Quotes about God
page 96

“We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.”

Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) American politician, 23rd President of the United States (in office from 1889 to 1893)

Statement of 1888, as quoted in Treasury of Presidential Quotations (1964) by Caroline T. Hamsberger

“The gods, after all, are only human, and once their rage has been placated they are perfectly capable of acts of mercy and grace.”

Thomas M. Disch (1940–2008) Novelist, short story writer, poet

"The Vengeance of Hera".
The Man Who Had No Idea (and other stories) (1982)

Rage

“Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius.”

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) French natural historian

As quoted in New Cyclopædia of Illustrations (1870) by Elon Foster, p. 492

Thinking, Patience

“God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man said, 'Let us make God in our image."”

Douglas William Jerrold (1803–1857) English dramatist and writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 257.

“It is my burning desire to help Christians get back to a simple faith in God’s Word. Satan’s method has always been to instill [sic] doubt in God’s Word. The first sentence that came from Satan that is recorded for us in the Bible is: “Yea, hath God said?” He started by questioning God’s Word in the garden of Eden. It worked there so he has used it ever since. In the twentieth century the major attack Satan has launched has been against the first eleven chapters of Genesis. He knows that the entire Bible stands or falls on the validity of these chapters. I believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired, perfect Word of God. I believe that the Bible needs to be read and believed as it stands. Christians are often guilty of neglecting or twisting the Bible to fit their lifestyle or their preconceived ideas.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

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

Faith, Idea, Question, Reading

“For the Norse people, the Man now named Odin, and Chief Norse God, we fancy, was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain of soul and of body; a Hero, of worth immeasurable; admiration for whom, transcending the known bounds, became adoration. Has he not the power of articulate Thinking; and many other powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless gratitude, would the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the sphinx-enigma of this Universe; given assurance to them of their own destiny there? By him they know now what they have to do here, what to look for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious by him; he first has made Life alive!—We may call this Odin, the origin of Norse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse Thinker bore while he was a man among men. His view of the Universe once promulgated, a like view starts into being in all minds; grows, keeps ever growing, while it continues credible there. In all minds it lay written, but invisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it starts into visibility in all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world—!”

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

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

Life, Men, People, World

“The biblical case for vegetarianism does not rest on the view that killing may never be allowable in the eyes of God, rather on the view that killing is always a grave matter. When we have to kill to live we may do so, but when we do not, we should live otherwise. It is vital to appreciate the force of this argument. In past ages many – including undoubtedly the biblical writers themselves – have thought that killing for food was essential in order to live. But … we now know that – at least for those now living in the rich West – it is perfectly possible to sustain a healthy diet without any recourse to flesh products. … Those individuals who opt for vegetarianism can do so in the knowledge that they are living closer to the biblical ideal of peaceableness than their carnivorous contemporaries. The point should not be minimized. In many ways it is difficult to know how we can live more peaceably in a world striven by violence and greed and consumerism. Individuals often feel powerless in the face of great social forces beyond even democratic control. To opt for a vegetarian life-style is to take one practical step towards living in peace with the rest of creation. One step towards reducing the rate of institutionalized killing in the world today.”

Andrew Linzey (1952) British theologian and divine

Source: Animal Theology (1994), pp. 131-132

Life, Age, World, Peace

“Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein;
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.”

Friedrich von Logau (1605–1655) German poet

Sin. (Sinngedichte, published c. 1654).

Christ

“DOBSON: Well, I do. It depends on what you mean by that. I feel very strongly about Israel. You know it is surrounded by its enemies. And it exists primarily because God has willed it to exist, I think, according to scripture, but also, because America has stood with Israel. If we ever abandon it, it's gone. There are six million Jews in Israel. There are 400 million Muslims around them that hate them and want many of them -- hate them and want to drive them into the sea. And that is a major concern to me. It's the only democracy in the Middle East. Why wouldn't we support them?”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

2002

Hate, Feeling, Democracy, Support

“What kind of God is it who's upset by a cartoon in Danish?”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Interview with Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason (23 June 2006) http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/portraits_rushdie.html - transcript http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason101_print.html

“My loving children, my children who were created with God's beauty, my wise children, whatever difficulty you may have, do not ever leave His charge. Just as the prophets of God kept their faith firm and were tolerant in spite of the problems they had, no matter what difficulties you may experience, be tolerant, be forbearant and embrace all living things as your own life.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

The Tree That Fell To The West: Autobiography of a Sufi (2003)

Love, Life, Children, Faith

“You sometimes wake up from a dream and think, "Thank God, I didn't really do that!" Reconstructing a period of blackout you think, "My God, did I really do that?" The line between saying and thinking is blurred. Did you say it or just think it?”

William S. Burroughs book Junkie

Junkie (1953)

Dreams, Thinking

“GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Dr. Dobson,… in the Daily Oklahoman, [you were] quoted saying, "Patrick Leahy is a God's people hater. I don't know if he hates God, but he hates God's people." Now, Dr. Dobson, that doesn't sound like a particularly Christian thing to say. Do you think you owe Senator Leahy an apology?”

James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.

2004

Hate, People, Quotes, Thinking

“We're importing Hinduism into America. The whole thought of your karma, of meditation, of the fact that there's no end of life and there's this endless wheel of life, this is all Hinduism. Chanting too. Many of those chants are to Hindu Gods — Vishnu, Hare Krishna. The origin of it is all demonic. We can't let that stuff come into America. We've got the best defense, if you will — a good offense.”

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

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/pat_quotes/hindus.htm

Life

““Why would he marry a twelve-year-old?”
“He had a dream where God told him he was to repopulate the earth.”
“Of course he did,” the clarinet said. “Don’t they all have dreams like that?”
“Right, I always thought that was a prerequisite for being a prophet,” Sayid said.”

Emily St. John Mandel book Station Eleven

Source: Station Eleven (2014), Chapter 19 (p. 123)

Dreams

“A mask of dirty old hairy leather, with two holes and a slit, it was too far gone for the old trick of please your honour and God reward you and pity upon me. It was disastrous.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

The End (1946)

“Faith grows when we assume the position of one who can’t do it all by himself. That means we go to God, follow Him, and ask Him for help.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

Faith, Help

“For me, reality is God, because it rules.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

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

Reality

“History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, […] The generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. 8

History, Reading

“If their king is their god, he is or should be also their preserver; and if he will not preserve them, he must make room for another who will.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 17, The Burden of Royalty

“From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 257

Spring, Motivation

“Anyone who makes the life of Jewish people difficult or grievous, as did the Pharaoh, as did Hitler, will be cursed by God.”

John Hagee (1940) American pastor, theologian and saxophonist

Keynote address to AIPAC, (March 12, 2007)

Life, People

“The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Now I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 12, l. 1-4. Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

Law

“They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas - whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.”

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

1940s, Prayer on D-Day (1944)

Men, War, Children, People

“By many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led:
But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead.
The hopes and prophecies were dead: they could not blossom where the feet
Walked amid rottenness, or where the brawling shouters stamped the street.”

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

By Still Waters (1906)

Dreams, Hope, Dead

“For what is a nation? What is our mother-country? It is not a piece of earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of the mind. It is a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the Shakti of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharati, is the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred million people, but she is inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle of Tamas, the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her sons…”

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

Bhawani Mandir, 1905
India's Rebirth

People, Country

“You may call God truth, you may call God hope. But the best name for God is love.”

Michael Elmore-Meegan (1959) British humanitarian

All Will be Well (2004)

Love, Truth, Hope

“The State is a jealous God and will brook no rivals. Its sovereignty must pervade everyone and all feeling must be run into the stereotyped forms of romantic patriotic militarism which is the traditional expression of the State herd-feeling.”

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) American writer

¶23. Published under "Psychology of the State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 14. "The State" (1918)

Feeling

“The same church must, in my opinion, also respect that the one whose name is absent from the same declaration out of embarrassment, although he and he alone led Muslims to pray to this one God, so that once again through him, Muhammad, the prophet, this God "has spoken to mankind."”

Hans Küng (1928) Swiss Catholic priest, theologian and author

World Religions 129

“God is still around. One day, you're going to need him. The problems of life will begin to overwhelm you; disappointments will begin to beat upon the door of your life like a tidal wave. And if you don't have a deep and patient faith, you aren't going to be able to make it. I know this from my own experience.”

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

1960s, Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool (1967)

Life, Faith, Disappointment, Problem

“I verily believe that the kingdom of God advances more on spoken words than it does on essays written and read; on words, that is, in which the present feeling and thought of the teaching mind break into natural and forceful expression.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 484.

Feeling, Nature, Reading

“The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.”

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

The Great Infidels (1881)

Love, Pain, Hate, Happiness

“Inflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Tractate of Education (1644)

Men, Age, Hope, Study

“To look forward, to want life, means we have to be willing to look backwards and become more conscious of all those who have hurt us, all that is broken in us and that has brought us inner deaths, hurts that we may have hidden and stifled. It means that we acknowledge the story of our origins, of our own lives, see and accept our brokenness and the times we also have hurt others. When we have accepted who we are and what we need in order to grow in compassion and peacemaking, we can move forward to give life. To forgive is a gift of God that permits us to let go of our past hurts.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Jean Vanier, Finding Peace, pp 47-48
From books

Life, Death, Forgiveness, Time

“I would like to thank Jeff Wald because he makes my success possible, and I would like to thank God because She makes everything possible.”

Helen Reddy (1941) Australian actress

Broadcast of 15th Annual Grammy Awards, directed by Marty Pasetta for CBS, 3 March 1973

Success

“Lo and behold! God made this
starry wold,
The maggot and the mold; lo and
behold!
He taught the grass contentment
blade by blade,
The sanctity of sameness in a shade.”

Nathalia Crane (1913–1998) American writer

Impromptu poem, made at the request of reporters, printed in "Markham v. Prodigy" http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,928761,00.html TIME magazine (23 November 1925)

Grass

“No one ever perfectly loved God who did not perfectly love some of his creatures in this world.”

Marguerite de Navarre book Heptaméron

Second Day, Novel XIX (trans. W. K. Kelly)
Variant translation by Samuel Putnam in Marguerite of Navarre (1935), p. 53:
Never shall a man attain to the perfect love of God who has not loved to perfection some creature in this world.
L'Heptaméron (1558)

Love, World

“1675. God help the Rich; the Poor can beg.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Help

“The first grand design of Christ Jesus is to destroy and consume His mortal enemy antichrist. This must be done by the breath of His mouth in His prophets and witnesses. Now, the nations of the world have impiously stopped this heavenly breath and stifled the Lord Jesus in His servants. Now, it shall please the civil state to remove the state bars set up to resist the holy spirit of God in His servants (whom yet finally to resist is not in all the powers of the world), I humbly conceive that the civil state has made a fair progress in promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

The Hireling Ministry, None of Christ's (1652)

World, Christ

“I describe a world with no exit, convinced that God accompanies man throughout his history.”

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

Interview in Le Monde (1981), as quoted in "A short biography of Jacques Ellul (1912-1994)" by Patrick Chastenet, as translated by Lesley Graham http://www.ellul.org/bio_e1.html

World, History

“Francis Bacon, who died in the seventeenth century, argued strongly that philosophy and theology should be kept separate, and that we should concentrate our studies on the local problems and the interconnections between material and efficient causes. Final-cause analysis was just a distraction: ‘Inquiry into final causes is sterile, and, like a virgin consecrated to God, produces nothing.”

Stephen Baxter (1957) author

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 5, “The Earth’s blood is the veins of its waters” (p. 43)

Problem, Study

“The universe must be law-abiding, and if Christ suspended law it would be a criticism of his Father as one whose laws were inadequate for certain possible situations which might arise. "We say," said St. Augustine profoundly, "that all portents (miracles) are contrary to nature, but they are not so. For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing?"”

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.106 (Augustine: The City of God. 21:8)

Law, Nature, Universe, Christ

“With God's grace, you have to tackle and carry out the impossible, because anybody can do what is possible.”

Josemaría Escrivá (1902–1975) Spanish theologian

#216
The Forge (1987)

“After proving God’s faithfulness for many years, I can testify that times of want have ever been times of spiritual blessing, or have led to them.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 406).

Faith, Time

“God's not here. Somebody's got to fill in.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988)

“The soul’s pleasure is to enter and to go forth: to enter into the profound abyss of God where it is irretrievably lost in the sight of his infinite grandeur and beauty which it contemplates continually with the eye of its understanding; and to go forth from there to the ravishing sight of our Savior, the God-Man, whom it is inspired to follow by a lively imitation both interiorly and exteriorly. p. 59”

John of St. Samson (1571–1636)

From Prayer, Aspiration, and Contemplation

Pleasure, Beauty, Soul, Understanding

“Is thine a life of devotion, of meekness and humility, of supreme attachment to heavenly and divine things; of self-denial and of universal benevolence? If after candid examination you find reason to hope that you are one of God's dear children washed with His blood, sanctified by the Spirit, clothed with the righteousness of the Well Beloved — cherish that hope as the gift of heaven. Dismiss your fears; bind yourself to be the Lord's in an everlasting covenant; think less of yourself and more and more of the name, the cross, the glory of your Redeemer. Henceforth "let your light shine."”

Gardiner Spring (1785–1873) American clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 117.

Life, Children, Fear, Hope

“God needeth not the help of a material sword of steel to assist the sword of the Spirit in the affairs of conscience.”

Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation

The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience (1644)

Help

“This is the universe! And I'm placing stones one by one on that. Like I'm increasing the number of stars one by one… I'm making the universe. It's like I'm a God. I'm going to become a God! On this Go Board.”

Yumi Hotta Hikaru no Go

In the anime, Hikaru says this when he plays in a Go tournament for the first time.
Hikaru no Go

Star, Universe

“Then brought they a fagot kindled with fire, and layd the same downe at D. Ridleys feete. To whome Maister Latymer spake in this maner: Be of good comfort maister Ridley, and play the man: wee shall this day light such a candle by Gods grace in England, as (I trust) shall neuer be put out.”

John Foxe (1516–1587) British historian

Bk. 11, p. 1770
Acts and Monuments (1563)

Light

“When I read the life of such a man as Paul, how I blush to think how sickly and dwarfed Christianity is at the present time, and how many hundreds there are who never think of working for the Son of God and honoring Christ.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 3.

Life, Thinking, Time, Reading

“"I think that is a big problem with a lot of Christians," Paul begins. "We want to feel special. And there are times when it does, you know. But not all the time. Sometimes life just feels like life. We have to put our faith in God.”

Donald Miller (1971) American writer

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

Life, Faith, Feeling, Problem

“The Bhagavadgītā presents the doctrine that Kṛiṣṇa Vāsudeva, who helped the Pāṇḍava princes at the battle of Kurukṣetra as Arjuna's charioteer, was Supreme God, a descent of the Absolute into the world of men. Kṛiṣṇa is called Bhagavat, and the poem is a product of the Bhāgavata or Vāsudeva sect, which at the time of its composition was beginning to identify Kṛiṣṇa with Viṣṇu.”

W. Douglas P. Hill (1884–1962) British Indologist

Source: The Bhagavadgītā (1973), p. 1. (1. Problems)

Men, World, Time, Help

“Take note of those who spout false opinions about the gracious gift of Jesus Christ that has come to us, and see how they are opposed to the mind of God. They have no interest in love, in the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, the one who is in chains or the one set free, the one who is hungry or the one who thirsts.”

Ignatius of Antioch (35–108) Patriarch of Antioch and martyr saint

6:6-7, as translated by B. D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, Loeb Classical Library (2003), p. 303
Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

Love, Christ, Falseness

“God save our gracious king!
Long live our noble king!
God save the king!”

Henry Carey (1687–1743) English composer and playwright

"God Save the King" (1730).

“For me sculpture is divinity. This is the only answer that I could find for myself. Art is man's distinctly human way of fighting death. Through art, man achieves immortality and in this immortality we find God.”

Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973) American and French sculptor

Source: Jacques Lipchitz: The Artist at Work, 1966, p. 189

Death, Art, Way, Fight

“God has far better things to do than creating self-important little species such as ours. He's got wars, deaths, disasters and diseases to ignore for starters. And a fair bit of not-exist-ing-at-all to be getting on with.”

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

The Guardian, 4 December 2006, When it comes to psychics, my stance is hardcore: they must die alone in windowless cells http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1963337,00.html Guardian columns

Death, War, Disease

“Because in America people don't worship government. They worship God.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

CPAC conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsUZCo7hasI (23 February 2018) 2010s, 2018, February

People

“O happy life! life hid with Christ in God!
So making me
At home and by the wayside and abroad,
Alone with Thee.”

Elizabeth Prentiss (1818–1878) American musician, hymnwriter

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

Life, Happiness, Home, Christ

“Many pro football players run 100 yards with a ball while a bunch of HUGE guys try to stop them, hurt them, stomp on them etc. They do it because they get paid well! Do you REALLY believe God's promises about rewards for the martyrs? (Matthew 5:10; 24:13; 1 Thessalonians 3:4; 1 Timothy 2:12; 3:12, etc.) The 1st century Christians sure did! The Romans were amazed that they seemed so eager to die for their faith! Tens of thousands are dying yearly in Communist, Hindu and Muslim countries RIGHT NOW. Are we willing to suffer for the Lord? We will find out!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 157

Faith, Guy, Suffering, Football

“Sometimes he stood in the center of the quad, looking at the five huge columns in front of Jesse Hall that thrust upward into the night out of the cool grass. … Grayish silver in the moonlight, bare and pure, they seemed to him to represent the way of life he had embraced, as a temple represents a god.”

John Edward Williams book Stoner

Source: Stoner (1965), p. 15

Life, Way, Grass, Night

“I'm not going to vote. I won't vote for a Catholic and I won't vote for a damned Republican. Maybe I've said that before. My ancestors were all Catholic and not very far back. And I have reason to hate the church.
I feel a curious kinship, though, with the Middle Ages. I have been more successful in selling tales laid in that period of time, than in any other. Truth it was an epoch for strange writers. Witches and werewolves, alchemists and necromancers, haunted the brains of those strange savage people, barbaric children that they were, and the only thing which was never believed was the truth. Those sons of the old pagan tribes were wrought upon by priest and monk, and they brought all their demons from their mythology and accepted all the demons of the new creed also, turning their old gods into devils. The slight knowledge which filtered through the monastaries from the ancient sources of decayed Greece and fallen Rome, was so distorted and perverted that by the time it reached the people, it resembled some monstrous legend. And the vague minded savages further garbed it in heathen garments. Oh, a brave time, by Satan! Any smooth rogue could swindle his way through life, as he can today, but then there was pageantry and high illusion and vanity, and the beloved tinsel of glory without which life is not worth living.
I hate the devotees of great wealth but I enjoy seeing the splendor that wealth can buy. And if I were wealthy, I'd live in a place with marble walls and marble floors, lapis lazulis ceilings and cloth-of-gold and I would have silver fountains in the courts, flinging an everlasting sheen of sparkling water in the air. Soft low music should breathe forever through the rooms and slim tigerish girls should glide through on softly falling feet, serving all the wants of me and my guests; girls with white bare limbs like molten gold and soft dreamy eyes.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Harold Preece (received October 20, 1928)
Letters

Life, Hate, Children, People

“Even when he turns from religion, man remains subject to it; depleting himself to create false gods, he then feverishly adopts them; his need for fiction, for mythology triumphs over evidence and absurdity alike.”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Religion, Falseness

“An undivided heart, which worships God alone, and trusts Him as it should, is raised above anxiety for earthly wants.”

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

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 601.

Heart

“This world is transitory; the Name of God is the true reality. Everything in this world is destructible, transient, ephemeral. So you must all repeat God’s Name (…).”

Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India

Repetition of God’s name
Source: The Teachings of Babaji, 17 December 1983.

World, Reality

“God bless the devout Christians of this country. They are Israel's best friends on the earth.”

Ben Stein (1944) actor, writer, commentator, lawyer, teacher, humorist

"A Long Memorial Day" American Spectator (1 June 2010) http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/01/a-long-memorial-day

Country

“Truth is "Mormonism." God is the author of it.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 3:297 (20 March 1839)
1830s

Truth

“You broke my heart, Danny boy
Not your fault, Danny boy
I was had at the doorstep
Played, like a two to a four-set
Had, like poor Job in the bible by God.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Danny Boy
Song lyrics, Rufus Wainwright (1998)

Boy, Heart

“Work, and thou wilt bless the day
Ere the toil be done;
They that work not, can not pray,
Can not feel the sun.
God is living, working still,
All things work and move;
Work, or lose the power to will,
Lose the power to love.”

John Sullivan Dwight (1813–1893) American minister

Working.

Love, Feeling, Sun

“My religious training told me that in times of personal uncertainty one should seek God's direction through personal prayer and study of the Christian scriptures.”

Preston Manning book The New Canada

Source: The New Canada (1992), Chapter Two, Transitions, p. 35

Study, Time, Personality, Training

“My son is 12 now, and is really getting into girls. A lot. But the thing about twelve year old boys is that they don't possess what I like to call that... discretionary gene yet. We were walking home from the ballfield the other day and there was a woman walking towards us who was... gifted. I saw them, and I saw him see them. But she was too close for me to go, "Dude, shut up." She hadn't walked two feet behind us and he goes "God dang, did you see the SIZE of those things?"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

And all I could say was "Yeah, I did!"
Here's Your Sign Live! (2004)

Home, Girl, Boy

“I rarely speak about God. To God yes. I protest against Him. I shout at Him. But open discourse about the qualities of God, about the problems that God imposes, theodicy, no. And yet He is there, in silence, in filigree.”

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

In a 1978 interview with John S. Friedman, published in The Paris Review 26 (Spring 1984); and in Elie Wiesel : Conversations (2002) edited by Robert Franciosi, p. 87

Problem, Silence

“This means everlasting life, their coming to know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.”

John the Evangelist (10–98) author of the Gospel of John; traditionally identified with John the Apostle of Jesus, John of Patmos (author o…

John 17:3 http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/43/17#h=115:287-115:408, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures Gospel of John

Life, Christ

“I’m not sure who’s in charge of “The Stone,” the New York Times‘s philosophy column, but that person is not doing their job. Imagine if some of our greatest living philosophers would post there about matters diverse: ethics, animal rights, abortion, drone strikes, and so on. But all too often the column is about God; that is, we have Great Minds lucubrating about nonexistent beings. Among all species of philosophy, the philosophy of religion is the most intellectually depauperate. It’s a waste of time.”

Jerry Coyne (1949) American biologist

" Didn’t you know: God’s a question, not an answer! https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/04/10/didnt-you-know-gods-a-question-not-an-answer/" April 10, 2016

Religion, Imagination, Time, Animals

“Ether is, in effect, a merely hypothetical entity, valuable only in so far as it explains that which by means of it we endeavor to explain — light, electricity, or universal gravitation — and only so far as these facts cannot be explained in any other way. In like manner the idea of God is also an hypothesis, valuable only in so far as it enables us to explain that which by means of it we endeavor to explain — the essence and existence of the Universe — and only so long as these cannot be explained in any other way. And since in reality we explain the Universe neither better nor worse with this idea than without it, the idea of God, the supreme petitio principii, is valueless.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VIII : From God to God

Way, Idea, Reality, Light

“I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

5 February 1750
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)

Pleasure

“Divine agnosticism, the sort I'm advocating, affirms the existence of God but then acknowledges our human inability to fully grasp his infinite nature.”

Skye Jethani

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

Nature

“Johnnie, the nice thing about citing God as an authority is that you can prove anything you set out to prove. It’s just a matter of selecting the proper postulates, then insisting that your postulates are ‘inspired.’ Then no one can possibly prove that you are wrong.”

Robert A. Heinlein book If This Goes On

If This Goes On— (p. 432)
Short fiction, The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)

“Although I've never been an atheist, there are periods when I struggled with the whole thing. As someone who uses words, you need to able to justify your belief with language, I'd have arguments and the atheist always won because he'd go back to logic. Belief in God is illogical, it's absurd. There's no debate. I feel it intuitively, it comes from the heart, a magical place. But I still I fluctuate from day to day. Sometimes I feel very close to the notion of God, other times I don't. I used to see that as a failure. Now I see it as a strength, especially compared to the more fanatical notions of what God is. I think doubt is an essential part of belief.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Mojo (January, 2005)
God and religion

Feeling, Failure, Thinking, Time

““Any chance you own a hijab?”
The answer was no, but Malika could borrow one. Come to that, she could steal one freshly washed off the wall behind her house and claim a sudden, God-inspired attack of modesty if she got caught. The old crows were quite stupid enough to believe that.”

Jon Courtenay Grimwood (1953) British writer

Source: Stamping Butterflies (2004), Chapter 53 (p. 323)

Stupidity, Chance, Housing

“During the LA riots English people were trying to sympathize with me, "Oh Bill, crime is horrible. If it's any consolation, crime is awful here, too." Shut up. This is Hobbiton and I'm Bill-bo Hicks … You gotta see English crime. It's hilarious. You don't know if you're reading the front page or the comic section over there. I swear to God. I read an article front page of the paper one day, in England: "Yesterday, some hooligans knocked over a dustbin in Shaftesbury." … Wooooo. The hooligans are loose! The hooligans are loose! … What if they become ruffians? I would hate to be a dustbin in Shaftesbury tonight. [to the tune of "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who] "No one knows what it's like … to be a dustbin … in Shaftesbury … with hooligans …"”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Arizona Bay (1997)

Hate, People, Reading

“When we say there is a GOD, we mean that there is an intelligent designing cause of what we see in the world around us, and a being who was himself uncaused.”

Joseph Priestley book Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion

Vol. I : Part I : The Being and Attributes of God, § 1 : Of the existence of God, and those attributes which art deduced from his being considered as uncaused himself, and the cause of every thing else (1772)
Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion (1772–1774)

World, Intelligence

“I dreamt last night Christ came to earth again
To bless His own. My soul from place to place
On her dream-quest sped, seeking for His face
Through temple and town and lovely land, in vain.
Then came I to a place where death and pain
Had made of God's sweet world a waste forlorn,
With shattered trees and meadows gashed and torn,
Where the grim trenches scarred the shell-sheared plain.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, Advent 1916

Love, Death, Pain, World

“If I wanted a full-scale manifestation, one that was apparent to other people, then I would do a ritual. I have displayed the snake god to other people. Or I have consciously hypnotised them into accepting my psychotic belief system, given them drugs, and made them think they are having the experience I have. Whatever you want. I’m not fussed.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

De Abaitua interview (1998)

People, Thinking

“Since we are a Christian country, God above all. This history of a secular state doesn't exist, no. The state is Christian and the minority that is against it can leave. Let's make a country for majority! The minority must bow to the majority. Law must exist to defend the majority! The minority suits itself [to the law] or just disappears.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

At Campina Grande Airport https://theintercept.com/2018/09/25/ideias-nazifascistas-bolsonarismo/ on 8 February 2018. Brazil presidential candidate Bolsonaro's most controversial quotes https://www.yahoo.com/news/brazil-presidential-candidate-bolsonaros-most-controversial-quotes-012652084.html. Yahoo!, 29 September 2018.

Law, History, Country

“Let's say that you have an incredible one percent of all the knowledge in the universe. Would it be possible, in the ninety-nine percent of the knowledge that you haven't yet come across, that there might be ample evidence to prove the existence of God? If you are reasonable, you will be forced to admit that it is possible.”

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

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Knowledge, Universe

“Every person is a child of God and a brother of man. Therefore personality is the supreme value, and should be regarded as an end and not merely as a means to an end.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Individualism and Socialism (1933)

Personality

“And Vache believes that the she-bear is not only his mother, but that of all the people on this earth. This is what grandpa and Kukubo said. Javria looks like nature and she is nature herself. The maker of this world, our Saviour, if he is grand and omnipotent will not allow the killing of this bear. Baido will be left disappointed. God will take the straw coloured bear with his strong, muscled right hand and turn her into the constellation. He took Dali to heaven as well.”

Miho Mosulishvili book A Big She-Bear

Source: A Big She-Bear (2013), p. 67

People, World, Disappointment, Nature

“Such as diligently search the Scripture shall find that true blessedness, happiness, and salvation is attributed to several signs: sometimes to the fear of God, sometimes to faith, sometimes to repentance, sometimes to love, sometimes to meekness, sometimes to humility, sometimes to patience, sometimes to poverty of spirit, sometimes to holy mourning, sometimes to hungering and thirsting after righteousness; so that if a godly man can find any one of those in himself, he may safely and groundedly conclude of his salvation and justification, though he cannot see all those signs in him.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

A Cabinet of Jewels

Love, Hunger, Happiness, Fear

“The God of the Christian is an enthroned guess—a perhaps—an inference.”

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

The Truth (1896)

“The world is even smaller today, though the enemy of John Boyle O'Reilly is no longer a hostile power. Indeed, across the gulfs and barriers that now divide us, we must remember that there are no permanent enemies. Hostility today is a fact, but it is not a ruling law. The supreme reality of our time is our indivisibility as children of God and our common vulnerability on this planet.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Speech to a joint session of the Dail and the Seanad, Dublin, Ireland (28 June 1963)
1963

Hostility, Children, World, Law

“I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was… nothingness.”

Frances Farmer (1913–1970) American actress

God Dies (1931)

Time

“I don't think there's necessarily a story, but there's definitely a theme here. One of my favorite kind of dark jokes is, "How do you make God laugh? You make a plan." Nobody ever makes a plan that they're gonna go out and get hit by a car. A plan almost always has a happy ending. Essentially, every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time. I really like the idea of a plan not being seen as having definite outcomes, but more like little wishes.”

Ben Gibbard (1976) American singer, songwriter and guitarist

On the the title of the Death Cab for Cutie album Plans, as quoted in Mix online (1 January 2006) http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_death_cab_cutie_2/index.html

Happiness, Cars, Idea, Thinking

“Magic and art tend to share a lot of the same language. They both talk about evocation, invocation, and conjuring. If you’re trying to conjure a character, then maybe you should treat that with the respect that you would if you were trying to conjure a demon. Because if an image of a god is a god, then in some sense the image of a demon is a demon. I’m thinking of people like Malcolm Lowry, the exquisite author of Under the Volcano. There are kabbalistic demons that are lurking all the way through Under the Volcano, and I assume they were probably similar forces to the ones that eventually overwhelmed Lowry’s life, such as the drinking and the madness. When I hear alcoholics talk about having their demons, I think that they’re probably absolutely literally correct.”

Alan Moore (1953) English writer primarily known for his work in comic books

The Believer interview (2013)

Life, People, Alcohol, Art

“I swear by the most sacred Essence of God that but one line of the Words uttered by Him is more sublime than the words uttered by all that dwell on earth. Nay, I beg forgiveness for making this comparison. How could the reflections of the sun in the mirror compare with the wondrous rays of the sun in the visible heaven? The station of one is that of nothingness, while the station of the other, by the righteousness of God — hallowed and magnified be His Name — is that of the Reality of things…”

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

III, 12
The Persian Bayán

Forgiveness, Reality, Sun

“Not to the curious or impatient soul
That in the start, demands the end be shown,
And at each step, stops waiting for a sign;
But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,
Shall the great miracles of God be known
And life revealed, immortal and divine.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Conciousness.
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)

Life, Soul, Waiting

“English: "Before the watch of God and the testimony of History, I want to proclaim: Argentina, get up and walk!"”

Carlos Menem (1930) Argentine politician who was President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999

"Ante la mirada de Dios y el testimonio de la Historia, yo quiero proclamar: ¡Argentina, levántate y anda!" El presidente Menem hace un llamamiento a la unidad para sacar a Argentina de su "crisis terminal" http://elpais.com/diario/1989/07/09/internacional/615938409_850215.html. Biblical reference.

History