quotations about God
God, to conceive him, intellect design'd;
At last, her Maker see, 'neath nature's vest!
A voice in silence whispers to the mind--
Who hath not heard that voice within his breast?
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Valley", Poetical Meditations
God Himself is simple, and employs simple men to shape the world.
JOHN UPDIKE
Terrorist
God gives as the wheat gives: we sow one grain, and reap a hundred.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Everything was God, holy; as God is total, so the driftwood branch was holy. This must be the stuff religion is made of.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Glimpses
But tho' God has replenished this world with abundance of good things for man's life and comfort, yet they are all but imperfect goods. He only is the perfect good to whom they point. But alas! Men cannot see him for them; tho' they should always see him in them.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
"God is love," says the apostle. We might almost transpose the apothegm, and say "Love is God." That is, it is love which renders him worthy of our worship. It is not the power which made the worlds and allotted them their courses; it is not the wisdom which orders all of life, and suffers not even the minutest detail to escape his notice; it is not even those aesthetic qualities, which have produced in divinely-created forms of beauty the types of all art and all architecture, that render God worthy " to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." It is that his love is such that nothing seems to him too sacred to be sacrificed to the welfare of others.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
There is not the slightest question but that the God of the Old Testament is a jealous, vengeful God, inflicting not only on the sinful pagans but even on his Chosen People fire, lighting, hideous plagues and diseases, brimstone, and other curses.
STEVE ALLEN
Steve Allen on the Bible
The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal -- God is the Omnipotent Father -- hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates.
GORE VIDAL
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Indeed, when sinful men presume to delineate the character of God for themselves; however learned or sagacious they may be, their reasonings will inevitably be warped by the general depravity of fallen nature, and by their own peculiar prejudices and vices. Partial to themselves, and indulgent to their master passion, (which perhaps they mistake for an excellency), they will naturally ascribe to the Deity what they value in themselves, and suppose him lenient to such things as they indulge and excuse: They will be sure to arrange their plan in such a manner as to conclude themselves the objects of his complacency, and entitled to his favor; or at least not deserving his abhorrence, and exposed to his avenging justice: they will consider their own judgment of what is fit and right, as the measure and rule of his government: their religious worship will accord to such mistaken conclusions; and the effect of their faith upon their conduct will be inconsiderable, or prejudicial. Thus men "think that God is altogether such a one as themselves," (Psalm 1. 21.), and a self-flattering, carnalized religion, is substituted for the humbling, holy, and spiritual gospel of Christ.
THOMAS SCOTT
"On the Scripture Character of God", Essays on the Most Important Subjects in Religion
I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
telegram response to New York rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, Apr. 24, 1929
God, a born extremist, is the diplomat's worst enemy. Quite apart from the fact that His decrees are irrevocable, the Absolute will not allow anyone to relativize matters.
RéGIS DEBRAY
God: An Itinerary
As it is impossible to be outside God, the best is consciously to dwell in Him.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
Whether men will or not, they must be subject always to the Divine Power. By denying the existence or providence of God, men may shake off their ease, but not their yoke.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Note-Books
God is a shower to the heart burned up with grief; God is a sun to the face deluged with tears.
JOSEPH ROUX
Meditations of a Parish Priest
God is a foreman with certain definite views
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Docker
God has no religion.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
Every attentive and intelligent student of the Bible will perceive, that revelation was vouchsafed to man, in order to deliver or preserve him from idolatry, by instructing him in the character and perfections of the one living and true God, and the way in which he would be worshipped; as well as to teach other duties, and to influence him to perform them. The jealous care of Jehovah, to distinguish betwixt himself and every idol, to secure the glory himself without allowing any of it to be given to another, and the terrible denunciations pronounced against, and severe judgments executed upon idolaters, must attract the notice of all who are conversant with the sacred oracles, and convince every impartial person that idolatry is the greatest of all sins, atheism alone excepted.
THOMAS SCOTT
"On the Scripture Character of God", Essays on the Most Important Subjects in Religion
You are as close to God in your own sitting room as in the basilica; but the basilica has worth if it strengthens your faith.
SIMON MAWER
The Gospel of Judas