Quotes about almighty page 3
Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica
Summa Theologica Question 25 Article 6 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q25_A4.html <br class="br">Summa Theologica (1265–1274), Unplaced by chapter
Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War
Amnesty oath to the United States http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/publications/prologue/2005/spring/images/lee-amnesty-l.jpg&c=/publications/prologue/2005/spring/images/lee-amnesty.caption.html (2 October 1865) <br class="br">1860s
Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church
Journal of Discourses 12:354 (February 24, 1869).
Joseph Smith Jr.'s First Vision
Hemu (1501–1556) General and Chief Minister of Adil Shah Suri
Tarikh-i Salatin-i Afaghana of Ahmad Yadgar, translated in Elliot and Dowson, Volume V, pp. 65-66. Quoted in S. R. Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) ISBN 9788185990583
Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer
Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones, p. 125 http://books.google.com/books?id=lFFfyG6DPXMC&pg=PA125
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
Petition from the Pennsylvania Society (1790)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
“ Paul's Letter to American Christians http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_pauls_letter_to_american_christians/", Sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama (4 November 1956) <br class="br">1950s, Paul's Letter to American Christians (1956)
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
1920s, Address at the Black Hills (1927)
Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 94.
Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist
As quoted in The Annual Review and History of Literature http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=hx0ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Lord%20himself%20hath%20led%20him%20with%20his%20own%20Almighty%20hand%22&f=false (1806), by Arthur Aikin, T. N. Longman and O. Rees, p. 472. <br class="br">Also found in Life of Linnaeus https://archive.org/stream/lifeoflinnaeus00brigiala#page/176/mode/2up/search/endeavoured (1858), by J. Van Voorst & Cecilia Lucy Brightwell, London. pp. 176-177. <br class="br">Linnaeus Diary
Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader
Journal of Discourses, 1:187-188 (June 19, 1853)
1850s
Sher Shah Suri (1486–1545) founder of Sur Empire in Northern India
Tarikh-i-Sher Shahi of Abbas Khan Sherwani in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume IV, pp. 407-09. Quoted in S.R.Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition
Charles Henry Fowler (1837–1908) American bishop
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 537.
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
Second Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist
Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 276.
Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)
Relayed by Bishop William F. Anderson as a remark by a friend of Harding, in "Pictures Harding as Man of Prayer" (2 April 1922) New York Times
Attributed
Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)
Pastor Jón Prímus
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party
Radio broadcast from Berlin, 3 October 1941. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/adolf-hitler-broadcast-to-the-german-people-on-the-winter-help-scheme-october-1941 <br class="br">1940s
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)
Signing into law the phrase "One nation under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9920 (14 June 1954) <br class="br">1950s
Ali Zayn al-Abidin (659–713) Great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.9, p. 147.
George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general
Though Patton commissioned this prayer and ordered 250,000 copies of it printed with his signature, it was actually composed by Chief Chaplain James H. O'Neill http://www.pattonhq.com/prayer.html Review of the News (6 October 1971) <br class="br">Misattributed
David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist
From the BBC documentary Life on Air (2002)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/mia_mass_meeting_at_holt_street_baptist_church/. "Justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream" is a quotation of Amos 5:24 in the Bible. <br class="br">1950s
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Ode. Imagination before Content.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Wilhelm Keitel (1882–1946) German general
Last words, 10/16/46, quoted in "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness World War II" by Jon E. Lewis - History - 2002
Robinson in his 1849 adress, as quoted in the Report of the Nineteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science https://archive.org/stream/report36sciegoog#page/n50/mode/2up, London, 1850.
Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.
31 May 2016 https://twitter.com/muftimenk/status/737814141872820224 <br class="br">Twitter
Nouri al-Maliki (1950) Prime Minister of Iraq
As quoted in Iraq's new unity government sworn in, CNN, 20 May 2006, 2 December 2011 http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/20/iraq.main/index.html,.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author
Quoted in The Life of Faith by Dr. A. T. Schofield, which was quoted in Heresies Exposed by William C. Irvine (Loizeaux Brothers, Neptune, New Jersey, 1921, p. 179)
Attributed
John Buchan book The Path of the King
Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIV "The End of the Road", III
Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 428
Sunni Hadith
Robert Ley (1890–1945) Nazi politician
Quoted in "Thus Spake Germany" - Page 30 - by W. W. Coole, Władysław Wszebór Kulski, M. F. Potter - 1941
Edward Bulwer-Lytton book Vril
Source: The Coming Race (1870), Chapter 1. This is the origin of the phrase "pursuit of the almighty dollar". Washington Irving coined the expression almighty dollar itself.
David Seth Doggett (1810–1880) American bishop
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 211.
Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud (1014) semi-legendary Muslim figure from India
Somnath (Gujarat), Mir‘at-i-Mas‘udi Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. II. p. 524-547
Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States
The Creole Village published in The Knickerbocker magazine (November 1836). This is origin of the expression almighty dollar. See Edward Bulwer-Lytton for "the pursuit of the almighty dollar". Compare: "Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice,—almighty gold", Ben Jonson, Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.
Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia
Speech at Koenigsberg (25 August 1910), quoted in Michael Balfour, The Kaiser and His Times (London: Penguin, 1975), p. 157
1910s
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist
E 92
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook E (1775 - 1776)
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist
Lamb in September 27, 1796. In his letter to Coleridge; after the family tragedy. As quoted in Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. Letters (1905).
Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist
Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 23, What Has Become of Employment Policy?, p. 256
Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist
The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)
Alfred Brendel (1931) Austrian pianist, poet, and author
quoted in Alan Rusbridger, "Music, Sense and Nonsense by Alfred Brendel review – a great pianist’s thoughts on his art", The Guardian, 24 September 2015
Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Selections from Addresses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Mar. 2001, 64.
Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 2, hadith number 311
Sunni Hadith
James Fenimore Cooper book The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea
The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1824); Preface
The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1823)
Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq
Speech delivered at the second congress of the peace partisans (April 14, 1959).
Principles of the 14th July Revolution (1959)
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
2010s, 2015, Remarks at the SMU 100th Spring Commencement (May 2015)
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)
Fred Phelps (1929–2014) American pastor and activist
2000s, Fag-Lover Obama (2009)
Context: This jackass of a president ought to proclaim pride month for decency, abstinence and chastity, not for the most abominable sins known to mankind — in the estimation of God Almighty, that is. Obama will bring down the curses of God upon the whole creation. Remember, you ignorant Americans, you Obama-worshippers around the world, we warned you. He raises a false argument ordering that nobody discriminate against fags. Listen up, you Bible-ignorant moron! It is neither wrongful nor sinful to discriminate against sin!
Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer
Source: Addiction to Perfection (1982), p. 11
George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States
Statement on the justification for the Iraq War http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071901957.html (July 20, 2007) <br class="br">2000s, 2007
Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman
Cheeseburger in Paradise
Song lyrics, Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)
William Henry Maule (1788–1858) British politician
"On the Authority of Lord Coleridge" [John Duke Coleridge, first Baron Coleridge (1820–1894)]; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 493. The same quotation is given on the same authority in the ninth edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1905), essentially a reprint of the 1891 edition.
P. G. Wodehouse made use of the same quotation in a short story, "The Man Upstairs," which was published nearly simultaneously in March 1910 in the Cosmopolitan magazine for the American market and for the Strand magazine for the English market. Interestingly, while the American short story uses the "Almighty God" version of the quotation, it appears in a slightly variant form in the English publication: " ' "My learned friend’s manner would be intolerable in an emperor to a black-beetle," ' quoted Beverley." It is probably that Wodehouse (or more likely his editors) altered the quotation to avoid the very strict blasphemy laws that formerly obtained in the United Kingdom, changing the quotation to refer merely to a highly ranked human.
Attributed
Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 420
Sunni Hadith
James Dobson (1936) Evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and radio broadcaster.
regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
2012-12-17
Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk
Radio
http://www.drjamesdobson.org/Broadcasts/Broadcast?i=32d0ea7c-eeb2-41fb-9c05-f6e0c733d58a, quoted in * 2012-12-17
Dobson: Connecticut Shooting was God Allowing 'Judgment to Fall Upon Us' for Turning Our Back on Him
Kyle Mantyla
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/dobson-connecticut-shooting-was-god-allowing-judgment-fall-upon-us-turning-our-back-him
2012
Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general
The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume I, p. 172-173. Also partially quoted in B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)
Quotes from The Chach Nama
Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 442
Sunni Hadith
Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist
As translated in Michael John Petry (2001), in Nemesis Divina: (Edited and Translated with Explanatory Notes by M.J. Petry); Springer. p. 21 <br class="br">The excerpt was republished in Latin by Linnaues himself, in Systema Naturae ed. (1788) http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=Z3PVJQMIhboC&pg=PA5&dq=%22Crentorem+oinniputentem+,+omnifcium+%22&hl=es-419&sa=X&ei=QyjYUuWnE8TrkQenv4DoBw&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Crentorem%20oinniputentem%20%2C%20omnifcium%20%22&f=false: ""Theologice: Te ultimum finem creationis; In Telluris globum, Omnipotentis magisterium, introductum; ratione sapiente, secundum senfus concludente, mundi contemplatorem: ut ex opere agnosceres Creatorem omnipotentem, omniscium, immensum & sempiternum DEum, cujus sub imperio quod moraliter vivas, a justissima ejus Nemesi convicaris." <br class="br">Nemesis Divina (1734)
Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor
Get Drunk and Be Somebody, written with Scotty Emerick
Song lyrics, White Trash with Money (2006)
Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator
Indian Political Thought, p. 191
Harold Wilson (1916–1995) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1965), quoted in The Times (29 September 1965), p. 5.
Comments on the government's proposed Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Unity Bill, 2 August 2005
Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989) former President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986
Speech proclaiming the termination of the state of Martial law, Heroes Hall, Malacañang (17 January 1981)
1965
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…
On the Old Man of the Mountain
Jon Stewart book Naked Pictures of Famous People
Naked Pictures of Famous People (1998)
Context: Orthodox Jews, or, as they are known in the Talmud, the Really Chosen Ones, are committed to the idea that the entire Torah was dictated by God verbatim to Moses at Mount Sinai... Other forms of Judaism dispute this claim, although it does explain certain passages in the first Torah, such as, "I'm sorry, am I boring you?" and "What do you like better, Moses, Lord Almighty or Big Hoohah?"
James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith
Letter X
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Context: I know that in early ages men did form degraded notions of the Almighty, painting Him like themselves, extreme only in all their passions : they thought He could he as lightly irritated as themselves, and that they could appease His anger by wretched offerings of innocent animals. From such a feeling as this to the sense of the value of a holy and spotless life and death — from the sacrifice of an animal to that of a saint — is a step forward out of superstition quite immeasurable. That between the earnest conviction of partial sight, and the strong metaphors of vehement minds, the sacrificial language should have been transferred onwards from one to the other, seems natural to me; perhaps inevitable. On the other hand, through all history we find the bitter fact that mankind can only be persuaded to accept the best gifts which Heaven sends them, in persecuting and destroying those who are charged to be their bearers.
“These creatures are all of them part products of the Almighty Conception”
Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 235
Context: It may be asked, if He, as appears, has chosen to employ inferior organisms as a generative medium for the production of higher ones, even including ourselves, what right have we, his humble creatures, to find fault? There is, also, in this prejudice, an element of unkindliness towards the lower animals, which is utterly out of place. These creatures are all of them part products of the Almighty Conception, as well as ourselves.... Let us regard them in a proper spirit, as parts of the grand plan, instead of contemplating them in the light of frivolous prejudices, and we shall be altogether at a loss to see how there should be any degradation in the idea of our race having been genealogically connected with them.
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 73
Context: For help of this, full meekly our Lord shewed the patience that He had in His Hard Passion; and also the joying and the satisfying that He hath of that Passion, for love. And this He shewed in example that we should gladly and wisely bear our pains, for that is great pleasing to Him and endless profit to us. And the cause why we are travailed with them is for lack in knowing of Love. Though the three Persons in the Trinity be all even in Itself, the soul took most understanding in Love; yea, and He willeth that in all things we have our beholding and our enjoying in Love. And of this knowing are we most blind. For some of us believe that God is Almighty and may do all, and that He is All-Wisdom and can do all; but that He is All-Love and will do all, there we stop short. And this not-knowing it is, that hindereth most God’s lovers, as to my sight.
Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general
Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. II Section III - Of The Eternity and Infinitude of Divine Providence
Context: Certain it is, that any supposed obstructions, concerning the quality or temperature of any or every one of those worlds, could not have been any bar in the way of God Almighty, with regard to his replenishing his universal creation with moral agents. The unlimited perfection of God could perfectly well adapt every part of his creation to the design of whatever rank or species of constituted beings, his Godlike wisdom and goodness saw fit to impart existence to; so that as there is no deficiency of absolute perfection in God, it is rationally demonstrative that the immense creation is replenished with rational agents, and that it has been eternally so, and that the display of divine goodness must have been as perfect and complete, in the antecedent, as it is possible to be in the subsequent eternity.
Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher
The Rights of the Colonists (1772)
Context: Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence … In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men … to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet
No Coward Soul Is Mine (1846)
Context: p>No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life — that in me has rest,
As I — undying Life — have power in Thee!Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main...</p
“Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
The force, the charm that to thy voice belong”
Book I
The Columbiad (1807)
Context: Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
To teach all men where all their interest lies,
How rulers may be just and nations wise:
Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,
Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.
Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist
As quoted from his Letters, in Hankins, Frank Hamilton. 1908. "Adolphe Quetelet as Statistician." Columbia University, Longmans, Green & Company, agents, Chapter IV https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~wyllys/QueteletResources/HankinsQueteletChap4.pdf. p. 99 <br class="br">Context: This great body (the social body) subsists by virtue of conservative principles, as does everything which has proceeded from the hands of the Almighty... When we think we have reached the highest point of the scale we find laws as fixed as those which govern the heavenly bodies: we turn to the phenomena of physics, where the free will of man is entirely effaced, so that the work of the Creator may predominate without hindrance. The collection of these laws, which exist independently of time and of the caprices of man, form a separate science, which I have considered myself entitled to name social physics.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Guidelines for a Constructive Church (1966)
Context: When the church is true to its guidelines, it sets out to preach deliverance to them that are captive. This is the role of the church: to free people. This merely means to free those who are slaves. Now if you notice some churches, they never read this part. Some churches aren't concerned about freeing anybody. Some white churches face the fact Sunday after Sunday that their members are slaves to prejudice, slaves to fear. You got a third of them, or a half of them or more, slaves to their prejudices. And the preacher does nothing to free them from their prejudice so often. Then you have another group sitting up there who would really like to do something about racial injustice, but they are afraid of social, political, and economic reprisals, so they end up silent. And the preacher never says anything to lift their souls and free them from that fear. And so they end up captive. You know this often happens in the Negro church. You know, there are some Negro preachers that have never opened their mouths about the freedom movement. And not only have they not opened their mouths, they haven’t done anything about it. And every now and then you get a few members: "They talk too much about civil rights in that church." I was talking with a preacher the other day and he said a few of his members were saying that. I said, "Don't pay any attention to them. Because number one, the members didn't anoint you to preach. And any preacher who allows members to tell him what to preach isn't much of a preacher."
For the guidelines made it very clear that God anointed. No member of Ebenezer Baptist Church called me to the ministry. You called me to Ebenezer, and you may turn me out of here, but you can’t turn me out of the ministry, because I got my guidelines and my anointment from God Almighty. And anything I want to say, I'm going to say it from this pulpit. It may hurt somebody, I don’t know about that; somebody may not agree with it. But when God speaks, who can but prophesy? The word of God is upon me like fire shut up in my bones, and when God’s word gets upon me, I've got to say it, I’ve got to tell it all over everywhere. And God has called me to deliver those that are in captivity.
Some people are suffering. Some people are hungry this morning. Some people are still living with segregation and discrimination this morning. I'm going to preach about it. I’m going to fight for them. I’ll die for them if necessary, because I got my guidelines clear. And the God that I serve and the God that called me to preach told me that every now and then I'll have to go to jail for them. Every now and then I’ll have to agonize and suffer for the freedom of his children. I even may have to die for it. But if that’s necessary, I'd rather follow the guidelines of God than to follow the guidelines of men. The church is called to set free those that are captive, to set free those that are victims of the slavery of segregation and discrimination, those who are caught up in the slavery of fear and prejudice.
Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Knight of the Royal Axe, or Prince of Libanus, p. 340
Context: Genuine work alone, done faithfully, is eternal, even as the Almighty Founder and Worldbuilder Himself. All work is noble: a life of ease is not for any man, nor for any God. The Almighty Maker is not like one who, in old immemorial ages, having made his machine of a Universe, sits ever since, and sees it go. Out of that belief comes Atheism. The faith in an Invisible, Unnameable, Directing Deity, present everywhere in all that we see, and work, and suffer, is the essence of all faith whatsoever.
Moinuddin Chishti (1142–1236) Sufi saint
About Shykh Mu‘in al-Din Chisti of Ajmer (Rajasthan) (d. AD 1236). Amir Khwurd: Siyaru’l-Auliya. Cited in P.M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of Mu‘in al-Din Chishti of Ajmer, OUP, 1989, p. 30.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: For a long time, man felt that he was the center of the universe and all of his science had given him that. All of the days in the past he came up under what was known as the geocentric theory: the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around the earth. Then came Copernicus and Galileo and others, said that the sun is the center, the heliocentric theory came into being. And that reminded us somehow that we are dependent on something. We are not just at the center of this universe. We are only at the center to the extent that we give ourselves and our allegiance to God Almighty. And I’m so glad that the new science came into being to dampen our arrogance. It says to us that our earthly planet is a dependent planet; it is a small planet in the orbits of this universe. The sun is the center of this universe, that man must look beyond himself to discover his significance. And that does something to each of us so that we can see when we have faith in God that we have nothing to boast about, we have nothing to be arrogant about but we live with a humility that keeps us going.
Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States
1770s, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (1775)
Context: It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Constantine P. Cavafy (1863–1933) Greek poet
Source: To Have Taken The Trouble (1930), l. 28
Context: One of the three will want me anyway.
And my conscience is quiet
about my not caring which one I choose:
the three of them are equally bad for Syria. But, a ruined man, it's not my fault.
I'm only trying, poor devil, to make ends meet.
The almighty gods ought to have taken the trouble
to create a fourth, a decent man.
I would gladly have gone along with him.
Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji (1942) Indian guru
Jaya Jaya Bhuvi Divi Manava (2002)
Context: The almighty being praised in the Holy Bible, the Holy Koran, and the Holy Bhagavata is one and the same. We are all one. Flowers are many, but Puja is one. Cows are many, but milk is one. Languages are many, but feeling is one. All great men have preached the same message. These saints, noble and enlightened persons have been guiding us. They always say, "Take any religion, the fundamental essence is the same. All religions urge us to follow Dharma, to always speak the truth and not to torment others. The Almighty has given us this wonderful human birth. To whichever religion you are born, be in that religion and strive to become a better person. Become a more religious person. If you are a Christian, become a better Christian. If you are a Muslim, become a better Muslim. If you are a Hindu, become a better Hindu.
Charles Babbage Passages from the life of a philosopher
"Passages from the life of a philosopher", The Belief In The Creator From His Works, p. 402
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)
Context: In the works of the Creator ever open to our examination, we possess a firm basis on which to raise the superstructure of an enlightened creed. The more man inquires into the laws which regulate the material universe, the more he is convinced that all its varied forms arise from the action of a few simple principles. These principles themselves converge, with accelerating force, towards some still more comprehensive law to which all matter seems to be submitted. Simple as that law may possibly be, it must be remembered that it is only one amongst an infinite number of simple laws: that each of these laws has consequences at least as extensive as the existing one, and therefore that the Creator who selected the present law must have foreseen the consequences of all other laws. The works of the Creator, ever present to our senses, give a living and perpetual testimony of his power and goodness far surpassing any evidence transmitted through human testimony. The testimony of man becomes fainter at every stage of transmission, whilst each new inquiry into the works of the Almighty gives to us more exalted views of his wisdom, his goodness, and his power.
“I think God would not be the Almighty, the All-Wise, the All-Good, if he were the judge”
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing
As quoted in Florence Nightingale's Theology: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale (2002) by Lynn McDonald, pps. 177-179 (Add Mss 45783 ff65-67)
Context: Perhaps it is not true to speak of God as a judge at all, or of his judgements. There does not seem to be really any evidence that His worlds are places of trial but rather schools, place of training, or that He is a judge but rather a Teacher, a Trainer, not in the imperfect sense in which men are teachers, but in the sense of His contriving and adapting His whole universe for one purpose of training every intelligent being to be perfect. … I think God would not be the Almighty, the All-Wise, the All-Good, if he were the judge, in the sense that the evangelical and Roman Catholic Christians impute judgement to him. … Our business is, I think, to understand, not to judge. What He does, as far as we know, to rule by law down to the most infinitesimally small portion of His universe, not to judge.
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
Source: 1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 3 "Footnote on Criticism", pp. 85-104
Context: Upon the low value of "constructive" criticism I can offer testimony out of my own experience. My books have been commonly reviewed at length, and many critics have devoted themselves to pointing out what they conceive to be my errors, both of fact and of taste. Well, I cannot recall a case in which any suggestion offered by a "constructive" critic has helped me in the slightest, or even actively interested me. Every such wet-nurse of letters has sought fatuously to make me write in a way differing from that in which the Lord God Almighty, in His infinite wisdom, impels me to write — that is, to make me write stuff which, coming from me, would be as false as an appearance of decency in a Congressman. All the benefits I have ever got from the critics of my work have come from the destructive variety. A hearty slating always does me good, particularly if it be well written. It begins by enlisting my professional respect; it ends by making me examine my ideas coldly in the privacy of my chamber. Not, of course, that I usually revise them, but I at least examine them. If I decide to hold fast to them, they are all the dearer to me thereafter, and I expound them with a new passion and plausibility. If, on the contrary, I discern holes in them, I shelve them in a pianissimo manner, and set about hatching new ones to take their place. But "constructive" criticism irritates me. I do not object to being denounced, but I can't abide being schoolmastered, especially by men I regard as imbeciles.