quotations about miracles
Knowledge has its boundary line, where it abuts on ignorance; on the outside of that boundary line are ignorance and miracles; on the inside of it are science and no miracles.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Men's thirst for the most amazing and indubitable wonders actually stems from a desire for a faith without shadows, for a crown without a cross.... A miracle is Christian only if it helps us to believe rather than relieves us of the necessity of faith.
LOUIS MONDEN
attributed, When You Need a Miracle
Miracles are like jokes. They relieve our tension suddenly by setting us free from the chain of cause and effect.
GERALD BRANAN
attributed, Get Unstuck!
Miracles are like facts of animal magnetism, or table-turning. They come into existence only where there are people ready beforehand to believe in them.
S. F. S.
The Month, vol. 126
A miracle is like an accident, and if the same accident keeps happening all the time, then somebody's making a point, aren't they?
KAREN HEULER
The Other Door
As cheesy as it sounds, I believe in miracles. I do. One happened to me once. Sometimes when I miracle happens, it's like lightning, fast and unexpected. That's what my miracle was like. Other times miracles are like a barrel filling with rainwater. The rain falls in; the water in the barrel gets deeper and deeper. Then one day it spills over the whole world in one big, wet gush. That's the tipping place.
R. A. NELSON
Breathe My Name
No matter how strong we think our faith is or want it to be, we always want to know that God is there for us, and miracles are that sort of element that bridges the gap between our faith and our connection with God.
MICHAEL O'NEILL
Exploring the Miraculous
It must be so; for miracles are ceased
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry V
A man who saw a miracle would reject his eyes' witness, if those with him saw nothing.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Lathe of Heaven
Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them, you'll find more than you ever imagined possible.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, The Lump of Coal
For some reason or the other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured--disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui--in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
Miracles do not happen.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
preface, Literature and Dogma
It would actually constitute more than a miracle, he realized. It would take divine intervention plus luck, plus some unknown element of cosmic wizardry.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Whole Truth
I don't believe in miracles, but if the need is great, a girl might make her own miracle.
JULIE BERRY
All the Truth That's in Me
Believe in your heart that you're meant to live a life full of passion, purpose, magic and miracles.
ROY T. BENETT
The Light in the Heart
The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.
JOHN GREEN
Paper Towns
The narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
WALT WHITMAN
"Song of Myself", Leaves of Grass
Miracles don't occur when I want what I haven't got or pray for neon letters in the sky. I can only perceive the miraculous by appreciating and being open to each moment. I tend, as I think many of us do, to think that miracles are only those things that bring great joy, happiness, clarity, or relief. But miracles often, at first, seem a mixed blessing at best or even quite painful.
MARILYN LANCELOT
Switching Addictions
A private man has always the liberty (because thought is free) to believe or not believe in his heart those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see what benefits can accrue by men's belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles or lies.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Miracles are like stakes supporting the young tree; when grown, trained, established, of what use are stakes or miracles?
ROBERT ASKWITH TAYLOR
The Bulwark, January 1874