Quotes about God
page 69

“Surely Scripture is right when it makes the sin of sins that unbelief, which is at bottom nothing else than a refusal to take the cup of salvation. Surely no sharper grief can be inflicted upon the Spirit of God than when we leave His gifts neglected and unappropriated.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 607.

“Why does God afflict the best of men with ill-health, or sorrow, or other troubles? Because in the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers: a general sends his choicest troops to attack the enemy in a midnight ambuscade, to reconnoitre his line of march, or to drive the hostile garrisons from their strong places. No one of these men says as he begins his march, " The general has dealt hardly with me," but "He has judged well of me."”
Quare deus optimum quemque aut mala valetudine aut luctu aut aliis incommodis adficit? quia in castris quoque periculosa fortissimis imperantur: dux lectissimos mittit qui nocturnis hostes adgrediantur insidiis aut explorent iter aut praesidium loco deiciant. Nemo eorum qui exeunt dicit 'male de me imperator mervit', sed 'bene iudicavit'.

Seneca the Younger Moral Essays

De Providentia (On Providence), 4.8, translated by Aubrey Stewart
Moral Essays

Men, Hostility, Health, Strong

“Monotheism came to this country for the first time as the war-cry of Islamic invaders who marched in with the Quran in one hand and the sword in the other. It proclaimed that there was no God but Allah and that Muhammad was the Prophet of Allah. It claimed that Allah had completed his Revelation in the Quran and that Muslims who possessed that Book were the Chosen People. It invoked a theology which called upon the believers to convert or kill the infidels, particularly the idolaters, capture their women and children and sell them into slavery and concubinage all over the world, slaughter their sages and saints and priests, break or at least desecrate their idols, destroy or convert into mosques their places of worship, plunder their properties, occupy their lands, and heap humiliations on such of them as cannot be converted or killed either due to their capacity for fighting back or the need of the conquerors for slave labour. The enormities which the votaries of Islamic Monotheism practised on a vast scale and for a long time vis-a-vis Hindu religion, culture and society, were unheard of by Hindus in the whole of their hoary history. Muslim theologians, sufis and historians who witnessed or read or heard of these doings hailed the doers as soldiers of Allah and heroes of Islam. They thanked Allah and the Prophet who had declared a permanent war on the infidels and bestowed their progeny and properties on the believers. They quoted chapter and verse from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet in order to prove that what was being done to Hindus was fully in keeping with the highest teachings of Islam.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

Women, War, Children, People

“We suffer from the evils which we, by our own free will, inflict on ourselves and ascribe them to God, who is far from being connected with them!”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12

Suffering, Evil

“Ten thousand people a day die of starvation, according to a United Nations survey. Thousands more die from disease daily: we have earth-quakes, floods. droughts and pestilence. These are only a few of the evidences which show us that something is drastically wrong with our relationship with our creator. All of humanity’s problems stem from rebellion to The Word of God. Since mans rejection of God we have lived in this fallen state, where our weather patterns are chaotic, animals devour each other, our crops are diseased, and multitudes are suffering and dying from sickness and disease. These are stark reminders that what The Word of God says is true.”

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

Cults, Sects and Questions (c. 1979)

People, Disease, Problem, Suffering

“As regards the objection that possibles are independent of the decrees of God I grant it of actual decrees (although the Cartesians do not at all agree to this), but I maintain that the possible individual concepts involve certain possible free decrees; for example, if this world was only possible, the individual concept of a particular body in this world would involve certain movements as possible, it would also involve the laws of motion, which are the free decrees of God; but these, also, only as possibilities. Because, as there are an infinity of possible worlds, there are also an infinity of laws, certain ones appropriate to one; others, to another, and each possible individual of any world involves in its concept the laws of its world.”

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher

Gottfried Leibniz (May, 1686) as quoted in George R. Montgomery, Tr., "Correspondence between Leibniz and Arnauld," Leibniz: Discourse on metaphysics; correspondence with Arnauld, and Monadology https://books.google.com/books?id=5-IeAQAAMAAJ (1916) VIII, p. 108

World, Law

“Your God still walks in Eden, between the ancient trees,
Where Youth and Love go wading through pools of primroses.
And this is the sign we bring you, before the darkness fall,
That Spring is risen, is risen again,
That Life is risen, is risen again,
That Love is risen, is risen again, and Love is Lord of all.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

The Lord of Misrule
The Lord of Misrule and Other Poems (1915)

Love, Life, Youth, Spring

“The cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, The Engines of God (1994), Chapter 8 (p. 107)

Nature, Knowledge

“My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid’s curse:
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!”

George Peele (1556–1596) English translator and poet

Cupid's Curse, Lines 12-13 (date uncertain), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Change

“My friends, does God invite you? If He does, why don't you accept the invitation? If you want to come, just come along, and don't be talking about feeling. Do you think Lazarus had any feeling when Christ called him out of the sepulchre?”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 245.

Feeling, Thinking, Christ

“These thirty years, and more, that I've spent among exotic, barbaric, indomitable gods and goddesses, nourished on myths, obsessed by symbols, nursed and bewitched by so many images which have come down to me from those submerged worlds, today seem to me to be the stages of a long initiation. Each one of these divine figures, each of these myths or symbols, is connected to a danger that was confronted and overcome. How many times I was almost lost, gone astray in this labyrinth where I risked being killed… These were not only bits of knowledge acquired slowly and leisurely in books, but so many encounters, confrontations, and temptations. I realize perfectly well now all the dangers I skirted during this long quest, and, in the first place, the risk of forgetting that I had a goal… that I wanted to reach a "center."”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Journal entry (10 November 1959) published in No Souvenirs (1977) , 74-5. Journal II, 1957-1969 (1989).

Books, World, Knowledge, Time

“If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on, believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would livin' do me
God only knows what I'd be without you…”

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

God Only Knows (co-written with Tony Asher)
Pet Sounds (1966)

Life, World

“"The Major's a grand big fellow, so he is." "So what are we? The damned?" "We're that, sure enough, but we're also Riflemen, sir. You and me, we're the best God-damned Soldiers in the world."”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sergeant Patrick Harper and Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 262
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

World

“Well, before you are always self—you’re always self-centered. Everything is for you. Your self is God. And we make lousy gods. Humans make lousy gods, I think. We need to let God be God and us be what we are. I think that’s what changes: the focus on who you’re serving. You’re not serving you. You’re serving Christ.”

Alice Cooper (1948) American rock singer, songwriter and musician

Thinking, Change, Christ

“Sabbath, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

World

“It is no small honour that God for our sake has so magnificently adorned the world, in order that we may not only be spectators of this beauteous theatre, but also enjoy the multiplied abundance and variety of good things which are presented to us in it.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Works (1844) edited by the Calvin translation society, as quoted in Reformed Spirituality: An Introduction for Believers (1991) by Howard L. Rice, p. 59.

World

“In the Book of Hermes, "Pimander," is enunciated in distinct and unequivocal sentences, the whole trinitarian dogma accepted by the Christians. "The light is me," says Pimander, the DIVINE THOUGHT. "I am the nous or intelligence, and I am thy god, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the shadow. I am the germ of thought, the resplendent WORD, the SON of GOD. Think that what thus sees and hears in thee, is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought, which is God the Father… The celestial ocean, the AETHER, which flows from east to west, is the Breath of the Father, the life-giving Principle, the HOLY GHOST!"”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

For they are not at all separated and their union is LIFE.
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter I

Life, Books, Intelligence, Thinking

“I think,
Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
Found for mortals the fear of gods,
Thereby to frighten the wicked should they
Even act or speak or scheme in secret.”

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

Sisyphus, as translated by R. G. Bury, and revised by J. Garrett http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/critias.htm Variant translation: He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.

Secret, Fear, Thinking

“All the graces of Christianity always go together. They so go together that where there is one, there are all, and where one is wanting, all are wanting. Where there is faith, there are love, and hope, and humility; and where there is love, there is also trust; and where there is a holy trust in God, there is love to God; and where there is a gracious hope, there also is a holy fear of God.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 119.

Love, Fear, Faith, Hope

“The president just seems to be living in some sort of alternative universe populated by the failed gods of his narcissism and vainglory.”

Josh Marshall Talking Points Memo

Talking Points Memo (2007-09-14) http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053207.php

Universe

“Wadih el-Hage was one of our brothers whom God was kind enough to steer to the path of relief work for Afghan refugees. I still remember him, though I have not seen him or heard from him for many years. He has nothing to do with the U. S. allegations. As for Mohamed Rashed al-'Owhali, we were informed that he is a Saudi from the province of Najd. The fact of the matter is that America, and in particular the CIA, wanted to cover up its failure in the aftermath of the events that took place in Riyadh, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Capetown, Kampala--and other places, God willing, in the future--by arresting any person who had participated in the Islamic jihad in Afghanistan. We pray to God to end the plight, and we are confident they will be exonerated.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

In response to the interviewer stating: 'But all those arrested are said to have been associated with you.'
1990s, Time magazine interview (1998)

Confidence, Failure, Future, Personality

“Let me say this to you very clearly and those of you who're watching over the internet: [holding up Bible] There is one God in this book, it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Allah is not God; Buddha is not God; Mary is not God; Mary Baker Eddy is not God; birds, animals and bugs are not God; Jehovah God is the God of all gods. He is a jealous God, and He demands that He be the Lord of all or not at all!”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

Books, Bird, Animals

“Meaning of Jihad is “to exert in the Path of God :” “Islamic theology, therefore, tells the true believer that his highest duly is to make exertion (jihad) in the path of God by waging war against infidel lands (dar-ul-harb) till they become a part of the realm of Islam (dar-ul-Islam). After conquest, the entire infidel population becomes theoretically reduced to the status of slaves of the conquering army (Muslims). The men taken with arms are to be slain or sold into slavery and their wives and children induced to servitude. As for the non-combatants among the vanquished, they are not massacred out right, as the Canon lawyer Shafi declared to the Quranic injunction, it is only to give them a respite till they are so wisely guided as to accept the true taith.”

Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958) Indian historian

The History of Aurangazeb. Vol. 3, pp. 163-164 by Sir Jadunath Sarkar; published by Orient Longman 1972

Men, War, Children, Parting

“The standard Christian conscience does not permit the believer to look upon the self and find beauty, goodness, natural kindness, strength. Self-knowledge is tainted with self-hatred. The rules of the game of the Christian conscience are such that, when I look within, I must take the blame for all evil, all hardness of the heart that I find, but give God all the credit for any evidence of love. … It is not surprising that the practice of meditation … has remained under a cloud in the West, and that we have, consequently, created a culture of extroverts.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 162

Love, Beauty, Game, Nature

“God is going to supply a million dollars, somebody is praying right now, right this second, you’re praying for a million dollars and God said, "I have heard your prayer, I know your need, and I'm going to supply the need that you requested," it's done, in Jesus' name.”

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

2013-02-28
Pat Robertson
The 700 Club
Television, quoted in * 2013-02-28
Pat Robertson's Prayers Can Make You A Millionaire
Brian
Tashman
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertsons-prayers-can-make-you-millionaire and * 2013-03-01
Pat Robertson Claims God Will Give One of His Viewers $1M
Michael
Gryboski
The Christian Post
http://www.christianpost.com/news/pat-robertson-claims-god-will-give-one-of-his-viewers-1m-91051/

“People who say this cracker is literally and physically the body of their god and that I'm doing this great act of heresy and sacrilege and horror -- even though I didn't actually do anything to it -- is disturbing. It's like discovering there are witch doctors lurking in your community and they've been doing weird practices.”

PZ Myers (1957) American scientist and associate professor of biology

Commenting on a Eucharist in [Paul Schmelzer, http://minnesotaindependent.com/view/mnindy-interview, Unrepentant science-heathen PZ Myers still intends to prove 'this cracker is nothing', Minnesota Independent, 2008-07-15]

People, Communication

“I am an estranged man, said the liar: estranged from myself, from my family, my fellow man, my country, my world, my time, and my culture. I am not estranged from God, although I am a disbeliever in everything about God excepting God indefinable, inaccessible, inside all and careless of all.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961)

World, Family, Time, Country

“The penance that man taketh of himself was not shewed me: that is to say, it was not shewed specified. But specially and highly and with full lovely manner of look was it shewed that we shall meekly bear and suffer the penance that God Himself giveth us, with mind in His blessed Passion.”

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

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 77

Love, Suffering, Passion

“The battle raged with great fury: victory was long doubtful, till two Indian princes, Brahman Dew and Dabishleem, with other reinforcements, joined their countrymen during the action, and inspired them with fresh courage. Mahmood at this moment perceiving his troops to waver, leaped from his horse, and, prostrating himself before God implored his assistance' At the same time he cheered his troops with such energy, that, ashamed to abandon their king, with whom they had so often fought and bled, they, with one accord, gave a loud shout and rushed forwards. In this charge the Moslems broke through the enemy's line, and laid 5,000 Hindus dead at their feet' On approaching the temple, he saw a superb edifice built of hewn stone. Its lofty roof was supported by fifty-six pillars curiously carved and set with precious stones. In the centre of the hall was Somnat, a stone idol five yards in height, two of which were sunk in the ground. The King, approaching the image, raised his mace and struck off its nose. He ordered two pieces of the idol to be broken off and sent to Ghizny, that one might be thrown at the threshold of the public mosque, and the other at the court door of his own palace. These identical fragments are to this day (now 600 years ago) to be seen at Ghizny. Two more fragments were reserved to be sent to Mecca and Medina. It is a well authenticated fact, that when Mahmood was thus employed in destroying this idol, a crowd of Brahmins petitioned his attendants and offered a quantity of gold if the King would desist from further mutilation. His officers endeavoured to persuade him to accept of the money; for they said that breaking one idol would not do away with idolatry altogether; that, therefore, it could serve no purpose to destroy the image entirely; but that such a sum of money given in charity among true believers would be a meritorious act. The King acknowledged that there might be reason in what they said, but replied, that if he should consent to such a measure, his name would be handed down to posterity as 'Mahmood the idol-seller', whereas he was desirous of being known as 'Mahmood the destroyer': he therefore directed the troops to proceed in their work'…'The Caliph of Bagdad, being informed of the expedition of the King of Ghizny, wrote him a congratulatory letter, in which he styled him 'The Guardian of the State, and of the Faith'; to his son, the Prince Ameer Musaood, he gave the title of 'The Lustre of Empire, and the Ornament of Religion'; and to his second son, the Ameer Yoosoof, the appellation of 'The Strength of the Arm of Fortune, and Establisher of Empires.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

He at the same time assured Mahmood, that to whomsoever he should bequeath the throne at his death, he himself would confirm and support the same.'
Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 38-49 (Alternative translation: "but the champion of Islam replied with disdain that he did not want his name to go down to posterity as Mahmud the idol-seller (but farosh) instead of Mahmud the breaker-of-idols (but shikan)." in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3)
Sack of Somnath (1025 CE)

Death, Money, Faith, Religion

“One of the most potent ways to spiritualize the home is to create a sacred space, an altar, or a room used only for meditation, prayer, or spiritual reading. […] Your sacred place will become an area of high spiritual vibrations which will affect the entire house, thereby attracting pious personalities. Having a sacred space will also remind you that your home belongs to God and that you are simply the caretaker of it.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 27

Way, Home, Reading, Housing

“Go ahead and believe in God, if you like, but don't imagine that you have been given any grounds for such a belief by science.”

Daniel Dennett (1942) American philosopher

New York Times, letter to the editor (26 August 2009)

Imagination, Science

“The Word of God says that if a father provides all other necessary things to raise a child and yet fails to discipline him, the child is a bastard and may as well not have a father.”

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

Cults, Sects and Questions (c. 1979)

“My early feeling that scientific truths are to the Christian religion much what brooks and rivers are to the ocean, has become my most vital conviction. Tempted as I was to drift with the tempest of passion, I had made shipwreck in these latter years, had not in my heaviest hours the Mercy of God, through your instrumentality, kept me always on the right path.”

Robert Mayer (1814–1878) German physicist

December 31 1851, as translated by Kneller, Karl Alois. 1911. pp. 18. Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science https://archive.org/stream/christianitylead00kneluoft#page/18/mode/2up. London.

Truth, Religion, Feeling, Passion

“Most scripts are bad. I read a lot of them. Brick was a good script just to read. It was like, “Oh my God, these words feel so good in my mouth.” A lot of movies try to set up a world with cool sets, costumes, camera work. In Brick, the world is born from the words.”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (1981) American actor, director, producer, and writer

Newsweek, March 31, 2006

World, Feeling, Reading

“Miriamele was dismayed by her own willful ignorance. How could she, with all her native good fortune, be so consumed with the few inconveniences that God or fate had put in her way? It was shameful.
She tried to tell Duke Isgrimnur something of her thoughts, but he would not let her slide too far into self-loathing.
“Each one of us has our own sorrows, Princess,” he said. “It’s no shame to take them to heart. The only sin is to forget that other folk have theirs, too—or to let pity for yourself slow your hand when someone needs help.””

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, To Green Angel Tower (1993), Part 1, Chapter 21, “Answered Prayers” (p. 649).

Fate, Way, Help, Heart

“All things being at God’s disposal, and the decision of salvation or death belonging to him, he orders all things by his counsel and decree in such a manner, that some men are born devoted from the womb to certain death, that his name may be glorified in their destruction.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

In John Allen, ed., Institutes of the Christian Religion. Ioannis Calvini Institutio Christianae religionis http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC06656346&id=ONsOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=calvin+%22devoted+from+the+womb%22&as_brr=1#PRA1-PA169,M1 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841), p.169.

Death, Men, Decision

“God's hand is strange to us. He cares nothing for the moment, nothing for the feeble ambitions of men and women. He sees the road that flows onward forever.”

Orson Scott Card book Stone Tables

Stone Tables (1997)

Women, Men

“I think a lot of American people are infatuated with God, but we don't really love Him, and they don't really let Him love them. Being loved by God is one of the most painful things in the world. It's also the only thing that can bring us salvation. And it's like everything else that is really wonderful, there's a little bit of pain in it, little bit of hurt.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Wheaton, Illinois http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/wheaton-illinois-sep1590-backup-copy.html (September 15, 1990) In Concert

Love, Pain, People, World

“Inflation is really like drugging the baby universe with speed. The supercool union of the hitherto unfriendly gods was blessed by amphetamine, and this made the universe inflate rather than just expand. The early orgy of expansion in the universe comes to an abrupt end as soon as the supercooled particle stuff finally freezes.”

João Magueijo (1967) Portuguese scientist

pg. 115
Faster than the Speed of Light

Universe, Baby, Speed

“AND thus the Fourth Mode is a state of emptiness,
made one with God in bare love and in Divine Light,
free and empty of all the observances of love,
above actions, and enduring a pure and simple love,
which consumes and annihilates in itself the spirit of a man,
so that he forgets himself, and knows neither himself nor God,
nor any creature, nor aught else but Love alone,
which he tastes and feels and possesses in simple emptiness.
He feels himself one Breadth with Love, Which is measureless, comprehending all things,
and Itself for ever remaining incomprehensible.
He sees himself made one with the eternal Length,
which is immovable, without beginning or ending,
going before and following after all created things”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

The Twelve Beguines

Love, Feeling, Light, Forgetting

“When I look back on my life and consider all the way I have been led, above all I thank God to Whom I owe everything, for all His goodness to me and ascribe to Him all the praise and honour.”

William Henry Perkin

As quoted in The chemist and druggist https://archive.org/stream/b19974760M1453#page/222/mode/2up (1906), UBM. p. 222.

Life, Way

“He's a winner, he's a God damn sinner; when he dines I'm on the wrong side of the day.”

Daryl Palumbo (1979) Vocalist musician

Ape Dos Mil (Glassjaw)

“A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere… God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Surprised by Joy

Source: Surprised by Joy (1955), p. 191

Reading

“God thus includes the world; he is, in fact, the totality of world parts, which are indifferently causes and effects. Now AR [absolute perfection in some respects, relative perfection in all others] is equally far from either of these doctrines; thanks to its two-aspect view of God, it is able consistently to embrace all that is positive in either deism or pandeism. AR means that God is, in one aspect of himself, the integral totality of all ordinary causes and effects, but that in another aspect, his essence (which is A), he is conceivable in abstraction from any one or any group of particular, contingent beings (though not from the requirement and the power always to provide himself with some particulars or other, sufficient to constitute in their integrated totality the R aspect of himself at the given moment).”

Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) Philosopher

Source: Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (1941), P. 348.

World, Parting, Perfection, Indifference

“[A] good Christian does not care for miracles very much, because a miracle is God looking after His own affairs, and we prefer looking after them for Him.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

Chantal to Dr. La Pérouse, p. 188
La joie (Joy) 1929

“If thou art fighting against thy sins, so is God. On thy side is God who made all, and Christ who died for all and the Spirit who alone gives wisdom, purity, and nobleness.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 263.

Wisdom, Art, Christ, Fight

“I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it…God's love will never change us if we don't accept it.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Love, Understanding, Change

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Prayer on D-Day (1944)

Faith, Religion, Strong, Suffering

“We should judge university philosophy … by its true and proper aim: … that the junior barristers, solicitors, doctors, probationers, and pedagogues of the future should maintain, even in their innermost conviction, the same line of thought in keeping with the aims and intentions that the State and its government have in common with them. I have no objection to this and so in this respect have nothing to say. For I do not consider myself competent to judge of the necessity or needlessness of such a State expedient, but rather leave it to those who have the difficult task of governing men, that is to say, of maintain law and order, … and of protecting the few who have acquired property from the immense number of those who have nothing but their physical strength. … I certainly do not presume to argue with them over the means to be employed in this case; for my motto has always been: “Thank God, each morning, therefore, that you have not the Roman realm to care for!” [Goethe, Faust] But it was these constitutional aims of university philosophy which procured for Hegelry such an unprecedented ministerial favor. For it the State was “the absolute perfect ethical organism,” and it represented as originating in the State the whole aim of human existence. Could there be for future junior barristers and thus for state officials a better preparation than this, in consequence whereof their whole substance and being, their body and soul, were entirely forfeited to the State, like bees in a beehive, and they had nothing else to work for … except to become efficient wheels, cooperating for the purpose of keeping in motion the great State machine, that ultimus finis bonorum [ultimate good]? The junior barrister and the man were accordingly one and the same. It was a real apotheosis of philistinism.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Inzwischen verlangt die Billigkeit, daß man die Universitätsphilosophie nicht bloß, wie hier gescheht!, aus dem Standpunkte des angeblichen, sondern auch aus dem des wahren und eigentlichen Zweckes derselben beurtheile. Dieser nämlich läuft darauf hinaus, daß die künftigen Referendarien, Advokaten, Aerzte, Kandidaten und Schulmänner auch im Innersten ihrer Ueberzeugungen diejenige Richtung erhalten, welche den Absichten, die der Staat und seine Regierung mit ihnen haben, angemessen ist. Dagegen habe ich nichts einzuwenden, bescheide mich also in dieser Hinsicht. Denn über die Nothwendigkeit, oder Entbehrlichkeit eines solchen Staatsmittels zu urtheilen, halte ich mich nicht für kompetent; sondern stelle es denen anheim, welche die schwere Aufgabe haben, Menschen zu regieren, d. h. unter vielen Millionen eines, der großen Mehrzahl nach, gränzenlos egoistischen, ungerechten, unbilligen, unredlichen, neidischen, boshaften und dabei sehr beschränkten und querköpfigen Geschlechtes, Gesetz, Ordnung, Ruhe und Friede aufrecht zu erhalten und die Wenigen, denen irgend ein Besitz zu Theil geworden, zu schützen gegen die Unzahl Derer, welche nichts, als ihre Körperkräfte haben. Die Aufgabe ist so schwer, daß ich mich wahrlich nicht vermesse, über die dabei anzuwendenden Mittel mit ihnen zu rechten. Denn „ich danke Gott an jedem Morgen, daß ich nicht brauch’ für’s Röm’sche Reich zu sorgen,”—ist stets mein Wahlspruch gewesen. Diese Staatszwecke der Universitätsphilosophie waren es aber, welche der Hegelei eine so beispiellose Ministergunft verschafften. Denn ihr war der Staat „der absolut vollendete ethische Organismus,” und sie ließ den ganzen Zweck des menschlichen Daseyns im Staat aufgehn. Konnte es eine bessere Zurichtung für künftige Referendarien und demnächst Staatsbeamte geben, als diese, in Folge welcher ihr ganzes Wesen und Seyn, mit Leib und Seele, völlig dem Staat verfiel, wie das der Biene dem Bienenstock, und sie auf nichts Anderes, weder in dieser, noch in einer andern Welt hinzuarbeiten hatten, als daß sie taugliche Räder würden, mitzuwirken, um die große Staatsmaschine, diesen ultimus finis bonorum, im Gange zu erhalten? Der Referendar und der Mensch war danach Eins und das Selbe. Es war eine rechte Apotheose der Philisterei.
Sämtliche Werke, Bd. 5, p. 159, E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 146-147
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), On Philosophy in the Universities

Men, Law, Soul, Universe

“A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (6)
Les Caractères (1688)

Health, Question

“In my tender years and bairn-age, at schools, having on the one part contracted a loving familiaritie with a certain gentleman a papist, and on the other part being attentive to the sermons of that worthy man of God, Maister Christopher Goodman, teaching upon the Apocalyps, I was moved in admiration against the blindness of papists that could not most evidentlie see their seven hilled Citie of Rome, painted out there so lively by Saint John, as the Mother of all Spiritual Whoredome: that not onlie bursted I oute in continuall reasoning against my said familiar, but also from thence forth I determined with myself by the assistance of God's spirit to employ my study and diligence to search out the remanent mysteries of that holy booke (as to this houre praised be the Lord I have bin doing at all such times as convenientlie I might have occasion) &c.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593) Preface, as quoted by David Stewart Erskine Earl of Buchan, Walter Minto, An Account of the Life, Writings, and Inventions of John Napier, of Merchiston (1787) a reference to his education at the University of St. Andrews

Love, Books, Age, School

“When we read how one mediæval saint stood erect in his cell for a week without sleep or food, merely chewing a plantain-leaf out of humility, so as not to be too perfect; how another remained all night up to his neck in a pond that was freezing over; and how others still performed for the glory of God feats no less tasking to their energies, we are inclined to think, that, with the gods of yore, the men, too, have departed, and that the earth is handed over to a race whose will has become as feeble as its faith.”

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) German psychologist

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885), "Experiments in Memory," in Science http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16792/16792-h/16792-h.htm Vol. 6, 1885, p. 198

Men, Faith, Food, Thinking

“Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free
Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!
Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.”

Sidney Lanier (1842–1881) American musician, poet

"The Marshes of Glynn" (1878).
Poetry

Pain, Knowledge, Suffering, Sun

“May Ahuramazda bear me aid, with the gods of the royal house; and may Ahuramazda protect this country from a (hostile) army, from famine, from the Lie!”

Darius I of Persia (-550–-486 BC) 3rd king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550–486 BC)

DB inscription http://www.avesta.org/op/op.htm#db1, 3. (12-24.)

Hostility, Lie, Housing, Country

“I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Interview at celebathiests.com (June 1996)

Mathematics, Thinking

“In this Sight mine understanding was lifted up into Heaven, and then God brought merrily to my mind David, and others in the Old Law without number; and in the New Law He brought to my mind first Mary Magdalene, Peter and Paul, and those of Inde; and Saint John of Beverley; and others also without number: how they are known in the Church in earth with their sins, and it is to them no shame, but all is turned for them to worship. And therefore our courteous Lord sheweth for them here in part like as it is there in fulness: for there the token of sin is turned to worship.”

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

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 38

Law, Understanding, Parting

“The Second came to my mind with contrition; Freely desiring that sickness so hard as to death, that I might in that sickness receive all my rites of Holy Church, myself thinking that I should die, and that all creatures might suppose the same that saw me: for I would have no manner of comfort of earthly life. In this sickness I desired to have all manner of pains bodily and ghostly that I should have if I should die, (with all the dreads and tempests of the fiends) except the outpassing of the soul. And this I meant for I would be purged, by the mercy of God, and afterward live more to the worship of God because of that sickness. And that for the more furthering in my death: for I desired to be soon with my God.”

Julian of Norwich book Revelations of Divine Love

Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393), Chapter 2

Life, Death, Pain, Soul

“A couple nights ago, I was licking jelly off my boyfriend's penis. And I thought, "Oh my God — I'm turning into my mother!"”

Sarah Silverman (1970) American comedian and actress

Jesus Is Magic (2005)

Night

“Bearing bravely the evils that beset us, doing cheerfully the duties that are near, trusting in God, guided by Christ, fear shall not confound us in the way, and death shall find us ready.”

Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 118.

Death, Fear, Way, Evil

“Why pray to a god who would rather speak through say, a stone? Too bad that God made so many people who are interested in music and so few stones who are.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Life in the Industry: A Musician's Diary

People, Music

“Let us learn how the love of Christ, received into the heart, triumphs gradually but surely over all sin, transforms character, turning even its weakness into strength, and so, from the depths of transgression and the very gates of hell, raises men to God.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 398.

Love, Men, Hell, Learning

“Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor— not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways.”

Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to the Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians 4:4-5 (as quoted in New Living Translation http://biblehub.com/nlt/1_thessalonians/4.htm) First Epistle to the Thessalonians

Way, Passion

“We are a nation under God, and in God we do indeed trust. We should acknowledge the Creator, as did the founders, in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in the Pledge, in the teaching of our history…”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Faith in America speech, 2007

History

“If this is a real work for God it is a real conflict with Satan.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Six: Assault on the Nine. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1988, 189).

“I sank Atlantis," he said, "personally. It was about three years ago. And God! it was lovely! It was all ivory towers and golden minarets and silver balconies. There were bridges of opal, and crimson pennants and a milk-white river flowing between lemon-colored banks. There were jade steeples, and trees as old as the world tickling the bellies of clouds, and ships in the great sea-harbor of Xanadu, as delicately constructed as musical instruments, all swaying with the tides. The twelve princes of the realm held court in the dozen-pillared Coliseum of the Zodiac, to listen to a Greek tenor sax play at sunset.”

Roger Zelazny book He Who Shapes

He Who Shapes (1965)

Love, World, Music, Color

“If you say Ram Ram Ram and Allah Allah Allah, you will get confused. So one god is enough. For me Bindu has never done the same thing. There is logic in every abstract form that I make. My work is like poetry and it should create a different atmosphere for the visitor. Poetry, literaturea and art seem simple but it is very difficult to understand it.”

S. H. Raza (1922–2016) Indian artist

Indian contemporary artists have not reached my standard: SH Raza

Art, Understanding

“[I] decided to force myself to cut this golden knot of ambition [to portray the nobility any longer] in order to recover my liberty. Realizing that a retirement of this sort must be made while one is rising and not falling; that one must leave Fortune while she is still favorable... I seized the occasion of a short, secret journey to throw myself at Her Highness's feet and beg, as the sole reward for so many efforts, exemption from such [diplomatic] assignments and permission to serve her in my own home. This favor I obtained with more difficulty than any other she ever granted me... Now by God's grace.... I am leading a quiet life with my wife and children and have no pretensions in the world than to live in peace.”

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) Flemish painter

Quote in a letter to his friend Peiresc, 18 Dec. 1634; as cited by Simon Schrama, in Rembrandt's eyes, Alfred A. Knopf - Borzoi Books, New York 1999, p. 402
1625 - 1640

Life, Children, Secret, World

“They are damn good projects - excellent projects. That goes for all the projects up there. You know some people make fun of people who speak a foreign language, and dumb people criticize something they do not understand, and that is what is going on up there - God damn it!”

Harry Hopkins (1890–1946) American politician, 8th United States Secretary of Commerce, assistant to President Franklin Delano Roosev…

Stated at a press conference (April 4, 1935); reported in Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (1948), p. 60. Sherwood says, "The reports of this conference quoted Hopkins as saying that 'the people are too damned dumb', and this phrase was given plenty of circulation in the press" (p. 61). He adds in a footnote that "it will be seen from the transcript of his remarks that this particular statement was directed not at the people but at the critical orators" (p. 938). Also reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 48-49; Boller and George also note that the quote was quickly misreported as "The people are too damn dumb to understand".

People, Understanding

“All that our Lord doeth is rightful, and that which He suffereth is worshipful: and in these two is comprehended good and ill: for all that is good our Lord doeth, and that which is evil our Lord suffereth. I say not that any evil is worshipful, but I say the sufferance of our Lord God is worshipful: whereby His Goodness shall be known, without end, in His marvellous meekness and mildness, by the working of mercy and grace.”

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

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 35

Suffering, Evil

“The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow.”

Jonathan Edwards book Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (1741)

Rage

“God's mercy is a holy mercy, which knows how to pardon sin, not to protect it; it is a sanctuary for the penitent, not for the presumptuous.”

Richard Reynolds (bishop) (1674–1743) Bishop of Lincoln

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 273.

“When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it will be a great place.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

Interview on CBS, 03 October 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNv_a1CbX30, Philip Roth on Fame, Sex, and God http://www.cbsnews.com/news/philip-roth-on-fame-sex-and-god/ (3 October 2010)

World

“And uncontrollable laughter broke from the happy gods
as they watched the god of fire breathing hard
and bustling through the halls.”

Homér Iliad

I. 599–600 (tr. Robert Fagles); hence the expression "Homeric laughter".
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

Happiness, Laughter

“The more I learned about the history of religion, the more my earlier misgivings appeared justified. The doctrines that I had accepted without question as a child were indeed man-made, constructed over a long period. Science seemed to have disposed of the Creator God, and biblical scholars had proved that Jesus had never claimed to be divine.”

Karen Armstrong book A History of God

A History of God (1993)

Religion, History, Question, Learning

“I have tried drugs and a little of everything else, and there is nothing in the world more soul-satisfying than having the kingdom of God building inside you and growing.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Explo 72

World, Soul

“I understand where Bill Maher is coming from when he says, basically, the world is destroying itself over a bunch of fairy tales about talking snakes and men who are alive inside fishes. I'm very sympathetic to it, but at the same time, given the cosmos that we're living in, it's very persuasive, the idea that there is some kind of first cause that's running things. It might not be the god of Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, it might not be the god of al-Qaida, and it might not be the god of Abraham, but something very well could be running things. The order of the universe as we see it, the interlocking nature, and the way things work together, are persuasive of the idea that there may be some overarching first cause.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

[John, Marks, http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/10/23/stephen_king/print.html, Stephen King's God trip, Salon.com, 2008-10-23, 2008-10-23]

Men, World, Way, Idea

“Hail Man, exalted title! first and best,
On God's own image by his hand imprest;
To which at last the reas'ning race is driv'n,
And seeks anew what first it gain'd from Heav'n.”

Joel Barlow (1754–1812) American diplomat

The Conspiracy of Kings (1792)

“It was perfectly clear to me that this order spelled the death of millions of people. I said to Eichmann, 'God grant that our enemies never have the opportunity of doing the same to the German people', in reply to which Eichmann told me not to be sentimental; it was an order of the Fuhrer's and would have to be carried out.”

Dieter Wisliceny (1911–1948) SS-Hauptsturmführer

Quoted in "Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny" - Page 241 - by Edward Crankshaw - History - 1956

Death, People

“God is the poet, men are only the actors.”

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays

Dieu est le poète et les hommes ne sont que les acteurs.
Socrate Chrétien, Discours VIII.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 42.
Socrate Chrétien (1662)

Men

“We are not to evade, then, the eternity of free beings that is implied in any serious demand for freedom. If the souls of men are really free, they coexist with God in the eternity which God inhabits, and in the governing total of their self-active being they are of the same nature as he, — they too are self-put rational wholes of self-conscious life. As complete reason is his essence, so is reason their essence—their nature in the large—whatever may be the varying conditions under which their selfhood, the required peculiarity of each, may bring it to appear. Each of them has its own ideal of its own being, namely, its own way of fulfilling the character of God; and its self-determining life is just the free pursuit of this ideal, despite all the opposing conditions by which it in part defines its life. Moreover, since this ideal, seen eternally in God, is the chosen goal of every consciousness, it is the final — not the efficient—cause of the whole existing self. All the being of each self has thus the form of a self-supplying, self-operating life; or, in the phraseology of the Schoolmen and Spinoza, each is causa sui. This is what its "eternity" exactly means.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.338-9

Life, Men, Way, Soul

“It is the glory of the heritage
Thy life has left, that makes thy outcast age:
Thy limbs shall lie dark, tombless on this sod,
Because thou shinest in man's soul, a god,
Who found and gave new passion and new joy
That nought but Earth's destruction can destroy.
Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone:
'Twas but in giving that thou couldst atone
For too much wealth amid their poverty.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

The Legend of Jubal (1869)

Life, Men, Lie, Age

“Q4 May one believe only in God alone, or not?”

Peter Abelard Sic et Non

Sic et Non (1120)

“Sharia … is, of course, invalid because it's God's Law, and God doesn't exist.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Wake up, America" (22 October 2009) https://youtube.com/watch?v=KjSjpNe1-Vc 2009

Law

“The fireside is an emblem of the future heavenly home…To obtain the highest conception of the calling of a man and a woman in the capacity of parents, one must look upon them from an educational point of view, for from no other does the grandeur of this sacred relationship so well present itself to the mind with all its intricate complexity. The home is the sanctuary of the human race, where each generation is consecrated for its life's mission. The parents are the high priests, responsible to God for the spirit of their ministry”

Karl G. Maeser (1828–1901) prominent Utah educator and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

School and Fireside (1898) pg 45, 59 https://archive.org/stream/schoolfireside00maesrich#page/58/mode/2up

Life, Education, Home, Parent

“If you are really anxious to learn the way to God, He has not left Himself without a witness, nor you without a teacher. Go to the recorded Christ, and look at that history; listen to those words which survive in the Gospels. And go to the living Christ, to Him who has said, "lam the Light of the world, he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." And dim as may be your outset — more of night than morning in your twilight, as you follow on you shall know the Lord, and with the light that radiates from Himself, your path will shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 90.

Life, World, Way, History

“…even in the folly of youth we know that nothing lasts, but … even in that folly we are afraid that maybe Nothing will last, that maybe Nothing will last forever, and anything is better than Nothing.… So now, as another poet sings, That Fancy passed me by And nothing will remain; which, praise the gods, is a damned lie since, praise, O gods! Nothing cannot remain anywhere since nothing is vacuum and vacuum is paradox and unbearable and we will have nothing of it even if we would, the damned-fool poet's Nothing.”

William Faulkner book The Town

Gavin Stevens in Ch. 8
The two lines quoted — not altogether accurately — are from A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad (1896), XVIII:And now the fancy passes by
And nothing will remain.
The Town (1957)

Lie, Youth, Fools, Singing

“People, give thanks to the gods! Your most redoubtable enemy has fallen beneath the scythe of Fate. Riquetti [Mirabeau] is no more; he dies victim of his numerous treasons, victim of his too tardy scruples, victim of the barbarous foresight of his atrocious accomplices. Adroit rogues who are to be found in all circles have sought to play upon your pity, and already duped by their false discourse, you mourn this traitor as the most zealous of your defenders; they have represented his death as a public calamity, and you bewail him as a hero, as the saviour of your country, who has sacrificed himself for you. Will you always be deaf to the voice of prudence; will you always sacrifice public affairs to your blindness?”

Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793) politician and journalist during the French Revolution

L'Ami du peuple, vol. 5 (1791-04-04), pp. 2649-50

Death, Fate, People, Falseness

“I'm reading a very quaint American book, The Power of Positive Thinking, written, I'd suppose, by a sectarian minister, presumably of Methodist dye. (Norman Vincent Peale).. He's full of stories of prayers heard - and extols the power of prayer.."Before leaving for an important business conference I brace myself with texts like 'If God be for us, who can be against us?'… Then I stalk into the conference room, sure of my victory, and carry off the most marvellous deal.." This, in essence is the burden of the whole book. That's what people call Christian optimism. But it's wasted on us - we've been spoilt for this sort of thing… But isn't it rather self suggestion than authentic religious impulse? It doesn't seem to have dawned on him that suffering, disappointment, defeat or loss might also have some point too, or that God's designs could sometimes be hidden…”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Letters 1951-59.

People, Books, Disappointment, Optimism

“During the tenth and eleventh centuries the rule of the Church prohibiting the clergy from marrying appears to have been widely and publicly neglected in Italy, Germany, France, and England. To the stricter critics of the time this appeared a terrible degradation of the clergy, who, they felt, should be unencumbered by family cares and wholly devoted to the service of God. The question, too, had another side. It was obvious that the property of the Church would soon be dispersed if the clergy were allowed to marry, since they would wish to provide for their children. Just as the feudal tenures had become hereditary, so the church lands would become hereditary unless the clergy were forced to remain unmarried.”

James Harvey Robinson (1863–1936) American historian

Source: An Introduction to the History of Western Europe (1902), Ch. 12 : Germany and Italy in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, p. 157

Children, Family, Question, Appearance

“I want to say that killing for God is not only hideous murder — it is also utterly ridiculous. (Part 1, 00:44:39)”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)

Parting

“Say, He Whom God shall make manifest will surely redeem the rights of those who truly believe in God and in His signs, for they are the ones who merit reward from His presence. Say, it is far from the glory of Him Whom God shall make manifest that anyone should in this wise make mention of His name, if ye ponder the Cause of God in your hearts. Say, He shall vindicate the Cause through the potency of His command and shall bring to naught all perversion of truth by virtue of His behest. Verily God is potent over all things.”

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

The Kitáb-I-Asmá

Truth, Heart

“I put it [a still life of a pear, made by Manet there [on the wall, next to Ingres' painting 'Jupiter'], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

remark in a conversation with the writer Moore, ca. 1875; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 117
1855 - 1875

Life, Painting