quotations about God
There are many men, and a large number, who, though they do not wish to be rid of God, do not very much care to have him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you're sitting in as you read these words.
JOHN ORTBERG
God Is Closer Than You Think
Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What is in me dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the heighth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
God appears and god is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
I can't bring myself to believe in a God with a personality like my own. I base that on the paucity of lightning attacks on people who deserve it.
SCOTT ADAMS
Stick to Drawing Comics
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
No man or woman can truly choose to serve God unless they are equally free to refuse to serve Him, and God desires for His people to come to Him clear-eyed and joyously, not cringing in terror of the Inquisition and the damnation of Hell.
DAVID WEBER
By Schism Rent Asunder
An honest God's the noblest work of man.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Further Extracts from the Note Books
God is not the author of all things, but of good only.
PLATO
The Republic
As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Man
I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.
MARY MCCARTHY
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
God gives as the wheat gives: we sow one grain, and reap a hundred.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God is found in this Life ... to wait for another is folly.
DAN SIMMONS
Lovedeath
'Twas only fear first in the world made gods.
BEN JONSON
Sejanus
A God wise enough to create me and the world I live in is wise enough to watch out for me.
PHILIP YANCEY
Where Is God When It Hurts?
My God is in the hearts of those that seek Him ... And in my heart I carry an assurance of His love that life cannot disturb. I know His love as the babe knows its mother's love, lying upon her breast. It knows her love though it neither understands her nature nor her ways.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.
LORD ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
Gods must be seen to be omnipotent, or the sky will fall.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires
There exists an infinite, eternal Being, subsisting of himself, who is one without being alone; for he finds in his own essence relations whence, with the necessary movement of his life, results the absolute plenitude of his perfection and his happiness. A Being unique and complete, God suffices to himself.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
God and Man: Conferences Delivered at Notre Dame in Paris by the Rev. Père Lacordaire
When the gods know that a god hath fallen,
With this kindly feeling
They do encourage him--
Be thou a god again and again.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka