Quotes about miracle (760 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint…”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Painting

“The best miracle is to be sent to paradise without paying a ticket.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As quoted in Journal of France and Germany (1942–1944) by Gilbert Fowler White, in excerpt published in Living with Nature's Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White (2006) by Robert E. Hinshaw, p. 62. From the context http://books.google.com/books?id=_2qfZRp9SeEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q&f=false it seems that White did not specify whether he had heard Einstein himself say this or whether he was repeating a quote that had been passed along by someone else, so without a primary source the validity of this quote should be considered questionable.
Some have argued that elsewhere Einstein defined a "miracle" as a type of event he did not believe was possible—Einstein on Religion by Max Jammer (1999) quotes on p. 89 from a 1931 conversation Einstein had with David Reichinstein, where Reichinstein brought up philosopher Arthur Liebert's argument that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics might allow for the possibility of miracles, and Einstein replied that Liebert's argument dealt "with a domain in which lawful rationality [determinism] does not exist. A 'miracle,' however, is an exception from lawfulness; hence, there where lawfulness does not exist, also its exception, i.e., a miracle, cannot exist." ("Dort, wo eine Gesetzmässigkeit nicht vorhanden ist, kann auch ihre Ausnahme, d.h. ein Wunder, nicht existieren." D. Reichenstein, Die Religion der Gebildeten (1941), p. 21). However, it is clear from the context that Einstein was stating only that miracles cannot exist in a domain (quantum mechanics) where lawful rationality does not exist. He did not claim that miracles could never exist in any domain. Indeed, Einstein clearly believed, as seen in many quotations above, that the universe was comprehensible and rational, but he also described this characteristic of the universe as a "miracle". In another example, he is quoted as claiming belief in a God, "Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world."
As quoted in From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (1993) by David T. Dellinger, p. 418
Disputed
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Inspirational , Attitude , Life , Cute

“Oh, to be alive in such an age, when miracles are everywhere, and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy, of greater marvels yet to be.”

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

Age

“Do you believe in miracles?”

Federico Buffa (1959) Italian journalist, writer and television sportscaster

Source: Riferita ai 13 punti in 35 secondi messi a segno da Tracy McGrady in Rockets-Spurs 9 dicembre 2004]

“[My mom's] funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it's her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Food , Way , Moms , Thinking

“The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.”

Simone Weil book Waiting for God

Waiting on God (1950), Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God
Source: Waiting for God

Thinking , Suffering , Heart

“My mother named me after a miracle of nature: Waris means desert flower. The desert flower blooms in a barren environment where few living things can survive.”

Waris Dirie book Desert Flower

Source: Desert Flower

Flowers , Nature

“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”

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

Light

“Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist.”

Billy Wilder (1906–2002) American filmmaker

David Ben-Gurion, as quoted in Israel : Years of Crisis Years of Hope (1973) by Roman Frister, p. 45
Misattributed

“The greatest, strongest, mightiest plea for the church of God in the world is the existence of the Spirit of God in its midst, and the works of the Spirit of God are the true evidences of Christianity. They say miracles are withdrawn, but the Holy Spirit is the standing miracle of the church of God to-day.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 137.

God , World

“People say ‘my phone sucks.’ No it doesn’t! The shittiest cellphone in the world is a miracle. Your life sucks. Around the phone.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

http://splitsider.com/2013/02/the-annotated-wisdom-of-louis-c-k/ (2011)

Life , People , World

“It is sometimes helpful to differentiate between the God of Miracles and the God of Order.”

Michio Kaku book Hyperspace

Source: Hyperspace (1995), Ch.15 Conclusion
Context: It is sometimes helpful to differentiate between the God of Miracles and the God of Order. When scientists use the word God, they usually mean the God of Order.... The God of Miracles intervenes in our affairs, performs miracles, destroys wicked cities, smites enemy armies, drowns the Pharaoh's troops, and avenges the pure and noble.... This is not to say that miracles cannot happen, only that they are outside what is commonly called science.

God , Help

“Even those who raised the dead could not save themselves from death either. Death is guaranteed to all, including those who perform miracles.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Dead , Death

“The greatest miracle of our generation is to be born on Earth and buried on another planet.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“There is no cure without side effects unless it is a heavenly miracle.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

World , Light , Childhood

“Love is a flower that grows in any soil, works its sweet miracles undaunted by autumn frost or winter snow, blooming fair and fragrant all the year, and blessing those who give and those who receive.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Men

Source: Little Men

Love , Flowers , Autumn , Winter

“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not melt in one's bath.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

“This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Wise , Love , Time

“Harry Dresden: You rush a miracle worker, you get lousy miracles!”

Jim Butcher Small Favor

Source: The Dresden Files, Small Favor (2008), Chapter 24

“We are born sad and we die sad, but meanwhile we love bodies whose sad beauty is a miracle.”

Mario Benedetti (1920–2009) Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet

Love , Sadness , Beauty

“I am realistic – I expect miracles.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.”

Eckhart Tolle book A New Earth

Source: A New Earth

Universe , Parting , Personality

“I took my baby on a Saturday bang,
Boy, is that girl with you?
Yes, we're one and the same.
Well, I believe in miracles,
And a miracle has happened tonight,
But if you're thinking about my baby,
It don't matter if you're black or white.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Dangerous (1991)

Girl , Boy , Thinking , Baby

“True he was a vocal miracle
But that's only secondary
It's the soul of the monarch butterfly
That I find a little bit scary”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

Soul

“Miracles, signs, wonders, deliverance and healing cannot be exchanged with money.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

Speaking during his 2014 Colombia Crusade - "TB Joshua Lights Up Colombia, Fills Olympic Stadium" http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-religion-byo-50760.html Bulawayo 24, Zimbabwe (July 17 2014)

Money

“God is the solitude of men. There was only me: I alone decided to commit Evil; alone, I invented Good. I am the one who cheated, I am the one who performed miracles, I am the one accusing myself today, I alone can absolve myself; me, the man.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Devil and the Good Lord

Act 10, sc. 4
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)

Men , God , Solitude , Evil

“Be kind to each other in your homes. Be kind to those who surround you. I prefer that you make mistakes in kindness rather than that you work miracles in unkindness. Often just for one word, one look, one quick action, and darkness fills the heart of the one we love.”

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

Quoted in: Charlotte Gray. Mother Teresa: Her Mission to Serve God by Caring for the Poor. G. Stevens, (1988), p. 53
1980s

Love , Home , Heart

“Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist.”

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress

David Ben Gurion, as quoted in Psychosocial Care of the Dying Patient (1978) by Charles A. Garfield
Misattributed

Hope

“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief. A man who saw clearly and with open eyes and was then living could see how this miracle took place and how the whole of a society could, in a single day, be transformed. In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 22

Courage , Law , History , Business

“In our brief life,
so many roads,
so many miracles
and blessings and glories,
but also so many curses and denials,
grief and contempt,
continuous waves on the planetary seas
that come and go,
and they crawl us into the vast heavens,
n that quiet rhythm universe
listen to your heart beat.”

Alexis Karpouzos movie We are the conversation

The film ''We are the conversation'', gathers together the most famous poems and poets from all over the world. It is a celebration of our linguistic diversity and a reminder of our commonalities and the fundamental role verbal art plays in human life around the world.
Alexis karpouzos

“Having lived in an oriental country I have developed a certain indifference to miracles, and I well know that having delusions, or even being an outright lunatic, is quite compatible with what is loosely called genius.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: "As I Please," Tribune (3 March 1944)
http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/

Country , Indifference

“My greatest hope is that one day our hospital will be devoted to the miracle of childbirth, rather than the tragedy of sexual violence, and that our wards devoted to victims of rape will be empty.”

Denis Mukwege (1955) Congolese gynecologist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Source: Denis Mukwege (2021) cited in " 'We Cannot Rest in Our Fight.' Angelina Jolie Talks to Dr. Denis Mukwege About Supporting Victims of Sexual Violence https://time.com/6124350/angelina-jolie-denis-mukwege/" on TIME, 1 December 2021.

Hope

“Out of hardships come miracles.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“… the endless repetition of an ordinary miracle.”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

“All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Source: The Writing of Thomas Paine

Fools

“Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you: a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting, a bee humming, a raindrop falling, a snowflake wafting along the clear evening air. There is magic everywhere. If you learn how to live it, life is nothing short of a daily miracle.”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Life , Flowers , Bird , Learning

“One wanted, she thought, dipping her brush deliberately, to be on a level with ordinary experience, to feel simply that's a chair, that's a table, and yet at the same time, It's a miracle, it's an ecstasy.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Feeling , Time

“The boy reached through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God , World , Soul , Boy

“He uses our problems for His miracles. This was my first lesson in learning to trust Him completely…”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Source: Tramp for the Lord

Problem , Learning

“Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth—I count that something of a miracle.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

“Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Wedding , Love , People , Understanding

“To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

love , Romantic , Love

“thats a Zoey miracle”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

“The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Official Report to the I.I.A.S.", p. 126
Papers of the Adams Family (1939)
Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

“So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.”

Colette book The Vagabond

Source: The Vagabond

Despair

“Why do you look like cheese, Beka?" Nestor asked me quietly. "We've got help."
I was too flummoxed to tell him I hadn't expected help to come so fast. Miracles aren't for the likes of me, didn't Nestor know that? Only the nobility gets them.”

Tamora Pierce book Bloodhound

Source: Bloodhound

Help

“Miracle Max: Have fun stormin' da castle.
Valerie: Think it'll work?
Miracle Max: It would take a miracle.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Thinking

“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Touching Peace (1992), p. 1. Parallax Press ISBN 0-938077-57-0
Variant: The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.
Source: Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living

Peace , Beauty , Water

“Miracle does not always signify miracle.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Pensées

“The CHILD must know that he is a MIRACLE, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world will not be, another child like him.”

Pablo Casals (1876–1973) Catalan cellist and conductor

World

“You're something between a dream and a miracle.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Wedding , Dreams

“Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Small Gods
Variant: Just because you're an angel doesn't mean you have to be a fool.

“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

God , World

“Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude. Pharisees — that is to say, friars.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Stupidity , Falseness

“Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive—that you can touch the miracle of being alive—then that is a kind of enlightenment”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Living Buddha, Living Christ

“You don't have to believe in my miracles. You can call them accidents or coincidences, if you must. But don't pity me for my faith. And don't presume that you're better, just because you believe something different.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

Faith

“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Heart Touching , Love

“To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.”

Mark Nepo (1951) American writer

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Relationship

“A miracle is when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: The Alphabet of Grace

Parting

“You can't throw too much style into a miracle.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Source: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“The miracle is this
The more we share…
The more
We have”

Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer

"You and I have Learned".
These Words Are for You (1981)

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

Faith , Confidence , Boy , Business

“I asked a teacher what the opposite of a miracle was and she, without thinking, I assume, said it was an act of God.
You shouldn't say something like that to the kind of kid who will grow up to be a writer; we have long memories.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)

God , Thinking , Teachers , Memory

“Believing in accidents is like believing in miracles--both presuppose that God does not know the future.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

Noli me Tangere

God , Future

“Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world. Our hearing extends to a small distance. Our sight is impeded by intervening bodies and shadows. To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions. We must transmit our intelligence, travel, transport the materials and transfer the energies necessary for our existence. Following this thought we now realize, forcibly enough to dispense with argument, that of all other conquests of man, without exception, that which is most desirable, which would be most helpful in the establishment of universal peaceful relations is — the complete ANNIHILATION OF DISTANCE.
To achieve this wonder, electricity is the one and only means. Inestimable good has already been done by the use of this all powerful agent, the nature of which is still a mystery. Our astonishment at what has been accomplished would be uncontrollable were it not held in check by the expectation of greater miracles to come. That one, the greatest of all, can be viewed in three aspects: Dissemination of intelligence, transportation, and transmission of power.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)

World , Peace , Travel , Intelligence

“Within the last quarter of a century, in America, several sects of curers have appeared under various names and have done notable things in the way of healing ailments without the use of medicines. There are the Mind Cure, the Faith Cure, the Prayer Cure, the Mental Science Cure, and the Christian-Science Cure; and apparently they all do their miracles with the same old, powerful instrument—the patient's imagination. Differing names, but no difference in the process. But they do not give that instrument the credit; each sect claims that its way differs from the ways of the others.

They all achieve some cures, there is no question about it; and the Faith Cure and the Prayer Cure probably do no harm when they do no good, since they do not forbid the patient to help out the cure with medicines if he wants to; but the others bar medicines, and claim ability to cure every conceivable human ailment through the application of their mental forces alone. There would seem to be an element of danger here. It has the look of claiming too much, I think. Public confidence would probably be increased if less were claimed.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 4
Christian Science (1907)

Faith , Way , Confidence , Imagination

“Your suffering like your fate is without motive. To suffer, truly to suffer, is to accept the invasion of ills without the excuse of causality, as a favor of demented nature, as a negative miracle…”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Fate , Motivation , Nature , Suffering

“If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle to come.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Waiting for the Miracle" (co-written with Sharon Robinson)
The Future (1992)

Waiting

“But where is the antidote for lucid despair, perfectly articulated, proud, and sure? All of us are miserable, but how many know it? The consciousness of misery is too serious a disease to figure in an arithmetic of agonies or in the catalogues of the Incurable. It belittles the prestige of hell, and converts the slaughterhouses of time into idyls. What sin have you committed to be born, what crime to exist? Your suffering like your fate is without motive. To suffer, truly to suffer, is to accept the invasion of ills without the excuse of causality, as a favor of demented nature, as a negative miracle...”

Emil M. Cioran book A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay (1949)

Fate , Disease , Motivation , Hell

“Religions are all founded on miracles — on things we cannot understand, such as the Trinity. Jesus calls himself the Son of God, and yet is descended from David. I prefer the religion of Mahomet — it is less ridiculous than ours.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Letter from St. Helena (28 August 1817); as quoted in The St. Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud, 1815-1818 : Being a Diary written at St. Helena during a part of Napoleon's Captivity (1932) as translated by Norman Edwards, a translation of Journal de Sainte-Hélène 1815-1818 by General Gaspard Gourgaud, t.2, p. 226

God , Religion , Understanding

“Because of the way that myth takes it for granted that miracles are always happening, the waking life of a mythically inspired people — the ancient Greeks, for instance — more closely resembles a dream than it does the waking world of a scientifically disenchanted thinker.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)

Life , People , World , Dreams

“I have not lost my faith; and this I must attribute more to a miracle than to my own wisdom; more to Divine Providence than to my own virtue. Steadfastly, in fact from my earliest childhood, I have made this my prayer, "Lord God… grant me long life, and wisdom, and health of mind and body."”

Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer

The Book of My Life (1930)

Life , Wisdom , God , Health

“My theological beliefs are likely to startle one who has imagined me as an orthodox adherent of the Anglican Church. My father was of that faith, and was married by its rites, yet, having been educated in my mother's distinctively Yankee family, I was early placed in the Baptist sunday school. There, however, I soon became exasperated by the literal Puritanical doctrines, and constantly shocked my preceptors by expressing scepticism of much that was taught me. It became evident that my young mind was not of a religious cast, for the much exhorted "simple faith" in miracles and the like came not to me. I was not long forced to attend the Sunday school, but read much in the Bible from sheer interest. The more I read the Scriptures, the more foreign they seemed to me. I was infinitely fonder on the Graeco-Roman mythology, and when I was eight astounded the family by declaring myself a Roman pagan. Religion struck me so vague a thing at best, that I could perceive no advantage of any one system over any other. I had really adopted a sort of Pantheism, with the Roman gods as personified attributes of deity.... My present opinions waver betwixt Pantheism and rationalism. I am a sort of agnostic, neither affirming nor denying anything.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Maurice W. Moe (16 January 1915), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 10
Non-Fiction, Letters

God , Education , School , Family

“Miracles exist – you just have to believe it. A lot of the time when people pray to God they aren’t specific enough. I always tell people God is the god of details. You have to ask for the detail. So, you want a car – what kind of car do you want? Do you want a Cherokee, a Ford, a Chevy, a Bentley? An off-road vehicle? What about the trim and interior and the wheels? Be specific, then when you get something like that it will be no coincidence. I always prayed to God and that’s why I saw my life as a miracle.”

Fabio Lanzoni (1961) Italian model, actor and author

Fabio: confessions of the original male supermodel https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jul/15/fabio-confessions-original-male-supermodel (July 15, 2015)

Life , God , People , Cars

“Love and faith do not happen just with words alone. Living according to the Word is faith. The Bible is not just made up of holy words, but it is a message of miracles in which are fulfilled for me even today, and it is the guide for our lives. The Lord's Word is being delivered even today, and I will continue to carry out the work of the Lord everyday.”

Jung Myung Seok (1945) South Korean Leader of New Religious Movement, Poet, Author, Founder of Wolmyeongdong Center

Extracted from the Wolmyeongdong Website http://wmd.god21.net/WolMyeongDong/Founder

Love , Faith

“All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.”

Mark Twain book Roughing It

On the Book of Mormon, Roughing It (published 1872), pp. 58-59
Roughing It (1872)

Men , Books , Way , Reading

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Mother Night

Mother Night (1961)

Faith

“I must no less commend the study of anatomy, which whosoever considers, I believe will never be an atheist; the frame of man's body and coherence of his parts, being so strange and paradoxal, that I hold it to be the greatest miracle of nature.”

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648) Anglo-Welsh soldier, diplomat, historian, poet and religious philosopher

Source: The Autobiography, P. 31

Nature , Study , Parting

“The three military arts. First - Apprehension, how to arrange things in camp, how to march, how to attack, pursue, and strike; for taking up position, final judgement of the enemy's strength, for estimating his intentions. Second - Quickness… This quickness doesn't weary the men. The enemy doesn't expect us, reckons us 100 versts away, and if a long way off to begin with - 200, 300 or more - suddenly we're on him, like snow on the head; his head spins. Attack with what comes up, with what God sends; the cavalry to begin, smash, strike, cut off, don't let slip, hurra! Brothers do miracles! Third - Attack. Leg supports leg. Arm strengthens arm; many men will die in the volley; the enemy has the same weapons, but he doesn't know the Russian bayonet. Extend the line - attack at once with cold steel; extend the line without stopping… the Cossacks to get through everywhere… In two lines is strength; in three, half as much again; the first breaks, the second drives into heaps, the third overthrows.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

From "The Science of Victory," 1796.

Men , God , Art , Way

“Supernaturalism can never provide a sufficient explanation of anything. There is never an instance where we can blame anything on the supernatural. Once we found the real reason behind anything that was once attributed to miracles, curses or omens, witchcraft or demonic possession, it always turned out to be a revelation of whole new fields of study previously unimagined and vastly more complex than the simple excuses we were told before. In each of these cases, the supernatural explanation was already wrong before the natural explanation was known. So you should never resort to the god-of-the-gaps fallacy that anything science can’t explain is explained by magic, because that doesn’t explain it either. If you call it a miracle, it means you don’t what it really is. Goddidit is not an explanation of anything, and it never was. Science can only ever work with natural explanations, not because of any unfair prejudice, but because natural explanations are the only ones that can be tested.”

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

Patheos, Correspondence with a Creationist http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/06/06/correspondence-with-a-creationist/ (June 6, 2017)

God , Nature , Study , Science

“One might say: art shows us the miracles of nature. It is based on the concept of the miracles of nature.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Culture and Value (1980)

Art , Nature

“The artificial noble shrinks into a dwarf before the noble of nature; and in the few instances (for there are some in all countries) in whom nature, as by a miracle, has survived in aristocracy, those men despise it.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Men , Nature , Country

“Nobody ever told me,
I found out for myself,
You gotta believe in foolish miracles,
it's not how you play the game,
it's if you win or lose,
you can choose, don't confuse, win or lose.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

I Don't Know.
Song lyrics, Blizzard of Ozz (1980)

Game

“Small business is the gateway to opportunity for those who want a piece of the American dream. […] Well, wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more about the forgotten heroes of America-those who create most of our new jobs, like the owners of stores down the street; the faithfuls who support our churches, synagogues, schools, and communities; the brave men and women everywhere who produce our goods, feed a hungry world, and keep our families warm while they invest in the future to build a better America? That's where miracles are made, not in Washington, D. C.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Ronald Reagan: "Remarks at the National Conference of the National Federation of Independent Business ," June 22, 1983. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41504
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Women , Men , World , School

“In one of the temptations Satan offers to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, that is, the kingdoms and the related political power. …
Jesus refuses to answer the question about the tax. His “render unto Caesar” does not imply that there are two kingdoms, but that everything belongs to God. If Caesar undertakes to manufacture certain things like pieces of money, we should give them back to him; such things are of no interest or importance.
Jesus pays the (political) temple tax with two coins taken from the mouth of a fish. This absurd miracle expresses simple derision and shows once again that such matters are of no importance. Jesus similarly refuses to arbitrate between two men who are contesting an inheritance. He has not come to deal with legal problems.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Subversion of Christianity (1984), p. 114

Men , Money , God , World

“It lies not in man's right nor in man's power truly to justify the guilty. This is a miracle reserved for the Lord alone. God, the infinitely just Sovereign, knows that there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not, and therefore, in the infinite sovereignty of His divine nature and in the splendor of His ineffable love, He undertakes the task, not so much of justifying the just as of justifying the ungodly. God has devised ways and means of making the ungodly man to stand justly accepted before Him: He has set up a system by which with perfect justice He can treat the guilty as if he had been all his life free from offence, yea, can treat him as if he were wholly free from sin. He justifieth the ungodly.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

All of Grace

Love , Life , God , Justice

“We are all deep in a hell each moment of which is a miracle.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

The New Gods (1969)

Hell

“Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Markings (1964)

Dreams , Forgiveness

“Everything is discussed in this world, except for one thing: democracy. Democracy is not discussed. Democracy is there, as a kind of saint, from whom no miracles are expected, but that is there as a reference: "the democracy"; and we don’t notice that the democracy in which we live in is a kidnapped, conditioned and amputated one, because the power of the citizen, the power of each one of us, is limited, in the political sphere, I repeat, in the political sphere, to removing a government that we don’t like and replacing it by another one that we might come to like. Nothing else. But the important decisions are made in another sphere, and we all know which one it is. The great international financial organizations, the IMFs, the World Trade Organizations, the World Banks, the OECD, all of these… None of these institutions is democratic, so how can we continue to talk about democracy, if those who actually govern the world are not democratically elected by the people? Who chooses the countries' representatives in those institutions? Their respective peoples? No. So where is the democracy?”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aWFQRcdChk at Fórum Social Mundial, December 2007.

People , World , Democracy , Decision

“And so God is asking us today to remember the miracle of that baby and he's asking us, he says, "Take the bullet out!" If we have more black men in prison than in our colleges and universities, then it's time to take the bullet out. If we have millions of people goin' to the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma, it's time to take the bullet out. If too many of our kids don't have health insurance, it's time to take that bullet out. If we keep sending our kids to crumblin' school buildings, we keep fighting this war in Iraq, a war that should've never been authorized and should've never been waged, a war that costing us 20 cents — $275 million a day, that could have been invested in rebuilding communities all across this country, then it's time to take that bullet out!”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2007

Men , God , War , People

“Oh! human stupidity, do you not perceive that, though you have been with yourself all your life, you are not yet aware of the thing you possess most of, that is of your folly? and then, with the crowd of sophists, you deceive yourselves and others, despising the mathematical sciences, in which truth dwells and the knowledge of the things included in them. And then you occupy yourself with miracles, and write that you possess information of those things of which the human mind is incapable and which cannot be proved by any instance from nature. And you fancy you have wrought miracles when you spoil a work of some speculative mind, and do not perceive that you are falling into the same error as that of a man who strips a tree of the ornament of its branches covered with leaves mingled with the scented blossoms or fruit.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Life , Truth , Stupidity , Error

“But what changes come upon the weary desert of our culture, so darkly described, when it is touched by the magic of Dionysus! A storm seizes everything decrepit, rotten, broken, stunted; shrouds it in a whirling red cloud of dust and carries it into the air like a vulture. In vain confusion we seek for all that has vanished; for what we see has risen as if from beneath he earth into the gold light, so full and green, so luxuriantly alive, immeasurable and filled with yearning. Tragedy sits in sublime rapture amidst this abundance of life, suffering and delight, listening to a far-off, melancholy song which tells of the Mothers of Being, whose names are Delusion, Will, Woe. -
Yes, my friends, join me in my faith in this Dionysiac life and the rebirth of tragedy. The age of Socratic man is past: crown yourselves with ivy, grasp the thyrsus and do not be amazed if tigers and panthers lie down fawning at your feet. Now dare to be tragic men, for you will be redeemed. You shall join the Dionysiac procession from India to Greece! Gird yourselves for a hard battle, but have faith in the miracles of your god!”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Aber wie verändert sich plötzlich jene eben so düster geschilderte Wildniss unserer ermüdeten Cultur, wenn sie der dionysische Zauber berührt! Ein Sturmwind packt alles Abgelebte, Morsche, Zerbrochne, Verkümmerte, hüllt es wirbelnd in eine rothe Staubwolke und trägt es wie ein Geier in die Lüfte. Verwirrt suchen unsere Blicke nach dem Entschwundenen: denn was sie sehen, ist wie aus einer Versenkung an's goldne Licht gestiegen, so voll und grün, so üppig lebendig, so sehnsuchtsvoll unermesslich. Die Tragödie sitzt inmitten dieses Ueberflusses an Leben, Leid und Lust, in erhabener Entzückung, sie horcht einem fernen schwermüthigen Gesange - er erzählt von den Müttern des Seins, deren Namen lauten: Wahn, Wille, Wehe.
Ja, meine Freunde, glaubt mit mir an das dionysische Leben und an die Wiedergeburt der Tragödie. Die Zeit des sokratischen Menschen ist vorüber: kränzt euch mit Epheu, nehmt den Thyrsusstab zur Hand und wundert euch nicht, wenn Tiger und Panther sich schmeichelnd zu euren Knien niederlegen. Jetzt wagt es nur, tragische Menschen zu sein: denn ihr sollt erlöst werden. Ihr sollt den dionysischen Festzug von Indien nach Griechenland geleiten! Rüstet euch zu hartem Streite, aber glaubt an die Wunder eures Gottes!
Source: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 98

Life , Men , God , Lie