quotations about angels
For what is it that angels do? They bring us good news. They open our eyes to moments of wonder, to lovely possibilities, to exemplary people, to the idea that God is here in our midst. They lift our hearts and give us wings.
JOAN WESTER ANDERSON
Where Angels Walk
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
Entertaining angels unawares: It is always we who are to entertain the angels, and never they us. I cannot, however, think that an angel would be a very entertaining person, either as guest or host.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Notebooks
Death is terrible, tho' borne on angels' wings!
WILLIAM BLAKE
King Edward the Third
But now that we may lift up our eyes (as it were) from the footstool to the throne of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the state of heavenly and divine creatures: touching Angels, which are spirits immaterial and intellectual, the glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where nothing but light and blessed immortality, no shadow of matter for tears, discontentments, griefs, and uncomfortable passions to work upon, but all joy, tranquility, and peace, even for ever and ever doth dwell: as in number and order they are huge, mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience unto the law, which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate, hath imposed upon them, such observants they are thereof, that our Saviour himself being to set down the perfect idea of that which we are to pray and wish for on earth, did not teach to pray or wish for more than only that here it might be with us, as with them it is in heaven.
RICHARD HOOKER
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
But all God's angels come to us disguised: sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, one after other lift their frowning masks, and we behold the Seraph's face beneath, all radiant with the glory and the calm of having looked upon the front of God.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"On the Death of a Friend's Child"
Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure and are awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Each single angel is terrifying.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Duino Elegies
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.
ALEXANDER POPE
Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady
You have asked for help so know that God and the Angels are helping you right now. Continue to ask for their assistance, and then be open to accept it when it comes (and it always does).
SHARON TAPHORN
"Angel Blessings", beliefnet, March 7, 2016
Yes, angels are real, just as real as you and I are. Although they are largely unseen by us, they exist in great numbers.
BILLY GRAHAM
"Billy Graham says angels are real and appear as ordinary humans on occasion", Christian Today, January 29, 2016
Ye holy angels bright, who stand before God's throne and dwell in glorious light, praise ye the Lord each one. Assist our song, or else the theme too high doth seem for mortal tongue.
RICHARD BAXTER
Poetical Fragments
What is all this shit about angels? Have you heard this? Three out of four people now, believe in angels. What're you, fucking stupid? Has everybody lost their f***ing minds in this country? Angels, shit. You know what I think it is? I think it's a massive collective psychotic chemical flashback of all the drugs -- all the drugs -- smoked, swallowed, snorted, shot, and absorbed rectally by all Americans from 1960 to 1990. Thirty years of adulterated street drugs'll get you some f***ing angels, my friend.
GEORGE CARLIN
"Angels", You Are All Diseased
We can all be angels to one another. We can choose to obey the still small stirring within, the little whisper that says, "Go. Ask. Reach out. Be an answer to someone's plea. You have a part to play. Have faith." We can decide to risk that He is indeed there, watching, caring, cherishing us as we love and accept love. The world will be a better place for it. And wherever they are, the angels will dance.
JOAN WESTER ANDERSON
Where Angels Walk
This is the state of all creatures, whether men or angels; as they make not themselves, so they enjoy nothing from themselves; if they are great, it must be only as great receivers of the gifts of God; their power can only be so much of the divine power acting in them; their wisdom can be only so much of the divine wisdom shining within them; and their light and glory, only so much of the light and glory of God shining upon them.
WILLIAM LAW
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
The greatest thing we can learn from the holy angels is their instant, unquestioning obedience to God's command.
PETER NWARU
"Existence of Angels: What Christians believe", National Mirror, February 28, 2016
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Goodness and Goodness in Nature", Essays
The death of God left the angels in a strange position. They were overtaken suddenly by a fundamental question. One can attempt to imagine the moment. How did they look at the instant the question invaded them, flooding the angelic consciousness, taking hold with terrifying force? The question was, "What are angels?" New to questioning, unaccustomed to terror, unskilled in aloneness, the angels (we assume) fell into despair.
DONALD BARTHELME
"On Angels"
The angels are at your disposal when what you seek aligns with God's will.
TONY EVANS
The Truth About Angels
Six wings he wore, to shade his lineaments divine; the pair that clad each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast with regal ornament; the middle pair girt like a starry zone his waist, and round skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold, and colours dipp'd in heaven; the third his feet shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail, sky-tinctur'd grain.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
Man is his own star, and the soul that can render an honest and a perfect man commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early, or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
JOHN FLETCHER
The Honest Man's Fortune