Quotes about God
page 99

“Confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book I, Ch. 14
Attributed
Variant: Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

“For I cannot think that God Almighty ever made them so delicate, so glorious creatures; and furnished them with such charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind; with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men: and all, to be only Stewards of our Houses, Cooks, and Slaves.”

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

The Education of Women (1719)

Men, Soul, Thinking, Housing

“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. … For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.”

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

Gutkind Letter (3 January 1954), [Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear, The Guardian, 13 May 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/12/peopleinscience.religion]
1950s

People, Religion, Change

“All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

“Be content and resigned to God's will.”

Thomas Jackson (1824–1863) Confederate general

Robert E. Lee, in a letter to his wife (8 May 1861)
Misattributed

“Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Psalm 90 st. 1.
1710s, "Our God, our help in ages past" (1719)

Age, Hope, Home, Past

“…who will show us God now? The Christians? Christianity was abolished by the Second Vatican Council. The Jews? They worship a bloody tribal deity…. Then I saw how Islam contained everything and yet was as simple and sharp and bright as a sword. I had dreamt of no Islamic revolution in Britain but rather of a slow conversion, helped by an Islamic infiltration…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, 1985 (1978)

Help

“With Eisenhower, we’re dealing with something after the fact, a kind of Diocletian grace of God to rule over us, for a time, while we figure out who we are, as rulers.”

George W. S. Trow (1943–2006) American writer

My Pilgrim’s Progress (1999)

Time

“How can you hope to win against goddamn time travelers? It's like playing blackjack when the dealer is God. … Come to think of it, all of life is a blackjack game with God as the dealer, isn't it? So this is no worse.”

Dean Koontz book Lightning

Part II, Chapter 6.12; Laura's musings
Lightning (1988)

Life, Hope, Travel, Game

“I had on Friday a long visit from Mr. --- alone; but my pictures do not come into his rules of whims of the art, and he said I had "lost my way." I told him that I had, perhaps other notions of art than picture admirers have in general. I looked on pictures as 'things to be avoided,' connoisseurs looked on them as things to be 'mitated'; and that, too, with such a defence and humbleness of submission, amounting to a total prostration of mind and original feeling, as must serve only to fill the world with abortions… But he was very agreeable, and endured the visit, I trust, without the usual courtesies of life being violated. What a sad thing it is that his lovely art is 'so wrested to its own destruction!' Used only to blind our eyes, and to prevent us from seeing the sub shine — the fields bloom — the tree blossom — and from hearing the foliage rustle; while old — black — rubbed out and dirty canvases take the place of God's own works.”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

Letter to Rev. John Fisher (2 April 1833), as quoted in Richard Friedenthal, Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock (Thames and Hudson, London, 1963), p. 45
1830s

Love, Life, World, Sadness

“Isn’t it desperately sad that, at a time when we face formidable problems – poverty, HIV/AIDS, conflict – that the Anglican Communion can invest so much energy on disagreements about human sexuality? A communion that used to boast that one of its distinctive characteristics was something called comprehensiveness, that our communion, the Anglican Church, included just about everybody. Even if you had the most weird theology you could come in, you were allowed. And now we, who used to be held up in admiration by many because of this inclusiveness, are now spending time working out how we can excommunicate one another. God looks on and God weeps. God weeps.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

"And God Smiles," sermon preached at All Saints Church, Pasadena, California (6 November 2005)

Sadness, Problem, Time

“Only God singing this song of you… makes true light… somehow possible.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(Angel of Mercy, p. 4).
Book Sources, The River of Winged Dreams (2010)

Light, Singing

“All is so calm and chaste, so like a dream.
That looking at this masterpiece of God, I ask myself
Where is there a painter, an artist so supreme,So profoundly wise as to unfurl
A canvas with a more arresting scene,
More delicate and beautiful in this World?”

Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet

Tudo é tranquilo e casto e sonhador...
Olhando esta paisagem que é uma tela
De Deus, eu penso então: Onde há pintorOnde há artista de saber profundo,
Que possa imaginar coisa mais bela,
Mais delicada e linda neste Mundo?
Juvenilia: versos inéditos de Florbela Espanca (1946), p. 56
Translated by John D. Godinho
Juvenília (1931), No meu Alentejo

World, Beauty, Dreams

“Bloody men! sometimes I feel I hate them all.'
'Your God slipped up. She should have created just one sex, women, and arranged for reproduction by cloning.”

Susan Howatch book The Wheel of Fortune

The Wheel of Fortune (1984), Part 6: Hal

Women, Men, Hate, Sex

“I don't want to know what's good, or bad, or true. I let God worry about the truth. I just want to know the momentary fact about things. Life isn't good, or bad, or true. It's merely factual, it's sensual, it's alive. My idea of living sensual facts are you, a home, a country, a world, a universe. In that order. I want to know what I am, not what I should be.”

Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981) American playwright, screenwriter and novelist

Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison.
The Americanization of Emily (1964)

Life, Truth, World, Home

“This makes it all the more important that our fallible ideas be examined as all ideas are in the realm of reason, not as some doctrinal or racial heresy. None of us — none of us have been appointed by God or appointed God. And if any of us has, then my question is why hasn't he or she solved all these problems.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Idea, Question, Problem

“It seemed like there was no control over it. I think certain things just popped. God was blessing us in telling us that certain things were going the way they were supposed to go.”

Jack White (1975) American musician and record producer

Perry, Andrew (2004). "The White Stripes uncut" http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1349947,00.html ObserverGuarduan.co.uk (accessed June 6, 2006) On why 2004 was, up to that point, the best year of his life 2004

Way, Thinking

“May God help us to prepare a dwelling place for this noble birth, so that we may all attain spiritual motherhood”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

Quoted in "Johannes Tauler: Sermons" translated by Maria May God help us to prepare a dwelling place for this noble birth, so that we may all attain spiritual motherhood Shardy

Birth, Help

“To ignore the true God is in fact only half an evil; atheism is worth more than the piety bestowed on mythical gods.”

Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) French philosopher

A Religion for Adults (1957)

Evil

“God save King Robert! then, say I," vociferated Alan, eagerly grasping the knight's hand. "Sit, sit, Sir Knight; and for the love of heaven, speak more of this most wondrous tale. Erewhile, we hear of this goodly Earl of Carrick at Edward's court, doing him homage, serving him as his own English knight, and now in Scotland--aye, and Scotland's king. How may we reconcile these contradictions?”

Grace Aguilar (1816–1847) Novelist, writer

Source: The Days of Bruce, Vol. 1, Chapter I

Love

“Serve God, and God will take care of you. Submit to His will, trust in His grace, and resign yourself into His hands with the assurance that the Lord is well pleased with those "that hope in His mercy."”

Gardiner Spring (1785–1873) American clergyman

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

Hope

“"Bapu Gandhi said, 'All religions are true.' I just want to love God," I blurted out, and looked down, red in the face.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 23, p. 76

Love, Religion

“If you wear black, then kindly, irritating strangers will touch your arm consolingly and inform you that the world keeps on turning.
They're right. It does.
However much you beg it to stop.
It turns and lets grenadine spill over the horizon, sends hard bars of gold through my window and I wake up and feel happy for three seconds and then I remember.
It turns and tips people out of their beds and into their cars, their offices, an avalanche of tiny men and women tumbling through life…
All trying not to think about what's waiting at the bottom.
Sometimes it turns and sends us reeling into each other's arms. We cling tight, excited and laughing, strangers thrown together on a moving funhouse floor.
Intoxicated by the motion we forget all the risks.
And then the world turns…
And somebody falls off…
And oh God it's such a long way down.
Numb with shock, we can only stand and watch as they fall away from us, gradually getting smaller…
Receding in our memories until they're no longer visible.
We gather in cemeteries, tense and silent as if for listening for the impact; the splash of a pebble dropped into a dark well, trying to measure its depth.
Trying to measure how far we have to fall.
No impact comes; no splash. The moment passes. The world turns and we turn away, getting on with our lives…
Wrapping ourselves in comforting banalities to keep us warm against the cold.
"Time's a great healer."
"At least it was quick.”

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

"The world keeps turning.
Oh Alec—
Alec's dead."
Swamp Thing (1983–1987)

Life, Women, Men, Happiness

“A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings of powers we cannot perceive
The stars aren't aligned or the gods are maligned
Blame is better to give than receive
-- Freewill (1980)”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Star, Dance

“This is the negation of God erected into a system of Government.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

A letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, on the state prosecutions of the Neapolitan government (7 April 1851), p. 9.
1850s

“The gods, the Rishis and the Siddhas become visible to him who is given to study, and they do take part in his work.”

Vyasa central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions

in p, 173.
Sources, The Yoga Darsana Of Patanjali With The Sankhya Pravacana Commentary Of Vyasa

Study, Parting

“I hear that God has a really bad haircut.”

Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!

Hey Nostradamus! (2003)

“For nature is not merely present, but is implanted within things, distant from none; naught is distant from her except the false, and that which existed never and nowhere—nullity. And while the outer face of things changeth so greatly, there flourisheth the origin of being more intimately within all things than they themselves. The fount of all kinds, Mind, God, Being, One, Truth, Destiny, Reason, Order.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

VIII 10 as translated by Dorothea Waley Singer (1950)
De immenso (1591)

Truth, Nature, Distant, Falseness

“Such craziness [in not believing in God] makes me want to throw up my hands in despair, and then wash them of anything to do with atheism. But I can't. Compassion won't let me. I thank God for the love and concern that He places in those who trust Him. Without it, I'm not sure I would even care about the salvation of anyone but myself and my immediate family and friends.”

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

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)

Love, Family, Despair

“The true woman will not be exponent of another, or allow another to be such for her. She will be her own individual self, — do her own individual work — stand or fall by her own individual wisdom and strength stand or fall by her own individual wisdom and strengh… She will proclaim the "glad tidings of good news" to all women, that woman equally with man was made for her own individual happiness, to develop every power of her three fold-nature, to use, worthily every talent given to her by God, in the great work of life.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Statement of Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1856), partially quoted in The Right to Vote (2001) by Claudia Isler, p. 50, and in Perfecting the Family : Antislavery Marriages in Nineteenth-Century America (1997) by Chris Dixon, p. 144

Life, Wisdom, Women, Happiness

“It is intended that we shall accomplish all, through law, that we can accomplish for ourselves. God gives every bird its food, but does not throw it into the nest. He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of getting it ourselves.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 367.

Law, Food, Way, Bird

““Why?” Hamilton lashed out suddenly and loudly. “Why the hell did God answer that prayer? Why not some of the others? Why not Bill Laws’s?”
“God approved of your prayer,” Silky said. “After all, it’s up to Him; He has to decide how He feels about it.”
“That’s terrible.”
Silky shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“How can you live with that? You never know what’s going to happen—there’s no order, no logic.” It infuriated him that she did not object, that it seemed natural to her. “We’re helpless; we have to depend on whim. It keeps us from being people—we’re like animals waiting to be fed. Rewarded or punished.””

Philip K. Dick book Eye in the Sky

Source: Eye in the Sky (1957), Chapter 6 (p. 77)

People, Law, Feeling, Hell

“From my youth you have taught me, O God, and now I would like to proclaim Your Wonders”

Carl Linnaeus book Systema Naturae

Praise at the end of the index. In Systema Naturae (1758), from Psalm 71.
Original in Latin: "Docuisti me Deus a juventute mea, & usque nunc pronunciabo Mirabilia Tua"
Systema Naturae

Youth

“With a sudden clarity which went beyond the immediacy of his pain or sorrow, Sol Weintraub suddenly understood perfectly why Abraham had agreed to sacrifice Isaac, his son, when the Lord commanded him to do so.
It was not obedience.
It was not even to put the love of God above the love of his son.
Abraham was testing God.
By denying the sacrifice at the last moment, by stopping the knife, God had earned the right—in Abraham’s eyes and the hearts of his offspring—to become the God of Abraham.”

Dan Simmons book The Fall of Hyperion

Source: The Fall of Hyperion (1990), Chapter 45 (p. 491)

Love, Pain, Heart

“My God, I have almost never believed in you, and yet I have always loved you.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Voces (1943)

Love

“In the first century and in the twentieth, the individual Christian must determine his own course of action in the light of the spirit and teaching of Jesus. He gave Peter, James and John no definite program or mechanism by which they could overcome slavery, idolatry, licentiousness, and militarism, and he gives the Christian of today no scheme of overcoming militarism and oppression. It is by lives lived in the spirit of human brotherhood and worship toward God that he seeks to overcome slavery and idolatry, and it is by lives of aggressive good-will and love at all times and under all circumstances that he seeks to overcome militarism and oppression.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.6 p. 103

Love, Light, Time

“For my own part, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may condemn and dislike my whole form, and beg of Almighty God for an entire reformation, and that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity: but I ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than the being dissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato. My actions are regular, and conformable to what I am and to my condition; I can do no better; and repentance does not properly touch things that are not in our power; sorrow does.. I imagine an infinite number of natures more elevated and regular than mine; and yet I do not for all that improve my faculties, no more than my arm or will grow more strong and vigorous for conceiving those of another to be so.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 2
Essais (1595), Book III

Angels, Imagination, Nature, Strong

“Earth, thou grain of sand on the shore of the Universe of God; thou Bethlehem, amongst the princely cities of the heavens; thou art, and remainest, the Loved One amongst ten thousand suns and worlds, the Chosen of God! Thee will He again visit, and then thou wilt prepare a throne for Him, as thou gavest Him a manger cradle; in His radiant glory wilt thou rejoice, as thou didst once drink His blood and tears, and mourn His death! On thee has the Lord a great work to complete.”

Wilhelm von Pressel (1821–1902) German official and railway engineer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 102.

Love, Death, World, Art

“Let us examine the language here. Evidently God is addressing this code to a patriarchy that will in turn disseminate it among the less powerful, namely wives and servants. And how long before these servants are downgraded further still…into slaves, even? Ten whole commandments, and not one word against slavery, not to mention bigotry, misogyny, or war.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

"Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant" p. 130 (originally published in What Might Have Been? Volume 1: Alternate Empires, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg)
Short fiction, Bible Stories for Adults (1996)

War

“All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture at the Harvard Divinity School (13 March 1884); published in the The Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine as The Dilemma of Determinism http://books.google.com/books?id=38DVAAAAMAAJ&q=%22All+our+scientific+and+philosophic+ideals+are+altars+to+unknown+gods%22&pg=PA196#v=onepage (September 1884) 1880s

“No man has yet appreciated all that is involved in Jesus' teaching regarding God.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 43

“God, I'm glad I'm not me.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Said when reading a newspaper article about himself in Dont Look Back (1967)
Variant: God, I'm glad I'm not me.

“Always before in moments of crisis I called on that power we call God to help me through. This time, having lost faith in others and my faith in myself, I had lost my hope in God too. Now that hope returned. I really believed that He hadn't wanted me to die.”

Lana Turner (1921–1995) American actress

On the aftermath of her suicide attempt, p. 160.
Autobiography

Faith, Hope, Time, Help

“God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there's no turning back.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Part 6 : Doing Sixty, p. 270
Moving Beyond Words (1994)

Question

“On the 9/11 hijackers: "Now, I'm an atheist. I really don't believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a God. … It's human, universal, [it's] being able to think our way into the minds of others. As I said at the time, what those holy fools clearly lacked, or clearly were able to deny themselves, was the ability to enter into the minds of the people they were being so cruel to. Amongst their crimes, is, was, a failure of the imagination, of the moral imagination."”

Ian McEwan (1948) British author

From "Faith and Doubt At Ground Zero," Frontline, February, 2002 Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/interviews/mcewan.html

People, Faith, Fools, Way

“Becoming aware, awakening, enlightenment, is possible right here and now, for everyone. From moment to moment, and yet only here and now, never sometimes, somewhere. Reality, God, is present here and now. The kingdom of heaven, blessedness, moksha, nirvana waits here and now. Outwardly nothing may happen, and yet a purely inner process can open up a new world, a new life, a new reality. - New? - Yes, really new, and yet as all those who have ever experienced it assert, at that moment we know that we have always been at home in that world, although we only now become aware of it.”

Yrjö Kallinen (1886–1976) Finnish politician

Attributed without citation at Nonduality Salon Highlights, #1891 http://www.nonduality.com/hl1891.htm, 15 August 2004

Life, World, Home, Reality

“And how high is Christ's cross? As high as the highest heaven, and the throne of God, and the bosom of the Father — that bosom out of which forever proceed all created things. Ay, as high as the highest heaven! for — if you will receive it — when Christ hung upon the cross, heaven came down on earth, and earth ascended into heaven.”

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

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 171.

Christ

“I knew what it was at last—the visible manifestation of my will. My power, inherited from my god ancestors and distilled through generations of humanity, given shape and energy and potential. That was all magic was, really, in the end. Possibility. With it I could create anything, provided I believed.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Broken Kingdoms

Source: The Broken Kingdoms (2011), Chapter 19 “The Demons’ War” (charcoal and chalk on black paper) (p. 349)

“Just as Cain hated and eventually killed Abel over this (1 John 3:12), many religious wars have been fought and are being fought between various groups who think their way to God is the only right way and any who disagree should be killed. Over the centuries, millions of Christians have been persecuted and killed for their faith. It is happening today in many countries around the world and is soon to come to America.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 51

Hate, War, World, Faith

“Be strong to love, O Heart!
Love knows not wrong;
Didst thou love — creatures even,
Life were not long;
Didst thou love God in heaven,
Thou wouldst be strong!”

Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864) English poet and songwriter

"Be Strong".
Legends and Lyrics: A Book of Verses (1858)

Love, Life, Strong, Heart

“Our nation is shocked and saddened by the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech today…Schools should be places of safety, and sanctuary, and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech. We hold the victims in our hearts; we lift them up in our prayers; and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today.”

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

Statement on the massacre at Virginia Tech University from the Diplomatic Room of the White House http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9603915 (April 16, 2007) 2000s, 2007

Love, School, Communication, Suffering

“Caring for God’s endowment in a thrifty fashion is a form of biblical obedience.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 34.

Fashion

“To choose a god of love, as he did and does,
Is a little move then?

Yes, it is.

A larger one will be when men
Love love and hate hate but do not deify them?

It will be a larger one.”

Stevie Smith (1902–1971) poet, novelist, illustrator, performer

"Was He Married?"
Selected Poems (1962)

Love, Men, Hate

“…faith in God creates the possibility that even if our situations do not change, life can be good.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

Life, Faith, Change

“Oh, where is man—
That mortal god, that hath no mortal kin
Or like on earth? Shall Nature's orator—
The interpreter of all her mystic strains —
Shall he be mute in Nature's jubilee?”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Sylphs
Poems (1851), Prometheus

Nature

“Do you remember when you were young, and you’d stare at someone on-stage and think ‘Oh my God—he looked right at me?’ I do, so I have this kind of rescue-fantasy thing. When I see kids in the audience I think, ‘Okay, that’s me, and it would be kind of cool if the person on-stage would come down and save me.’ I’m not going to be able to save every one of them, but I’ll do my best, because I genuinely like kids. If I didn’t have my lust for my art, I probably would have ended up working with them.”

Courtney Love (1964) American punk singer-songwriter, musician, actress, and artist

On her teenaged fans, interview with The Georgia Straight (1999)
1996–2005

Art, Thinking, Personality

“Second is best because God rewards the quest.”

Kip McKean (1954) minister

In his sermon, The Promised Land On The Second Try, World Missions Jubilee 2010, Sunday August 8, 2012
International Christian Church (2006-present)

“Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten —
These were the same for Sappho as for me. Two thousand years — much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men —
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"The Unchanging"
Flame and Shadow (1920)

Men, Light, Change, Time

“Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Bk. III, l. 113
Hyperion: A Fragment (1819)

Knowledge

“I need the Lord's guidance on what to do… I asked God for wisdom.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 16

Wisdom

“The Cubists want to cover Dada with snow; that may surprise you, but it is so, they want to empty the snow from their pipe to bury DaDa.
Are you sure?
Positively sure, the facts are revealed by grotesque mouths. They think that Dada can prevent them from practicing this odious trade: Selling art expensively.
Art costs more than sausages, more than women, more than everything.
Art is visible like God (see Saint-Sulpice).
Art is a pharmaceutical product for imbeciles.
The table turns thanks to spirit; the paintings and other works of arts are like strong-box tables, the spirit is inside and becomes more and more
inspired according to the auction prices.
Farce, farce, farce, farce, farce, my dear friends.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

In 'DADA manifesto 1920'; as quoted in Manifesto: A Century of Isms, ed. Mary Ann Caws, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001, nr. 9.16 Francis Picabia, p 318
1920's

Women, Art, Thinking, Strong

“And You surround me, You're pretty but You're all I can see,
Like a thick fog…
If there was no way into God,
I would never have laid in this grave of a body for so long.”

Aaron Weiss

Carousels.
Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)

Way

“God is not just one great piece of benevolent jelly. He is not smiling at the human race. In fact, the Bible says that He is full of fury. The day is coming when He will 'render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire”

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

Isaiah 66:15
God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)

Smile, Anger

“Heroines followin' Marilyn hoppin' over the edge just like Janis Joplin,
River Phoenix, Jimi Hendrix, James Morrison
All of them ended by Hollywood.
Thank God for Hollywood,
Hollywood, Sure you want this baby?”

River Phoenix (1970–1993) American actor, musician, and activist

Hollywood by Jay-Z

Baby

“Thank God I never lost that childlike innocence and the purity of vision and naivete. …That childlike innocence was most useful, because if I was a bit wiser, I wouldn't have been able to do anything, perhaps. So I'm glad I was not smart.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

"Her Greatest Admirer" in TIME (2004)

“We may have pledged to support the freedom of the people so that we ourselves may enjoy the results. We are working for the sake of God and for the sake of the people. We do not need to be known, nor do we need propaganda. We work for the sake of God and we know that how long we may live, we will ultimately die and the people will remain. The absolute rule is by the people and not by individuals.”

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

The historical extempore speech at the Reserve Officers' College (1959)

People, Support, Freedom

“It’s important to realize that philosophical naturalism is, like atheism, a provisional view. It’s not the kind of worldview that says, “I know there is no god,” but the kind that says, “Until I see some evidence, I don’t accept the existence of gods.””

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 95

Nature

“Alcohol doesn’t console, it doesn’t fill up anyone’s psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God. It doesn’t comfort man. On the contrary, it encourages him in his folly, it transports him to the supreme regions where he is master of his own destiny.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Alcohol, from Practicalities (1987, trans. 1990).

Alcohol

“In ancient Europe, Stoics asserted that a slave could be freer than a master who suffers from self-division. In China, Daoists imagined a type of sage who responded to the flow of events without weighing alternatives. Disciples of monotheistic faiths have believed something similar: freedom, they say, is obeying God’s will. What those who follow these traditions want most is not any kind of freedom of choice. Instead, what they long for is freedom from choice.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

The Faith of Puppets: The Freedom of the Marionette (p. 6-7)
The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Enquiry into Human Freedom (2015)

Faith, Imagination, Freedom, Suffering

“From the creationist’s perspective, the method or mechanism of creation which these mystical beings use is nothing more than a golem spell where clay statues are animated with an enchantment. Or its an incantation in which complex modern plants and animals are "spoken" into being. That’s right, magic words which cause fully-developed adult animals to be conjured out of thin air. Or a god simply wishes them to exist; so they do. That’s it! There really is nothing more to it than that; pure freakin’ magic –by definition. Remember that the next time you hear anything from a creation “scientist.””

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

"1st Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY, Youtube (November 11, 2007) Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Time, Animals

“The nearest each of us can come to God is by loving the truth.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

Love, Truth

“Madam, in God's presence I speak: I never delighted in the weeping of any of God's creatures; yea I can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys whom my own hand corrects, much less can I rejoice in your Majesty's weeping.”

John Knox (1514–1572) Scottish clergyman, writer and historian

As quoted in The Thundering Scot (1957) by Geddes MacGregor

Boy, Tear

“I am working here [Amsterdam] on my last big triptych, which will be a tremendous story, and which gives me a more intense life and exhilaration. My God, life is worth living!”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

In a letter to Stephan Lackner, Amsterdam, 1939; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 5
1930s

Life

“Trying to separate cigarettes and alcohol, that's against God's will!”

Ed Byrne (1972) Irish comedian

Pedantic & Whimsical (2006)

Alcohol

“Justification by faith is the answer to that momentous question, " How shall man be just with God?" And the reply is, " Not by works of his own, but by faith in the work of another, that is Christ." He must have a righteousness in which to stand before a righteous and a holy, as well as a merciful God He has no such righteousness of his own. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness unto him.”

John Angell James (1785–1859) British abolitionist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 362.

Faith, Law, Question, Christ

“Truth is Thy primal word; at thy behest
The generations pass - O aid our quest
For Thee, and set my host of songs on high,
And let my psalmody come very nigh.
My praises as a coronal account,
And let my prayers as Thine incense mount.
Deem precious unto Thee the poor man's song,
As those that to thine altar did belong.
Rise, O my blessing, to the lord of birth,
The breeding, quickening, righteous force of earth.
Do Thou receive it with acceptant nod,
My choicest incense offered to my God.
And let my meditation grateful be,
For all my being is athirst for Thee.

from Millgram, A. E., Anthology of Medieval Hebrew Literature, Abelard, 1961.”

Yehuda he-Hasid (1140–1217) German philosopher

Shir Hakovod, trans. from the Hebrew by Israel Zangwill

Truth, Literature, Birth

“God pity me now and all desolate sinners
Demented with beauty!”

Patrick MacDonogh (1902–1961) Irish poet

She Walked Unaware (1975)

Beauty

“Nor, do I believe in inequalities between human beings. We are all absolutely equal. But equality is of the souls and not the bodies. Hence, it is a mental state. We need to think of, and to assert, equality because we see great inequality in the physical world. We have to realize equality in the midst of this apparent external inequality. Assumption of superiority by any person over any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so far as it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, by Joan V. Bondurant (1965) University of California Press, Berkeley: CA, pp. 168-169
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

World, Soul, Thinking, Evil

“Fear is the contradiction of faith. Faith says, Whatever it is, it’ll be okay because of God.”

James MacDonald (1960) American pastor

Source: Always True (Moody, 2011), p. 33

Fear, Faith

“After four years of sitting through lectures, I have a feeling you’re not in the mood for another one. What I have learned about graduation speeches is that they’re too long and rarely remembered. So I’ll keep this short. I just can’t attest to how memorable it will be. I’ve also learned that it’s important to refer to someone associated with the University. So I picked one, an SMU trustee, who by the way is not here, Reverend Mark Craig. Now, I asked Mark to deliver the sermon at the First United Methodist Church in Austin before my second inauguration as Governor of Texas. I still remember his Fort Worth twang as he talked about Moses. God called Moses to action, and Moses repeatedly found excuses not to act. 'Who am I that I should go to Pharoah, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? Oh, my Lord, I pray, send some other person. I have sheep to tend. And the people won't believe me. I'm not a very good speaker.”

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

2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)

People, Way, Feeling, Mood

“In the eyes of God all men, indeed all creatures, may be equal: but the divine law of the individual is to maintain and to defend his individuality.”

Houston Stewart Chamberlain book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century

The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts) (1899)

Men, Law

“God, Whose hand holds stars, as we lump earth
In our fingers, give us power, give us light
To hold all love within our breast's small space.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953)

Love, Star, Light

“God saw everything and it was very good; that's perfect; that's the way I want it. Satan's plan is to put it back to zero. He wants to reduce human population with reduced birth rates by abortion. […] Birth control, homosexuality, lower cholesterol (that lowers fertility), high cost of living, smaller families, eugenics, high infant mortality rate with vaccines, SIDS, child pornography, reduced population, high death rate among teens, suicide, drugs, alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases. Just kill everybody with chemtrails or wars or genetically modified foods that will lower disease resistance or with drugs. Islam teaches "if you don't join us, we have to kill you." 100 times in the Koran it says they are required to kill anyone who won't convert. It's required. People say, "It's a peaceful religion."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Well there may be some peaceful people in it, but their religion isn't peaceful. Satan wants to reduce the population.
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

Death, War, People, Alcohol

“The theory of three person in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM. … Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God.”

Mary Baker Eddy book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 256:9–11, 361:11–13 (1867).

Christ, Personality

“Now I wonder what our knowledge has in common with God's knowledge according to those who treat God's knowledge… Is there anything else common to both besides the mere name? …there is an essential distinction between His knowledge and ours, like the distinction between the substance of the heavens and that of the earth.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.20

Knowledge

“We tend to think of [Hitler] as an idiot because the central tenet of his ideology was idiotic – and idiotic, of course, it transparently is. Anti-Semitism is a world view through a pinhole: as scientists say about a bad theory, it is not even wrong. Nietzsche tried to tell Wagner that it was beneath contempt. Sartre was right for once when he said that through anti-Semitism any halfwit could become a member of an elite. But, as the case of Wagner proves, a man can have this poisonous bee in his bonnet and still be a creative genius. Hitler was a destructive genius, whose evil gifts not only beggar description but invite denial, because we find it more comfortable to believe that their consequences were produced by historical forces than to believe that he was a historical force. Or perhaps we just lack the vocabulary. Not many of us, in a secular age, are willing to concede that, in the form of Hitler, Satan visited the Earth, recruited an army of sinners, and fought and won a battle against God. We would rather talk the language of pseudoscience, which at least seems to bring such events to order. But all such language can do is shift the focus of attention down to the broad mass of the German people, which is what Goldhagen has done, in a way that, at least in part, lets Hitler off the hook – and unintentionally reinforces his central belief that it was the destiny of the Jewish race to be expelled from the Volk as an inimical presence.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

People, Age, World, Way

“We need to launch a nationwide campaign against superstition and belief in witchcraft. Nigerians should be told that witches are not real, and that witches and spirits are imaginary entities created by primitive minds during the infancy of human race to explain situations and issues they could not understand or resolve commonsensically. This campaign should be taken to all Nigerian schools, colleges and universities. It should be publicized over the radios and television, in the newspapers, in market places, in churches and mosques. In particular, we need to check the activities of our so called pastors and other self styled men and women of God who use the Bible or Holy books to perpetrate and justify atrocious acts and human right abuses. These religious charlatans continue to act and preach in ways that reinforce the belief in witches and provoke acts of witch accusation, persecution and killing. This has been the driving force in Akwa Ibom State, and until Nigerians learn to reject superstition and irrationalism such tragedies will continue to occur.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

Saving Child Witches: A Nigerian Perspective http://enblog.mukto-mona.com/2008/12/14/saving-child-witches-a-nigerian-perspective/ (December 14th, 2008)

Women, Men, Books, School

“I am really committed to my faith journey and I am committed to my family. My husband and I have been married for almost 30 years and we homeschool our kids. We have a different working-out-of the-box family, but we do make it work, obviously with God’s grace and we are very grateful for that.” Are there any drawbacks from not living in New York or L. A.? “Sometimes it can be a little bit lonely because we are the only family that we know that is in the entertainment industry, homeschools and is faith-based [while trying] to maintain some sort of ‘regular life’ so to speak in the midst of the crazy stuff. It is a little bit different I think. Sometimes we feel like we are the Lone Rangers, but this is where God has us and this is his calling for right now, for this season. We do it with joy and with integrity”

Jodi Benson (1961) American voice actress, actress and singer

Interview with a Mermaid http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/peanutsandpopcorn/2013/09/interview-with-a-mermaid.html (2014)

Life, Family, Faith, Feeling

“Now, we are poor people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda — fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."”

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

1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)

Children, People, World, Support

“The case had caused considerable excitement among the “believers” (Mu'mins) and interest among the “infidels” (KAfirs) in April-May, 1985. The press in India and abroad gave many headlines to what was rightly regarded as an unprecedented event in the history of religion. It was the first time that a Pagan had questioned the character of a document hailed as the very Word of God by a People of the Book. The roles now stood reversed. So far it had been the privilege of the Peoples of the Book to ban and burn the sacred literature of the Pagans.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Calcutta Quran Petition

The Calcutta Quran Petition (1986)

People, Books, Religion, History

“If we learn how to love others, really, truly love them, not for who we want them to be, but rather for who they are – for the perfect souls that God has created – then we have learnt one of the greatest lessons of life.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Excerpts from a speech at the launch of the NAP, 8 April 2005

Love, Life, Soul, Learning

“Okay bear with me this'll be a little tough. You should know this isn't the first time I thought about leaving. I thought about it some twenty years ago when a check that would soon become a part of Cincinnati folklore, made me see life from the bottom. To be honest, a thought about ending it all crossed my mind, but a more reasonable alternative seemed to be 'hey how about just leaving town? Running away? Starting life over, some place else?' You see, in political terms as well as human, here in Cincinnati, I was dead. But then in the, probably, the luckiest decision I ever made, I decided 'No! I'm staying put!' I would withstand all the jokes, all the ridicule. I'd pretend it didn't hurt, and I would give every ounce of my being to Cincinnati. 'Why in time,' I was thinking, 'you'd have to like me. Or if not like me, at least respect me.' And I'd run for council even unendorsed. And I'd prove to you I could be the best public servant you ever had, or I'd die trying. Be it as a mayor, an anchor, or a commentator, whatever it took, I was determined to have you know that I was more than a check and a hooker on a one night stand. But something happened along the way. Maybe it's God's way of teaching us. I don't know, but you see? In trying to prove something to you, I learned something about me. I learned that I had fallen in love with you. With Cincinnati. With you who taught me more about life, and caring, and forgiving, and also most importantly, giving. Giving something back. Which is part of the reason… I have been… Excuse me. So sad this week. why… Why it's so hard to say goodbye. God bless you, and goodbye.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

his final commentary at NBC's WLWT in Ohio, January 1993 This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Love, Life, Sadness, Way

“If you say you believe in God, but you don’t really believe in God, then how you could you possibly be trying to fool God? Wouldn’t you have to believe there is a god if you’re going to try and deceive him? And what is the deception? Are you trying to trick God into thinking you believe in him? If you don’t believe in God then that’s not even possible. So already the Qur’an reveals sufficient absurdity to prove that it cannot have been authored by any god. Seriously, could this be any less ridiculous if it were written in Arabic?”

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

Patheos, The Cow http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/ (January 22, 2016)

Fools, Thinking

“When the man governed by self-interest, the god of this world, does not renounce it but merely refines it by the use of reason and extends it beyond the constricting boundary of the present, he is represented (Luke XVI, 3-9) as one who, in his very person [as servant], defrauds his master [self- interest] and wins from him sacrifices in behalf of “duty.””

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Book IV, Part 1, Section 2, “The Christian religion as a natural religion”
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793)

World, Personality

“"Your money or your life." We know what to do when a burglar makes this demand of us, but not when God does.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Life, Money

“Blessed God, pity the soul whose extremest horror is the doom of an eternal departure from Thee. Draw my spirit into the holiest and the nearest union with Thyself that is possible while it dwells in this flesh! And let me here commence that delightful residence and converse with God, which nor death, nor judgment shall ever destroy, nor shall a long eternity ever put a period to it.”

Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737) poet and writer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 433.

Death, Soul, Departure, Drawing

“And thirdly, [we have] to defeat the absurd pantheist ideologies that believe that the walls are gods and the air is a god. In the end, to return to such primitive forms of religiosity where one is told, “don’t touch this hill because it is an Apu and is filled with millennia-old spirit,” and who knows what else. Well, if we reach that point, we wouldn’t do anything, much less mining. Don’t touch those fish because they are creatures of god and expressions of the god Poseidon. We would return to this, let’s say, primitive animism. Right? I think that we need more education [of these people], but that is long-term work that just can’t be fixed right away.”

Alan García (1949–2019) Peruvian politician

Alan García in an interview with Cecilia Valenzuela (channel Willax) in January 2011, translation by Carwil without Borders, 27 June 2011 https://woborders.wordpress.com/tag/peru/

People, Education, Thinking, Fish

“The premise is debatable that the perpetration of atrocities is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the poisoning of the public mind with distortion and falsehood designed to inflame passions is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the banishment of a loving Father of all men and the bowing down before a god of war is sometimes a patriot's duty. But if these be obligations resting upon patriots, let them be claimed as such in plain unvarnished language.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Must We Go to War? (1937)

Love, Men, War, Passion

““Our sense of alternative is the sense that the transcending view which connects us with our Divine Ideal, and which moves us evermore toward harmony with that, is really ever-living, and so affords resources to reduce our defective difference and carry us beyond all temporal actualities. So that when we halt in any stage of these, and act as if our aim and object ended there, and we were there fulfilled, we know that this is false. We know that we have belied our real being, that in our true nature is a fountain out-measuring every possible actuality, that therefore we might have done differently, and that consequently we have contracted guilt”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

guilt, not simply before some external tribunal, be it even God's, but guilt before the more inexorable bar of our own soul.”
Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.370-1

Soul, Nature, Sense, Falseness

“The clergy have always had great faith in famine, in affliction, in pestilence. They know that a man is a thousand times more apt to thank God for a crust or a crumb than for a banquet.”

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

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.

Faith, Affliction, Time

Quotes about God page 99

Quotes about God
page 99