quotations about God
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, 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
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
God is subtle, but he is not malicious.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
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
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
The gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.
ARISTOPHANES
The Clouds
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
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 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
God has no religion.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
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
Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,
But God to man doth speak in solitude.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
Highland Solitude
Let a man reverence himself. Then he is not far from believing in God.
FRANK CRANE
"The Part of Me That Doubts", Four Minute Essays
God is a wider consciousness than we are, a pure intelligence, spiritual life and actuality. He is neither one nor many, neither man nor spirit. Such predicates belong only to finite beings.
JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON
"Fichte's Conception of God", The Philosophical Review, vol. 4, 1895
I'm never tempted by God but I like his trappings.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Passion
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
Those who are crafty, think the wisdom of God warrants him to deceive; those who are revengeful, think the goodness of God permits him to be cruel; those who are arbitrary, think the sovereignty of God is the account of his actions. Everyone attributes to God, what he finds in himself: but that cannot be a perfection in God, which is a dishonesty in Man.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
The gods of men are sillier than their kings and queens, and emptier and more powerless.
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Elizabeth the Queen
God is a foreman with certain definite views
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Docker