Quotes about God
page 56

“And are there no laws of moral health? Can they be outraged and the penalty not paid? Let a man turn out of the bright and bustling Broadway, out of the mad revel of riches and the restless, unripe luxury of ignorant men whom sudden wealth has disordered like exhilarating gas; let him penetrate through sickening stench the lairs of typhus, the dens of small-pox, the coverts of all loathsome disease and unimaginable crimes; let him see the dull, starved, stolid, lowering faces, the human heaps of utter woe, and, like Jefferson in contemplating slavery a hundred years ago in Virginia, he will murmur with bowed head, 'I tremble for this city when I remember that God is just'. Is his justice any surer in a tenement-house than it is in a State? Filth in the city is pestilence. Injustice in the State is civil war. 'Gentlemen', said George Mason, a friend and neighbor of Jefferson's, in the Convention that framed the Constitution, 'by an inscrutable chain of causes and effects Providence punishes national sins by national calamities'. 'Oh no. gentlemen, it is no such thing', replied John Rutledge of South Carolina. 'Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question. Interest is the governing principle with nations'. The descendants of John Rutledge live in the State which quivers still with the terrible tread of Sherman and his men. Let them answer! Oh seaports and factories, silent and ruined! Oh barns and granaries, heaps of blackened desolation! Oh wasted homes, bleeding hearts, starving mouths! Oh land consumed in the fire your own hands kindled! Was not John Rutledge wrong, was not George Mason right, that prosperity which is only money in the purse, and not justice or fair play, is the most cruel traitor, and will cheat you of your heart's blood in the end?”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Men, Money, War, Health

“Brady's back! That's your quarterback! Who left the building? Unicorns! Show ponies! Where's the beef?! Boy, when you thought you'd seen it all, when it's total despair…14 years in the league, this situation after situation he's been through, and to elevate a rookie…My God!”

Scott Zolak (1967) American football quarterback

On the Patriots radio broadcast on 98.5 The Sports Hub after Tom Brady's touchdown pass to Kenbrell Thompkins on 13 October 2013 (Week 6) to cap a Patriot comeback against the New Orleans Saints at home. Scott Zolak, Bob Socci Go Bonkers Following Tom Brady’s Game-Winning Touchdown Pass to Kenbrell Thompkins (Audio) http://nesn.com/2013/10/scott-zolak-bob-socci-go-bonkers-following-tom-bradys-game-winning-touchdown-pass-to-kenbrell-thompkins-audio/ NESN

Boy, Despair

“…the war between the Nazis and the Communists; the war of the non-God religions, waged with the weapons of the twentieth century. The most striking fact about the new religions was their similarity. They substituted the devil for God and hatred for love.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Albert Hall, London (3 December 1936) at a cross-party meeting organised by the League of Nations Union "in defence of freedom and peace", quoted in The Times (4 December 1936), p. 18
The 1930s

Love, War, Religion

“Who will disallow those Slovenes who live between the Mura and the Raba the right to translate these holy books into the language, in which they understand God talking to them through prophets and apostles' letters? God tells them too to read these books in order to get prepared for salvation in the faith of Jesus Christ. But they cannot receive this from Trubar's, Dalmatin's, Francel's, or other translations (versio). The language of our Hungarian Slovenes is different from other languages and unique in its own characteristics. Already in the aforementioned translations there are differences. Therefore, a man had to come who would translate the Bible and bring praise for God and salvation for his nation. God encouraged István Küzmics for this work, a priest from Surd, who translated – with the help of the Holy Spirit and with great diligence – the whole New Testament from Greek into the language you are reading and hearing. With the help (and expenses) of many religious souls, the Holy Bible was printed and given to you for the same reason Küzmics prepared Vöre Krsztsánszke krátki návuk, which was printed in 1754.”

István Küzmics (1723–1779) Hungarian translator

Sto de tak kráto naſim med Mürom i Rábom prebívajoucſim ſzlovenom tè ſz. Bo'ze knige na ſzvoj jezik, po ſterom ſzamom li vu ſzvoji Prorokov i Apoſtolov píſzmaj gucsécsega Bogà razmijo, obracsati? geto je nyim zapovidáva Goſzpodin Boug ſteti; da je moudre vcſiníjo na zvelicſanye po vöri vu Jezuſi Kriſztuſi; tou pa ni ſzTruberovòga, ni Dalmatinovoga, ni Frenczelovoga, niti znikakſega drügoga obracsanya (verſio) csakati ne morejo. Ár tej naſ Vogrſzki ſzlovenov jezik od vſzej drügi doſzta tühoga i ſzebi laſztvinoga mà. Kakti i vu naprek zracsúnani ſze veliki rázlocsek nahája. Zâto je potrejbno bilou tákſemi csloveki naprej ſztoupiti: kíbi vetom delao Bougi na díko ‘a’ ſzvojemi národi pa na zvelicsanye. Liki je i Goſzpodin Boug na tou nadigno Stevan Küzmicsa Surdánſzkoga Farara: kí je zGrcskoga pouleg premoucſi i pomáganya Dühà ſzvétoga zvelikom gyedrnoſztjom na ete, kákſega ſtés i csüjes, jezik czejli Nouvi Zákon obrnyeni i ſztroskom vnougi vörni düsícz vö zoſtámpani i tebi rávno tak za toga zroka, za ſteroga volo ti je 'z pred temtoga od nyega ſzprávleni Vöre Krſztsánſzke Krátki Návuk.Foreword of the Nouvi Zákon

Books, Faith, Soul, Understanding

“O.M.G. - Oh! My God!”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

Letter to Churchill, dated 9 Sept 1917. Original held in Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, file reference FISR 1/25/40-41 https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0014%2FFISR%201%2F25 Also mentioned in Memories, p. 78. https://archive.org/stream/memoriesbyadmira00fishuoft#page/78/mode/1up

“Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

"Anubis" to the Sphinx, in Act 2 of The Infernal Machine (1932); Collected Works Vol. 5 (1948)

“In spite of everything, I feel that I am filled with courage; I am sure that God is not going to abandon me. [-]Oh. I want to refuse Him [Jesus] nothing, and even though I feel sad and alone on this earth, He still remains with me. And has not St. Teresa said: God alone suffices.”

Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) French Discalced Carmelite nun

October 8, 1887
General Correspondence

Sadness, Feeling, Courage

“Lastly, let each of us consider how far he is bound in duty to others, and in good faith pay what we owe. In the same way, let the people pay all due honour to their rulers, submit patiently to their authority, obey their laws and orders, and decline nothing which they can bear without sacrificing the favour of God. Let rulers, again, take due charge of their people, preserve the public peace, protect the good, curb the bad, and conduct themselves throughout as those who must render an account of their office to God, the Judge of all… Let the aged also, by their prudence and their experience, (in which they are far superior,) guide the feebleness of youth, not assailing them with harsh and clamorous invectives but tempering strictness with ease and affability. Let servants show themselves diligent and respectful in obeying their masters, and this not with eye-service, but from the heart, as the servants of God. Let masters also not be stern and disobliging to their servants, nor harass them with excessive asperity, nor treat them with insult, but rather let them acknowledge them as brethren and fellow-servants of our heavenly Master, whom, therefore, they are bound to treat with mutual love and kindness. Let every one, I say, thus consider what in his own place and order he owes to his neighbours, and pay what he owes. Moreover, we must always have a reference to the Lawgiver, and so remember that the law requiring us to promote and defend the interest and convenience of our fellow-men, applies equally to our minds and our hands.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book II Chapter 8. Spurgeon.org. Retrieved 2015-02-25.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Love, Men, People, Youth

“So the Free Man is Free. Absolutely Free. Not just a little bit free. Not cut off from all of this. That's not the nature of His Freedom—humorlessness relative to the world still, non-pleasure still. No, in His Freedom He becomes capable of humor in life, capable of pleasure, or enjoyment, in the forms that are arising. That is the fullness of God-Realization. All of the humorless, pleasureless forms of experience that are often associated with God-Realization in the traditions are not God-Realization in Truth.”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

Sex, Laughter, and Real-God-Realization 1975

http://www.fearnomorezoo.org/literature/slg.php

Life, Pleasure, Truth, World

“The dynamic and positive attitude is a strong magnetic force which, by its very nature, attracts good results.
This, of course, does not mean you will get everything you want. When you live on a faith basis your desire will be only for that which you can ask in God's name. But whatever you should have, whatever is good for you will be granted.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Stay Alive All Your Life (1957)

Faith, Nature, Strong

““It’s tragic,” he said.
“God killed them with His hurricane,” she said.
“God had nothing to do with it.”
“Actually I agree with you, though for reasons quite different from yours.””

James K. Morrow book Towing Jehovah

Source: Towing Jehovah (1994), Chapter 4, “Dirge” (p. 69)

“But we are all victims, Captain Bastable, just as in other ways we are all aggressors. At root we are victims to the comforting lies we tell ourselves, of our willingness to shift moral responsibility onto leaders, organized religion—onto a deity or a race, if all else fails. Onto God, onto politicians, onto creatures from other planets. It is always the same impulse, to refuse responsibility. If we do not take responsibility for our own actions, ultimately we perish.”

Michael Moorcock book The Steel Tsar

Book 2, Chapter 7 “A Mechanical Man” (p. 395)
The Steel Tsar (1981)

Religion, Way

“God has removed from our societies the prejudice and the prides of the ignorant time, when the societies divided to either faithful pious or the ignorant time, when the societies divided to either faithful pious or transgressor oppressors. The people are representing the children of Adam and Adam was created from the dust, and there will be no greatness of Arab above foreigner except by the way of pious and humbleness.”

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

Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, as quoted by Ahmed Shendy Yousef in The Brotherhood in Islam, Message to the Jews, Christians and Muslims page 30.
Sunni Hadith

Children, People, Faith, Way

“What good is it having God for a mother if she never sends you a birthday card?”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 3 (p. 50)

Birthday

“The U. S. is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth.”

Sean Hannity (1961) American television host, conservative political commentator

Hannity's America (6 June 2008) http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/174546/june-19-2008/sean-hannity-loves-america

Country

“We should try to see everyone as God.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

The Timeless Path (2009)

“And yet in this I desired, as far as I durst, that I might have full sight of Hell and Purgatory. But it was not my meaning to make proof of anything that belongeth to the Faith: for I believed soothfastly that Hell and Purgatory is for the same end that Holy Church teacheth, but my meaning was that I might have seen, for learning in all things that belong to my Faith: whereby I might live the more to God’s worship and to my profit.
But for my desire, I could of this right nought, save as it is aforesaid in the First Shewing, where I saw that the devil is reproved of God and endlessly condemned. In which sight I understood as to all creatures that are of the devil’s condition in this life, and therein end, that there is no more mention made of them afore God and all His Holy than of the devil, — notwithstanding that they be of mankind — whether they be christened or not.”

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

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 33

Life, Faith, Hell, Learning

“The Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or—if they think there is not—at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book II, Chapter 5, "The Practical Conclusion"
Mere Christianity (1952)

Love, Life, Men, People

“If the national husbandry of this commonwealth be improved, we may hope, through god's blessing, to see better days, and be able to bear necessary and public burdens to more ease to ourselves, and benefit to human society, than hitherto we could attain to.”

Samuel Hartlib (1600–1662) German-British polymath

Samuel Hartlib (1600–1662) cited in: Walter Harte. Essays on Husbandry (1764), p. 3.

Hope

“I feel most spiritual when I'm out in the woods. I feel part of nature. Or looking up at the stars. [I used to say] I was an atheist. Now I say, it's all according to your definition of God. According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something I'm listening to God.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

"Pete Seeger's Session" http://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/music/2006/08/pete-seegers-session?p=2, a Beliefnet interview (2006)

Feeling, Star, Nature, Thinking

“But in view of the lessons of the years of contest that have crowned the nation with victory, with the inspirations of liberty and truth brightly lighting the pathway of the people, who can doubt the equity of their voice? The nations of the earth must not be allowed to point at us as pitiful examples of weak selfishness. In the exigencies of this hour, our duty must be so done that the eternal scrolls of justice will ever bear record of the nobility of the nation's heart Animated, inspired, generous, fearless, in the work of liberty and truth, long will the Republic live, a bulwark of God's immutable justice.”

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

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

People, Truth, Justice, Light

“I knew that he prayed a great deal, of course for help in the examinations. But subsequent clinical experience has convinced me that God is not particularly interested in examinations, just as he won't be dragged into the Stock Market, or being a backer in show business.”

Robertson Davies book The Cunning Man

Part 1, section 13.
The Cunning Man (1994)

Business, Help

“In this year also Sulaiman Kirrani, ruler of Bengal, who gave himself the tide of Hazrati A’la, and had conquered die city of Katak-u-Banaras, that mine of heathenism, and having made the stronghold of Jagannath into the home of Islam, held sway from Kamru to Orissa, attained the mercy of God…”

`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni book Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

About Sultan Sulaiman Karrani of Bengal (AD 1563-1573) Puri (Orissa) Muntakhabu’t-Tawarikh, translated into English by George S.A. Ranking, Patna Reprint 1973, Vol. I, p. 166 ff
Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh

Home

“Praise be to God with all due praise, and a prayer for Muhammad His chosen servant and apostle. The purpose of this treatise is to examine, from the standpoint of the study of the Law, whether the study of philosophy and logic is allowed by the Law, or prohibited, or commanded either by way of recommendation or as obligatory.”

Averroes (1126–1198) Medieval Arab scholar and philosopher

Introduction
The Decisive Treatise

Law, Way, Study

“I saw that homely and sweetly was this shewed, and that the age of every man shall be known in Heaven, and shall be rewarded for his willing service and for his time. And specially the age of them that willingly and freely offer their youth unto God, passingly is rewarded and wonderfully is thanked.
For I saw that whene’er what time a man or woman is truly turned to God, — for one day’s service and for his endless will he shall have all these three decrees of bliss. And the more the loving soul seeth this courtesy of God, the liefer he is to serve him all the days of his life.”

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

The Sixth Revelation, Chapter 14

Love, Life, Youth, Age

“A double problem arises: There is first the difficulty of, if not the impossibility of demonstrating the existence of any creator or designer at all. I think I say something uncontroversial when I say that no theologian has ever conclusively demonstrated that such a designer can or does or ever has existed. The most you can do, by way of the argument from design, is to infer him or her or it from an apparent harmony in the arrangements - and this was at a time when that was the very best that, so to speak, could be done. But religion goes a little further than this already rather impossible task, and expects us to believe as follows: that the speaker not only can prove the existence of a said entity, but can claim to know this entity's mind - in fact, can claim to know it quite intimately; can claim to know his or her personal wishes; can, in turn, tell you what you may do, in his name - a quite large arrogation of power, you will suddenly notice, is being granted to the speaker here. The speaker can tell you that he knows - he cannot tell you how - but he can tell you that he knows, for example, that heaven hates ham, that god doesn't want you to eat pork products; he can tell you that god has a very very strong view about with whom you may have sexual relations, indeed, how you may have sexual relations with others; he can indicate, perhaps a little less convincingly but no less firmly, that there are certain books or courses of study that you might want to avoid or treat with great suspicion.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Christopher Hitchens vs. Marvin Olasky, 14/05/2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMgMUHD_kPI?t=1m35s 2000s, 2007

Hate, Books, Religion, Way

“In this theater of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”

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

Francis Bacon, in The Advancement of Learning (1605) Book II, xx, 8.
Misattributed

Life, Angels

“God and I will achieve Supreme Enlightenment at the same moment.”

Lon Milo DuQuette (1948) American occult writer

Source: The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford (2001), Chapter 10

“God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks.”

John Taylor (1578–1653) English poet of the 16th and 17th centuries

Cooking

“There is no other god but life. Life is the only holy thing. And when that goes that is the death of God.”

Edmund Cooper book Transit

Transit (1964)

Life, Death

“Every philosophical, ethical, and political idea—its lifeline connecting it with its historical origins having been severed—has a tendency to become the nucleus of a new mythology, and this is one of the reasons why the advance of enlightenment tends at certain points to revert to superstition and paranoia. The majority principle … has become the sovereign force to which thought must cater. It is a new god, not in the sense in which the heralds of the great revolutions conceived it, namely, as a power of resistance to existing injustice, but as a power of resistance to anything that does not conform.”

Max Horkheimer book Eclipse of Reason

Source: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 30.

Idea, Sense

“May God bless our country and all who defend her.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Invasion of Iraq (March 2003)

Country

“Much of what you see in the Catholic Church today doesn't come from God's Word, it comes from that cult-like, pagan religion. Now you say, "Pastor, how can you say such a thing? That is such an indictment of the Catholic Church. After all the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the Blood of Christ and Salvation."Isn't that the genius of Satan? If you want to counterfeit a dollar bill, you don't do it with purple paper and red ink, you're not going to fool anybody with that. But if you want to counterfeit money, what you do is make it look closely related to the real thing as possible.And that's what Satan does with counterfeit religion. He uses, he steals, he appropriates all of the symbols of true biblical Christianity, and he changes it just enough in order to cause people to miss eternal life.”

Robert Jeffress (1955) Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas

The Response, American Family Association prayer rally, Reliant Stadium, Houston, , quoted in * 2011-10-08
Jeffress Says Satan Is Behind Roman Catholicism
Brian
Tashman
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jeffress-says-satan-behind-roman-catholicism

Life, Money, People, Religion

“We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

“And for yourself, may the gods grant you
Your heart's desire, a husband and a home,
And the blessing of a harmonious life.
For nothing is greater or finer than this,
When a man and woman live together
With one heart and mind, bringing joy
To their friends and grief to their foes.”

Stanley Lombardo (1943) Philosopher, Classicist

Book VI, lines 183–189; Odysseus to Nausicaa.
Translations, Odyssey (2000)

Life, Home, Heart, Joy

“The Vedic approach,” concludes Ram Swarup, “is perhaps the best. It gives unity without sacrificing diversity. In fact, it gives a deeper unity and a deeper diversity beyond the power of ordinary monotheism and polytheism. It is one with the yogic and the mystic approach… In this deeper approach, the distinction is not between a true One God and false Many Gods; it is between a true way of worship and a false way of worship. Wherever there is sincerity, truth and self-giving in worship, that worship goes to the true altar by whatever name we may designate it and in whatever way we may conceive it. But if it is not desireless, if it has ego, falsehood, conceit and deceit in it, then it is unavailing though it may be offered to the most true God, theologically speaking.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

The World As Revelation: Names of Gods (1980)

Truth, Way, Falseness, Sincerity

“The God of religion exists only in our minds. The real God exists but we can never comprehend him in our minds”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 36
The Other Wife (2003)

Religion

“God is no more intimidated by childish demands for instant gratification than are wise parents.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

Parent

“A little, round, fat, oily man of God.”

James Thomson (poet) The Castle of Indolence

Canto I, Stanza 69.
The Castle of Indolence (1748)

“I recall an old Sufi story of a good man who was granted one wish by God. The man said he would like to go about doing good without knowing about it. God granted his wish. And then God decided that it was such a good idea, he would grant that wish to all human beings.
And so it has been to this day.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)

Idea

“To God, truly, the Giver and Architect of Forms, and it may be to the angels and higher intelligences, it belongs to have an affirmative knowledge of forms immediately, and from the first contemplation. But this assuredly is more than man can do, to whom it is granted only to proceed at first by negatives, and at last to end in affirmatives, after exclusion has been exhausted.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism XV
Novum Organum (1620), Book II

Angels, Intelligence, Knowledge

“I have resolved to confine my studies and my pen to medical subjects only. For the talents which God has not given me, I am not responsible, but those which I possess, I have hitherto cultivated and employed as diligently as my opportunities have allowed me to do; and I shall continue to apply them with assiduity, and in tranquillity, to that profession which has constantly been the ultimate object of all my labours.”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

Letter X: Reply to the Edinburgh Reviewers, Miscellaneous works of the late Thomas Young https://archive.org/details/miscellaneouswo01youngoog (1855), p. 215

Study

“For the first book, I interviewed one mother of four little kids, skinny, pretty, bad teeth — meaning no dental care — and the kids are jumping around, 'cause they want to hear their mamma's voice played back… and so I play it back, and she listens to what she said on the tape and she says, 'Oh my God,' she says. ' I never knew I felt that way before' … That's pretty hot stuff, isn't it? That's hot stuff. That's the stuff.”

Studs Terkel (1912–2008) American author, historian and broadcaster

The Guardian interview (2002)

Books, Way

“In a traditional reading eating the apple was the original sin; but, as Gnostics understood the story, the two primordial humans were right to eat the apple. The God that commanded them not to do so was not the true God but only a demiurge, a tyrannical underling exulting in its power, while the serpent came to free them from slavery. True, when they ate the apple Adam and Eve fell from grace. This was indeed the Fall of Man – a fall into the dim world of everyday consciousness. But the Fall need not be final. Having eaten its fill from the Tree of Knowledge, humankind can then rise into a state of conscious innocence. When this happens, Herr C. declares, it will be ‘the final chapter in the history of the world.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

The Faith of Puppets: The Freedom of the Marionette (p. 8)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

World, History, Knowledge, Tree

“O power of Love, O wondrous mystery!
How is my dark illumined by thy light,
That maketh morning of my gloomy night,
Setting my soul from Sorrow's bondage free
With swift-sent revelation! Yea, I see
Beyond the limitation of my sight
And senses, comprehending now, aright,
Today's proportion to eternity.
Through thee, my faith in God is made me sure,
My searching eyes have pierced the misty veil;
The pain and anguish which stern Sorrow brings
Through thee become more easy to endure.
Love-strong I mount, and heaven's high summit scale;
Through thee, my soul has spread her folded wings.”

Katrina Trask (1853–1922) American writer

Love

Love, Pain, Faith, Soul

“Repitition is the mother of knowledge. To help our children retain God's Word, we repeated a verse six times with them, then gave them a reward (a candy bar) when they had memorized ten verses. I have calculated that we had around six thousand family devotions with our children. The three of them made it through their teenage years without an ounce of rebellion.”

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

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Children, Family, Knowledge, Time

“Let us never imagine that faith can ever be furthered by suppressing doubt, let alone by suppressing evidence. All truth is one, and religion must be as eager as science to know the truth as far as man can perceive it. If something we have treasured as truth is really contradicted by unanswerable evidence, then in the name of the God of truth we must part with it however venerable it may be. Let us never suppose that we can take over faith from our parents without examination, or believe anything merely because another says it is true. But let us not be content with a static agnosticism which never rouses itself to make inquiry. Let us examine the evidence and then in complete loyalty to its trend make a leap both of intellect and will, and, committing ourselves, acting as if all were established, try out in life the faith that carries us on wings after the hard road of fact and reason stops.”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.231

Life, Truth, Faith, Religion

“In a single second we do away with all seconds; God himself could not do as much.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

“The spread of this version, imperfect as it was, proves the hunger and thirst of the German people for the pure word of God, and prepared the way for the Reformation. It alarmed the hierarchy. Archbishop Berthold of Mainz, otherwise a learned and enlightened prelate, issued, Jan. 4, 1486, a prohibition of all unauthorized printing of sacred and learned books, especially the German Bible, within his diocese, giving as a reason that the German language was incapable of correctly rendering the profound sense of Greek and Latin works, and that laymen and women could not understand the Bible. Even Geiler of Kaisersberg, who sharply criticised the follies of the world and abuses of the Church, thought it "an evil thing to print the Bible in German."”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

German versions of the Bible that preceded the Luther Bible

Women, Hunger, People, Books

“The Great Code was a silly and sloppy book. It was also a work of very great genius. The point is that genius is not enough. A book worthy of God and of Helen [Frye's wife] must do better than that.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

1:160
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)

Books

“God reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the child's attraction for its mother, and the husband's attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions, then through it one can attain Him.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 83

Feeling

“Ah, my brother, it is a far harder thing, and it is afar higher proof of a thorough-going, persistent, Christian principle woven into the very texture of my soul, to go on plodding and patient, never taken by surprise by any small temptation, than to gather into myself the strength which God has given me, and, expecting some great storm to come down upon me, to stand fast, and let it rage. It is a great deal easier to die once for Christ than to live always for Him.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 109.

Soul, Rage, Christ

“God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Society and Solitude
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Forgiveness

“The contradictions in Renan, his feminine sensibility, coquetry, unavowed egotism, and sudden emotional outbursts, all indicate a soul deliberately using distraction as a means of evasion. The perpetual equivocation bears witness to God in the same way as the twisting and turning of a hunted animal indicates the presence of an unseen hunter.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

Source: L'imposture (The Impostor), 1927, p.152

Way, Soul, Animals

“Being trans in some ways is very similar to being an atheist, in that some people don’t grasp it. People that come from different backgrounds just [say], “What do you mean you don’t believe in God?” They don’t get you. To them [religion] is just so obvious, and I feel like I keep on having that with gender, also. Some people just have in their mind very firm ideas of gender, and they just can’t get it into their head.”

Abby Stein (1991) Trans activist, speaker, and educator

Source: Interview with Friendly Atheist, December 7, 2015 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/12/07/a-descendant-of-the-founder-of-hasidic-judaism-just-came-out-as-an-atheist-trans-woman/.

People, Religion, Way, Feeling

“So the temple of Somnath was made to bow towards the Holy Mecca; and as the temple lowered its head and jumped into the sea, you may say that the building first said its prayers and then had a bath' It seemed as if the tongue of the Imperial sword explained the meaning of the text: 'So he (Abraham) broke them (the idols) into pieces except the chief of them, that haply they may return to it.' Such a pagan country, the Mecca of the infidels, now became the Medina of Islam. The followers of Abraham now acted as guides in place of the Brahman leaders. The robust-hearted true believers rigorously broke all idols and temples wherever they found them. Owing to the war, 'takbir,' and 'shahadat' was heard on every side; even the idols by their breaking affirmed the existence of God. In this ancient land of infidelity the call to prayers rose so high that it was heard in Baghdad and Madain (Ctesiphon) while the 'Ala' proclamation (Khutba) resounded in the dome of Abraham and over the water of Zamzam' The sword of Islam purified the land as the Sun purifies the earth.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Khazainul-Futuh by Amir Khusru, translated by Mohammed Habib, Quoted by Jagdish Narayan Sarkar, The Art of War in Medieval India, New Delhi, 1964, pp. 286-87.
Quotes from the Khazainul-Futuh

War, Water, Sun, Heart

“In a rude state of society all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.”

Charles Lyell book Principles of Geology

Chpt.2, p. 11
Principles of Geology (1832), Vol. 1

People

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Pt. I, l. 1. Compare: "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii, section 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 1. The True-Born Englishman http://www.luminarium.org/editions/trueborn.htm (1701)

Housing

“What does it mean, then, to become part of God’s work in the world? What does it mean to live a Christian life? One way to answer that question is to look back into the life of the Trinity and the original creation. God made us to ever increasingly share in his own joy and delight in the same way he has joy and delight within himself. We share his joy first as we give him glory (worshipping and serving him rather than ourselves); second, as we honor and serve the dignity of other human beings made in the image of God’s glory; and third, as we cherish his derivative glory in the world of nature, which also reflects it. We glorify and enjoy him only as we worship him, serve the human community, and care for the created environment.
Another way to look at the Christian life, however, is to see it from the perspective of the final restoration. The world and our hearts are broken. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was an infinitely costly rescue operation to restore justice to the oppressed and marginalized, physical wholeness to the diseased and dying, community to the isolated and lonely, and spiritual joy and connection to those alienated from God. To be a Christian today is to become part of that same operation, with the expectation of suffering and hardship and the joyful assurance of eventual success.”

Tim Keller (pastor) book The Reason for God

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008), Ch. 14: The Dance of God

Life, Death, World, Disease

“Any access to something like "God," precisely because of the aim of Being as such, will have to determine him in advance as a being. The precomprehension of "God" as being is self-evident to the point of exhausting in advance "God" as a question.”

Jean-Luc Marion (1946) French philosopher

Source: God Without Being (1982), p. 43

Question

“If it is not love, what then is it that I feel? But if it is love, before God, what kind of thing is it? If it is good, whence comes this bitter mortal effect? If it is evil, why is each torment so sweet?”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch'io sento?
Ma s'egli è amor, perdio, che cosa et quale?
Se bona, onde l'effecto aspro mortale?
Se ria, onde sí dolce ogni tormento?
Canzone 132, st. 1
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

Love, Feeling, Evil

“Why should God wish to take a thoroughbred like Matty so soon, and leave some others down here that could well be spared?”

Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866–1944) American judge and baseball commissioner

Lamenting on the death of the famously virtuous former N.Y. Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson in 1925. Quoted in Christopher Hodge Evans, William R. Herzog, The Faith of Fifty Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002, ISBN 0664223052), p. 77. http://books.google.com/books?id=nfk_O47SFGwC&pg=PA77&dq=%22like+Matty+so+soon

“Shah Alam II once remarked: "In reality, various kinds of unbecoming things do happen in my reign, and the people of God loudly say: In the reign of this blind king we suffer from atrocities'. How then do I desrve to be called a king".”

Shah Alam II (1728–1806) 16th Mughal Emperor

Quote

People, Reality, Suffering

“There, the Father with the Son and all the beloved are enfolded and embraced in the bond of love, that is to say, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. It is this same unity, which is fruitful according to the bursting-out of the Persons and in the return, an eternal bond of love, which can nevermore be united. And all those who know themselves to be bound therein must remain eternally blissful. They are all rich in virtues and enlightened in contemplation and simple where they rest enjoyably, for in their turning-in, the love of God reveals itself as flowing out with all good and drawing in into unity and is superessential and without mode (method or system) in an eternal repose. And so they are united to God, by intermediary, without intermediary, and also without difference.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Little Book of Enlightenment (c. 1364)

Love, Drawing, Personality

“I hold that we have a very imperfect knowledge of the works of nature till we view them as works of God,— not only as works of mechanism, but works of intelligence, not only as under laws, but under a Lawgiver, wise and good.”

James McCosh (1811–1894) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 429.

Law, Intelligence, Nature, Knowledge

“Real Christians revel in desperate ventures for Christ, expecting from God great things and attempting the same with exhilaration.”

C. T. Studd (1860–1931) British cricketer and missionary

The Chocolate Soldier ( text at Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22331)

Christ

“I was much plagued by Satan, until I found that it was God who was tempting me; then the anguish of him passed out of my soul for ever.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

Soul

“Stop'. 'I do not know either 'The Merciful, or the Compassionate'. Write: 'In the name of God'.”

Suhayl ibn Amr soldier

in negotiating Treaty of Hudaybiyyah (628)

“I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.”

Albert Camus book The Stranger

[I]l me restait peu de temps. Je ne voulais pas le perdre avec Dieu.
The Stranger (1942)

Time

“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him, all creatures here below!
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host!
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”

Thomas Ken (1637–1711) Bishop of Bath and Wells

Morning and Evening Hymn.

For Father

“Oh, God, who does not exist, you hate women, otherwise you'd have made them different. And Jesus, who snubbed your mother, you hate them more.”

Edna O'Brien (1930) Novelist, memoirist, biographer, playwright, poet and short story writer

Girls in their Married Bliss (London: Jonathan Cape, 1964) p. 119

Women, Hate

“Conformity to the world has in all ages proved the ruin of the church. It is utterly impossible to live in nearness to God, and in friendship with the world.”

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

P. 621.

Friendship, Age, World

“It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe as a whole is also weird, with laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)
Context: My personal theology is described in the Gifford lectures that I gave at Aberdeen in Scotland in 1985, published under the title, Infinite In All Directions. Here is a brief summary of my thinking. The universe shows evidence of the operations of mind on three levels. The first level is elementary physical processes, as we see them when we study atoms in the laboratory. The second level is our direct human experience of our own consciousness. The third level is the universe as a whole. Atoms in the laboratory are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances. They make unpredictable choices between alternative possibilities according to the laws of quantum mechanics. It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe as a whole is also weird, with laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension. God may be either a world-soul or a collection of world-souls. So I am thinking that atoms and humans and God may have minds that differ in degree but not in kind. We stand, in a manner of speaking, midway between the unpredictability of atoms and the unpredictability of God. Atoms are small pieces of our mental apparatus, and we are small pieces of God's mental apparatus. Our minds may receive inputs equally from atoms and from God. This view of our place in the cosmos may not be true, but it is compatible with the active nature of atoms as revealed in the experiments of modern physics. I don't say that this personal theology is supported or proved by scientific evidence. I only say that it is consistent with scientific evidence.

Law, Nature, Universe, Appearance

“Conclusion. Then for conclusion, by these interpretative propositions, followeth foure thinges marvelous and notable. First, that the interpretation of every parte of the Revelation, is accessorie or consectarie to other: that is to say, it is so chained and linked together, that every mysterie opens other to the discoverie of the whole. Secondly, that the first halfe of the book is orderly, that is to say, it containeth in order of time the most notable accidents that concerneth Gods Church, from the time of Christs Baptisme successively to the latter day. Thirdly, that every historie prophecied, is limited or dated with his own nŭber of years. Fourthly and last of all, that whatsoever historie is more orderlie and summarlie, than plainly set downe in the first orderlie parte of the booke, the same is repeated, interpreted, or amplified in the last part of the booke: deviding the whole Revelation according to the table following, before we proceed to the principall matter.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

Books, History, Time, Success

“God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

People, Thinking

“There may have been times when I wondered if there might be a God, but it always seemed to me wildly implausible that a God worth worshipping could allow the Holocaust to occur.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Interview with the Jewish Chronicle https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/interviews/peter-singer-is-he-really-the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world-1.34980, Dan Goldberg, 16 August, 2012.

Time

“God grant that by my persevering labours I may bring a little stone to the frail and ill-assured edifice of our knowledge of those deep mysteries of Life and Death where all our intellects have so lamentably failed.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

Source: The Life of Pasteur (1902), p. 114

Life, Death, Knowledge

“Those may justly be reckoned void of understanding that do not bless and praise God; nor do men ever rightly use their reason till they begin to be religious, nor live as men till they live to the glory of God. As reason is the substratum or subject of religion (so that creatures which have no reason are not capable of religion), so religion is the crown and glory of reason, and we have our reason in vain, and shall one day wish we had never had it, if we do not glorify God with it.”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

Daniel 4:34-37.
Commentaries

Men, Religion, Understanding

“I wrote the Light of What We Know here..(at Yaddo), over several long stays. I'm not sure where I would have written it otherwise. I've been homeless since 2007, all my few possessions put into storage before I set off to travel across Europe and Asia. My journey was interrupted because of the deaths of loved ones and it was within the interruption that I began and finished writing the novel. Yaddo, I was told, might be a good place to write. … Yaddo turned out to suit me perfectly. A stately home—not English privilege but a Scooby Doo mansion—with woodlands, three lakes and magical charm, this charitable foundation has for a hundred years been host to giants such as James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Sylvia Plath and Truman Capote. I'm still homeless and have yet to resume my broken travels, but wherever I go, I know that Yaddo and its 400-acre stretch of God's own country was always a kind of home to me and helped to nurture In the Light of What We Know.”

Zia Haider Rahman British novelist

"Sweet Inspiration - Writing and Travel", April 4, 2015 Sweet Inspiration - Writing and Travel http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/themes/67591492/Sweet-inspiration-Writing-and-travel April 4, 2015. Retrieved on 2015-04-05.

Love, Death, Travel, Home

“From an Islamic point of view, women are as responsible as men to help people finding their way to God (S. W. T), and to guide society in the right path with all the power they have.”

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) Lebanese faqih

Role of a Woman http://english.bayynat.org.lb/WomenFamily/woman1.htm

Women, Men, People, Way

“How did I get to Lee Konitz, when everybody else was doing Charlie Parker? The sound, for one thing, the notes that he played—man, it just knocked me off my feet! When Lee was first playing, God he was inventive! I worked out so many solos of his off the records, from when he began recording with Tristano and Warne Marsh in 1949. I listened to Charlie Parker but I was not a fan—he was repeating himself too much.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in Lee Konitz: Conversations on the Improviser's Art https://books.google.com/books?id=pc4CsgVHLw0C&pg=PA65 (2008) by Andy Hamilton and Lee Konitz, p. 65

“My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me at my end.”

Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon (1637–1685) Irish poet

Translation of Dies Iræ.

“Profound and incommensurable is the worth of this flowing world: God clings to it and ascends, God feeds upon it and increases.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

World

“One day of good preaching is no match for six days of inconsistent practice. God will never honor His church with complete success until it completely honors Him.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 145.

Success

“If Adam had finished his course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified: and certainly his justification would have implied something more than what is merely negative; he would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and accordingly would have been adjudged to the reward of it. So Christ, our second surety, (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are virtually justified,) was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments through all trials; and then in his resurrection he was justified. When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, 1 Pet. iii. 18. then he that was manifest in the flesh was justified in the spirit, 1 Tim. iii. 16.; but God, when he justified him in raising him from the dead, did not only release him from his humiliation for sin, and acquit him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what he had done. And indeed the justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in the justification of this head and surety of all believers; for as Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our surety; so when after this suffering he was raised from the dead, he was therein justified, not as a private person, but as the surety and representative of all that should believe in him. So that he was raised again not only for his own, but also for our justification, according to the apostle, Rom. iv. 25. “Who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.””

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

And therefore it is that the apostle says, as he does in Rom. viii. 34. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.
Justification By Faith Alone (1738)

Life, Death, Law, Suffering

“By your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)

People, Victory

“Am I a god? I see so clearly!”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Faust

Bin ich ein Gott? Mir wird so licht!
Night, Faust in His Study
Faust, Part 1 (1808)

“We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Love, Hostility, People, Education

“"I see you are looking at my feet," he said to her when car was in motion.
"I beg your pardon?" said the woman.
"I said I see you're looking at my feet".
"I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car.
"If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it."
"Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.
The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back.
"I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man.”

Jerome David Salinger book Nine Stories

Nine Stories (1953), A Perfect Day for Bananafish (1948)

Cars, Girl

“I remember I was once booed off the stage on day one of a festival at Nagpur within half an hour and the same audiences were eating off my hands the next within the first seven or eight minutes. Everyone has their bad day, if I didn’t I’d be God.”

Zakir Hussain (musician) (1951) Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer

Quote, I've never wanted to fit in Abbaji's shoes: Ustad Zakir Hussain

“Although I am small, I am skilful.
From the sea and the mountain,
From the river's depth
God gives His gifts to the blessed.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

The Tale of Taleisin

Mountain, Sea

“Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

Truth, Soul, Success, Help

“People understand God as the expression of the most lofty morality. Maybe He needs only perfect people.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to E.M. Shavrova (April 6, 1892)
Letters

People, Understanding, Perfection

“Oh, God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of travail.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

In circa A.D. 375. Included in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (NPNF), edited by P. Schaff and Henry Wace (Edinburg: T. Clark, 1897), 2nd Series, Vol. 8. Quoted in Matthew Scully, [//books.google.it/books?id=SYY7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT28 Dominion] (2002).

Exercises, Sense, Past, Animals