quotations about miracles
Knowledge has its boundary line, where it abuts on ignorance; on the outside of that boundary line are ignorance and miracles; on the inside of it are science and no miracles.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Miracles are like facts of animal magnetism, or table-turning. They come into existence only where there are people ready beforehand to believe in them.
S. F. S.
The Month, vol. 126
Miracles are like jokes. They relieve our tension suddenly by setting us free from the chain of cause and effect.
GERALD BRANAN
attributed, Get Unstuck!
Men's thirst for the most amazing and indubitable wonders actually stems from a desire for a faith without shadows, for a crown without a cross.... A miracle is Christian only if it helps us to believe rather than relieves us of the necessity of faith.
LOUIS MONDEN
attributed, When You Need a Miracle
It would actually constitute more than a miracle, he realized. It would take divine intervention plus luck, plus some unknown element of cosmic wizardry.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
As cheesy as it sounds, I believe in miracles. I do. One happened to me once. Sometimes when I miracle happens, it's like lightning, fast and unexpected. That's what my miracle was like. Other times miracles are like a barrel filling with rainwater. The rain falls in; the water in the barrel gets deeper and deeper. Then one day it spills over the whole world in one big, wet gush. That's the tipping place.
R. A. NELSON
Breathe My Name
A miracle is like an accident, and if the same accident keeps happening all the time, then somebody's making a point, aren't they?
KAREN HEULER
The Other Door
A man who saw a miracle would reject his eyes' witness, if those with him saw nothing.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Lathe of Heaven
Miracles do not happen.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
preface, Literature and Dogma
Miracles are like winning the lottery, they always happen to other people.
YUNGSI ERNEST KIYAH
To Immigrate or To Live Happily Ever After?
It must be so; for miracles are ceased
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
Miracles, when considered in a general, abstract manner--that is, when divested of all circumstances, and supposed to occur as disconnected facts, to stand alone in history, to have no explanations or reasons in preceding events, and no influence on those which follow--are indeed open to great objection, as wanton and useless violations of nature's order; and it is accordingly against miracles, considered in this naked, general form, that the arguments of infidelity are chiefly urged. But it is great disingenuity to class under this head the miracles of Christianity. They are palpably different. They do not stand alone in history, but are most intimately incorporated with it. They were demanded by the state of the world which preceded them, and they have left deep traces on all subsequent ages. In fact, the history of the whole civilized world, since their alleged occurrence, has been swayed and colored by them, and is wholly inexplicable without them.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Believe in your heart that you're meant to live a life full of passion, purpose, magic and miracles.
ROY T. BENETT
The Light in the Heart
No matter how strong we think our faith is or want it to be, we always want to know that God is there for us, and miracles are that sort of element that bridges the gap between our faith and our connection with God.
MICHAEL O'NEILL
Exploring the Miraculous
I don't believe in miracles, but if the need is great, a girl might make her own miracle.
JULIE BERRY
All the Truth That's in Me
The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.
JOHN GREEN
Paper Towns
For some reason or the other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured--disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui--in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, The Carnivorous Carnival
Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them, you'll find more than you ever imagined possible.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, The Lump of Coal
It is at least scientifically respectable to postulate that at the centre of a black hole the laws of nature no longer apply. Since most scientists are just a bit religious and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole while his religious intellect believes in them outside it.
WILLIAM GOLDING
Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1983