quotations about God
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
The marvels of God are not brought forth from one's self.
Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played.
The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather,
through the touch of the Musician.
I am, of course, the lyre and harp of God's kindness.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
attributed, Soul Weavings
To recognize God where and as he reveals himself is the only true bliss on earth.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
It is beyond my power to induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things which are self proved and certain which are not proved at all. The existence of God is like a geometrical axiom. It may be beyond our heart grasp. I shall not talk of an intellectual grasp. Intellectual attempts are more or less failures, as a rational explanation cannot give you the faith in a living God. For it is a thing beyond the grasp of reason. It transcends reason. There are numerous phenomena from which you can reason out the existence of God, but I shall not insult your intelligence by offering you a rational explanation of that type. I would have you brush aside all rational explanations and begin with a simple childlike faith in God. If I exist, God exists. With me it is a necessity of my being.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Young India, Sep. 24, 1931
The brave-speaking Plato pronounceth that God formed the world after his own image; but this smells rank of the old dotages, old comic writers would say; for how did God, casting his eye upon himself, frame this universe? Or how can God be spherical, and be inferior to man?
PLUTARCH
"What is God?", Essays & Miscellanies
Many deeds are enacted in God's name which fill the Devil's heart with envy.
ABRAHAM MILLER
Unmoral Maxims
It's easy being a god. If you have the right equipment.
DAN SIMMONS
Ilium
There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance only implies ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
ISAAC ASIMOV
"The Threat of Creationism", New York Times Magazine, Jun. 14, 1981
If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Fire Next Time
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
God is revealing Himself to humanity. He is a Word, always speaking. He speaks through His works; all nature interprets Him to us. He speaks through His prophets; all men who have felt the inspiration of His presence interpret Him to us.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Theology of an Evolutionist
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
RICHARD DAWKINS
The God Delusion
Curiously, neither God nor the devil may wear modern dress, but must retain Grecian vestments.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1930
Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no God; and this has never happened before.
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
God is the only being who need not even exist in order to reign.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Fusées
God is a witness that cannot be sworn.
SAMUEL BECKETT
Watt
If there is a God what the hell is He for?
WILLIAM FAULKNER
As I Lay Dying
I found it better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o' God's dealings, and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede
I ask no truer image of my Heavenly Father than I find reflected in my own heart -- all loving, all forgiving.
HOSEA BALLOU
Treasury of Thought
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