Quotes about creator (690 quotes, page 7)

“We have no designs to elbow anyone out of South Africa, but equally we have no intention whatsoever of abandoning our divine right, of ourselves determining our destiny according to the holy and perfect plan of our Creator. Apartheid can never be such a plan”

Albert Lutuli (1898–1967) South African politician

As quoted in Voices of Liberation: Albert Lutuli (1993).
Resist apartheid! (1954)
Context: The laws and policies of white South Africa are no doubt inimical to this development. And so I call upon our people in all walks of life ministers of the Gospel of Christ, who died to save human dignity, teachers, professional men, business men; farmers and workers to rally round the congress at this hour to make our voice heard. We may be voteless, but we are not necessarily voiceless; it is our determination more than ever before in the life of our congress, to have our voice not only heard but heeded too. Through gatherings like this in all centres, large and small, we mean to mobilize our people to speak with this one voice and say to white South Africa: We have no designs to elbow anyone out of South Africa, but equally we have no intention whatsoever of abandoning our divine right, of ourselves determining our destiny according to the holy and perfect plan of our Creator. Apartheid can never be such a plan.

Perfection

“Reason is a particle of the Creator's divinity. When we use it with a spirit of humility and justice we are certain to please the Giver of that precious gift.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)
Context: Man is free, but his freedom ceases when he has no faith in it; and the greater power he ascribes to faith, the more he deprives himself of that power which God has given to him when He endowed him with the gift of reason. Reason is a particle of the Creator's divinity. When we use it with a spirit of humility and justice we are certain to please the Giver of that precious gift.

Justice

“This is…how artists should be—we should be creators and also teach the public how to be creators, how to make art, so that we may all use that art together.”

Augusto Boal (1931–2009) Brazilian writer

Games for Actors and non-Actors (1992)
Context: Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a dance piece where the dancers danced in the first act and in the second showed the audience how to dance? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a musical where in the first act the actors sang and in the second we all sang together?... This is... how artists should be—we should be creators and also teach the public how to be creators, how to make art, so that we may all use that art together.

Art

“He is the Grand Master, A.E. can Vogt, weaver of a thousand ideas per plot-line, creator of alien thoughts and impossible dreams that rival the best ever built by our kind.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

In recognition of van Vogt receiving the Grand Master designation in 1996, in The Nebula Awards Vol. 31, as quoted in SF Authors Remember A.E. van Vogt (2000) http://www.sfrevu.com/ISSUES/2000/ARTICLES/20000128-03.htm#SF%20Authors%20Remeber%20A.E.%20van%20Vogt
Context: Even the brightest star shines dimly when observed-from too far away. And human memory is notoriously unreliable. And we live in ugly times when all respect for that which has gone before suffers crib death beneath the weight of youthful arrogance and ignorance. But a great nobility has at last, been recognized and lauded. Someone less charitable than I might suggest the honor could have been better appreciated had it not been so tardy, naming its race with a foe that blots joy and destroys short-term memory. But I sing the Talent Electric, and like aft the dark smudges of history, everything but the honor and die achievement remains for the myth-makers.
Alfred E. van Vogt has been awarded the Grand Master trophy of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is not the to first person to receive this singular accolade…given only to those whose right to possess it is beyond argument or mitigation.
Were we in 1946 or even 1956, van Vogt would have already been able to hold the award aloft. Had SFWA existed then and had the greatest living sf authors been polled as to who was the most fecund, the most intriguing, the mast innovative the most influential of their number, Isaac and Arthur and Cyril and Hank Kuttner and Ron Hubbard would all have pointed to the same man, and Bob Heinlein would've given him a thumbs-up. Van Vogt was the pinnacle, the source of power and ideas; the writer to beat. Because he embodied in his astonishing novels and assorted stories what we always say is of prime importance to us in this genre-the much vaunted Sense of Wonder.
Van Vogt was the wellspring of wonder. … That's how important he was. … And then came the dark years during which the man was shamefully agented and overlooked; and even the brightest star loses its piercing light if observed through the thickening mists of time and flawed memory.
Now it is lifetimes later, and the great award has, at last, been presented. To some, less charitable than I, something could be said about a day late and a dollar short, but not I. I am here to sing the Talent Electric, and it is better now than never. He is the Grand Master, A. E. can Vogt, weaver of a thousand ideas per plot-line, creator of alien thoughts and impossible dreams that rival the best ever built by our kind.
This dear, gentlemanly writer whose stories can still kill you with a concept or warm you with a character, now joins the special pantheon.

Dreams , Idea

“In the divine talent of the Creator the word got born and we, by studying this creation attain clear messages of Divine Conscience, Divine Truth, Divine Beauty and Divine knowledge.”

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet

कला र जीवन (Art and Life)
Art and Life
Context: In the divine talent of the Creator the word got born and we, by studying this creation attain clear messages of Divine Conscience, Divine Truth, Divine Beauty and Divine knowledge. In the creative imagination of the God, completeness works and provides beautiful lines colors forms to the Truth of God. We realize the 'beautiful' through the sensing of Truth and where there is no Truth there isn't beauty. Keats has said that, 'Truth is beauty and beauty is Truth". This Self-Displaying form of God becomes such known in Artistic creativity that truth becoming beautiful descends to the outer forms of the senses.

Truth , Beauty , Knowledge , Study

“A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here. Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between anarchy and control.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)
Context: A free culture has been our past, but it will only be our future if we change the path we are on right now. Like Stallman's arguments for free software, an argument for free culture stumbles on a confusion that is hard to avoid, and even harder to understand. A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid. A culture without property, or in which creators can't get paid, is anarchy, not freedom. Anarchy is not what I advance here. Instead, the free culture that I defend in this book is a balance between anarchy and control. A free culture, like a free market, is filled with property. It is filled with rules of property and contract that get enforced by the state. But just as a free market is perverted if its property becomes feudal, so too can a free culture be queered by extremism in the property rights that define it. That is what I fear about our culture today. It is against that extremism that this book is written.

Books , Freedom

“The influence of Meister Eckhart is stronger today than it has been in hundreds of years. Eckhart met the problems of contingency and omnipotence, creator-and-creature-from-nothing by making God the only reality and the presence or imprint of God upon nothing, the source of reality in the creature.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

"Eckhart, Brethren of the Free Spirit," from Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century (1974), ch. 4
Context: The influence of Meister Eckhart is stronger today than it has been in hundreds of years. Eckhart met the problems of contingency and omnipotence, creator-and-creature-from-nothing by making God the only reality and the presence or imprint of God upon nothing, the source of reality in the creature. Reality in other words was a hierarchically structured participation of the creature in the creator. From the point of view of the creature this process could be reversed. If creatureliness is real, God becomes the Divine Nothing. God is not, as in scholasticism, the final subject of all predicates. He is being as unpredicable. The existence of the creature, in so far as it exists, is the existence of God, and the creature’s experience of God is therefore in the final analysis equally unpredicable. Neither can even be described; both can only be indicated. We can only point at reality, our own or God’s. The soul comes to the realization of God by knowledge, not as in the older Christian mysticism by love. Love is the garment of knowledge. The soul first trains itself by systematic unknowing until at last it confronts the only reality, the only knowledge, God manifest in itself. The soul can say nothing about this experience in the sense of defining it. It can only reveal it to others.

God , Problem , Reality

“Now for the other union. The first one sees God as infinitely lovable and beautiful; its aim is the contemplation of his attributes and perfections. The second union sees him as the creator, conserver, governor, redeemer, glorifier and vivifier of the whole world.”

Francisco Palau (1811–1872) Beatified Spanish Discalced Carmelite friar and priest

Letter to Juana Gratia (1857)
Context: Now for the other union. The first one sees God as infinitely lovable and beautiful; its aim is the contemplation of his attributes and perfections. The second union sees him as the creator, conserver, governor, redeemer, glorifier and vivifier of the whole world.
At certain moments, the spirit of the Lord will move and lead you towards this second union and you have to cooperate. He will be presented to you as the Lord, king and governor of the world, the Lord God of hosts, and wil take you to objects resembling this presence. Since the first union is not strengthened or prefected or completed except in the second, you need to start by this.

God , World , Beauty , Perfection

“A child is tied to our heart-strings, as the spheres are linked to their creator; we cannot think of God except as a mother's heart writ large.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Part I, ch. XXXI.
Letters of Two Brides (1841-1842)
Context: A child is tied to our heart-strings, as the spheres are linked to their creator; we cannot think of God except as a mother's heart writ large. It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.

God , Thinking , Heart

“It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)
Context: The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor.... It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain. Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed. It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

God , Hell , Revenge

“There's a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there's another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Essay as "Mr. X" (1969)
Context: There's a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there's another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part. I smile, or sometimes even laugh out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses. Possibly this is because I know it's my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to.

Life , Pleasure , Parting

“Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer. … Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow or beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue.”

Plotinus (203–270) Neoplatonist philosopher

First Ennead, Sixth Tractate, Section 9
The First Ennead (c. 250)

Beauty , Light

“These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer.”

Daniel J. Boorstin book The Creators

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (1992) (Vintage edition, 1993, ), Preface, p. XV.
Context: These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story — a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination.

Art

“We affirm it and we shall proclaim it from the mountaintops, that all people – be they black or white, be they brown or yellow, be they rich or poor, be they wise or fools, are created in the image of the Creator and are his children!”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Also quoted in Nelson Mandela: from freedom to the future: tributes and speeches (2003), edited by ‎Kader Asmal & ‎David Chidester. Jonathan Ball, p. 332
1990s, Speech at the Zionist Christian Church Easter Conference (1992)
Context: Yes! We affirm it and we shall proclaim it from the mountaintops, that all people – be they black or white, be they brown or yellow, be they rich or poor, be they wise or fools, are created in the image of the Creator and are his children! Those who dare to cast out from the human family people of a darker hue with their racism! Those who exclude from the sight of God's grace, people who profess another faith with their religious intolerance! Those who wish to keep their fellow countrymen away from God's bounty with forced removals! Those who have driven away from the altar of God people whom He has chosen to make different, commit an ugly sin! The sin called Apartheid.

Children , People , Fools

“None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)
Context: We had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact and thus helped to perpetuate it. In other words, we are all — though naturally to differing extents — responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators.

“Almost all thinking men who have studied the laws which govern the animate and the inanimate world around us, agree that the belief in the existence of one Supreme Creator, possessed of infinite wisdom and power, is open to far less difficulties than the supposition of the absence of any cause, or of the existence of a plurality of causes.”

Charles Babbage (1791–1871) mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable c…

" Passages from the life of a philosopher https://archive.org/stream/passagesfromlif01babbgoog#page/n10/mode/2up", The Belief In The Creator From His Works, p. 400-401
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)
Context: There remains a third source from which we arrive at the knowledge of the existence of a supreme Creator, namely, from an examination of his works. Unlike transmitted testimony, which is weakened at every stage, this evidence derives confirmation from the progress of the individual as well as from the advancement of the knowledge of the race.
Almost all thinking men who have studied the laws which govern the animate and the inanimate world around us, agree that the belief in the existence of one Supreme Creator, possessed of infinite wisdom and power, is open to far less difficulties than the supposition of the absence of any cause, or of the existence of a plurality of causes.

Wisdom , Men , World , Law

“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.”

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.

Law , Universe

“I believe these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do you believe it? If aye, let us go into the battle, and God speed the right”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)
Context: Such is the present aspect of the slavery question. For myself, I believe that the faith in which the government was founded still survives. I believe that the spirit of despotism which now says to the country, 'I will rule or ruin', will hear the imperial voice of the conscience of the American people, recognizing that justice and prosperity walk hand in hand, saying, 'You will do neither'. I believe that God did not hide this continent through all time as the spot whereon a nation should be planted upon the only principle that can render a nation as permanent as the race, to suffer the experiment to fail within a century. I believe these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do you believe it? If aye, let us go into the battle, and God speed the right.

Life , Men , God , Truth

“It is God Who acts, and God Who reacts. It is He Who scoffs, and He Who responds. He is the Creator, the Producer, the Actor and the Audience in His own Divine Play.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

"How to Love God" (12 September 1954).
General sources
Context: When I say I am the Avatar, there are a few who feel happy, some who feel shocked, and many who hearing me claim this, would take me for a hypocrite, a fraud, a supreme egoist, or just mad. If I were to say every one of you is an Avatar, a few would be tickled, and many would consider it a blasphemy or a joke. The fact that God being One, Indivisible and equally in us all, we can be nought else but one, is too much for the duality-conscious mind to accept. Yet each of us is what the other is. I know I am the Avatar in every sense of the word, and that each one of you is an Avatar in one sense or the other.
It is an unalterable and universally recognized fact since time immemorial that God knows everything, God does everything, and that nothing happens but by the Will of God. Therefore it is God who makes me say I am the Avatar, and that each one of you is an Avatar. Again, it is He Who is tickled through some, and through others is shocked. It is God Who acts, and God Who reacts. It is He Who scoffs, and He Who responds. He is the Creator, the Producer, the Actor and the Audience in His own Divine Play.

God

“Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I thought you were sent by the Creator, I might be induced to think you had a right to dispose of me.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Speech rejecting the demands that he lead his people onto a reservation. (1876)
Context: Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I thought you were sent by the Creator, I might be induced to think you had a right to dispose of me. Do not misunderstand me, but understand fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who has created it. I claim a right to live on my land and accord you the privilege to return to yours.

Thinking

“The omnipotence of the Creator, and the exertion of it in every corner of space, — His care over the falling sparrow, and His guidance of the gigantic planet, are the earliest of our acquired truths, and the very first that observation and experience confirm. When Reason gives wisdom to our perceptions, omnipotence is the grand truth which they inculcate. Whatever the eye sees, or the ear hears, or the fingers touch, — every motion of our body, every function it performs, every structure in its fabric, impresses on the mind, and fixes in the heart the conviction, that the Creator is all-powerful as well as all-wise.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

More Worlds Than One: The Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian (1856), "Religious Difficulties", p. 152-153
Context: Amid the destructive convulsions of the physical world, even pious minds may have for an instant questioned the superintending providence of God. In the midst of famine, or pestilence, or war, they may have stood horror- struck at the scene. In the triumphs of fraud, oppression, and injustice, over honesty, and liberty, and law. Faith may have wavered, and Hope despaired; but in no condition, either of the physical or the moral world, does the mind question the POWER of its Maker. The omnipotence of the Creator, and the exertion of it in every corner of space, — His care over the falling sparrow, and His guidance of the gigantic planet, are the earliest of our acquired truths, and the very first that observation and experience confirm. When Reason gives wisdom to our perceptions, omnipotence is the grand truth which they inculcate. Whatever the eye sees, or the ear hears, or the fingers touch, — every motion of our body, every function it performs, every structure in its fabric, impresses on the mind, and fixes in the heart the conviction, that the Creator is all-powerful as well as all-wise. Omnipotence, in short, is the only attribute of God which is universally appreciated, which skepticism never unsettles, and which we believe as firmly when under the influence of our corrupt passions, as when we are looking devoutly to heaven. All the other attributes of God are inferences. His omnipresence, His omniscience, His justice, mercy, and truth, are the deductions of reason, and, however true and demonstrable, they exercise little influence over the mind; but the attribute of omnipotence predominates over them all, and no mind responsive to its power will ever be disturbed by the ideas which it suggests of infinity of time, infinity of space, and infinity of life.

Wisdom , Truth , Heart

“Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry.”

John Paul Stevens (1920–2019) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (Majority opinion, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Fear , Art , Motivation , Idea

“That so long as we, or any other, doth own the Earth to be the peculier Interest of Lords and Landlords, and not common to others as well as them, we own the Curse, and holds the Creation under bondage; and so long as we or any other doth own Landlords and Tennants, for one to call the Land his, or another to hire it of him, or for one to give hire, and for another to work for hire; this is to dishonour the work of Creation; as if the righteous Creator should have respect to persons, and therefore made the Earth for some, and not for all: And so long as we, or any other maintain this Civil Propriety, we consent still to hold the Creation down under that bondage it groans under, and so we should hinder the work of Restoration, and sin against Light that is given into us, and so through fear of the flesh man, lose our peace. And that this Civil Propriety is the Curse, is manifest thus, Those that Buy and Sell Land, and are landlords, have got it either by Oppression, or Murther, or Theft; and all landlords lives in the breach of the Seventh and Eighth Commandements, Thous shalt not steal, nor kill.”

Gerrard Winstanley (1609–1676) English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist

The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649)

Light , Personality , Peace , Fear

“In the beginning of Time, the great Creator Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Man, the lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds, and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, That one branch of mankind should rule over another.”

Gerrard Winstanley (1609–1676) English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist

The True Levellers Standard Advanced (1649)

Fish , Bird , Time

“A great man is the unbelieving man; he is without spiritual sight or spiritual hearing; his glory is in understanding his own understanding. It is he who subdues the forest, tames the beasts of the field to service. He goes alone in the dark, unafraid. He follows no man’s course, but, searches for himself; the priests cannot make him believe, nor the angels of heaven; none can subdue his judgment. He says: why permit others even priests, to think for you? Stand on your own feet – be a man. Through his arm are tyrants and evil kings overthrown. Through him are doctrines and religions sifted to the bottom and the falsehood and evil in them cast aside. Who but the Creator could have created so great a man as the unbeliever?”

Kenneth Arnold (1915–1984) American aviator and businessman

Paraphrasing a section from Oahspe: A New Bible by John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891), p. 361, which he handed out as his " philosophy card http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2017/03/ufos-kenneth-arnold-and-american-bible.html".

Religion , Understanding , Search , Angels

“The first (trapping) thing which occurs to a mystic is that he gains the power of unveiling and miracles. He becomes haughty and self conceited upon this power due to his Nafs. He gets temporary happiness but remains away from the Closeness and Union of Allah. Though it is a virtuous act according to the creature but for The Creator it is a great veil.”

Sultan Bahu (1630–1691) Punjabi poet

Kashf ul Asrar: translated by Ambreen Moghees Sarwari Qadri.
Kashf ul Asrār

Self-confidence , Happiness

“Alas, is it your fault, or that of the Creator? Why were you made the angel with the infallible gaze, by whose aid I should make the universe submit? Why is it that you are the one to read a soul through its bodily envelope as one may read a book through a glass! Because you are an angel of purity, Lorenza, and nothing throws a shadow upon your soul. In your radiant and immaculate bosom the divine spark may be enshrined, a place without sullying where it may fitly nestle. You are a seer because you are blameless, Lorenza.”

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795) Italian occultist

Balsamo the Magician (or The Memoirs of a Physician) by Alex. Dumas (1891)

Soul , Reading , Universe , Angels

“Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the document that articulated the principle of human rights endowed by the Creator, thereby ultimately ensuring the end of slavery, and led to the establishment of the country that has served as the beacon of hope for people of every race and ethnicity.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

2010s, Why the Left Hates America (2015)

People , Hope , Country

“The oneness of God’s Creativity is to affirm and recognise that God is the sole creator, master and owner of everything that exists. God is the One who sustains, takes care of, and nourishes everything. According to the Islamic doctrine of tawheed, anyone who denies this has associated partners with God, which is polytheism (known as shirk in Islamic theology). Anyone who believes that these descriptions of God can be shared by any created thing has deified that thing. Therefore, they have associated partners with God.”

Hamza Tzortzis (1980) public speaker

"7 REASONS WHY GOD IS WORTHY OF WORSHIP" https://www.hamzatzortzis.com/7-reasons-why-god-is-worthy-of-worship/, Hamzatzortzis.com

God

“The Key! it is of wonderful construction, with its infinity of combination, and its unlimited capacity to fit every lock. … it is the great master-key which unlocks every door of knowledge and without which no discovery which deserves the name — which is law, and not isolated fact — has been or ever can be made. Fascinated by its symmetry the geometer may at times have been too exclusively engrossed with his science, forgetful of its applications; he may have exalted it into his idol and worshipped it; he may have degraded it into his toy... when he should have been hard at work with it, using it for the benefit of mankind and the glory of his Creator.”

Benjamin Peirce (1809–1880) American mathematician

Ben Yamen's Song of Geometry (1853)

Time , Law , Forgetting , Knowledge

“A great man is the unbelieving man; he is without spiritual sight or spiritual hearing; his glory is in understanding his own understanding. It is he who subdues the forest, tames the beasts of the field to service. He goes alone in the dark, unafraid. He follows no man’s course, but, searches for himself; the priests cannot make him believe, nor the angels of heaven; none can subdue his judgment. He says: why permit others even priests, to you think for you? Stand on your own feet – be a man. Through his arm are tyrants and evil kings overthrown. Through him are doctrines and religions sifted to the bottom and the falsehood and evil in them cast aside. Who but the Creator could have created so great a man as the unbeliever?”

Kenneth Arnold (1915–1984) American aviator and businessman

Kenneth Arnold's paraphrasing of a section from Oahspe: A New Bible by John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891), p. 361, which he handed out as his " philosophy card http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2017/03/ufos-kenneth-arnold-and-american-bible.html".

Religion , Understanding , Search , Angels

“Unlike other comic book creators who were given either stateside or way-behind-lines assignments, and perhaps because Kirby understood Yiddish, the Jewish German dialect spoken by his family, he was sent as a scout behind enemy lines to draw maps. He endured and survived many harrowing violent experiences during his service, almost losing his feet to trench foot. He had no time for fascists or racists.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

Randolph Hoppe, as qtd in Arturo Garcia, "Would Captain America’s Co-Creator Punch Nazis?" https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/01/24/captain-americas-co-creator-punch-nazis/, Snopes, (24 January 2017).
About

Family , Drawing , Time , Scouting

“To become great, whether an artist, a musician, a writer, a philosopher or creator or scientist, even as one great in sport, the secret lies, assuming there is some native ability in the first place, in one factor above all others – emotion.”

Percy Cerutty (1895–1975) Australian athletics coach

On Greatness; as quoted in "Unrequited obsession" https://www.smh.com.au/national/unrequited-obsession-20081011-gdsydo.html by Chris Jefferis, The Sydney Morning Herald (11 October 2008).

Sport , Secret

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776)

People , Truth , Self-confidence , Life

“I generally try to avoid funerals: they make me angry. I know the purpose of a funeral is to provide comfort and a sense of closure for the bereaved; and I agree, in principle, that this is generally a good thing. But the default package usually comes with a priest, and when they start driveling on about how Uncle Fred (who died aged sixty-two of a hideous brain tumor) is safe in the ever-loving arms of Jesus, the effect it has on me is not to make me love my creator: it’s to wish I could punch him in the face repeatedly.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Fuller Memorandum (2010), Chapter 8, “Club Zero” (pp. 133-134)

Sense , Love , Making love , Age

“I had come to believe that there is no God; if there is, men do not know anything about him. Therefore, all religions were phony - which made all preachers and priests, in our eyes, fakers, including the ones scurrying around the prison who, curiously, could put in a good word for you with the Almighty Creator of the universe but could not get anything down with the warden or parole board - they could usher you through the Pearly Gates after you were dead, but not through the prison gate while you were still alive and kicking.”

Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998) American activist

"On Becoming"
1960s, Soul on Ice (1968)

God , Religion , Dead , Universe

“Our hearts are not able to feel something incorrectly. Why? Because we are creators.”

Jakub Tencl (1978) Czech clinical hypnotherapist and writer

Source: The mystery of life : you are the light, and that's indestructible truth, Tencl, Jakub,, 9781512399882, [United Kingdom? https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/914353319,, 914353319]

Feeling , Heart

“Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)

Light , Nature

“The Vedas see the ultimate Truth behind all ephemeral truths. The Creation leads us to the Creator, to the highest knowledge, which is integrated into one. The Vedas still represent eternal truth in the purest form ever written. And they are what drew me to India in the first place, what kept me there, and what draws me back still. India is the only country that feels like home to me, the only country whose airport tarmac I have ever kissed upon landing.”

Paul William Roberts (1950–2019) Canadian writer

Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys in India, Paul William Roberts. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

Home , Drawing , Country , Kiss

“We attest that He is the Willer of all things that are, the ruler of all originated phenomena; there does not come into the visible or invisible world anything meager or plenteous, small or great, good or evil, or any advantage or disadvantage, belief or unbelief, knowledge or ignorance, success or failure, increase or decrease, obedience or disobedience, except by His will. What He wills is, and what He does not, will not; there is not a glance of the eye, nor a stray thought of the heart that is not subject to His will. He is the Creator, the Restorer, the Doer of whatsoever He wills. There is none that rescinds His command, none that supplements His decrees, none that dissuades a servant from disobeying Him, except by His help and mercy, and none has power to obey Him except by His will.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

(2005) Ihyaa ‘Ulum al-Deen. Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm, p. 107.

Success , Help , Heart , Knowledge

“For moral reasons I am an atheist — for moral reasons. I am of the opinion that you would recognize a creator by his creation, and the world appears to me to be put together in such a painful way that I prefer to believe that it was not created by anyone than to think that somebody created this intentionally.”

Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction author

From Peter Engel, "An Interview With Stanislaw Lem": The Missouri Review, Volume VII, Number 2 (1984) http://www.missourireview.org/index.php?genre=Interviews&title=An+Interview+with+Stanislaw+Lem

Pain , Thinking , Way , Appearance

“Modern Hypnotism owes it name and its appearance in the realm of science to the investigations made by Braid…He is its true creator; he made it what it is; and above all, he gave emphasis to the experimental truth by means of which he proved that, when hypnotic phenomena are called into play, they are wholly independent of any supposed influence of the hypnotist upon the hypnotised, and that the hypnotised person simply reacts upon himself by reason of latent capacities in him which are artificially developed…Braid demonstrated that … hypnotism, acting upon a human subject as upon a fallow field, merely set in motion a string of silent faculties which only needed its assistance to reach their development.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

Jules Bernard Luys, in Pamphlets on hypnotism (1892) http://books.google.co.in/books?ei=-2xvU7rZLIXc8AW9i4CwAQ, pp.898-99.

Truth , Science , Appearance , Personality

“The whole Torah is the names of the Creator.”

Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist

All the stories and the laws and the sentences, all are His Holy Names.
Assorted Themes, On Torah

“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit — the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge. From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens.”

John Muir book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals. … This star, our own good earth, made many a successful journey around the heavens ere man was made, and whole kingdoms of creatures enjoyed existence and returned to dust ere man appeared to claim them. After human beings have also played their part in Creation's plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever.
Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk To the Gulf, 1916, chapter 6: Cedar Keys, pages 160-161

Pain , Universe , Knowledge , Making love

“When I was young, it was not thought proper for young ladies to study very conspicuously; and especially with pen in hand. Young ladies (at least in provincial towns) were expected to sit down in the parlour to sew,—during which reading aloud was permitted,—or to practice their music; but so as to be fit to receive callers, without any signs of blue‐stockingism which could be reported abroad. Jane Austen herself, the Queen of novelists, the immortal creator of Anne Elliott, Mr. Knightly, and a score or two more of unrivalled intimate friends of the whole public, was compelled by the feelings of her family to cover up her manuscripts with a large piece of muslin work, kept on the table for the purpose, whenever any genteel people came in. So it was with other young ladies, for some time after Jane Austen was in her grave; and thus my first studies in philosophy were carried on with great care and reserve.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, vol. 1 [1855]

Family , Study , Time , Reading

“Art is an act of the soul, not of the intellect. When we are dealing with people's dreams — their visions, really — we are in the realm of the sacred. We are involved with forces and energies larger than our own. We invoke the Great Creator when we invoke our own creativity, and that creative force has the power to alter lives, fulfill destinies, and answer our dreams.”

Julia Cameron (1948) American writer

Inspirations : Meditations from The Artist's Way (2001), "Invocation"

Soul , Dreams , People , Art

“How can the idea of a creator be reconciled with the existence of dwarfed and atrophied organs, with anomalies and monstrosities, with the existence of pain, perpetual and universal, with the struggle and the inequalities among human beings?”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

1900s, God Does Not Exist (1904)

Universe , Idea , Pain

“Perhaps you think the Creator sent you here to dispose of us as you see fit. If I thought you were sent by the Creator, I might be induced to think you had a right to dispose of me. Do not misunderstand me, but understand fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The one who has a right to dispose of it is the one who has created it. I claim a right to live on my land and accord you the privilege to return to yours.”

Chief Joseph (1840–1904) Nez Percé Chieftain

Speech rejecting the demands that he lead his people onto a reservation. (1876)

Thinking , Understanding

“When I was a kid I wanted to become a manga creator, but over time I realized video games are special due to how the player has direct control of the action. So, that became very appealing.”

Kenichiro Takaki (1976) Japanese video game producer

"Interview: Senran Kagura Producer Kenichiro Takaki Talks Sexuality, Violence in Games, and Peach Beach Splash" https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2017/07/13/senran-kagura-interview-peach-beach-splash-kenichiro-takaki/, PlayStationLifeStyle.net (13 July 2017).

Game , Time

“The merciful creator created all human beings from the essence of love. Let's all love each other.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Twitter 6 Mar 2017
2017

Love , Making love

“And that's where it stops, or you think this creator cares about you too?”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Hannity's America, May 13, 2007, interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created
2000s, 2007

Thinking

“I am a believer. I believe in a creator.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Hannity
2000s, 2007

“…There's no secret, no shortcut. Once you accept that being a writer or a creator is just really hard and takes a lot of hours of slogging through crappy first drafts, you just keep producing, and then you turn around and it's done. That's the magic.”

Esperanza Spalding (1984) American jazz bassist and singer

On becoming a writer in “Esperanza Spalding Talks Recording an Album in 77 Hours, Sexism in Music & Nicki Minaj” https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7973640/esperanza-spalding-77-hours-livestream-album-interview in Billboard (2017 Sep 22)

Secret

“CREATING SACRED SPACE MIRRORS GOD’S CREATION. OUR CHALLENGE AS CO-CREATORS IS TO MIRROR GOD’S LOVE AND BEAUTY IN ALL OUR CREATIONS.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

Art Psalms (2008), The Plan

Love , Making love , God , Beauty

“Creators aligned with Divine Will
Make the soul perceptible.
Artist priests with minimal dogma
Transfix, transform, and evolve
The chaotic melding of cultures,
Through the dross of ego
To superconsciousness fusion
With the Nature-field.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

Art Psalms (2008), Art Psalms

Soul , Making love , Nature

“Thinking as I do that the Creator of this World is a very Cruel Being & being a Worshipper of Christ, I cannot help saying: "the Son, O how unlike the Father!"”

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

First God Almighty comes with a Thump on the Head. Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it.

A Vision of the Last Judgment
1810s

World , Thinking , Christ , Help

“The most noble sciences, are those which bring us closer to the Creator; those which help us be pleasing to Him.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid, 21

Science , Help

“But just because our Creator subcontracts evil out to me, we mustn’t neglect to notice the blood on His hands.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: Blameless in Abaddon (1996), Chapter 1 (p. 12; spoken by the Devil)

Evil

“God, our loving Creator, created two sexes. So, femininity and masculinity are linked to the design of God. You see this in a good marriage; each partner anticipates the other’s needs, and appreciates the other’s gifts. I’ve seen this in the marriage of my own parents, who have been married for 72 years. Their love is so beautiful, and their complementarity so evident.”

Thomas Olmsted (1947) Roman Catholic prelate; 4th Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona

A Bishop Speaks to the Men of His Flock https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2016/01/26/a-bishop-speaks-to-the-men-of-his-flock/ (January 26, 2016)

God , Marriage , Beauty , Sex

“The Torah describes the beginning of the world and the formative history of the Jewish people from Abraham—the first Jew and the creator of the monotheistic Hebrew religion—up to the death of Moses, and contains the Ten Commandments.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible (1963), Volume II

Religion , History , People , World

“There are laws far more powerful for us Catholics, far more powerful than those espoused in Party political agendas and pushed by the vested interests of powerful pressure groups: Natural law, the structures of the human personality built into mankind by God the Creator into the mind and heart of human beings, and the Divine law, the law of Almighty God expressed in the Commandments and in the New Ways of Jesus Christ, illustrated so clearly in the Gospels; Divine and Natural Law which we must always obey and which can never be trumped by the Laws of man, however democratically expressed by Parliament – whichever Parliament – when they clash with the Laws of God. The Law of God is a much higher Law, the ultimate Law. To rebel against the design of the Creator is a grave matter indeed!”

Stephen Robson (1951) Bishop of Dunkeld

Bishop Stephen Robson’s homily https://www.dunkelddiocese.co.uk/chrism-mass-st-andrews-cathedral-2019/ (17 April 2019)

God , Law , Personality , Heart

“Pretending to be God and parroting his power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity. Never forget that there is only one creator: God. In the wrong hands, today's development can lead tomorrow to a devastating leap in the dark.”

Domenico Mogavero (1947) Catholic bishop

Catholic Church: synthetic cell potentially a good development but life originates from God https://www.foxnews.com/world/catholic-church-synthetic-cell-potentially-a-good-development-but-life-originates-from-god (May 21, 2010)

Forgetting , God , Men

“I don't know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, "Why don't you admit that the hummingbird, the butterfly, and the Bird-of-Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?" And I always say, "Well, when you say that, you've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a riverbank, like here, in West Africa, that's got a little worm, a living organism, that's in its eye and boring through its eyeballs and is slowly turning it blind. The creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm."”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate and so therefore [sic] when I make these films, I prefer to show what I know to be the facts, what I know to be true, and then people can deduce what they will from that.
"Sir David Attenborough" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sir-david-attenborough/, interview with Ed Bradley, CBS News (7 November 2002)

God , People , Boy , Bird

“A stable middle class is the backbone of a free society and entrepreneurs are the true job creators that power our world.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

World

“No democracy can survive without a thriving middle class and entrepreneurs are our job creators.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

Democracy

“It repudiates, as something vile and sinful, our deepest feelings; but being absolutely ignorant as to the real functions of human emotions, Puritanism is itself the creator of the most unspeakable vices.”

Emma Goldman book Anarchism and Other Essays

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), The Hypocrisy of Puritanism

Feeling