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Love, Men, Thinking, Help

“We shall not act unfairly in any way. We shall not allow our understanding to let us down. For a leader who has to take care of a volk/people, cannot govern, driven by emotions or vengefulness. It is our task in these heavy times, while the heart often wants to speak, to let understanding dominate; understanding and faith. Carried by faith in God, the government will not be able to govern unfairly. Faith and understanding does not, however, say that we have to act timidly when greater evils may follow. Power is sometimes the best means to get peace.”

Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966) Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966

Verwoerd in 1960, as quoted and translated by J. J. Venter in H.F. Verwoerd: Foundational aspects of his thought, Koers 64(4) 1999: 415–442

People, Peace, Faith, Way

“We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (8 May 1945) from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill, 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 1344
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Lie, Justice, Home, Effort

“Dante and Hopkins, Mozart and Palestrina, Michelangelo and El Greco, Bramante and Gaudi, have brought more souls to God than all the preachers of Texas”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

29
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)

Soul

“The vengeful God of wrath and punishment
is a mere fairytale. It simply is the Me
That makes me fail.”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Fairytale

“… You will join with me now in repeating the prayer of the three martyrs whom we mourn - 'God save Ireland!' And all of you, men, women, and boys and girls that are to be men and women of holy Ireland, will ever keep the sentiment of that prayer in your heart of hearts.”

John Martin (1812–1875) (1812-1875) Irish nationalist activist

Women, Men, Girl, Boy

“Strange though this may sound, not knowing where one is going – being lost, being a loser – reveals the greatest possible faith and optimism, as against collective security and collective significance. To believe, one must have lost God; to paint, one must have lost art.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

undated quotes, The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings (1962-1993)

Faith, Art, Optimism, Painting

“But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), With God On Our Side

Thinking

“For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where hanging here from this gallows…”

Elie Wiesel book Night

That night, the soup tasted of corpses.
Night (1960)

Night

“How I wish I had your looks! If only you had some sense in you, God would have left you nothing to wish for.”

Wolfram von Eschenbach book Parzival

Ôwî wan wær dîn schœne mîn!
dir hete got den wunsch gegebn,
ob du mit witzen soldest lebn.
Bk. 3, st. 124, line 18; p. 74.
Parzival

Sense

“Two days ago, I dreamt I married a 5-year-old boy. He treated me like a queen and was perfectly lovely. We took a driving trip for our honeymoon. Then it dawned on me: 'Oh my God! He doesn't have a driver's license! We could get arrested!”

Megan Mullally (1958) American actress

Attributed

Love, Boy

“Three sacraments that contribute to life, baptism, confession, communion, have been used at Easter time. (Eucharist connects completely faith and baptism, God and man incompletely) Triumph: As expected of pious Christians, the joy of victory is heard in the midst of an unjust world; victory and not disparagement, insult, persecution. With the day of the victory of Christ, the Easter, the bonds are broken, the death and sin laid (?), and the Redeemer of mankind rises strongly the human race from night time and fetters, in blessed heights, heavenly gates!).”

Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar

Excerpt from a sermon on Easter delivered by Mendel, found in Folia Mendeliana (1966), Volume 6, Moravian Museum in Brünn.
Original: Drei Sakramente, die das Leben spenden: Taufe, Beichte, Kommunion sind zur Osterzeit eingesetzt worden. (Eucharistie verbindet vollkommen, Glaube und Taufe unvollkommen dem Gottmenschen). Sieg: Wie mutet es einen frommen Christen an, mitten in der ungerechten Welt von Sieg zu hören, und nicht wieder Hintansetzung, Beschimpfung, Verfolgung; auch Siegesfreude. Mit dem Siegestag Christi, mit dem Ostertag, sind die Bande zerrissen, die der Tod und die Sünde aufgelegt ( ? ), und stark erhebt sich das Menschengeschlecht mit seinem Erlöser aus Nachtzeit und Fesseln in weite selige Höhen, himmlische Gefilde!).
Sermon on Easter

Life, Death, World, Faith

“This is an epistle from the letter ‘Thá’ unto Him Who will be made manifest through the power of Truth — He Who is the All-Glorious, the Best Beloved — to affirm that all created things as well as myself bear witness for all time that there is none other God but Thee, the Omnipotent, the Self-Subsisting; that Thou art God, there is no God besides Thee and that all men shall be raised up to life through Thee.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’

Life, Men, Truth, Art

Quotes about God page 45

Quotes about God
page 45