Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet
The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899), The Man With the Hoe (1898)
Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), Oh God, the God of Formation
Context: O God, the God of formation,
Ruler, strengthener of blood.
Christ Jesus, that guards.
Princes loud-proclaiming go their course
For a decaying acquisition.
Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet
The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899), The Man With the Hoe (1898)
William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 332.
“God is the one who chooses our rulers”
Katherine Harris (1957) U.S. politician
" http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/6298.article", The Florida Baptist Witness newspaper
“Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and daemons.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
As quoted in Life of Pythagoras (c. 300) by Iamblichus of Chalcis, as translated by Thomas Taylor (1818)
Variants:
Number rules the universe.
As quoted in The Story of a Number (1905) by E. Maor; also in Comic Sections (1993) by Desmond MacHale
“O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin.”
Evelyn Waugh book Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited (1945)
“O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul.”
Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet (1688–1740) politician, died 1740
Quoting for posterity the remarks of an unnamed soldier at the Battle of Blenheim (13 August 1704), as reported by William King in Political and Literary Anecdotes of His Own Times http://books.google.com/books?id=ShklAAAAMAAJ&q=%22O+God+if+there+be+a+God+save+my+soul+if+I+have+a+soul%22&pg=PA8#v=onepage (1818)
Joseph Smith, Jr. book Doctrine and Covenants
Doctrine and Covenants, 135:1 (27 June 1844)
Cried out by Smith as he fell to his death after being shot by a mob.
1840s
“O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!”
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 120.
Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement