quotations about God
Nothing more shows the low condition Man is fallen into, than the unsuitable notion we must have of God, by the ways we take to please him.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Give God the margin of eternity to justify himself in, and the more we live and know of our own souls and of spiritual experiences generally, the more we shall be convinced that we have to do with one who is good and just.
HUGH R. HAWEIS
Speech in Season
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
God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in his arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.
H. L. MENCKEN
Minority Report
In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.
JOHN ORTBERG
God Is Closer Than You Think
Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.
SIMON MAWER
The Gospel of Judas
If you and I have not seen God, we cannot bear witness to God.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott
The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities to be impressed with it.
JAMES MADISON
letter to Frederick Beasley, Nov. 20, 1825
It isn't so much that God is the unified state of consciousness that each of us came from and will return to, but more so that God is the creative energy flowing between all states of consciousness. God is in the land beyond the mountains, but God is also in the mountains and in the valley of illusions cradled within the mountains. God is not one thing or another, rather God flows between and through all things.
ELIZABETH LESSER
The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure
Gods die when they are forgotten.
NEIL GAIMAN
American Gods
Do you not see the hand of God, which gives harmony, light, and love to the world? Do not the mountains, in the blue cloud of incense, sing their hymn of glory?
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
I'm never tempted by God but I like his trappings.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Passion
God: a disease we imagine we are cured of because no one dies of it nowadays.
EMIL CIORAN
The Trouble with Being Born
I think, Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
Found for mortals the fear of gods,
Thereby to frighten the wicked should they
Even act or speak or scheme in secret.
EURIPIDES
Sisyphus (fragment)
No god save self, that is the way to live ...
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
letter to Theo van Gogh, Jul. 1880
Only one thing is necessary: to possess God -- All the senses, all the forces of the soul and of the spirit, all the exterior resources are so many open outlets to the Divinity; so many ways of tasting and of adoring God.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Note-Books
God, so to speak, is myriad-minded. We cannot look, therefore, to put ourselves in accord with his plans any more than any one man can run a line for a railroad which it requires a small army to survey.
SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY DUFFIELD
Fragments
Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness of the divine. To love life is to love God.
LEO TOLSTOY
War and Peace