“We climb mountains because they are there, and worship God because He is not.”

— Mignon McLaughlin

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 20, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We climb mountains because they are there, and worship God because He is not." by Mignon McLaughlin?

Mignon McLaughlin 278

American journalist 1913–1983

Related quotes

“If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

“Like an adventure who was asked why he climbed the mountain and answered, “Because it's there!” I think our culture has developed this intense love-hate relationship with risk, in part because it's always there.”

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

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 48

“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

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Sometimes credited to Jack Kerouac, from his book The Dharma Bums. It is not a quote by Kerouac. It first appeared as a very brief description of The Dharma Bums in Esquire's list of "The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read" in 2010: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g96/80-books/?slide=71. It was later copied by Kilburn Hall in his list of 30 "Books and Authors Every Man Should Read" which he first posted online in 2012: https://kilburnhall.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-books-and-authors-every-man-should-read/
Misattributed

“That God, though, worships human beings, it's enough to frighten hearers out of their wits, because people are not in the habit of saying that God worships human beings — in that special sense —but that human beings worship God.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Sermon 87:2 ( Sermon 37:2 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160337.htm) on Matthew 20. Preached in the autumn after 424. Latin http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine/serm87.shtml
The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Sermons 51-94), John E. Rotelle, Edmund Hill, eds. & trans., New City Press, 1990 pp. 407- 408. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&q=%22So%20there%20you%20are%3B%20listen%3B%20as%20I%20said%2C%20God%20worships%20us%20in%20the%20sense%20of%20tending%20our%20worth%22&sa=N&tab=wp
Sermons
Context: So there you are; listen; as I said, God "worships" us in the sense of tending our worth. That we worship God, of course, doesn't need proving to you. It's on everybody's lips, after all, that human beings worship God. That God, though, worships human beings, it's enough to frighten hearers out of their wits, because people are not in the habit of saying that God worships human beings — in that special sense —but that human beings worship God.
So I've got to prove to you that God too does "worship" human beings, or you will consider, perhaps, that I have used the word very carelessly, and begin arguing against me in your thoughts, and finding fault with me because you don't in fact grasp what I have been saying. So it's agreed that this is what has to be demonstrated to you: that God also "worships" us; but in the sense I have already mentioned, that he tends our worth as his field, to make improvements in us. The Lord says in the gospel: I am the vine, you are the branches; my Father is the farm worker (Jn 15:5,1). What does a farm worker do? I'm asking you, those of you who are farm workers and farmers. What does a farm worker do? I presume he works his farm, that is, tends its worth, that is, "worships" it, in a sense. So if God the Father is a farmer or farm worker, it means he has a farm, and he works or "worships" his farm, and expects a crop from it.

“[I was] happily contended to be climbing the heights and the clouds by the brush method.... rendering the God-spirit in the mountains.”

Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist

letter to Horace Traubel around 1908; as quoted in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 18
1908 - 1920