The Other World (1657)
Context: You will say, 'How can chance assemble in one place all the things necessary to produce an oak tree?' My answer is that it would be no miracle if the matter thus arranged had not formed an oak. But it would have been a very great miracle if, once the matter was thus arranged, an oak had not been formed. A few less of some shapes, and it would have been an elm, a poplar, a willow, an elder, heather or moss. A little more of some other shapes and it might have been a sensitive plant, an oyster in its shell, a worm, a fly, a frog, a sparrow, an ape or a man.
Quotes about miracle
page 8
1920s, Notes on Democracy (1926)
Context: Thus the ideal of democracy is reached at last: it has become a psychic impossibility for a gentleman to hold office under the Federal Union, save by a combination of miracles that must tax the resourcefulness even of God. The fact has been rammed home by a constitutional amendment: every office-holder, when he takes oath to support the Constitution, must swear on his honour that, summoned to the death-bed of his grandmother, he will not take the old lady a bottle of wine. He may say so and do it, which makes him a liar, or he may say so and not do it, which makes him a pig. But despite that grim dilemma there are still idealists, chiefly professional Liberals, who argue that it is the duty of a gentleman to go into politics—that there is a way out of the quagmire in that direction. The remedy, it seems to me, is quite as absurd as all the other sure cures that Liberals advocate. When they argue for it, they simply argue, in words but little changed, that the remedy for prostitution is to fill the bawdyhouses with virgins. My impression is that this last device would accomplish very little: either the virgins would leap out of the windows, or they would cease to be virgins.
"The Scientific Aspect of Monte Carlo Roulette" (1894)
Science Fiction on the Titanic, in Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison (eds.) The Year's Best SF 9 (1976), ISBN 0-8600-7894-9, p. 205
10
Leaves of Morya’s Garden: Book Two: Illumination (1925)
Kashf ul Asrar: translated by Ambreen Moghees Sarwari Qadri.
Kashf ul Asrār
On wrestling with the idea of “protecting your elders” in “Hilton Als, The Art of the Essay No. 3” https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7178/hilton-als-the-art-of-the-essay-no-3-hilton-als in The Paris Review (Summer 2018)
“BERISH: I distrust miracles. They exist only in books, and books say anything.”
Act I (p. 40)
The Trial of God (1979)
As quoted in The Debates in the Several States Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution also known as Elliot's Debates, Jonathan Elliot, edit. (1941) J. B. Lippincott Co., pp. 168-169, originally published in 1836
1780s
That writers do not always mean the same thing when treating of miracles is perfectly clear; because what may appear a miracle to the unlearned is to the better instructed only an effect produced by some unknown law hitherto unobserved. So that the idea of miracle is in some respect dependent upon the opinion of man. Much of this confusion has arisen from the definition of Miracle given in Hume's celebrated Essay, namely, that it is the "violation of a law of nature." Now a miracle is not necessarily a violation of any law of nature, and it involves no physical absurdity. As Brown well observes, "the laws of nature surely are not violated when a new antecedent is followed by a new consequent ; they are violated only when the antecedent, being exactly the same, a different consequent is the result;" so that a miracle has nothing in its nature inconsistent with our belief of the uniformity of nature. All that we see in a miracle is an effect which is new to our observation, and whose cause is concealed. The cause may be beyond the sphere of our observation, and would be thus beyond the familiar sphere of nature; but this does not make the event a violation of any law of nature. The limits of man's observation lie within very narrow boundaries, and it would be arrogance to suppose that the reach of man's power is to form the limits of the natural world. The universe offers daily proof of the existence of power of which we know nothing, but whose mighty agency nevertheless manifestly appears in the most familiar works of creation. And shall we deny the existence of this mighty energy simply because it manifests itself in delegated and feeble subordination to God's omnipotence?
"Passages from the life of a philosopher", Appendix: Miracle. Note (A)
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)
Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Individual Culture, pp. 274–275
“I see life as an inspirational miracle; as having lot of mystery.”
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]
Principles and Priorities : Programme for Government (September 5, 2007)
“Amongst the management leaders in India, Kurien is not only an icon, he is a miracle.”
By Dr.Raghunath Mashlekar, Director General of CSIR quoted in "Thought Leaders" in p. 170.
Stated by Charles S.J.White.[Sinha, K.N., Sai Baba: A Ray from the Supreme, http://books.google.com/books?id=o7A_TxQzx8kC&pg=PA80, 1 January 1997, Abhinav Publications, 978-81-7017-349-6, 80–]
Alabama coach Gene Stallings
Brett Favre Timeline, Traina, Jimmy, Sports Illustrated, 5 October 2002, 2007-02-08 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl/features/favre/timeline,
About Favre
Letters from New York https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=dcYDAAAAQAAJ&rdid=book-dcYDAAAAQAAJ&rdot=1 (1841-1843), p. 206, Letter XXVIII, 29 Sep 1842
1840s, Letters from New York (1843)
We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet.
Interview (2003).
"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 1 : Our life begins
It's the only honest thing to do. Miracles, magic and myths, they can be fun. Everybody likes a good story. Myths are fun, as long as you don't confuse them with the truth. The real truth has a magic of its own. The truth is more magical, in the best and most exciting sense of the word, than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic - the magic of reality.
Duke University, 01/03/2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcOoqxuroI&t=54m51s
The Magic Of Reality (2012)
Regarding coronavirus
African American History Month reception, White House, , quoted in * 2020-02-29
Inside Trump’s frantic attempts to minimize the coronavirus crisis
Yasmeen Abutaleb, Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey
Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trumps-frantic-attempts-to-minimize-the-coronavirus-crisis/2020/02/29/7ebc882a-5b25-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html
2020s, 2020, February
“The whole weight of science is the prima facie evidence against a miracle having occurred.”
Part 2 “Four Subjective Arguments”, Chapter 5 “The Argument from Interventions (and Miracles, Prayers, and Witnesses)” (p. 88)
Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)
Conclusion, Part Second, II
Napoleon the Little (1852)
spirituality and wisdom
“So what? I'm sorry. What do you want me to do? My name's Messiah, but I can't work miracles.”
In Brasília, on 28 April 2020, after being told by reporters that Brazil had achieved a record 474 COVID-19-related deaths in a day. 'So what?': Bolsonaro shrugs off Brazil's rising coronavirus death toll https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/so-what-bolsonaro-shrugs-off-brazil-rising-coronavirus-death-toll. The Guardian (29 April 2020).
Narrator
Source: A Child is Born (1942)
What I learned from spending 31 days underwater https://www.ted.com/talks/fabien_cousteau_what_i_learned_from_spending_31_days_underwater (October 2014)
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
“Miracles of inner healing are everyday occurrences.”
The Fabric of Mind (1985)
[2008, Christianity / Islam, World Wisdom, 105-106, 978-1-933316-49-9]
God, Outline
“Time is both a mystery and a miracle. A marvel and magic! We live in time and time lives in us.”
Source: The Wisest of All Times is Now! p. 7. (2021)
Source: "Croatian President Elect Zoran Milanović Gives First TV Interview" in Total Croatia News https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/40884-croatian-president-milanovic (17 January 2020)
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Seeing the Invisible: On Kandinsky (1988)
Source: Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible: On Kandinsky, Continuum, 2009, p. 107