quotations about God

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.EUGENE O'NEILL, The Great God BrownGod moves in a mysterious wayHis wonders to perform;He plants his footsteps in the sea,And rides upon the storm.WILLIAM COWPER, Olney HymnsGod is a witness that cannot be sworn.SAMUEL BECKETT, WattFear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.BIBLE, Ecclesiastes 12:13I 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 itMany people choose to believe that God communicates in special ways and only with special people. This removes the mass of the people from responsibility for hearing My message, much less receiving it (which is another matter), and allows them to take someone else's word for everything. You don't have to listen to Me, for you've already decided that others have heard from Me on every subject, and you have them to listen to.NEALE DONALD WALSCH, Conversations with GodMaybe there isn't a God after all, maybe there's only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone.GAO XINGJIAN, The Other ShoreWhat shall I do, if all my love,My hopes, my toil, are cast away,And if there be no God above,To hear and bless me when I pray?ANNE BRONTE, The Doubter's PrayerGod is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part.LEO TOLSTOY, DiaryThe way to God is by our selves.PHINEAS FLETCHER, The Purple IslandAll powers, all laws, are but the fairEmbodied thoughts of God.JOHN STUART BLACKIE, All things are full of GodI 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. 1880Earth's crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God;But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,And daub their natural faces unaware.ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, Aurora LeighThe nearer the Church the further from God.LANCELOT ANDREWES, Sermon on the Nativity before James IGod is dead: but considering the state of the species Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Die frohliche WissenschaftBe 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 AshesAnd almost every one when age,Disease, or sorrows strike him,Inclines to think there is a God,Or something very like Him.ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, Dipsychusimage: http://www.notable-quotes.com/g/god_quote_2.jpgThere is a God and He is good, and his love, while free, has a self imposed cost: We must be good to one another.GEORGE H.W. BUSH, RNC acceptance speech, August 18, 1988They are always saying God loves us. If that's love I'd rather have a bit of kindness.GRAHAM GREENE, The Captain and the EnemyGod is a concept by which we measure our pain.JOHN LENNON, GodAn honest God's the noblest work of man.SAMUEL BUTLER, Further Extracts from the Note BooksWhen men make gods, there is no God!EUGENE O'NEILL, Lazarus LaughedChristianity is haunted by the theory of a God with a craving for bloody sacrifices.J.B.S. HALDANE, Possible Worlds and Other PapersAfter 9/11, there were a lot of things being said about how the God of Islam and the God of the Christian faith were one and the same, but that's simply not true ... The God that I worship does not require me to kill other people. The God that I worship tells me I am to love my enemy, to give him food when he's hungry and water when he's thirsty.FRANKLIN GRAHAM, Newsweek, Aug. 14, 2006Theologians and philosophers, who make God the creator of Nature and the architect of the Universe, reveal Him to us as an illogical and unbalanced Being. They declare He is benevolent because they are afraid of Him, but they are forced to admit the truth that His ways are vicious and beyond understanding. They attribute a malignity to Him seldom to be found in any human being. And that is how they get human beings to worship Him. For our miserable species would never lavish worship on a just and benevolent God from whom they had nothing to fear.ANATOLE FRANCE, The Gods Will Have BloodAt bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father.SIGMUND FREUD, Totem and TabooLead us, Heavenly Father, lead usO'er the world's tempestuous sea;Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,For we have no help but Thee.JAMES EDMESTON, Lead Us, Heavenly FatherGod is subtle, but he is not malicious.ALBERT EINSTEINGod is a foreman with certain definite viewsWho orders life in shifts of work and leisure.SEAMUS HEANEY, DockerThe flame of my life burns lowUnder the cluttered days,Like a fire of leaves.But always a little blue, sweet-smelling smokeGoes up to God.KARLE WILSON BAKER, Blue SmokeGod helps them that helps themselves.BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Poor Richard's AlmanacGod's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, Sonnets from the PortugueseWhere sanity isthere God is.D.H. LAWRENCE, "God"God is the perfect poet,Who in his person acts his own creations.ROBERT BROWNING, Paracelsusimage: http://www.notable-quotes.com/g/god_quote_5.jpgWe are but a point, a single comma, and God is the literature of eternity.HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth PulpitConverse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,But God to man doth speak in solitude.JOHN STUART BLACKIE, Highland SolitudeGod 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 GirlOur life is like th' unstable wave,Our bloom of youth decays.Our joys are brief as lightning flashIn summer's cloudy days,Our riches fleet as swift as thought;Faith in the One SupremeAlone will bear us o'er the gulfsOf Being's stormy stream.BHARTRHARI, "Of Time the Destroyer"For as the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the bulk, so are we soul and body clad and enclosed in the goodness of God: yea, and more homelie, for all they vanish and waste away, the goodness of God is ever whole and more near to us without any comparison.JULIAN OF NORWICH, Sixteen Revelations of Divine LoveGod does not refuse to make himself known to man. He only will not do it by the symbolism of matter. He comes to us at once by the most natural course. We are in a transient state; our bodies are accidental, and God comes to us by that which is higher and truer--the intuitions of the soul.HENRY WARD BEECHER, Life ThoughtsI think everyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego.MICHAEL CRICHTON, NextThe wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have the power to wake it.CORMAC MCCARTHY, Blood MeridianSo long as you believe in a Two-Faced God, you will create ecstasy and terror side by side. You have imagined a God who is the epitome of both, and by telling yourself that you are created in the Image and Likeness of God, you have given yourself the moral authority to demonstrate both. You love and hate in the name of God.NEALE DONALD WALSCH, Tomorrow's GodI cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty.ALBERT EINSTEIN, Living PhilosophiesGod's beneficence streams out from the morning sun, and his love looks down upon us from the starry eyes of midnight. It is his solicitude that wraps us in the air, and the pressure of his hand, so to speak, that keeps our pulses beating. O! it is a great thing to realize that the Divine Power is always working; that nature, in every valve and every artery, is full of the presence of God.E. H. CHAPIN, Living WordsGod is a shower to the heart burned up with grief; God is a sun to the face deluged with tears.JOSEPH ROUX, Meditations of a Parish Priestimage: http://www.notable-quotes.com/g/god_quote_4.jpgIf you want the fire of God, you must become the fuel of God.TOMMY TENNEY, The God ChasersWe need not fear shipwreck when God is the pilot.HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth PulpitMan ... has an inborn religious sentiment that whispers of a God to his inmost soul, as a shell taken from the deep yet echoes forever the ocean's roar.HORACE MANN, ThoughtsI talk to God but the sky is empty.SYLVIA PLATH, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia PlathNothing 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 SolitudeGod is a lion that comes in the night. God is a hawk gliding among the stars--If all the stars and the earth, and the living flesh of the night that flows in between them, and whatever is beyond themWere that one bird. He has a bloody beak and harsh talons, he pounces and tears.ROBINSON JEFFERS, "The Inhumanist"I don't believe in God, but I miss him.JULIAN BARNES, Conversations with Julian BarnesThose 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 AphorismsGod never made his work for man to mend.JOHN DRYDEN, Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton, 1700Monotheism is the primitive religion which centers human consciousness on Hive Authority. There is One God and His Name is _______ (substitute Hive-Label). If there is only One God then there is no choice, no option, no selection of reality. There is only Submission or Heresy. The word Islam means "submission". The basic posture of Christianity is kneeling. Thy will be done.TIMOTHY LEARY, The Intelligence AgentsThe instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred -- like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. That is why horrible nations have horrible religions: they have been looking at God through a dirty lens.C. S. LEWIS, Mere ChristianityMost sermons sound to me like commercials — but I can't make out whether God is the Sponsor or the Product.MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN, The Neurotic's NotebookIf there is a God what the hell is He for?WILLIAM FAULKNER, As I Lay DyingNo men stand more in fear of God than those who most deny Him.BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, Moral and Religious AphorismsWhat were a God who only gave the world a push from without, or let it spin around His finger? I look for a God who moves the world from within, who fosters nature in Himself, Himself in nature; so that naught of all that lives and moves and has its being in Him ever forgets His force or His spirit.JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, "Phoœmion"image: http://www.notable-quotes.com/g/god_quote_3.jpgIf there's a God, I want to see Him. It's pointless to believe in something without proof, and Krishna consciousness and meditation are methods where you can actually obtain God perception. In that way you can see, hear and play with God. Perhaps this may sound weird, but God is really there next to you.GEORGE HARRISON, introduction, KrsnaThe word "God" is used in most cases as by no means a term of science or exact knowledge, but a term of poetry and eloquence, a term thrown out, so to speak, as a not fully grasped object of the speaker's consciousness -- a literary term, in short; and mankind mean different things by it as their consciousness differs.MATTHEW ARNOLD, Literature and DogmaLet every man come to God in his own way.HENRY WARD BEECHER, Life ThoughtsThe Christian's God is a God of metamorphoses. You cast grief into his bosom: you draw thence, peace. You cast in despair: 'tis hope that rises to the surface. It is a sinner whose heart he moves. It is a saint who returns him thanks.MADAME SWETCHINE, "Thoughts," The Writings of Madame SwetchineGod is the only being who need not even exist in order to reign.CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, FuséesThere 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, 1981You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.ANNE LAMOTT, Bird by BirdWho would imagine that the Deity conducts his providence similar to the detestable despots of this world? Oh horrible? most horrible impeachment of Divine Goodness!ETHAN ALLEN, Reason: The Only Oracle of ManA man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word "darkness" on the walls of his cell.C. S. LEWIS, The Problem of PainThe riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.G. K. CHESTERTON, "The Book of Job: An Introduction"