Quotes about God
page 64

“Dear young people: What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations? Are you living in a way that opens a space for the Spirit in the midst of a world that wants to forget God, or even rejects him in the name of a falsely-conceived freedom? How are you using the gifts you have been given, the 'power' that the Holy Spirit is even now prepared to release within you?”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2008, Closing Mass (19 July 2008)

People, World, Way, Freedom

“I would be a drudge now, among the tents, and I would kneel before the warriors, and run from them when they shouted at me. I would be a woman, as women were reckoned in this place, a half-souled, witless animal, created to bear and pleasure men: an afterthought of the god.”

Tanith Lee book The Birthgrave

Book Three, Part I “Snake’s Road”, Chapter 2 (p. 323)
The Birthgrave (1975)

Women, Men, Pleasure, Soul

“The votaries of Pythagoras of Samos have this story to tell of him, that he was not an Ionian at all, but that, once on a time in Troy, he had been Euphorbus, and that he had come to life after death, but had died as the songs of Homer relate. And they say that he declined to wear apparel made from dead animal products and, to guard his purity, abstained from all flesh diet, and from the offering of animals in sacrifice. For that he would not stain the altars with blood; nay, rather the honey-cake and frankincense and the hymn of praise, these they say were the offerings made to the Gods by this man, who realized that they welcome such tribute more than they do the hecatombs note and the knife laid upon the sacrificial basket.”

Philostratus book Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Book 1, § 1.
Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Life, Death, Time, Animals

“So every possible reality, once God gives it existence, will reveal its own identity. Its life will unfold slowly, whereas God encompasses it at a single glance.”

Ivar Ekeland (1944) French mathematician

Source: The Best of All Possible Worlds (2006), Chapter 2, The Birth of Modern Science, p. 39.

Life, Reality

“"Satan is a tool of God's love in the sense that he forces us to see God's loving patience." — Answers to 200 of Life's most Probing Questions”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

Love, Life, Question, Sense

“The Russians aren't dedicated world dominationists. You know, they just sort of want it on account of a sentimental way, you know, but not like 'By God, we got to have it!' It just doesn't make sense for them to really push too hard, you know, but just to push easy.”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

by Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi , pg: 11
The Worlds of Herman Kahn: the intuitive science of thermonuclear war.

World, Way, Sense

“743. God's mill grinds slow but sure.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

“For life eternal is life germinating in that true and only Inclusive Reason, the supreme consciousness of the reality of the City of God, — the Ideal that seats the central reality of each human being in an eternal circle of Persons, and establishes each as a free citizen in the all-founding, all-governing Realm of Spirits”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The City of God and the True God as its Head (In Royce’s “The Conception of God: a Philosophical Discussion Concerning the Nature of the Divine Idea as a Demonstrable Reality”), p.113

Life, Reality, Personality

“Where're you going Ra?
Take me with you Ra…
You're such a busy God
I wish you could stay
I only want to play and play
But you're such a busy god
and I'm such a mortal Ra”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

"Ra Is A Busy God" - Live performance at New Haven, CT (4 April 2003) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmbHQ0rwCBQ Many Worlds Are Born Tonight (1998)

Business

“The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the Omnipotent Father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"America First? America Last? America at Last?" https://archive.is/20121212151230/www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/lowell/gvidal.html, Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 April 1992) 1990s

Women, Age, Religion, Affliction

“Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man?”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

remarks http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2007/july/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070724_clero-cadore_en.html at Auronzo di Cadore (24 July 2007) 2007

Life, Question, Support, Knowledge

“…you could pick any two writers of equal skill, have them read each other's work, and they would both instantly proclaim each other the champion. Unless one of them happens to be Stephen King, because he's a jerk.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

God Ran Out of Faces
Fully Ramblomatic, Reviews

Jerk, Reading

“Personal responsibility and its correlate of free reality, or real freedom, are the whole foundation on which our enlightened civilisation stands; and the voice of aspiring and successful man, as he lives and acts in Europe and in America, speaks ever more and more plainly the two magic words of enthusiasm and of stability — Duty and Rights. But these are really the signals of his citizenship in the ideal City of God. By them he proclaims: We are many, though indeed one; there is one nature, in manifold persons; personality alone is the measure, the sufficing establishment, of reality; unconditional reality alone is sufficient to the being of persons; for that alone is sufficient to a Moral Order, since a moral order is possible for none but beings who are mutually responsible, and no beings can be responsible but those who originate their own acts.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The City of God and the True God as its Head (In Royce’s “The Conception of God: a Philosophical Discussion Concerning the Nature of the Divine Idea as a Demonstrable Reality”), p.92-3

Nature, Reality, Freedom, Success

“Because God loves us, because He wants us to grow into truth, He must necessarily make demands on us and must also correct us”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

"Cardinal Ratzinger on Laicism and Sexual Ethics," Zenit.org, Nov. 19, 2004
2003

Love, Truth

“Undoubtedly, such expressions as, 'Turn yourselves,' &c. relate to the free power which every man has to will; but if Pelagius had half an eye, he might see that God, in giving the precept which directs us to turn unto him, influences also the human will, and excites it to action; not, indeed, in opposition our free choice, but the reverse, as I have all along maintained. Hence it is written, 'Without me ye do nothing.' And again, 'I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which with me.' And lastly, 'I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and shall be clean; and I will cleanse you from your idols. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will put within you; and I will take away the stony heart, and will give you a heart of flesh.”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

De causa Dei contra Pelagium

Water, Heart, Housing

“Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer; and he who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most emboldened to supplicate fresh gifts from above.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 456.

“This is what the Son of God desires of you: that he might be able to embellish, perfect and gain you lustre with the fullness of his gifts. Since he is so taken by your Beauty, which flows and gushes from him to you, as I have said, what he desires of you is that he might have the supreme pleasure of an eternity enjoying you and his gifts. Thus, everyone who proceeds to live in a way that is contrary to his own self, lives in God; his whole being is God-orientated; he sees nothing but God and himself.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From, A Letter to a Religious

Pleasure, Beauty, Way, Perfection

“Jews like presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders have forgotten that riches are a reward for work well done. In the Jewish faith's infinite wisdom, wealth justly acquired is a sign of God's blessing.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Burn-the-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System," http://www.quarterly-review.org/burn-the-wealth-bernie/The Quarterly Review, October 16, 2015 2010s, 2015

Wisdom, Faith, Hope, Wealth

“Oh, my God, I miss those things”

Ryan Adams (1974) American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter

Hard Way to Fall
29 (2005)

“I am only able to do what stirs me. I want to perceive with my senses things which at the moment are not generally perceived. I do not share, as yet, Beuys' consciousness or hope that all people are moving to a certain point where they all become artists. I am of the opinion that there are artists and non-artists. I think that this is the way it always was and always will be. I do not believe that we are in the center of the world. It is possible that there are gods who do not relate to human. As an artist, I believe that it is possible to depict these forces. I know it sounds absurd when I say that man can perceive some things and adumbrate powers, which do not relate to him. But perhaps the artist, unlike the non-artist, is able to do just that.”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

(1986) n.p.
Structures are no longer valid', in "Ein Gespräch..."

People, World, Hope, Way

“There is nothing beyond God, and the sense enjoyments are simply something through which we are passing now in the hope of getting better things.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

Hope, Sense

“David Letterman: Earlier today, the man who owns this network, Leslie Moonves—he and I have had a relationship for years and years and years—and we have had this conversation in the past, and we agreed that we would work together on this circumstance and the timing of this circumstance. And I phoned him just before the program, and I said, "Leslie, it's been great, you've been great, the network has been great, but I'm retiring."
Paul Shaffer: This is—really?
David Letterman: Yep.
Paul Shaffer: This is—this is—you actually did this?
David Letterman: Yes, I did.
[dead silence in the studio followed by nervous laughter from the audience]
Paul Shaffer: Well—do I have a minute to call my accountant, because…I, uh…
[Dave cracks up]
David Letterman: I just want to reiterate my thanks for the support from the network, all of the people who have worked here, all of the people in the theatre, all the people on the staff, everybody at home. Thank you very much. And what this means now, is that Paul and I can be married.
[uproarious laughter and applause as wedding chimes play]
David Letterman: So we don't have the timing of this precisely down, I think it will be at least a year or so. But sometime in the not too distant future—2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping things up and taking a hike.
[studio audience goes wild, gives him a standing ovation]
David Letterman: Thank you, thanks everybody. All right, thanks very much.”

David Letterman (1947) American comedian and actor

On announcing his retirement, quoted in Here’s what happened the moment David Letterman announced his retirement (transcript + video) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/03/heres-what-happened-the-moment-david-letterman-announced-his-retirement-transcript-video/ by Emily Yahr, in "The Washington Post" (3 April 2014).

Love, People, Home, Support

“Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

This has similarly been attributed to Buchan, but is actually a misrendering of a sentence from the first paragraph of John Bunyan, Discourse on Prayer. Bunyan's original sentence reads: "It is the opener of the heart of God, and a means by which the soul, though empty, is filled."
Misattributed

Soul, Heart

“So then God created the world, and on the first day he created light and air and fish and jam and soup and potatoes and haircuts and arguments and small things and rabbits and people with noses and jam – more jam, perhaps – and soot and flies and tobogganing and showers and toasters and grandmothers and, uh … Belgium. And the second day he created fire and water and eggnog and radiators and lights and Burma and things that go "urh" and … and Colonel Gaddafi and Arthur Negus. On the third day he probably got lists and said, "I can't remember what I've invented now. I've just been ad-libbing so far."”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Glorious (1997)

People, World, Fish, Light

“I find that to be a fool as to worldly wisdom, and to commit my cause to God, not fearing to offend men, who take offence at the simplicity of truth, is the only way to remain unmoved at the sentiments of others.”

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 36; as cited in: Ruth Marie Griffith (2008) American Religions: A Documentary History. p. 137

Wisdom, Men, Truth, Fear

“Belief in God's presence and action in American public life, in social events, in education, in civic celebrations and political discussions, which for two hundred years had been considered broadly beneficent, changed radically on September 11, 2001.”

Francis George (1937–2015) Catholic cardinal

God in Action: How Faith in God Can Address the Challenges of the World (2011) Ch. 1 "God in American Public Life," p. 21.

Life, Education, Change

“I will not fail: God is always victorious.”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 138

Victory

“The life we have at this present is the gift of God, "in whom we live, move, and are:" and therefore is he called Jehovah. For the which life as we should be thankful, so we may not in any wise use it after our own fantasy, but to the end for the which it is given and lent us; that is, to the setting forth of God's praise and glory, by repentance, conversion, and obedience to his good will and holy laws: whereunto his long-suffering doth, as it were, even draw us, if our hearts by impenitency were not hardened. And there fore our life in the scripture is called a "walking:" for that as the body daily draweth more and more near his end, that is the earth, even so our soul draweth daily more and more near the death, that is salvation or damnation, heaven or hell.”

John Bradford (1510–1555) English Protestant Reformer and martyr

To the Christian Reader, John Bradford Wisheth the True Knowledge and Peace of Jesus Christ, Our Alone and Omnisufficient Saviour. http://www.godrules.net/library/bradford/07bradford5.htm Sermon on Repentence

Life, Death, Law, Soul

“Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and Patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.”

Pope Leo XIII (1810–1903) 256th Pope of the Catholic Church

Prayer to Saint Michael (1888)

Men, People, Peace, Soul

“For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Commentary on the Book of Genesis. Chapter I http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01/cvgn1-03.txt. Genesis (1554)

Wisdom, Art

“The laws of certain states …give an ownership in the service of negroes as personal property…. But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty—and when the captor in war …thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

As quoted in Papers of Alexander Hamilton http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/five-founders-on-slavery.html, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961-), 19:101-2 Philo Camillus no. 2 (1795)

Men, War, Law, Nature

“A man cannot live intensely except at the cost of the self. Now the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self (rudimentary as his may be). And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he does comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire. The bourgeois is consequently by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful of giving himself away and easy to rule.”

Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf

Source: Steppenwolf (1927), pp. 51-52

Pleasure, Fear, Nature

“God is both with form and without form. Butter still in milk can be said to be without form, and when it is churned out, with form. In the same way, the divine Light which is self-existent in all being is God without physique, whereas the Satguru of the time, or the realised soul, is God with the physique. Submergence of the mind into the divine light; obedience and service to Satguru together with supreme love for Him; consecration of body, mind and all activities to Him; together with a great anguish for the slightest forgetfulness of Him, constitute sublime devotion. Hence perpetual peace, eternal bliss and salvation within the lifetime are ensured. There is absolutely no other way to achieve them. This is universally substantiated".
Yogiraj Param Sant Satgurudev Shri Hans Ji Maharaj, Prem Nagar, India, June 1961, quoted in the Bantam paperback: "Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?”

Hans Ji Maharaj (1900–1966) Indian guru

pp 283-4.

Love, Peace, Way, Quotes

“The method for practicing this ardent love is short and easy. Its subject is constant and loving aspiration. But to be perfect, aspiration must be practice so eagerly and continually that it becomes as easy as breathing. It has a number of degrees, all of which can be reduced to four. The first consists in offering oneself and all created things to God. As far as possible, this should be done in an abstract manner. The second degree consists in making requests of the divine Spouse, asking him for his gifts in him and for his own sake. The third degree consists in being resigned and completely conformed to him. This conformity is very lofty and perfect, and is characterized by a great love. Moreover, the soul also desires it for creatures who are capable of such exalted love. The fourth degree is that of unitive love which unites the soul to God. Here the souls yearns for him and pursues him with acts of love until he opens his loving and super essential bosom to it. Here it feast upon his immense beauty in great abundance and intoxication, eating and drinking at the table of the Blessed. But since this does not last very long, the soul soon returns to itself to feed upon its former spiritual fare. From this it derives renewed strength, until God again receives it into his bosom with the same effect.”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From Prayer, Aspiration, and Contemplation

Love, Beauty, Soul, Drink

“For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the God-like?”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

Bk. III, ch. 3.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)

“In the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God.”

Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928) Peruvian theologian

Source: A Theology of Liberation - 15th Anniversary Edition, Chapter Thirteen, Poverty: Solidarity And Protest, p. 165

“The rest of my life belongs to my culture, my language, my God and my nation.”

Eugène Terre'Blanche (1941–2010) South African police officer, farmer, political activist, white supremacist

Interview by Antoinette Keyser http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=249083&area=/insight/insight__national/, (25 August 2005).

Life

“Know thou of a certainty that every letter revealed in the Bayán is solely intended to evoke submission unto Him Whom God shall make manifest, for it is He Who hath revealed the Bayán prior to His Own manifestation.”

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

V, 8
The Persian Bayán

“Then there is the final possibility, my favorite.
—Yes?
—The final possibility is that I’m God.
—You’re God?
—Just a theory, but the data are provocative. I mean, look at me. Faceless, shapeless, holey, undifferentiated, Jewish, inscrutable…and a hermaphrodite to boot. Years ago, I told you sponges cannot be fatally dismembered, for each part quickly becomes the whole. To wit, I am both immortal and infinite.
—You’re God? You’re God herself? You?
—The data are provocative.
—God is a sponge? A sponge? There’s not much comfort in that.
—Agreed.
—Sponges can’t help us.
—Neither can God, as far as I can tell. I’d be happy to see some contrary data.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 18 (p. 312)

Happiness, Help, Parting

“The Cry within me is a call to arms. It shouts: "I, the Cry, am the Lord your God! I am not an asylum. I am not hope and a home. I am not the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost. I am your General!
"You are not my slave, nor a plaything in my hands. You are not my friend, you are not my child. You are my comrade-in-arms!
"Hold courageously the passes which I entrusted to you; do not betray them. You are in duty bound, and you may act heroically by remaining at your own battle station.
"Love danger. What is most difficult? That is what I want! Which road should you take? The most craggy ascent! It is the one I also take: follow me!”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

Love, Hope, Home, Courage

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

Judas Iscariot one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus Christ, known for betrayal of Jesus

Bob Dylan, "With God on Our Side" (1963)
About

Thinking

“It seems to me that any cult has to have the following characteristics: One, a dictatorial leader, often called charismatic, who has total and unlimited control over his group. Two, followers who have abdicated the right to say no, the right to pass judgment, the right to protest, who have sold their souls for the security of slavery. Three, possibly the most dangerous doctrine known to our civilization, that the end justifies the means; therefore, any thing from the Moonies' heavenly deception to the violence of Synanon to the theft of government documents by Scientology, to the brutality of the Children of God, all the way to the murder-suicide of Jonestown, all is permitted because the ends justify the means and there is no one there to tell them no. Four, unlimited funds. The Unification Church with its some $50 million brought in each year by its mobile fund raising teams is duplicated by the Hare Krishnas dressing as Santa Claus or the Children of God sending out their women as fishers of men. Five, the instilling of fear, hatred, and suspicion of everyone outside the camp, of the entire outside world in order to keep the victims in line. You put them all together gentlemen -- You have a prescription for violence, for death, for destruction. It is a formula that fits the Nazi Youth Movement as accurately as it describes the Unification Church. Or the People's Temple.”

Maurice Davis (1921–1993) American rabbi

Ibid., February 5, 1979.

Death, Women, Men, Children

“For, for aught we know, or for aught that the new science can say to the contrary, the gods which play the part of fate to the atoms of our brains may be our own minds. Through these atoms our minds may perchance affect the motions of our bodies and so the state of the world around us. To-day science can no longer shut the door on this possibility; she has no longer any unanswerable arguments to bring against our innate conviction of free-will. On the other hand, she gives no hint as to what absence of determinism or causation may mean. If we, and nature in general, do not respond in a unique way to external stimuli, what determines the course of events? If anything at all, we are thrown back on determinism and causation; if nothing at all, how can anything ever occur? As I see it, we are unlikely to reach any definite conclusions on these questions until we have a better understanding of the true nature of time.”

James Jeans book The Mysterious Universe

Source: The Mysterious Universe (1930), p. 29-30 of 1930 ed.

Fate, World, Way, Understanding

“Now THERE'S a hollow state to be in, isn't it — to believe in God and get no sign that He's there.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

“When Nietzsche said God is dead, he forgot to mention that Satan died in the same horrific accident.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

http://uk.comics.ign.com/articles/950/950703p4.html
On life

Dead

Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet

"Letter of 1607", as cited by Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., 2012, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, p. 218.

Books, Grass, Learning, Universe

“Speak of the Gods as they are.”

Bias of Priene (-600–-530 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the Seven Sages

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230)

“Al Utbi, the author of Tarikh-i-Yamini, writes how Sultan Mahmud punished Nawasa Shah: “Satan had got the better of Nawasa Shah, for he was again apostatizing towards the pit of plural worship, and had thrown off the slough of Islam, and held conversation with the chiefs of idolatry respecting the casting off the firm rope of religion from his neck. So the Sultan went swifter than the wind in that direction, and made the sword reek with the blood of his enemies. He turned Nawasa Shah out of his government, took possession of all the treasures which he had accumulated, re-assumed the government, and then cut down the harvest of idolatry with the sickle of his sword and spear. After God had granted him this and the previous victory, which were tried witnesses as to his exalted state and proselytism, he returned without difficulty to Ghazna.””

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Utbi, in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

Religion, Victory

“(About Prince) I recently met him, he's a Jehovah's witness, right? The first thing i said to him was "omigaaawdifuckinloveyourmusic". He looked at me with that look of his and said very softly 'uh, you have to pray that you can ban swearing out of your live, otherwise you can never please the lord" Me : I'll fuckin' try!, followed with 'did i fuckin' curse?' in which he responded "yeah, you fuckin' did".(laughs) Okay that last part I made up, but he was very serious about it. So i thought, my god, this is the guy from "Head" and from "Darling Nikki" who is mastrubating in the lobby from a hotel. In his studio he even has a curseing jar, everybody that swear has to put a $50 into it. I was speechless, and let me tell you, that does not happen to me alot. But, he is and stays a genius.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Het stomende dubbelinterview: Natalia en Anastacia http://www.humo.be/humo-archief/29756/het-stomende-dubbelinterview-natalia-en-anastacia, Humo, September 27, 2010. General Quotes

Guy, Parting

“Where is my daddy? asked the emerald. My da?
Moll dropped a glass, which shattered.
Your father.
Yes, said the emerald, amn’t I supposed to have one?
He’s not here.
Noticed that, said the emerald.
I’m never sure what you know and what you don’t know.
I ask in true perplexity.
He was Deus Lunus. The moon god. Sometimes thought of as the man in the moon.
Bosh! said the emerald. I don’t believe it.
Do you believe I’m your mother?
I do.
Do you believe you’re an emerald?
I am an emerald.
Used to be, said Moll, women wouldn’t drink from a glass into which the moon had shone. For fear of getting knocked up.
Surely this is a superstition?
Hoo, hoo, said Moll. I like superstition.
I thought the moon was female.
Don’t be culture-bound. It’s been female in some cultures at some times, and in others, not.
What did it feel like? The experience.
Not a proper subject for discussion with a child.
The emerald sulking. Green looks here and there.
Well it wasn’t the worst. Wasn’t the worst. I had an orgasm that lasted three hours. I judge that not the worst.”

Donald Barthelme book Sixty Stories

“The Emerald”.
Sixty Stories (1981)

Women, Fear, Feeling, Drink

“I long to live in a manifold of duty and individuals, to grasp things at their source, not taking them for granted as coming from an unknown and unchangeable origin. I long to experience things in depth and nearness, because through depth and nearness I realize the centre of reality. The whole of history shows me that this is possible. Formerly it would have been said that it was not possible, that we had to await death. Today I will die at every moment to rise again with God, at the centre of reality.”

Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) Italian philosopher and political activist

Hymn

Death, History, Reality

“It is as though we had buried Someone we thought dead, and now hear him calling in the night: Help me! Heaving and panting, he raises the gravestone of our soul and body higher and still higher, breathing more freely at every moment.
Every word, every deed, every thought is the heavy gravestone he is forever trying to lift. And my own body and all the visible world, all heaven and earth, are the gravestone which God is struggling to heave upward.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book The Saviors of God

The Saviors of God (1923)

World, Soul, Help, Night

“God reveals himself to those who wait for that revelation and who don't try to "tear at the hem of a mystery" forcing disclosure.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Source: Poustinia (1975), Ch. 3

Tear, Waiting

“There are no supreme saviours
Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribune.
Producers, let us save ourselves,
Decree the common salvation.
So that the thief expires,
So that the spirit be pulled from its prison,
Let us fan our forge ourselves
Strike the iron while it is hot.”

Eugène Edine Pottier (1816–1887) French politician

Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
Décrétons le salut commun
Pour que le voleur rende gorge
Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
Battons le fer quand il est chaud
The Internationale (1864)

“Change is the nature of God’s mind, and resistance to it is the source of great pain.”

Craig Ferguson book Between the Bridge and the River

Between the Bridge and the River (2006)
Variant: Change is the nature of God’s mind, and resistance to it is the source of great pain.

Pain, Law, Change

“Dear Snæfríður, is it not clear to you how disastrous your words were, when you said just now that you do not fear the eye of God watching over you?”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Reverend Sigurður
Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell) (1946), Part II: The Fair Maiden

Fear

“I learned that poets aren’t God, but if there is a God…or anything approaching a God…he’s a poet. And a failed one at that.”

Dan Simmons book The Fall of Hyperion

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 45 (p. 504)

Learning

“123. Happy is the monk who considers all men as god — after God.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

Chapters on Prayer

Men, Happiness

“The nude gains its enduring value from the fact that it reconciles several contrary states. It takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire; it takes the most purely rational concept of which mankind is capable, mathematical order, and makes it a delight to the senses; and it takes the vague fears of the unknown and sweetens them by showing that the gods are like men and may be worshiped for their life-giving beauty rather than their death-dealing powers.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. I: The Naked and the Nude

Life, Death, Men, Fear

“As a boy holding to a post or a pillar whirls about it with headlong speed without any fear or falling, so perform your worldly duties, fixing your hold firmly upon God, and you will be free from danger.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 283

Fear, Boy, Speed

“Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.”

Oswald Chambers book My Utmost for His Highest

My Utmost for His Highest (1956). Section "December 31".

Sleep, Past, Future, Christ

“As I do understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway. He who has God's grace in his heart cannot go astray.”

Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643) participant in the Antinomian Controversy

As quoted in Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers (1907) by Elbert Hubbard.

Law, Understanding, Light, Heart

“Be aware that the most detested person in the presence of God, is the one who accepts an Imam as a leader, but doesn't follow him in action.”

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

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 287.
Religious wisdom

Personality

“I don’t deny I’m lonely. Deeply so. A king, when he doesn’t have to account to anyone for what he says and does, is inevitably very much alone. But I’m not entirely alone because I’m accompanied by a force that others can’t see. My mystical force. And the I get messages. Religious messages. I’m very, very religious. I believe in God, and I’ve always said that if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Oh, I feel so sorry for those poor souls who don’t have God. You can’t live without God. I’ve lived with God ever since the age of five. That is, since God gave me those visions.”

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980) Shah of Iran

Oriana Fallaci (December 30, 1973), The Mystically Divine Shah of Iran (interview), Chicago Tribune
Interviews

Age, Feeling, Soul

“Approve and pursue the kind that is in accordance with nature. But avoid the kind that claims to be inspired: people like that about tell lies about Gods, and urge us to do many foolish things.”

Apollonius of Tyana (15–100) Ancient Greek philosopher

Attributed to Apollonius. Quoted from Ram Swarup (2000). On Hinduism: Reviews and reflections, Chapter India and Greece

People, Nature

“These ideas are present in all sorts of unrelated cultures -- the Easter Islands, Celtic mythology, Plato's Symposium with its notion that we are all originally hermaphrodite. We became too arrogant and so the gods split us down the middle, forcing us to spend our lives chasing our other half. If we start being arrogant all over again, God will come down and split each half in half, and it will take four people to assemble a fifth, making our lives peculiarly, desperately difficult.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

In an interview in the Washington DC City Paper, 6 Apr 1990
Interviews

People, Idea

“The Pharisees were orthodox Jews, deeply concerned with the affairs of the Church and conscientious observers of all its ceremonies. They held its chief offices, occupied the chief places at the feasts, and sat in the chief seats in the synagogues…. Who then could have been more astonished than they when, like a thunderbolt from the sky, came the simplest, clearest, most concise and yet complete statement of fundamental religious truth that has ever been uttered? In twenty-eight words Jesus stated for all time and in a manner that may be understood by everybody, the fundamental basis of Christianity—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all mind… And Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 92-93

Love, Truth, Soul, Time

“I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered — now I have only one doubt left — which of the twain was God?”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Aceldama : A Place To Bury Strangers In (1898) Preface.

Death, Soul

“Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory that are due to his name, and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. Usually, the most praying souls are the most assured souls.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Quotes from secondary sources, Smooth Stones Taken From Ancient Brooks, 1860

Soul

“I have three dads: my biological father, God and Bob Dylan.”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

From the article A Mysterious Case of the White Stripes from Rolling Stone Magazine.
2010

“Group-think is a substitute for God-think. The belief is that God is found only by our group. The next step is to establish that identification with our group as the only way to serve God.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer (1999), p. 82

Way, Thinking

“We find upon all occasions, the early Christian writers speak of the Father as superior to the Son, and in general they give him the title of God, as distinguished from the Son; and sometimes they expressly call him, exclusively of the Son, the only true God; a phraseology which does not at all accord with the idea of the perfect equality of all the persons in the Trinity. But it might well be expected, that the advances to the present doctrine of the Trinity should be gradual and slow. It was, indeed, some centuries before it was completely formed.”

Joseph Priestley book An History of the Corruptions of Christianity

Part I : The History of Opinions Relating to Jesus Christ, § III : The Supremacy was always ascribed to the Father before the Council Of Nice
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)

Idea, Personality, Perfection

“Experience is, in fever and anguish, the putting into question (to the test) of that which a man knows of being. Should he in this fever have any apprehension whatsoever, he cannot say: “I have seen God, the absolute, or the depths of the universe”; he can only say “that which I have seen eludes understanding”—and God, the absolute, the depths of the universe are nothing if they are not categories of the understanding.

If I said decisively, “I have seen God,” that which I see would change. Instead of the inconceivable unknown—wildly free before me, leaving me wild and free before it—there would be a dead object and the thing of the theologian, to which the unknown would be subjugated.”

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) French intellectual and literary figure

Source: L’Expérience Intérieure (1943), p. 4

Understanding, Question, Decision, Universe

“If we want a love which will protect the soul from wounds we must love something other than God.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Love (1947), p. 62

Love, Soul

“Theodicy is the Achilles Heel of faith. There is no reasonable answer to the problem of gratuitous evil (i. e., the slaughter of children or mass killings by natural phenomena like tsunamis), and the will to continue believing in the face of such things truly shows the folly of faith. For those evils prove absolutely either that God is not benevolent and omnipotent, or that there is no god. (Special pleading like “we don’t know God’s mind” doesn’t wash, for the same people who say such things also claim to know that God is benevolent and omnipotent). Both nonbelief or belief in a malicious or uncaring God are unacceptable to the goddy. Ergo, any rational person who contemplates gratuitous evil must become an agnostic, an atheist, or someone who rejects the Abrahamic God. It is a touchstone of rationality.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" The Christmas NYT: faith everywhere http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/the-christmas-nyt-faith-everywhere/" December 26, 2012

Children, People, Faith, Nature

“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”

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

2007-11-06
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
Christopher Hitchens
978-0306816086
http://quotes.pink/god/quote-8195/
2000s, 2007

Food, Dogs, Cats, Thinking

“As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great president of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact. A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is unkept. The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, The American Promise (1965)

Justice, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“One of the most important elements of Christian religion is the idea that justice is an essential quality of God. Since God is the absolute, his justice must be absolute justice, that is to say, eternal and unchangeable. Only a religion whose deity is supposed to be just can play a role in social life. To attribute justice to the deity in order to make religion applicable to human relations implies a certain tendency of rationalizing something which, by its very nature, is irrational-the transcendental being, the religious authority, and its absolute qualities.”

Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) Austrian lawyer

"The Idea of Justice in the Holy Scriptures", Rivista Juridicade la Universidadde Puerto Rico, Sept., 1952-April, 1953., published in What is Justice? (1957)

Life, Religion, Justice, Idea

“But that has changed when a few months later during a lull in the battle of the attack on Verdun, he was telling his comrade a dirty anecdote. To his amazement, his buddy did not laugh: “Kutscher, didn’t you find that one funny?” The reaction of poor fellow to joke was no longer a laughing matter: a shrapnel of an enemy grenade struck him right into the heart - he collapsed dead to the ground. "I still see myself on the edge of the trench. A bright light, brighter than the atomic bomb struck me: he is now standing before holy God! And the next thought was: if we had sat in different arrangement, then the splinter grenade would have hit me instead, and then I would be standing face-to-face before God right now! My friend was laying dead in front of my eyes. For the first time in many years, I folded my hands and uttered a prayer, which consisted of only one sentence: "Dear God, I beg You, do not let me fall before I'll be sure not go to hell!"" A few days later, he then entered with a New Testament in the hand a broken French farmhouse, fell to his knees and prayed: Jesus! The Bible says that you have come from God in order to save sinners. I am a sinner. I cannot promise anything in the future, because I have a bad character. But I do not want to go to hell, if I get a shot. And so, Lord Jesus, I surrender myself to you from head to foot. Do with me whatever you want!"”

Wilhelm Busch (pastor) (1897–1966) German pastor and writer

Since there was no bang, no big movement, I just went out. I had found the Lord, a gentleman to whom I belonged."
Jesus Our Destiny
Source: [ВИЛЬГЕЛЬМ (Wilhelm), БУШ (Busch), Приди домой (Come home), CLV, Christliche Literatur -Verbreitung, Bielefeld, 8, 158, 1995, http://www.manna.lv/nopirkt/Pridi-domoj/389397721X.html, Russian, 3-89397-721-X, 2011-11-19]

Hell, Light, Change, Time

“One of our fan-coloring biographers, who paints small men as very great, inquired of me lately with real affection too, whether he might consider as authentic, the change of my religion much spoken of in some circles. Now this supposed that they knew what had been my religion before, taking for it the word of their priests, whom I certainly never made the confidants of my creed. My answer was "say nothing of my religion. It is known to my God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one."”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to John Adams (11 January 1817), published in The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0054.php, Federal Edition, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, Vol. 12 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Jefferson0136/Works/0054-12_Bk.pdf, pp. 48–49 1810s

Life, Men, World, Religion

“[in response to a question about what was meant by his "cosmic religion"] It is not a religion that teaches that man is made in the image of God—that is anthropomorphic. Man has infinite dimensions and finds God in his conscience. This religion has no dogma other than teaching man that the universe is rational and that his highest destiny is to ponder it and co-create with its laws. There are only two limiting factors: first, that what seems impenetrable to us is as important as what is cut and dried; and, second, that our faculties are dull and can only comprehend wisdom and serene beauty in crude forms, but the heart of man through intuition leads us to greater understanding of ourselves and the universe. My religion is based on Moses: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And for me God is the First Cause. David and the prophets knew that there could be no love without justice or justice without love. I don't need any other religious trappings.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 108

Love, Wisdom, Religion, Justice

“Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion. Men’s thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God. Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy. They do their duty, these shopkeeping souls, but they clip the coin a trifle, like the Jews; they think that even if the Lord keeps ever so careful a set of books, they may still cheat Him a little. Out upon them! This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings; they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Swenson, 1959, p. 27
1840s, Either/Or (1843)

Love, Men, Hate, Books

“I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state.”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Who Says Islam Is Totalitarian?, National Review Online (2009 interview with Jeff Jacoby), 19 October 2010 http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250189/who-says-islam-totalitarian-andrew-c-mccarthy?page=3, 2000s

Life, Hate, People, Books

“God's gift of forgiveness and eternal life in heaven is absolutely free!”

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

Chick tracts, " Where's Your Name? http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1097/1097_01.asp" (2015)

Life, Forgiveness

“When we are reminded of his apocalyptic concepts and are told that an interim ethic possesses little validity for distant centuries, we are able to make rejoinder that his experience of God, his valuation of man, his call to love, forgiveness, and sacrifice are universal and eternal.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

The Personality of Jesus (1932)

Love, Forgiveness, Universe, Distant

“There is an inborn tendency to be Free. Every being is struggling to be Free. No one wants bondage. No one wants misery. The very idea of disease and death is appalling to all. Still, a being thinks that it will be happy by sense-pleasures. Can these sense-pleasures make one happy? No. Any amount of sense-pleasures will not make one really happy. Sense-pleasures will bring momentary satisfaction and then make one unhappy. Then comes the question: Where does this real happiness lie? It lies in knowing the True Nature. To know your True Nature, you have to control your mind. In order to control your mind, you have to live a true life. You must be a man of good character. That is why all the Scriptures ask their followers to be good, kind, gentle, noble, charitable, truthful, etc. In fact, moral and ethical codes of good conduct are the starting points of all Religions. They start with moral and ethical codes and end with God-realization or Self-realization.”

Swami Narayanananda (1902–1988) Indian guru

The Essence of Life (1980), also in Minor Works II (2001), p. 131f

Life, Death, Happiness, Pleasure

“The following pages were written in the Concentration Camp in Dachau, in the midst of all kinds of cruelties. They were furtively scrawled in a hospital barrack where I stayed during my illness, in a time when Death grasped day by day after us, when we lost twelve thousand within four and a half months … “You asked me why I do not eat meat and you are wondering at the reasons of my behavior … I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own sufferings … I am not preaching … I am writing this letter to you, to an already awakened individual who rationally controls his impulses, who feels responsible, internally and externally, for his acts, who knows that our supreme court is sitting in our conscience … I have not the intention to point out with my finger … I think it is much more my duty to stir up my own conscience … That is the point: I want to grow up into a better world where a higher law grants more happiness, in a new world where God's commandment reigns: You shall love each other.””

Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz (1906–1991) German journalist, poet and prisoner in Dachau concentration camp

“Animals, My Brethren,” in The Dachau Diaries; as quoted in John Robbins, Diet for a New America, H J Kramer, 2011, chapter 5 https://books.google.it/books?id=h-9ARz2YAlgC&pg=PT83.

Love, Death, Pain, Happiness

“It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. … If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Priesthood Session of Jordan Utah South Regional Conference, March 1, 1997.

Faith, Confidence, Thinking, Future

“She rarely saw priest—and knowing her heart sinned, was glad of that. Dreary was a church after the woodlands and hills and sounding sea. She still loved God—and was not the earth His work, and a church only man’s?—but she could not bring herself to call on Him very often.”

Poul Anderson book The Broken Sword

Source: The Broken Sword (1954), Chapter 24 (p. 174)

Love, Heart, Sea

“The Irish of the late fifth and early sixth centuries soon found a solution… the Green Martyrdom, opposing it to the conventional Red Martyrdom of blood. The Green Martyrs… retreated to the woods, or to a mountaintop, or to a lonely island… there to study the scriptures and commune with God.”

Thomas Cahill book How the Irish Saved Civilization

Source: How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995), Ch. VI What Was Found

Communication, Study

“Nothing is more characteristic of the Hegelian system of knowledge than the fact that upon its highest pinnacle, where it becomes knowledge of knowledge, i. e. knowledge knowing of itself, it is impossible for it to have any other content but simply the history of philosophy, the account of its continuing self-exposition, in which all individual developments, coming full circle, can only be stages along the road to the absolute philosophy reached in Hegel himself. But that which knowledge is explicitly upon this topmost pinnacle as the history of philosophy, the philosophy completed in Hegel, it is implicitly all along the line: the knowledge of history and the history of knowledge, the history of truth, the history of God, as Hegel was able to say: the philosophy of History. History here has entered so thoroughly into reason, philosophy has so basically become the philosophy of history, that reason, the object of philosophy itself, has become history utterly and completely, that reason cannot understand itself other than a sits own history, and that, from the opposite point of view, it is in a position to recognize itself at once in all history in some stage of its life-process, and also in its entirety, so far as the study permits us to divine the whole. It is a matter of the production of self-movement of the thought-content in the consciousness of the thinking subject. It is not a matter of reproduction! The Hegelian way of looking is the looking of a spectator only in so far as it is in fact in principle and exclusively theory, thinking consciousness. Granting this premise, and setting aside Kierkegaard’s objection that with it the spectator might by chance have forgotten himself, that is the practical reality of his existence, then for Hegel it is also in order (only too much in order!) that the human subject, whilst looking in this manner, stands by no means apart as if it were not concerned. It is in this looking that the something seen is produced. And the thing seen actually has its reality in the fact that it is produced as the thing seen in the looking of the human subject. Man cannot participate more energetically (within the frame-work of theoretical possibility), he cannot be more forcefully transferred from the floor of the theatre on to the stage than in his theory.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

Karl Barth Protestant Thought From Rousseau to Ritschl, 1952, 1959 p. 284-285
Protestant Thought From Rousseau to Ritschl 1952, 1956

Life, Truth, Way, History

“There's that popular misconception of man as something between a brute and an angel. Actually man is in transit between brute and God.”

Norman Mailer book The Naked and the Dead

Gen. Edward Cummings, in Pt. 1, Ch. 11
The Naked and the Dead (1948)

Angels

“It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Calvini Opera, Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900, Volume 45, 348, (1877-78)

“Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is — and a woman too, I guess.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part Two, Chapter XIV

“When I was going blind, I didn't turn to God. It didn't seem to me then — and it doesn't seem to me now — that those items were His concern. Early on, I figured I better begin to learn how to count on myself, instead of counting on supernatural forces.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

First years at School, p. 25
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)

Learning

“I am convinced with Plato, with St. Paul, with St. Augustine, with Calvin, and with Leibnitz, that this universe, and every smallest portion of it, exactly fulfils the purpose for which Almighty God designed it.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Preface, Second edition (21 June 1849)
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Universe

“Imagine how wicked society would be if the fear of God and the fear of civil law were both completely removed. Imagine if a man could rape and murder, with no concerns about being punished? That’s when we would see the true heart of humanity, and that’s where we as a nation are slowly heading.”

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

As quoted in Mass Murder 'Normal' in World without God' http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/mass-murder-normal-in-world-without-god/, Worldnutdaily (2012-07-23)

Fear, Law, Imagination, Heart