Quotes about angel
page 9

Adelaide Anne Procter photo
George W. Bush photo

“We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with His purpose. Yet His purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another. Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today; to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life. This work continues. This story goes on. And an Angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.”

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

Bush concluded his address with these lines, paraphrasing a quotation by John Page he had used earlier within it: We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?. Page himself, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (20 July 1776), was quoting a phrase from Ecclesiastes 9:11: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to the intelligent, nor yet favour to men of knowledge; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
2000s, 2001, First inaugural address (January 2001)

Alan Bennett photo

“I have no doubt that in heaven the angels will regard the blessed as a necessary evil.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Diary entry for August 9, 1985, p. 290.
Writing Home (1994)

David Garrick photo

“Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, and talk’d like poor Poll.”

David Garrick (1717–1779) English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer

Impromptu Epitaph on Goldsmith.

Anthony Burgess photo
Terence McKenna photo
Francis Marion Crawford photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord photo

“Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.”

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) French diplomat

Noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, doux comme l'amour.
frequently misattributed to Talleyrand, no primary source exists, its not his style of speech, and he famously drank tea not coffee.
Misattributed

Norman Mailer photo

“One gets the impression that people come to Los Angeles in order to divorce themselves from the past, here to live or try to live in the rootless pleasure world of an adult child.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

Anastacia photo
Julia Ward Howe photo
Nicholas Sparks photo

“And don't worry. From wherever I am, I'll watch out for you. I'll be your guardian angel, sweetheart. You can count on me to keep you safe.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Jim Barenson, Prologue, p. xv-xvi
2000s, The Guardian (2003)

Taylor Swift photo
William Julius Mickle photo

“When nature's happiest touch could add no more,
Heaven lent an angel's beauty to her face.”

William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) British writer

Mary, Queen of Scots: an Elegy (1770)

James Bovard photo

“The Patriot Act treats every citizen like a suspected terrorist and every federal agent like a proven angel.”

James Bovard (1956) American journalist

From Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave, 2003) http://www.jimbovard.com/Epigrams%20page%20Terrorism%20&%20Tyranny.htm

Thomas Jefferson photo
Baldassarre Castiglione photo

“Then the soul, freed from vice, purged by studies of true philosophy, versed in spiritual life, and practised in matters of the intellect, devoted to the contemplation of her own substance, as if awakened from deepest sleep, opens those eyes which all possess but few use, and sees in herself a ray of that light which is the true image of the angelic beauty communicated to her, and of which she then communicates a faint shadow to the body.”

Baldassarre Castiglione (1478–1529) Italian Renaissance author (1478-1529)

Però l'anima, aliena dai vicii, purgata dai studi della vera filosofia, versata nella vita spirituale ed esercitata nelle cose dell'intelletto, rivolgendosi alla contemplazion della sua propria sustanzia, quasi da profundissimo sonno risvegliata, apre quegli occhi che tutti hanno e pochi adoprano, e vede in se stessa un raggio di quel lume che è la vera imagine della bellezza angelica a lei communicata, della quale essa poi communica al corpo una debil umbra.
Bk. 4, ch. 68; p. 300.
Souced, Il Libro del Cortegiano (1528)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“One of those gifted ones that walk the earth,
Like angels in their beauty, and the while
The air is filled with music from their wings.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(31st January 1829) Lines to the Author after Reading the Sorrows of Rosalie
The London Literary Gazette, 1829

Jack Kerouac photo
John Dryden photo

“Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He rais’d a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 167–170.

Charles Trenet photo

“The sea
For the sky
Confuses its white sheep
With pure angels
The sea
Shepherdess of the blue Infinite”

Charles Trenet (1913–2001) French singer-songwriter

"La Mer" (1943)

Rebecca Solnit photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo
Maimónides photo
James Anthony Froude photo

“But good Angel, don't I get a warning sign
Before it's my time to go?”

The Angel of Death Came to David's Room.
It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright (2009)

Anastacia photo

“Somewhere there's an angel saying stay
I need someone to tell me, I'm too hard to break
I'm not ready to go just yet.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Stay
Resurrection (2014)

Omar Khayyám photo
Michel De Montaigne photo
Russell Crowe photo
Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi photo
Bill Mollison photo
Emanuel Swedenborg photo
Phil Ochs photo

“The final story, the final chapter of Western man, I believe, lies in Los Angeles.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

Source: The Broadside Tapes 1 (made in the 1960s; published c. 1980), Liner notes

Adelaide Anne Procter photo
Lydia Maria Child photo

“Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decypher even fragments of their meaning.”

Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist

1840s, Letters from New York (1843)
Source: Letters from New York http://www.bartleby.com/66/58/12260.html, vol. 1, letter 26

Willie Nelson photo
Akbar photo
John Napier photo

“13 Proposition. Every one of the first three thundering Angels containeth a Jubelee, and then the last foure al at once compleateth the day of judgement.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

Martin Farquhar Tupper photo
Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, both of their futures so full of dread.”

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

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), Jokerman

Maxine Waters photo
Tom Hanks photo
Morrissey photo

“I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normal living.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

From the TV documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003); also quoted in "Return of the lone stranger" by Mark Simpson in Guardian Unlimited (31 May 2003)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.”

Kavanagh.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

John Galt (novelist) photo

“The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.”

John Galt (novelist) (1779–1839) British writer

Attributed to Muhammad, as quoted in The Wandering Jew (1820), p. 262 https://books.google.com/books?id=IARgAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA262&dq=The+sword+is+the+key+of+heaven+and+hell;+a+drop+of+blood+shed+in+the+cause+of+Allah,+a+night+spent+in+arms,+is+of+more+avail+than+two+months+of+fasting+or+prayer:+whosoever+falls+in+battle,+his+sins+are+forgiven&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxyNix_-bcAhUaTY8KHT2oB74Q6AEIWTAJ#v=onepage&q=The%20sword%20is%20the%20key%20of%20heaven%20and%20hell%3B%20a%20drop%20of%20blood%20shed%20in%20the%20cause%20of%20Allah%2C%20a%20night%20spent%20in%20arms%2C%20is%20of%20more%20avail%20than%20two%20months%20of%20fasting%20or%20prayer%3A%20whosoever%20falls%20in%20battle%2C%20his%20sins%20are%20forgiven&f=false

Adelaide Anne Procter photo
Karel Appel photo
Robert Fisk photo

“I do truly treasure this story. It proves my point that the Los Angeles Times -- along with the big East Coast dailies -- should all be called U. S. OFFICIALS SAY.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

March 21, 2006: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/263664_fisk21.html, March 21, 2006
2006

Thomas Campbell photo

“But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Part II, line 357
Pleasures of Hope (1799)

Thomas Parnell photo

“Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
But still be a woman to you.”

Thomas Parnell (1679–1718) Anglo-Irish cleric, writer and poet.

When thy Beauty appears.

Tori Amos photo

“An angel's face is tricky to wear constantly.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

"Purple People (Christmas in Space)".
Songs

M. C. Escher photo

“But to get back to the point: did you ever imagine that your dad, who lives so far away from the bustle and intrigue of the world, working on his prints day after day like a hermit, would some day be drawn into the sickening scene of vain officialdom, despite himself?... But what on earth can I do about it? Luckily I can swear by God and all his angels that I never moved a finger to get the decoration or licked the boots of any bigwigs.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

Quote from Escher's letter to his son, 30 April 1955; as cited in 'Gaining Popularity', in Biography of M.C. Escher http://im-possible.info/english/articles/escher/escher.html - condensed mostly from the biography written by Bruno Ernst M.C. Escher - His Life and Complete Graphic Work, © 1981
27 April 1955 Escher was decorated (in the name of the Dutch Queen) in the 'Knighthood of the Order of Oranje Nassau'
1950's

Mary Martin photo

“Mother was the disciplinarian, but it was Daddy who could turn me into an angel with just one look.”

Mary Martin (1913–1990) American actress

Source: My Heart Belongs (1976), p. 19

Felix Frankfurter photo
Ronald Firbank photo

“There was a pause – just long enough for an angel to pass, flying slowly.”

Ronald Firbank (1886–1926) British novelist

Vainglory (1915), cited from The Complete Ronald Firbank (London: Duckworth, 1961) p. 117.

William Blake photo

“The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils' party without knowing it.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Note to The Voice of the Devil
1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793)

Victor Villaseñor photo
Bruce Springsteen photo

“Ain't no angel gonna greet me.
It's just you and I my friend.
My clothes don't fit me no more.
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip this skin.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Streets of Philadelphia"
Song lyrics, Singles

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“Men in general are neither very good nor very bad, but mediocre… Man with his vices, his weaknesses, his virtues, this confused medley of good and ill, high and low, goodness and depravity, is yet, take him all in all, the object on earth most worthy of study, of interest, of pity, of attachment and of admiration. And since we haven't got angels, we can attach ourselves to nothing greater and more worthy of our devotion than our own kind.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Letter to Eugene Stoffels (Jan. 3, 1845) as quoted by Thomas Molnar, The Decline of the Intellectual (1961) Ch. 11 "Intellectual and Philosopher"
Original text:
Les hommes ne sont en général ni très-bons, ni très-mauvais : ils sont médiocres. [...] L'homme avec ses vices, ses faiblesses, ses vertus, ce mélange confus de bien et de mal, de bas et de haut, d'honnête et de dépravé, est encore, à tout prendre, l'objet le plus digne d'examen, d'intérêt, de pitié, d'attachement et d'admiration qui se trouve sur la terre; et puisque les anges nous manquent, nous ne saurions nous attacher à rien qui soit plus grand et plus digne de notre dévouement que nos semblables.
1840s

George Moore (novelist) photo

“The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it… you and you alone make me feel that I am alive… Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.”

George Moore (novelist) (1852–1933) Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist

Letter to Lady Emerald Cunard, quoted in The Everything Wedding Vows Book : Anything and Everything You Could Possibly Say at the Altar, and then Some. (2001) by Janet Anastasio and Michelle Bevilacqua, p. 97.

Yehuda Ashlag photo
Howard F. Lyman photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Such as the lute, touch'd by no hand
Save by an angel's, wakes and weeps,
Such is the sound that now to land
From the charmed water sweeps.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Haunted Lake
The Golden Violet (1827)

Henry David Thoreau photo
Charlie Beck photo

“Beck is finishing Bratton’s legacy of transforming the department. It’s Beck who will bring it over the line and say, yes, LAPD is a new police force with a new culture, a new outlook, a new way of treating the public — especially the minority public — and we will never go back to the days of Rodney King because we have changed the culture of the Los Angeles Police Department.”

Charlie Beck (1953) Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department

Civil rights lawyer Connie Rice — quoted in: December 5, 2014, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck earns good reviews; tough challenges lie ahead, Los Angeles Daily News, August 9, 2014, Brenda Gazzar http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20140809/lapd-chief-charlie-beck-earns-good-reviews-tough-challenges-lie-ahead,
About

Oliver Cowdery photo

“BE IT KNOWN unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. OLIVER COWDERY DAVID WHITMER MARTIN HARRIS”

Oliver Cowdery (1806–1850) American Mormon leader

Book of Mormon, 1830 Edition, p. 585 (1830).

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Kent Hovind photo

“"Why not just kill all the bad people? Isn't that kind of cruel to destroy the whole world? After all, the penguins didn't sin." Well, we know that God destroyed the whole world. I think there are some things to consider about this flood. Number one, the Flood left evidence where a miracle would not. If God had just said, "Okay, I want everybody to die, except for Noah and his family", then what evidence would be left behind from that? The effects are here today for us to see and remember the judgment of God on sin. Plus, by God telling Noah to build the boat, that gave everybody warning time. Here is Noah out there for many years, some people say seven years, some people say a hundred and twenty years. The Bible doesn't say, but Noah is building this ark for a long time. People are watching him put this big boat together and said, "Noah, are you crazy? What are you doing?" He says, "Man, it's going to rain." Now keep in mind, I don't think you can prove this dogmatically, but it probably never rained before the Flood came. So Noah was preaching about something that had never happened. He said, "Hey guys, guess what. Rain is going to fall out of the sky." Everybody is looking around saying, "Yeah right, that's never happened." They thought that he was nuts. Hey, we're doing the same thing today as Christians. We're going around saying, "Hey, one of these days and angel is going to come down with the Lord and they're going to come through the clouds and blow a trumpet and the Southern Baptists rise first, (you know the dead in Christ go first) and then the rest of us are going to take off for heaven." And everybody is looking at us and saying, "Yeah right. Nobody has ever heard a trumpet blown from a cloud and seen people take off for the clouds. That's just never happened." We are preaching that something is going to happen that has never happened in the history of humanity. That's what Noah was doing. He was preaching something that was going to happen and what he was preaching about had never happened. So while he was preaching, this gave people a chance to repent.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

Orson Pratt photo
Gloria Allred photo

“Gloria Allred is a feminist lawyer and partner in the Los Angeles Law Firm of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg. She is well known for representing victims in women’s rights, sexual harassment, and Title IX cases.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

December 6, 2014, Gloria Allred, May 15, 2014, Time magazine, Time staff http://time.com/100055/campus-sexual-assault-gloria-allred/,
About

Leslie Stephen photo
Samuel Johnson photo
Jerome David Salinger photo
Mr. T photo

“Death is an angel with two faces:
To us he turns
A face of terror, blighting all things fair;
The other burns
With glory of the stars, and love is there.”

Theodore Chickering Williams (1855–1915) American hymnwriter

A Thanatopsis, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Anton Chekhov photo

“We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Act IV
Uncle Vanya (1897)

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

B 44
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771)

Orson Pratt photo

“But by and by the time came when the Christian Church apostatized and turned away, and began to follow after their own wisdom, and the Prophets and Apostles ceased, so far as the affairs of the Christian Church on the earth were concerned. Revelations, and visions, and the various gifts of the spirit were also taken away, according to their unbelief and apostacy; but in the latter days God intends to again raise up a Christian Church upon the earth. Do not be startled, you who think that God will no more have a Church on the earth, for he has promised that he would again have one, and that he would set up his kingdom, and when he does you may look out for a great many Prophets and inspired men; and if you ever see a Church arise, calling itself a Christian Church, and it has not inspired Apostles like those in ancient times, you may know that it is a spurious church, and that it makes pretensions to something that it does not enjoy. If you ever find a church called a Christian Church that has no men to foretell future events, you may know, at once, that it is not a Christian Church. If you find a Christian Church that has not the ancient gifts, for instance the gift of healing, opening the eyes of the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, causing the tongue of the dumb to speak and the lame to walk; if you ever find a people calling themselves a Christian Church and they have not these gifts among them, you may know with a perfect knowledge that they do not agree with the pattern given in the New Testament. The Christian Church is always characterized with inspired men, whose revelations are just as sacred as any contained in the Bible; and, if written and published, just as binding upon the human family. The Christian Church will always lay hands upon the sick in the name of Jesus, in order that the sick may be healed. The Christian Church will always have those among its members who have heavenly visions, the ministration of angels, and the various gifts that are promised according to the Gospel.”

Orson Pratt (1811–1881) Apostle of the LDS Church

Journal of Discourses 18:171-172 (March 26, 1876).
Apostacy

Aron Ra photo

“Demanding an “ape-man” is actually just as silly as asking to see a mammal-man, or a half-human, half-vertebrate. How about a half dachshund, half dog? It’s the same thing. One may as well insist on seeing a town half way between Los Angeles and California. Because the problem with bridging the gap between humans and apes is that there is no gap because humans are apes –definitely and definitively. The word, “ape” doesn’t refer to a species, but to a parent category of collective species, and we’re included. This is no arbitrary classification like the creationists use. It was first determined via meticulous physical analysis by Christian scientists a century before Darwin, and has been confirmed in recent years with new revelations in genetics. Furthermore, it is impossible to define all the characters exclusively indicative of every known member of the family of apes without describing our own genera as one among them. Consequently, we can and have proven that humans are apes in exactly the same way that lions are cats, and iguanas are lizards, and whales are mammals. So where is the proof that humans descend from apes? How about the fact that we’re still apes right now!”

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

"9th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU, Youtube (May 8, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Andrew Solomon photo
Kurt Russell photo
Hermann Weyl photo

“In these days the angel of topology and the devil of abstract algebra fight for the soul of each individual mathematical domain.”

Weyl, Hermann. Invariants. Duke Math. J. 5 (1939), no. 3, 489--502. doi:10.1215/S0012-7094-39-00540-5. http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.dmj/1077491405.

John Fante photo
George Herbert photo

“Sundays observe; think when the bells do chime,
'T is angels' music.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

The Temple (1633), The Church Porch

Alexander Pope photo

“Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away!”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

The Dying Christian to His Soul (1712)

Jane Roberts photo

“In spiritualistic terms, Ruburt would be [Jane's] the guardian angel, you see.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Session 444, Page 124
The Early Sessions: Sessions 1-42, 1997, The Early Sessions: Book 9

Tom Morello photo
Anna Akhmatova photo

“Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race.”

Henry Vaughan (1621–1695) Welsh author, physician and metaphysical poet

"The Retreat," l. 1.
Silex Scintillans (1655)

Denise Levertov photo