Quotes about miracle
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“The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam is the religion of all the prophets, and makes no distinction between them - peace be upon them all. It is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions. It is the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety. It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted. It is the religion of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil with the hand, tongue and heart. It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah's Word and religion reign Supreme. And it is the religion of unity and agreement on the obedience to Allah, and total equality between all people, without regarding their colour, sex, or language. It is the religion whose book - the Quran - will remained preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Quran is the miracle until the Day of Judgment. Allah has challenged anyone to bring a book like the Quran or even ten verses like it.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

2000s, 2002, Letter to the American people (2002)

Love, God, People, Books

“Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. It is only in order to shield your ignorance that you put the Lord at every turn to the refuge of a miracle.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Notes in a copy of Jean-Baptiste Morin's "Famous and ancient problems of the earth's motion or rest, yet to be solved" (published 1631), as quoted in The Crime of Galileo (1976) by Giorgio De Santillana, p. 167
Other quotes

God, Bird, Flying

“Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing … Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles…”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Of the eye
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Law, Universe, Parting

“The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.”

Eugene Paul Wigner The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences

"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences," Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, February 1960, final sentence.

Law, Mathematics, Understanding

“The purely corporeal can be uncanny. Compare the way angels and devils are portrayed. So-called "miracles" must be connected with this. A miracle must be, as it were, a sacred gesture.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 50e

“What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. This, that, and the other”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Part III, Ch. 3
To the Lighthouse (1927)
Context: "Like a work of art," she repeated, looking from her canvas to the drawing-room steps and back again. She must rest for a moment. And, resting, looking from one to the other vaguely, the old question which transversed the sky of the soul perpetually, the vast, the general question which was apt to particularise itself at such moments as these, when she released faculties that had been on the strain, stood over her, paused over her, darkened over her. What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. This, that, and the other; herself and Charles Tansley and the breaking wave; Mrs. Ramsay bringing them together; Mrs. Ramsay saying, "Life stand still here"; Mrs. Ramsay making of the moment something permanent (as in another sphere Lily herself tried to make of the moment something permanent) — this was of the nature of a revelation. In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the cloud going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability. Life stand still here, Mrs. Ramsay said. "Mrs. Ramsay! Mrs. Ramsay!" she repeated. She owed it all to her.

Life, Question

“Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

I, st. 1 The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/ Context: Many ingenious lovely things are gone That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, protected from the circle of the moon That pitches common things about.

Love

“In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.”

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

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.

World

“Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.”

Seamus Heaney The Cure at Troy

"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

“God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Atheism; in the original archaic English this read: I HAD rather beleeve all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, then that this universall Frame, is without a Minde. And therefore, God never wrought Miracle, to convince Atheisme, because his Ordinary Works convince it. It is true, that a little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.
Essays (1625)
Context: I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore, God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

Men, God, Religion

“We are alive within mystery, by miracle.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Life Is A Miracle : An Essay Against Modern Superstition (2000)
Context: We are alive within mystery, by miracle. "Life," wrote Erwin Chargaff, "is the continual intervention of the inexplicable." We have more than we can know. We know more than we can say. The constructions of language (which is to say the constructions of thought) are formed within experience, not the other way around. Finally we live beyond words, as also we live beyond computation and beyond theory. There is no reason whatever to assume that the languages of science are less limited than other languages.

“The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did
about the future.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Source: The Essential Rumi (1995), Ch. 19 : Jesus Poems, p. 205
Context: The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did
about the future. Forget the future.
I'd worship someone who could do that.

Future

“I affirm, in words as true and literal as any that belong to geometry, that the man who withholds knowledge from a child not only works diabolical miracles for the destruction of good, but for the creation of evil also.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

Congressional speech (1849)
Context: I affirm, in words as true and literal as any that belong to geometry, that the man who withholds knowledge from a child not only works diabolical miracles for the destruction of good, but for the creation of evil also. He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place. Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up all the vacuities of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge. He who dethrones the idea of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead. Superstition is the mathematical complement of religious truth; and just so much less as the life of a human being is reclaimed to good, just so much more is it delivered over to evil. The man or the institution, therefore, that withholds knowledge from a child, or from a race of children, exercises the awful power of changing the world in which they are to live, just as much as though he should annihilate all that is most lovely and grand in this planet of ours, or transport the victim of his cruelty to some dark and frigid zone of the universe, where the sweets of knowledge are unknown, and the terrors of ignorance hold their undisputed and remorseless reign.

Knowledge, Evil

“I firmly believe we can make our own miracles if we believe strongly enough in ourselves and our mission on earth.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

Making love

“We wish in our country that morality may be substituted for egotism, probity for false honour, principles for usages, duties for good manners, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, a contempt of vice for a contempt of misfortune, pride for insolence, magnanimity for vanity, the love of glory for the love of money, good people for good company, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for tinsel show, the attractions of happiness for the ennui of sensuality, the grandeur of man for the littleness of the great, a people magnanimous, powerful, happy, for a people amiable, frivolous and miserable; in a word, all the virtues and miracles of a Republic instead of all the vices and absurdities of a Monarchy.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Principles to Form the Basis of the Administration of the Republic (February 1794)

Money, Country, Making love, People

“In his heart every man knows quite well that, being unique, he will be in the world only once and that no imaginable chance will for a second time gather together into a unity so strangely variegated an assortment as he is: he knows it but he hides it like a bad conscience—why? From fear of his neighbor, who demands conventionality and cloaks himself with it. But what is it that constrains the individual to fear his neighbor, to think and act like a member of a herd, and to have no joy in himself? Modesty, perhaps, in a few rare cases. With the great majority it is indolence, inertia. … Men are even lazier than they are timid, and fear most of all the inconveniences with which unconditional honesty and nakedness would burden them. Artists alone hate this sluggish promenading in borrowed fashions and appropriated opinions and they reveal everyone’s secret bad conscience, the law that every man is a unique miracle.”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

“Schopenhauer as educator” ("Schopenhauer als Erzieher"), § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 127
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Chance, Time, Hate, Law

“The sin is about our notion of what is right and what is wrong, and how we bend the truth based on we want and I think. In Catholicism, we tend to do this a lot, and I think it’s very interesting and very beautiful yet very disturbing at the same time. A miracle is about believing and having faith. I think that it these times, and in Mexico, we have been to the point where we have been loosing [sic] faith. It’s really important for me to remind myself that I must continue on having faith, in my people, in my nation, in the woman, and in all the beautiful things that my country represents.”

Lila Downs (1968) Mexican American singer-songwriter

On the notion of faith and how it might apply to Mexico and its peoples in “Q&A: Lila Downs, A Sin and A Miracle” https://remezcla.com/music/lila-downs-sin-miracle-pecados-milagros-interview/ in Remezcla (c. 2011) Heritage and indigenous peoples

Faith, Time, Country, Beauty

“Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.”

Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American motivational speaker

Search, Wealth, Health, Learning

“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!"”

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

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!
2007

Baby, God

“Where is the miracle in Jesus being dead in the tomb instead of being alive just as the people expected Jonah to be dead inside a fish?”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Dead, People, Fish

“The very fact of our existence - a miracle arousing surprise of the great minds.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“All miracles are just gaps in science.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Science

“One of the main reasons that we lose our enthusiasm in life is because we become ungrateful.. we let what was once a miracle become common to us. We get so accustomed to his goodness it becomes a routine..”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Life

“If there's someone you like and they like you back…It's close to a miracle…”

Natsumi Ando (1970) Manga artist

Source: Kitchen Princess, Vol. 04

“Life is a miracle, and being aware of simply this can already make us very happy.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life

Life, Happiness

“Never forget you are a miracle”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

Forgetting

“I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 11
Essais (1595), Book III

World

“i'm sorry she never got her miracle.
she did get her miracle, Landon, her miracle was you.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

“One does not question a miracle.”

Vikas Swarup book Q & A

Q & A

Question

“You're so brave, Eva. So strong and honest. You're a miracle. My miracle.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Strong

“All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. Out of this situation only good will come. I am safe." It will work miracles in your life.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Life

“If the communication is perfect, the words have life, and that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Love, Life, Making love, Communication

“For all those who believe, expect a miracle.”

Linda Goodman (1925–1995) American astrologer

Source: Linda Goodman's Star Signs

“To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O'Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Housing

“If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

People, Feeling, Imagination

“Everyone needs a hobby,” he said. “And everyone needs a miracle or two, just to prove life is more than just one long trudge from the cradle to the grave.”

Stephen King book Revival

Source: Revival

Life

“escape from the black widow spider
is a miracle as great as art.
what a web she can weave
slowly drawing you to her
she'll embrace you
then when she's satisfied
she'll kill you
still in her embrace
and suck the blood from you.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Art, Drawing

“Death was no less a miracle than birth.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

Death, Birth

“The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle to come.”

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

Waiting

“So tell me, Mr. Science Journalist, do you still doubt the existence of miracles?""

""I just tole you. You're my miracle.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

True Believer

Science

“Miracles are to come.
With you I leave a remembrance
of miracles: they are by
somebody who can love
and who shall be continually reborn,
a human being.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Love

“When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Motivational, For women, Deep, Happy

“you're my first born child, and the person who first showed me the miracle of this love a mother has for her child.”

Elizabeth Noble (1968) British novelist

Source: Things I Want My Daughters to Know

Love, Personality

“God gave the Angels wings and humans chocolate.
Mrs. Miracle”

Debbie Macomber (1948) American writer

Source: Mrs. Miracle

God, Angels

“A new friend is always a miracle, but at thirty-three years old, such a bird of paradise rising in the sage-brush was an avatar. One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.”

Henry Adams book The Education of Henry Adams

Source: The Education of Henry Adams

Bird

“Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Universe

“A miracle, my friend, is an event which creates faith.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Faith

“… if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Life, God

“The trouble with miracles is, they don't last long.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

“O, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate man, "Behold! thou hast one more chance! Strive for immortal glory!" There is no speech nor language where this voice is not heard; but the bold, bad man heard it not. He woke with an oath and a curse. What to him was the gold and purple, the daily miracle of morning!”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Ch 36 Emmeline and Cassy
Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)

Beauty, Chance

“Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: It comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Faith, Support

“We're all trying to decide whether your scores up there are a miracle or a mistake."

"A habit.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

“Woman work a great many miracles.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

“There are those who know and those who don't know. And for every ten thousand who don't know there's only one who knows. That's the miracle of all time--the fact that these millions know so much but don't know this.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Time

“In the real world, you can make your own miracles.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

World

“So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer

Hope, Revenge, Change, Sea

“Science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.”

Ray Bradbury book The Martian Chronicles

Source: The Martian Chronicles

Art, Science

“… we are custodians of deep and ancient thresholds. In the human face you see that potential and the miracle of undying possibility.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Some marriages are made in heaven, but they all have to be maintained on earth. Mrs Miracle”

Debbie Macomber (1948) American writer

Source: Mrs. Miracle

Marriage

“And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“You have to take risks … We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Context: You have to take risks … We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun — and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist — that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists — a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.

Life, Understanding