Quotes about God
page 78

“The combination of Christian truth and political power led to the creation of the complex that we know so well. … The emperor endows the church handsomely, helps it in all that it does, aids it in its “mission.” The church supports the emperor’s legitimacy and assures him that he is God’s representative on earth.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Subversion of Christianity (1984), p. 124

Truth, Support, Help

“This is approximately the way Christendom relates to the essentially Christian, the unconditioned. After seventeen, eighteen detours and running all around someone finally has his finite existence assured, and then we receive a sermon about Seek first the kingdom of God. Is this sobriety or is this intoxication? p. 112”

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

1850s, Judge For Yourselves! 1851 (1876)

Way

“Few men would be so gentle as to spare even the best, if by their destruction vile usurpers could become God's anointed, and by the most execrable wickedness invest themselves with that divine character.”

Algernon Sidney (1623–1683) British politician and political theorist

Scaffold speech (1683)

Men

“Light, God's eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building.”

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian

Of Building.
The Holy State and the Profane State (1642)

Beauty, Light, Daughters

“I have labour'd hard indeed, & have been borne on angel's wings. Till we meet I beg of God our Saviour to be with you & me, & yours & mine. Pray give my & my wife's love to Mrs Butts & Family, & believe me to remain.”

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

The Letters Of William Blake https://archive.org/details/lettersofwilliam002199mbp (1956), p. 90 1790s

Love, Family, Angels

“For me to believe in God would probably require blunt force trauma to the brain, or perhaps a debilitating cognitive disorder. What would it take for you to believe that the myth of Persephone explains the seasons? Or that babies are delivered by a stork?”

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

Patheos, Anti-theist Answers to Christian Questions http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/22/anti-theist-answers-to-christian-questions/ (November 22, 2015)

Baby, Season

“Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?”

Richard Eberhart (1904–2005) American poet

"The Fury of Aerial Bombardment"

Truth, Stupidity, Soul, Fight

“I always knew that I was going to be famous. I honest to God don't know how else to describe it. I used to lie in bed and wonder, "Am I going to be a local TV person? Am I going to a motivational speaker?" It wasn't a vision. But as it's kind of happening, you have this buried understanding: "Of course."”

Jennifer Lawrence (1990) American actress

Van Meter, Jonathan. "The Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence Covers the September Issue" http://www.vogue.com/magazine/print/star-quality-jennifer-lawrence-hunger-games/. vogue.com. August 12, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2014.

Lie, Motivation, Understanding, Personality

“Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"The Light of God" in I Asked for Wonder : A Spiritual Anthology (1983) edited by Samuel H. Dresner, p. 20

World, Way, Light

“For one by one did quake the limbs of God.”

Empedocles book On Nature

tr. William Leonard
fr. 31
On Nature
Source: Leonard, William E. (1908). The Fragments of Empedocles. The Open Court Publishing Company. p. 30.

“And now because you are His child, live as a child of God; be redeemed from the life of evil, which is false to your nature, into the life of goodness, which is the truth of your being. Scorn all that is mean; hate all that is false; struggle with all that is impure Live the simple, lofty life which befits an heir of immortality.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 314.

Life, Hate, Truth, Nature

“An active faith can give thanks for a promise even though it be not yet performed, knowing that God's bonds are as good as ready money.”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

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

Money, Faith

“Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion.”

William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) American journalist

Vol. III, p. 390
William Lloyd Garrison 1805-1879 (1885)

Sex

“The faculty of moral will, developed in the child, is a new element of his nature. It is a new power brought upon the scene, and a ruling power, delegated from Heaven. Never was a human being sunk so low that he had not, by God's gift, the power to rise. Because God commands him to rise. it is certain that he ran rise. Every man has the power, and should use it, to make all situations, trials, and temptations instruments to promote his virtue and happiness; and is so far from being the creature of circumstances, 'that he creates and controls them, making them to be all that they are, of evil or of good, to him as a moral being.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 192

Happiness, Nature, Evil

“Nietzsche’s arrival in modern philosophy signaled an unprecedented necessity: “probity”, “intellectual conscience”, Enlightenment radicalized by a new bravery that scorns any comforts like God.”

Laurence Lampert (1941) American academic

Source: Leo Strauss and Nietzsche (1996), p. 5

“That the Jews are connected with God in a special way and that God does not allow that bond to fail is entirely obvious. We wait for the instant in which Israel will say yes to Christ, but we know that it has a special mission in history now … which is significant for the world.”

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

God and the World, published October 2000, as reported by National Catholic Reporter.
2000

World, Way, History, Waiting

“God' is the name given to the most ‘important’ human idea. In English, as in other languages, the original sense of the word is obscure. But the character of the name is the same in all languages: it is a question. 'God' is the question 'Is there something more important than, something besides, man?”

Laura Riding Jackson (1901–1991) poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer

"The Idea of God" from Essays from Epilogue (Manchester: Carcanet, 2001)

Idea, Question, Sense

“Canst thou see God as the bodiless Infinite and yet love Him as a man loves his mistress? Then has the highest truth of the Infinite been revealed to thee. Canst thou also clothe the Infinite in one secret embraceable body and see Him seated in each and all of these bodies that are visible and sensible? Then has its widest and profoundest truth come also into thy possession.”

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

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

Love, Truth, Secret, Clothes

“When you live in alignment you stop telling God how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big God is.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 131

Problem

“I saw you then not only as the symbol of your people and its greatness, but as the voice of the invincible and uncompromising conscience of the human race at a time of danger to the dignity of man, created in the image of God. It was not only the liberties and the honor of your own people that you saved.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

Letter to Winston Churchill on his leadership during World War II (1961), as quoted in "Churchill and the Jewish state" by Colin Shindle in The Jerusalem Post (27 December 2007) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517221673&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

People, Time

“I was twenty-one and without God. I had no one to love me and no one for me to love. Since there was no after-life, what then did it matter? I leaned forward, ready to lurch to my doom.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 134.

Love, Life

“A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Peace

“Paul consistently proclaimed that the church of Jesus Christ is not so much an organization as an organism, a mystical body. I will present the church accordingly as a living thing, whose purpose is to gather the whole world into the praise of God. And the central act of the church, its “source and summit” in the words of Vatican II, is the Liturgy, the ritualized praise of God. I will therefore walk through the gestures, songs, movements, and theology of the Liturgy. The entire purpose of the Liturgy and the church is to make saints, to make people holy. This is why Catholicism takes the saints, in all their wild diversity, with such seriousness and why it presents them to us with such enthusiasm.”

Robert Barron (bishop) (1959) priest of the Roman Catholic Church, author, scholar and Catholic evangelist.

Father Barron, Robert. Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith (Kindle Locations 116-118). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

People, World, Christ

“Still not satisfied that a qualified prince had been born to the dynasty, Satyavati prevailed upon her son to try a third time. It was again the turn of the first princess, but she aghast at the prospect of another encounter with Vyasa, sent to him as her substitute, a servant woman. Vyasa and this servant woman both substitutes, conceived Vidura, who became the wise counselor to the Kaurava court, said to be incarnation of the god Dharma.”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

In p. 58
Sources, Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr̥ṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata

Time, Princess

“And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Hounds of Love (1985)

“Our longing to pass through the gates of eternity will not be satisfied by any external experience, but by the dwelling of God within.”

Skye Jethani

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

“When one is already happy it is important not to lose the virtues which have produced happiness. When they are successful, many men and women forget prudence, moderation, and kindness - qualities which were instrumental in their success. They are arrogant or thoughtless; an excessive self-confidence prevents them from accomplishing difficult tasks, and they soon become unworthy of their good fortune. They are surprised when their luck changes from good to bad. The ancient practice of sacrifice to the gods in return for happiness was a wise one. Polycrates, Tyrant of Samos, threw his precious ring into the sea as a sacrifice, and there are several ways of throwing the ring of Polycrates into the sea. The simplest is to be modest.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Women, Men, Happiness, Way

“There are Seven Seals to be opened, that is to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome, Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty.
The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth degree, the Apotheosis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls! Doubt it not! for traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo, also, were inspired.”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XIX : Grand Pontiff, p. 321

Age, Faith, Soul, Light

“When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the disorder of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace.”

John M. Mason (1770–1829) American Doctor of Divinity

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 150.

Life, Fear, Peace, Disappointment

“The way and manner God executes His plan in our lives differs.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On the uniqueness of his calling - "I Have No Money In My Account - TB Joshua" http://www.modernghana.com/news/234607/1/i-have-no-money-in-my-account-tb-joshua.html Modern Ghana (August 24 2009)

Way

“The best of what we do and are,
Just God, forgive!”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Thoughts suggested on the Banks of the Nith.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Forgiveness

“We do not mark out any precise line to be followed in diet; but we do say that in countries where there are fruits, grains, and nuts in abundance, flesh food is not the right food for God's people.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Vol. 9 http://www.whiteestate.org/books/egwhc/EGWHCc27.html#sth6, p. 159 Testimonies for the Church (1855 - 1868)

People, Food, Country

“Struck dead by an angel of God! Yet the angel must hang!”

Herman Melville book Billy Budd, Sailor

Source: Billy Budd, the Sailor (1891), Ch. 19

Angels, Dead

“The Scripture saith, The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God; it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart; so as he rather saith it, by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly believe it, or be persuaded of it. For none deny, there is a God, but those, for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip, than in the heart of man, than by this; that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it, within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened, by the consent of others.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Atheism
Essays (1625)

Fools, Heart

“Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.”

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

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

Life, Feeling

“Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in His universe is linked to that which lies nearest the throne.”

Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–1880) American priest

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 531.

Truth, Beauty, Universe

“The key issue is whether Jesus really did return from the dead and thus authenticate his claim to being the unique Son of God. As a skeptic, I was shocked to find that the historical evidence for the resurrection is so solid. We have, for instance, a report of the resurrection that goes back to within months of the death of Jesus, which is like a news flash in ancient history. This is historical gold! Whereas much of what we know from ancient history is derived from one or two sources, we have no fewer than nine ancient sources, inside and outside the New Testament, corroborating the disciples’ conviction that they encountered the resurrected Jesus. That’s an avalanche of data. I was thoroughly stunned by the quantity and quality of the evidence for Christ.”

Lee Strobel (1952) American writer

The Case for Christ: An Interview with Lee Strobel https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2016/09/the-case-for-christ-an-interview-with-lee-strobel/ (September 7, 2016)

Death, History, Christ, Dead

“And that's when you realize that God gave you a penis and a brain and only enough blood to run one at a time.”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

Time

“Actually, there are never motives behind actions. All actions are fixed. What we call motives evidently are rationalizations by the helpless observing consciousness, which is intelligent enough to smell an event coming—and, since it cannot avert the event, instead cooks up reasons for wanting it to happen…or ascribes it to the malice of God or man.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 8, “The Courtship of Posi and Nega” (p. 84; ellipsis in the original)

Intelligence, Motivation, Cooking

“The tongue of the sword of the Khalifa of the time, which is the tongue of the flame of Islam, has imparted light to the entire darkness of Hindustan by the illumination of its guidance… and on the right hand and on the left hand the army has conquered from sea to sea, and several capitals of the gods of the Hindus in which Satanism had prevailed since the time of the Jinns, have been demolished. All these impurities of infidelity have been cleansed by the Sultan’s destruction of idol temples, beginning with his first expedition against Deogir, so that the flames of the light of the law illumine all these unholy countries, and places for the criers to prayers are exalted on high, and prayers are read in mosques. Allah be praised!”

Amir Khusrow (1253–1325) Indian poet, writer, musician and scholar

Ma’bar: (Parts of South India), About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) and his generals conquests in Deccan and South India Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians,Vol. III, p. 81-85
Khazainu’l-Futuh

Law, Light, Time, Reading

“Perhaps it is the positive knowledge that humans now possess the means to destroy their whole planet, the fear that they have in this way themselves become the gods, dreadfully charged with their own continued existence, that has made comic-book and movie myth escapist.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

Writing and Being (1991)

Books, Fear, Way, Knowledge

“I can't be sure God does not exist… On a scale of seven, where one means I know he exists, and seven I know he doesn't, I call myself a six… That doesn't mean I'm absolutely confident, that I absolutely know, because I don't.”

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

Dawkins on The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html, .

Confidence

“When national leaders address the people of Fiji in specifically Christian terms, whatever the occasion, nearly half of our people are excluded. When prayer in mixed company is uttered in terms of a purely Christian God, we unintentionally omit and diminish others present of different faiths. When we use Christian symbolism to promote reconciliation, forgiveness and unity, we discount the contribution and equally rich traditions extant in other faiths and cultural traditions.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Speech to a Hindu gathering, 26 March 2005 http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2005/March/03-28-02.htm.

People, Faith, Forgiveness

“"Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!" he said. "It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles. By God, Mr. Linton, I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!"”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XI).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“God's service in this name is the service of God's house, and therefore they are convertible. And who sees not, that whosoever ministers to the poor, ministers to God? As it appears in that solemn sentence of the last day, inasmuch as you did feed, clothe, lodge the poor, you did it unto me.”

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet (1554–1625) English politician

Pits v. James (1614), Lord Hobart's Rep. 124-125

Appearance, Housing, Clothes

“He's like a man you'd meet any place
until you recognize that ancient Face
The Great God Pan is alive!”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

"The Return Of Pan"
Dream Harder (1993)

“When God's hand is bent to strike, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

No. 76 http://books.google.com/books?id=eypXAAAAYAAJ&q=%22When+God's+hand+is+bent+to+strike+it+is+a+fearful+thing+to+fall+into+the+hands+of+the+living+God+but+to+fall+out+of+the+hands+of+the+living+God+is+a+horror+beyond+our+expression+beyond+our+imagination%22&pg=PA386#v=onepage, preached at Sion to The Earl of Carlisle and company (c. 1622) LXXX Sermons (1640)

Fear, Imagination

“From the pagans of the pre-Vedic period to the faithfuls of the post-Vedic era, only the Sun God hasn't lost its eminence in the daily lives of the human beings. Both the believers and the atheists hold it in reverence. Heliolatry has persisted from the prehistoric times.”

Surendra Pratap Singh (1948–1997) Indian journalist

Parrot Under the Pine Tree

Faith, Time, Sun

“[T]hough religious thinkers will fight fiercely to show its standpoint to be the one religion really sanctions, each religion has signposts pointing in both ways. One the one hand towards a fundamentalist, authoritarian strain that insists if you want to be faithful you have to crucify your intellect; that is to believe just because your belief is absurd. And on the other hand, each of the three western religions has a rationalist tradition… far from viewing our capacity for reason as threatening our capacity to obey god, this tradition sees thinking as its very fulfillment. There are actually some wonderful Jewish parables, which show God laughing with pleasure as human beings defeat him with a particularly good argument. That is, god would rather be impressed than right on certain Jewish rationalist traditions. So if reason is God’s gift then he meant us to use it even against him if he is wrong or hasty. On this tradition our ability to make sense of the world whether with science or through the right moral actions, is just one more proof of gods goodness.”

Susan Neiman (1955) American academic

Beyond Belief conference (November 2006)

Pleasure, World, Faith, Religion

“Thus to say that God is ineffable is to say that no concepts apply to Him, and that He is without qualities.”

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

p. 33.

“The sense of tragedy is that the world is not a pleasant little nest made for our protection, but a vast and largely hostile environment, in which we can achieve great things only by defying the gods; and that this defiance inevitably brings its own punishment.”

Norbert Wiener book The Human Use of Human Beings

X. Some Communication Machines and Their Future. p. 184
The Human Use of Human Beings (1950)

Hostility, World, Sense

“We do not know nature; causes hidden in her breast might have produced everything. In your turn, observe the polyp of Trembley: does it not contain in itself the causes which bring about regeneration? Why then would it be absurd to think that there are physical causes by reason of which everything has been made, and to which the whole chain of this vast universe is so necessarily bound and held that, nothing which happens, could have failed to happen,—causes, of which we are so invincibly ignorant that we have had recourse to a God, who, as some aver, is not so much as a logical entity? Thus to destroy chance is not to prove the existence of a supreme being, since there may be some other thing which is neither chance nor God—I mean, nature. It follows that the study of nature can make only unbelievers; and the way of thinking of all its more successful investigators proves this.”

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

As quoted by Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine (1747) Tr. Gertrude Carman Bussey https://books.google.com/books?id=GKYLAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA125 (1912) Pensées Philosophiques (1746)

Way, Nature, Thinking, Study

“The difference between that which is ascribed to God and that which is ascribed to man is expressed in the words… "And your ways are not my ways."”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Is. lv. 8-9
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.20

Way

“I have always been astonished that women are allowed to enter churches. What talk can they have with God?”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

J'ai toujours été étonné qu'on laissât les femmes entrer dans les églises. Quelle conversation peuvent-elles avoir avec Dieu?
Journaux intimes (1864–1867; published 1887), Mon cœur mis à nu (1864)

Women

“Real zeal is standing still and letting God be a bonfire in you.”

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

Source: Poustinia (1975), Ch. 5

“It does not seem possible to me that a God who loved men to that degree that he died that they might be saved, abandons his children the moment they are dead. It seems to me that an infinite God might do something for a soul after it has reached the other world.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

A Christmas Sermon (1890)

Love, Men, Children, World

“Almighty God has one goal; this world is not created in vain. God wants to make Islam prevail in the world, make His Mahdi appear, make Jesus Messiah descend to earth and show him to the people; God wants to bring about the Last Day and bring about the end of this world after a short while and make people see the End Times.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

4 January 2014.
A9 TV addresses, 2014

People, World, Appearance, Time

“I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in god. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

King sharing his thoughts on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to ban school prayer, ** Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html 1960s

Thinking

“She hath wasted with fire thine high places,
She hath hidden and marred and made sad
The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces
Of gods that were goodly and glad.
She slays, and her hands are not bloody;
She moves as a moon in the wane,
White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,
Our Lady of Pain.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne book Poems and Ballads

"Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs)", line 353.
Poems and Ballads (1866-89)

Love, Pain, Sadness

“He just wanted to play robot, for God's sake. Was that so wrong?”

John Green book An Abundance of Katherines

Colin Singleton, p. 20
An Abundance of Katherines (2006)

“If I seem happy to you… You could never say anything that would please me more. For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.' All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Book II, ch. 4 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Men, Happiness

“In the tradition of American constitutionalism, all men are equally endowed by their Creator with certain rights. The equality of man is understood in the light of man's inequality with God: because men are not and never can become God or gods — because unqualified wisdom is never available to human beings — only government by the consent of the governed, and under the rule of law, is intrinsically in accordance with the eternal order.”

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

1990s, The End of History Means the End of Freedom (1990)

Wisdom, Men, Law, Light

“Hark how all the welkin rings,,
"Glory to the Kings of kings;
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!"
Joyful, all ye nations, rise.
Join the triumph of the skies.
Universal nature say
"Christ is born today!"”

Charles Wesley (1707–1788) English Methodist and hymn writer

"Hymn for Christmas-Day" (Full text online)
Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739)

Peace, Nature, Universe, Christ

“Music for me is like a balsam. I always whish that when people are watching me or listening to me, they take with them this energy I receive from God.”

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira (1949) Brazilian singer

Rede Globo, 1995

People, Music

“Black theology cannot accept a view of God which does not represent God as being for oppressed blacks and thus against white oppressors. Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God. The brutalities are too great and the pain too severe, and this means we must know where God is and what God is doing in the revolution. There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God's love.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: A Black Theology of Liberation (1970), p. 70

Love, Pain, World, Time

“All spiritual strength for ourselves, all noble ties to one another, have their real source in that inner sanctuary where God denies His lonely audience to none. Its secrets are holy; its asylum, inviolate; its consolations, sure; and all are open to the simple heart-word, "Thou art my hiding-place."”

James Martineau (1805–1900) English religious philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 281.

Secret, Art, Heart

“I got me slaves and slave-girls.' For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling that being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or, rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable. God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God's?”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

Homilies on Ecclesiastes; Hall and Moriarty, trs., de Gruyter (New York, 1993) p. 74 https://books.google.com/books?id=BReXJwwE_D8C&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74.

Girl, Nature, Freedom

“The one and only God of Universe Vishwanatha, takes the shape of different deities, worshipped by the devotees whether he be Hindu, Jain, Parsi, Mohammed, Yahudi, Christian. Let him also sow seeds of unity and friendship in the mind of the people of the country.”

D. V. Gundappa (1887–1975) Indian writer

One of the six hymns that he had set for the Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs that he had set up in Bangalore quoted in page=13
D.V. Gundappa,Sahitya Akademi

Friendship, People, Universe, Country

“This must be our belief when we have a correct knowledge of our own self, and comprehend the true nature of everything; we must be content, and not trouble our mind with seeking a certain final cause for things that have none, or have no other final cause but their own existence, which depends on the Will of God, or, if you prefer, on the Divine Wisdom.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.13

Wisdom, Nature, Knowledge, Dependency

“Coups will be taken lightly if we condone this Bill, without justice there is no peace. If you honourable chiefs agree that those involved in the coup be forgiven, it will prove that we support the wrong and will be at odds with the integrity of God.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

2000, Excerpts from an address to Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, 28 July 2005

Peace, Justice, Support

“If I had a prayer, it would be this: “God spare me from the desire for love, approval, and appreciation. Amen.””

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

Love

“When he gets uppity about his supposed learning, I just take it on myself to remind him that God and his angels know almost as much as college professors.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

The God-Seeker (1949), Ch. 23

Angels, Learning

“But yet another thing is necessary, Purity of spirit; for an intelligence in repose without images, an intuition in the light of God, and a spirit elevated in Purity to the Face of God, these three qualities united constitute the true contemplative life, where none can err; for the pure spirit expands ceaselessly and follows rapidly in purified love, the enlightened intelligence towards its Cause.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 150

Love, Life, Intelligence, Light

“According to the theory of those weak minded persons, man is more perfect than his Creator. For what man says or does has a certain object, whilst the actions of God are different; He commands us to do what is of no use to us, and forbids us to do what is harmless. Far be this! On the contrary, the sole object of the Law is to benefit us.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.31

Law, Personality, Perfection

“There's something in my eye. Bloodshot in disguise. God knows I really tried. Making the big time. Aiming to climb high.”

Ed Harcourt (1977) British musician

Something In My Eye

Time

“By God you are the only great man, except George Pitt, that I care a farthing for, or would wear out a pair of shoes in seeking after. Long-headed cunning people and rich fools are so plentiful in our country that I don’t fear getting now and then a face to paint for bread, but a man of genius with truth and simplicity, sense and good nature, I think worth his weight in gold - [signed:] 'Your Likeness Man”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote in Gainsborough's letter to Hon. Constantine Phipps, undated; as cited in 'My Dear Maggoty Sir – The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough' http://thedabbler.co.uk/2011/10/my-dear-maggoty-sir-the-letters-of-thomas-gainsborough/, review by Roger Hudson, in Slightly Foxed, 18 Oct, 2011 undated

People, Truth, Fear, Fools

“Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

As quoted in "The Sleep of Trees" (1980) by Jane Yolen, in Tales of Wonder (1983) by Jane Yolen, p. 33

Appearance

“I trust in God that my life may be spared for nine months longer, after which period, in the event of my death, no Regency would take place. I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the Royal authority to the personal exercise of that young lady [Princess, later Queen, Victoria], the heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me [Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent], who is surrounded by evil advisers and who is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would be placed. I have no hesitation in saying that I have been insulted grossly insulted by that person, but I am determined to endure no longer a course of behaviour so disrespectful to me. Amongst other things, I have particularly to complain of the manner in which that young lady has been kept away from my Court; she has been repeatedly kept from my Drawing Rooms, at which she ought always to have been present, but I am fully resolved that this shall not happen again. I would have her know that I am King, and I am determined to make my authority respected, and for the future I shall insist and command that the Princess do upon all occasions appear at my Court, as it is her duty to do.”

William IV of the United Kingdom (1765–1837) King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover

As quoted in The Early Court of Queen Victoria http://www.archive.org/stream/earlycourtofquee00jerruoft/earlycourtofquee00jerruoft_djvu.txt (1912) by Clare Jerrold

Life, Death, Exercises, Appearance

“For Muslims the Islamic Shari'ah, or Divine Law, is the concrete embodiment of the Divine Will as elaborated in the Quran for the followers of Islam; and from the Islamic point of view the scriptures of all divinely revealed religions, each of which possesses its own Shari'ah, have the same function in those religions. For Muslims, who accept the Quran as the Word of God, therefore, following the Divine Law is basic and foundational for the practice of their religion.”

Seyyed Hossein Nasr book The Study Quran

The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary https://books.google.com/books?id=GVSzBgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover (2015)

Religion, Law

“Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident,
It is the very place God meant for thee;
And should'st thou there small room for action see,
Do not for this give room for discontent.”

Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) Irish bishop

Sonnet, The Story of Justin Martyr and Other Poems; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 190-92.

“Attlee: I'm one of those people who are incapable of religious feeling.
Harris: Do you mean you have no feeling about Christianity, or that you have no feeling about God, Christ, and life after death?
Attlee: Believe in the ethics of Christianity. Can't believe in the mumbo jumbo.
Harris: Would you say you are an agnostic?
Attlee: I don't know.
Harris: Is there an after-life, do you think?
Attlee: Possibly.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

To his official biographer Kenneth Harris two years before his death. In Kenneth Harris, Attlee, pp. 563-4.
1960s

Life, Death, People, Feeling

“No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere! The great Fact of Existence is great to him. Fly as he will, he cannot get out of the awful presence of this Reality. His mind is so made; he is great by that, first of all. Fearful and wonderful, real as Life, real as Death, is this Universe to him. Though all men should forget its truth, and walk in a vain show, he cannot. At all moments the Flame-image glares in upon him; undeniable, there, there!—I wish you to take this as my primary definition of a Great Man. A little man may have this, it is competent to all men that God has made: but a Great Man cannot be without it.”

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

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

Life, Death, Men, Truth

Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism

al-Shahid al-Tustari, Ihqaqul-Haq, vol.12, p. 434
General

Fear, Smile, Knowledge, Memory

“We are not people apart; there is no reason in the world why we shouldn't fight for the preservation of a chance to live freely; no reason why we shouldn't suffer to uphold that which we want to endure than it is anyone else. And it is a matter of self-preservation right this very minute…May God give me courage to do my duty and not falter.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his parents regarding World War II (April 25, 1941)

People, World, Courage, Suffering

“Somewhere in the other side of nowhere is a place in space beyond time where the Gods of mythology dwell. … These gods dwell in their mythocracies as opposed to your theocracies, democracies, and monocracies. They dwell in a magic world. These Gods can even offer you immortality.”

Sun Ra (1914–1993) American jazz composer and bandleader

As quoted in "Sun Ra : Stranger from Outer Space" by Mike Walsh at missionCreep http://missioncreep.com/mw/sunra.html

World, Democracy, Time

“The soul cannot have true knowledge of God through its own efforts or by means of any created thing, but only by divine light and by a special gift of divine grace. I believe there is no quicker or easier way for the soul to obtain this divine grace from God, supreme Good and supreme Love, than by a devout, pure, humble, continual, and violent prayer.”

Angela of Foligno (1248–1309) Italian saint

The Memorial and Instructions

Love, Way, Soul, Knowledge

“If we don't play God, who will?”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities (1996)

“When Israel, of the Lord belov'd,
Out of the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her mov'd,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe, Chap. xxxix.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“The God of the Jews was an absolute God, who believed in other gods himself, to be sure, but forbade me to obey them, contrary to our own beliefs in the North. We have many gods and obey them all, and they us, the god of the sea and the god of the land, the god of thunder and the god of poetry.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Ólafur
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Four: The Beauty of the Heavens

Sea

“"Muhammad of Arabia ascended the highest Heaven and returned. I swear by God that if I had reached that point, I should never have returned." These are the words of a great Muslim saint, 'AbdulQuddës of Gangoh. In the whole range of Sufi literature it will be probably difficult to find words which, in a single sentence, disclose such an acute perception of the psychological difference between the prophetic and the mystic types of consciousness. The mystic does not wish to return from the repose of "unitary experience"; and even when he does return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large.”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/index.htm

Literature

“I believe that God’s Word is infallible and flawless in every detail. If the Bible says that something was created a certain way, then that is just the way it happened.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

Way

“All of you now what the situation was before the Revolution. All of you know of the regime which we have exterminated. It was that regime which was mercilessly destroying all the sincere people who stood in its way in the course of the struggle for God, for the people and for the homeland.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

Speech delivered at the officers' club (June 16, 1959).
Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)

People, Way, Sincerity

“If you are with God in truth and faith, whatever comes as a blessing or trial will be what God allows. If you are called by God, from beginning to the end, your journey has been documented. Nothing outside your documentary will happen without God’s knowledge.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

Answering a question on challenges via Facebook - "TB Joshua Answers Questions On Marriage, Deliverance And Anointing Through Facebook" http://www.nigeriadailynews.news/news/89320-t-b-joshua-answers-questions-on-marriage-deliverance-anointing-through-facebook.html Nigeria Daily News (January 13 2014)

Truth, Faith, Knowledge

“I cannot think such language either right, or becoming, or suitable. … To call the Virgin Mary the mother of God can only serve to confirm the ignorant in their superstitions.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

John Calvin, https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1556352468 Epistle CCC to the French church in London, 27th September 1552; translated by Jules Bonnet, p.362

Thinking

“To me, therefore, that Thracian Orpheus, that Theban, and that Methymnaean,--men, and yet unworthy of the name,--seem to have been deceivers, who, under the pretence of poetry corrupting human life, possessed by a spirit of artful sorcery for purposes of destruction, celebrating crimes in their orgies, and making human woes the materials of religious worship, were the first to entice men to idols; nay, to build up the stupidity of the nations with blocks of wood and stone,--that is, statues and images,--subjecting to the yoke of extremest bondage the truly noble freedom of those who lived as free citizens under heaven by their songs and incantations. But not such is my song, which has come to loose, and that speedily, the bitter bondage of tyrannizing demons; and leading us back to the mild and loving yoke of piety, recalls to heaven those that had been cast prostrate to the earth. It alone has tamed men, the most intractable of animals; the frivolous among them answering to the fowls of the air, deceivers to reptiles, the irascible to lions, the voluptuous to swine, the rapacious to wolves. The silly are stocks and stones, and still more senseless than stones is a man who is steeped in ignorance. As our witness, let us adduce the voice of prophecy accordant with truth, and bewailing those who are crushed in ignorance and folly: "For God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham;" and He, commiserating their great ignorance and hardness of heart who are petrified against the truth, has raised up a seed of piety, sensitive to virtue, of those stones--of the nations, that is, who trusted in stones. Again, therefore, some venomous and false hypocrites, who plotted against righteousness, he once called "a brood of vipers."”

Clement of Alexandria (150–215) Christian theologian

But if one of those serpents even is willing to repent, and follows the Word, he becomes a man of God.
Exhortation to the Heathen

Love, Life, Men, Children

“Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls
In the abyss, each fire hid in its clod,
From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls
Into the vast of God.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

"Dusk"
By Still Waters (1906)

Dreams, Soul

“But now, the sounds of infancy, always nearest the heart, and sure to come to the lips in our deepest emotion, returned in His anguish; and in words which He had learned at His mother's knee, His heart uttered its last wail — "Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachthani?"”

John Cunningham Geikie (1824–1906) Scottish Presbyterian minister and author

"My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 73.

Learning, Heart

“They're photographs by Adam Fuss. He's an artist. They are beautiful, artistic photos - more silhouettes than anything else. It's not like, "Hey, Mom and Dad are naked, come check it out!" But if I go to the bathroom and my kid walks in, I'm not going to be like, "Oh my God! Close the door!"”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

They see their parents naked all the time. We are not ashamed.
Admitting that there are nude photographs of herself and Seal hanging in their bedroom and bathroom. Quoted by Jennifer Weiner in InStyle, February 2010.

Beauty, Photo, Moms, Parent

“God would never have let us long for our friends with such a strong and holy love, if they were not waiting for us.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 306.

Love, Strong, Waiting

“God is the sum of all histories.”

Tony Vigorito (1950) American writer

Nine Kinds of Naked (2008)

History

Quotes about God page 78

Quotes about God
page 78