quotations about miracles
There are days when I think I don't believe anymore. When I think I've grown too old for miracles. And that's right when another seems to happen.
DANA REINHARDT
The Summer I Learned to Fly
Great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All's Well That Ends Well
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim -- the rocks -- the motion of the waves -- the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
WALT WHITMAN
"Miracles", Leaves of Grass
Miracles, contrary to popular belief, do not just happen. A miracle is the achievement of the impossible, and it is only when we put aside out greed, anger, pride and prejudice so that our minds are open and ready to accept it, that a miracle can occur.
JULIE ANDREWS
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles
Woman work a great many miracles.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.
TERRY PRATCHETT
Interesting Times
What is a miracle?--'Tis a reproach,
'Tis an implicit satire on mankind;
And while it satisfies, it censures too.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
Some of the miracles do locally what God has already done universally: others do locally what he had not yet done, but will do. In that sense, and from our human point of view, some are reminders and others prophecies.
C. S. LEWIS
God in the Dock
As wonders, miracles are always astonishing, but as signs they are never wholly inexplicable.
KENNETH L. WOODWARD
The Book of Miracles
Scripture talks about life as a "valley of tears," and so it often is. But it is in the midst of tears and darkness that the deepest faith develops. Wherever and whenever miracles don't happen, we have an opportunity to allow faith to take root in our souls, and it is precisely this faith that has the power to work the deepest miracle of all, the one that happens quietly inside our own hearts.
ANN SPANGLER
When You Need a Miracle
Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.
THOMAS PAINE
The Age of Reason
Are you able to see a song? You can only hear a song. How can you see a song, or hear a light? You can only see light. Miracles are like that; you can only experience them.
SAI BABA
attributed, Modern Miracles
Miracles don't come from a lip-service relationship with God.
GEORGE GEIGER
Miracles For an Athiest
A peculiar feature of the Christian miracles which is constantly ignored by apologists is diabolism. The majority of the miracles ascribed to Jesus consist in the casting out of devils. When we read that "hath a devil" and "is mad" are used as synonymous, and find that the persons said to be "possessed" are also described as lunatic, or with the symptoms of epilepsy, or as suffering from dumbness, lameness and blindness, how can we avoid the suggestion that the New Testament simply reflects the common savage superstition that certain diseases are the work of evil spirits, to be warded off by prayer or other charms of presumed magical efficacy?
LUCIANUS
Progress, August 1886
Miracles don't breed so much faith as the desire for more miracles.
DAVID WEDDLE
Miracles: Wonder and Meaning in World Religions
Miracles don't happen in a vacuum. There needs to be an openness; a prayerful expectation, and an urgency compelling God from our hearts.
GEORGE GEIGER
Miracles For an Athiest
Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.
BARUCH SPINOZA
Ethics
Miracles are the possibilities of a miracle-bearing tree; but commonly they are regarded as though they were some arbitrary manufacture. In the New Testament they are simply called "signs and wonders"; but in this age, among both believers and unbelievers, it is agreed that they are suspensions of the laws of nature, or else are nothing. Miracles presuppose the existence of a spiritual world containing spiritual agents and spiritual forces; with laws peculiar to it, and with some laws also capable of intertwining and inosculating with some of the laws of man's nature and of the material world. And yet often, by even the advocates of their reality, miracles are argued wholly and simply as material occurrences, and quite apart from the philosophy of their nature, and, indeed, as though there were really no such philosophy known. And this is because of the spirit of the age, which is so strong in us all. For it is no matter what a man may be, whether philosopher, theologian, or anything else, almost inevitably in some way or other, the spirit of the age will have its say through him, and pervert, if not quench, his meaning.
WILLIAM MOUNTFORD
Miracles, Past and Present
Miracles are like candles lit up until the sun rises, and then blown out. Therefore, I am amused when I hear sects and churches talk about having evidence of Divine authority because they have miracles. Miracles in our time are like candles in the street at midday. We do not want miracles. They are to teach men how to find out truths themselves; and after they have learned this, they no more need them than a well man needs a staff, or a grown-up child needs a walking-stool.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Sermons
A miracle can be defined as: An event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God. Or, an event or action that is totally amazing, extraordinary or unexpected. But the true meaning of a miracle can be explained very simply. It's a change of perception. Think about that for a moment.
PAUL W. HAMPTON
The Book of Answers and Inspiration