Quotes about religion and faith

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“I consider all the prophets to be my brothers in the faith. All the conquerors are also my brothers in the introduction of civilisation on Earth.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Accustom yourself to look first to the dreadful consequences of failure; then fix your eye on the glorious prize which is before you; and when your strength begins to fail, and your spirits are well nigh exhausted, let the animating view rekindle your resolution, and call forth in renewed vigour the fainting energies of your soul.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

“Thank God, I have done my duty.”

Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral

Statement among his final dying words. [citation needed]
The Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

“Being broke is against my religion.”

50 Cent (1975) American rapper, actor, businessman, investor and television producer

Ryder Music
Song lyrics, The Massacre (2005)

“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

As quoted in Good Advice (1982) by William Safire and Leonard Safir. Original appearance in Holiday magazine, March 1956, pp. 40-51.

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

This is a variant or paraphrase of The Paradoxical Commandments, by Kent M. Keith, student activist, first composed in 1968 as part of a booklet for student leaders, which had hung on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta, India, and have sometimes become misattributed to her. The version posted at his site http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com begins: <br class="br">Misattributed

“When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Vol. VI, p 5, "First Talk in Rajahmundry (20 November 1949) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=335&chid=4655&w=%22You+cannot+find+truth+through+anybody+else%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 491120 <br class="br">Posthumous publications, The Collected Works <br class="br">Context: You cannot find truth through anybody else. How can you? Surely, truth is not something static; it has no fixed abode; it is not an end, a goal. On the contrary, it is living, dynamic, alert, alive. How can it be an end? If truth is a fixed point, it is no longer truth; it is then a mere opinion. Sir, truth is the unknown, and a mind that is seeking truth will never find it. For mind is made up of the known; it is the result of the past, the outcome of time — which you can observe for yourself. Mind is the instrument of the known; hence it cannot find the unknown; it can only move from the known to the known. When the mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that "truth" is self-projected, for then the mind is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than the previous one. When the mind seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth. After all, an ideal is self-projected; it is fictitious, unreal. What is real is what is, not the opposite. But a mind that is seeking reality, seeking God, is seeking the known. When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth. The moment you think of the unknown, it is merely the self-projected known. So, God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be sought; it comes to you. You can go after only what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself. Truth is in every leaf, every tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you to truth; and if anyone leads you, it can only be to the known.

“God has sent me pictures of the angel that stands by me and directs me what to do.”

Minnie Evans (1892–1987) American artist

Cited in: Joyce Elaine Noll (1991), Company of Prophets: African American Psychics, Healers & Visionaries. p. 80

“I’m without a teacher. My teacher… God has sent me teachers: the angel that stands by me, stands by me and directs me what to do. Time for me to paint a picture and I be tired I say I’m going to rest up for a couple of days. He won’t let me. Come down grab my feet and shake me. Beat me.”

Minnie Evans (1892–1987) American artist

Cited in Allie Light, Irving Saraf (1983), "The Angel That Stands By Me"

“I do not want to go back to God with less knowledge than when I was born. I want my footprints to make an impress on the field of reason. I have no desire to be a cat and walk so lightly that it never creates a disturbance. I want my footprints to be plainly seen by all…”

Andrew Taylor Still (1828–1917) Founder of Osteopathic Medicine

Still. A. T., Journal of Osteopathy, p. 127. https://www.atsu.edu/museum/subscription/pdfs/JournalofOsteopathyVol5No31898August.pdf/.

“We don’t need self-confidence we need God-confidence”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“Twitter, as I understand it, is a sort of "Hell" that I was banished to upon death in my previous life.”

Dril Twitter user

dril in interviews
Context: Twitter, as I understand it, is a sort of "Hell" that I was banished to upon death in my previous life. In this abstract realm, the only thing I am certain of is that my cries are awarded "Favs" or "RTs" when they are particularly miserable or profane. These ethereal merits do nothing to ease my suffering, but I have deliriously convinced myself that gathering enough of them will impress my unseen superiors and grant me a promotion to a higher plane of existence. This is my sole motivation.

“A faith which we follow upon orders imposed from outside is no faith, and a community which puts its dependence upon such a pseudo-faith is ultimately bound to ruin itself because of the paralysis which the lack of a healthy growing science imposes upon it.”

Norbert Wiener book The Human Use of Human Beings

XI. Language, Confusion, and Jam. p. 193
The Human Use of Human Beings (1950)

“I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into a new tongue.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1979) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 239

“Chandiri I stormed in 934 A. H. (1528 A. D.) and, by God's pleasure, took it in a few hours; in it was Rana Sanga's great and trusted man Midni Rao, we made general massacre of the Pagans in it and, as will be narrated, converted what for many years had been a mansion of hostility, into a mansion of Islam.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Baburnama https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp#page/n551/mode/2up, translated by Annette Beveridge

“In the prayer of faith there is a divine science; it is a science that everyone who would make his lifework a success must understand.”

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

Education (1903) http://www.whiteestate.org/books/ed/ed.asp, Ch. 30, Faith and Prayer http://www.whiteestate.org/books/ed/ed30.html, p. 257

“Be good, love the Lord, pray for those who do not know Him. What a great grace it is to know God!”

Josephine Bakhita (1868–1947) Italian saint and former slave

Quoted in "Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947)", The Holy See https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20001001_giuseppina-bakhita_en.html.

“When a person loves another very much, she greatly wished to meet that person. Why then should I be afraid of death? Death brings us to God.”

Josephine Bakhita (1868–1947) Italian saint and former slave

Quoted in "Goodness and missionary zeal", The Holy See https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010112_bakhita_en.html.

“The universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul”

Chrysippus (-281–-208 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, i. 15.