quotations about God
God writes a lot of comedy ... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny.
GARRISON KEILLOR
Happy to be Here
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
I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
The World as I See it
God doesn't do anything to us. He doesn't have to. We're too busy doing it to each other.
CHARLES DE LINT
The Onion Girl
God never made his work for man to mend.
JOHN DRYDEN
Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton, 1700
God was someone I wound up turning over and over in my mind each night.... Was He punishing me with this meal or was He rewarding me? Did He actively watch me or take me for granted like a fish you don't notice until it's floating on the surface of the tank?
DAVID SEDARIS
Naked
If God were not a necessary being of himself, he might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of men.
JOHN TILLOTSON
Sermons
The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
WILLIAM JAMES
Lecture XX, "Conclusions," The Varieties of Religious Experience
They are always saying God loves us. If that's love I'd rather have a bit of kindness.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Captain and the Enemy
All human love is a faint type of God's;
An echoing note from a harmonious whole;
A feeble spark from an undying flame;
A single drop from an unfathomed sea:
But God's is infinite; it fills the earth
And heaven, and the broad, trackless realms of space.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Love of God"
Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
attributed, The Best Liberal Quotes Ever
Sometimes you get the sense that the Creator is getting to that point of "Yeah, we might have to reboot."
TIM ALLEN
Esquire, Nov. 2011
The rule of God is not tyranny, for it does not partake of a political or governmental character -- it is not a rule of authority. God is not a governor of the universe, for a governor rules over those of a like nature with himself, and exercises a political and judicial power, while God exercises a creative, a preserving, and a determinative power of an altogether different kind. If I am a servant of God, I am under no tyranny; for God does not govern, but supports, sustains, and directs me.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
Remarks on the Science of History
Be careful how you talk about God. He's the only God we have. If you let him go he won't come back. He won't even look back over his shoulder. And then what will you do?
HAROLD PINTER
Ashes to Ashes
God can be good and terrible--not in succession--but at the same time. This is why we seek a mediator between us and him; we approach him through the mediating priest and attenuate and enclose him through the sacraments. It is for our own safety: to trap him within confines which render him safe.
PHILIP K. DICK
Valis
God's voice was not in the earthquake,
Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Children of the Lord's Supper"
God, wishing His elect to realize their own misery, often temporarily withdraws His favours: no more is needed to prove to us in a very short time what we really are.
TERESA OF AVILA
The Interior Castle
Men may tire themselves in a labyrinth of search, and talk of God: But if we would know him indeed, it must be from the impressions we receive of him; and the softer our hearts are, the deeper and livelier those will be upon us.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
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
The name of God should no longer come from the mouth of man. This word that has so long been degraded by usage no longer means anything.... To use the word God is more than sloth, it is a refusal to think, a king of short cut, a hideous shorthand.
ARTHUR ADAMOV
The Confession