quotations about God
On all things created remaineth the half-effaced signature of God,
Somewhat of fair and good, though blotted by the finger of corruption.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Wherever you have seen God pass, mark that spot, and go and sit in that window again.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
'Twas only fear first in the world made gods.
BEN JONSON
Sejanus
The example of God, teacheth the lesson truly.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Goodness and Goodness Of Nature", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What is in me dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the heighth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
I rarely speak about God. To God yes. I protest against Him. I shout at Him. But open discourse about the qualities of God, about the problems that God imposes, theodicy, no. And yet He is there, in silence, in filigree.
ELIE WIESEL
The Paris Review, spring 1984
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The Book of Hours
God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Sonnets from the Portuguese
Most 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 Notebook
We rejoice in God since he has taught us that every thing which is true in us, is but a faint expression of what is in him. And thus all our joys become to us the echo of higher joys, and our very life is as a dream of that nobler life, to which we shall awaken when we die.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Gods must be seen to be omnipotent, or the sky will fall.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires
I think he is condemned by himself to loneliness. God is One: he was, he is, he will be always One. One is so lonely. Maybe that is why he created human beings--to feel less lonely. But as human beings betray his creation, he may become even lonelier.
ELIE WIESEL
Random House interview
I think everyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego.
MICHAEL CRICHTON
Next
But tho' God has replenished this world with abundance of good things for man's life and comfort, yet they are all but imperfect goods. He only is the perfect good to whom they point. But alas! Men cannot see him for them; tho' they should always see him in them.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
The longer I live and the more I see
Of the struggle of souls toward the heights above,
The stronger this truth comes home to me:
That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love;
A love so limitless, deep, and broad,
That men have renamed it and called it--God.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Deathless"
Men fail to find God because they curiously reverse the position -- the natural, legitimate, rightful position -- between the soul and God. There is a word common in theology, though not very familiar in ordinary intercourse, -- theodicy, which means justifying the ways of God to man. When a man begins to justify the ways of God to man, he has entered on a very dangerous process. For example, it is said, " If there is a God, he must be omnipotent and omniscient; and an omnipotent and omniscient God could and would make a world without sin and without suffering; but the world is not without sin nor without suffering, therefore there is no God." Such a man frames in his own mind his notion of what a God must be, and then brings God himself to that standard, and measures him by it. Theodicy! Justifying the ways of God to man! Sit, my soul, on the judgment throne, and summon God to stand before thee. "Now, Almighty One, I will see whether thou art righteous. Why didst thou allow famine in India? What right hast thou to allow a deluge in Japan? What right hast thou to allow man to go to war with his fellow-man in Europe? Justify thyself; explain thyself; answer for thyself." No man will ever find his way to the heart of God in that spirit.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
What 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 Prayer
God 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 them
Were that one bird. He has a bloody beak and harsh talons, he pounces and tears.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"The Inhumanist"
There is no duty in religion more generally agreed on, nor more justly required by God almighty, than a perfect submission to his will in all things: Nor is there any disposition of mind that can either please him more or become us better, than that of being satisfied with all he gives, and contented with all he takes away; none, I am sure, can be of more honour to God, nor more easy to ourselves; for if we consider him as our maker we cannot contend with him; if as our father we ought not to distrust him; so that we may be confident, whatever he does is intended for our good; and whatever happens that we may interpret otherwise, yet we cannot get nothing by repining, nor save anything by resisting.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
The rash assertion that 'God made man in His own image' is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
"Space and the Spirit of Man"