quotations about 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
We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.
Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world -- of all living things.
The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man. The test of his perfectibility is at hand.
Having taken Godlike power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have.
JOHN STEINBECK
Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 1962
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
EMILY DICKINSON
letter to Mrs. J. G. Holland, spring 1878
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"
It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be.
SIGMUND FREUD
The Future of an Illusion
It needed no divine revelation to assure us that God loves. The language of nature and the experience of our own hearts are an adequate witness to this truth, so simple as to be almost self-evident. That which gives to the Bible revelation of God's character its peculiar significance is the fact that it reveals him one who affords the highest exemplification of Christ's precept," Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." The revelation of God's love, suffering for the sake of those that despise it, though so simple, is yet so august, so sublime, that our selfish hearts can not comprehend it, and our shallow philosophy obscures or denies it. Christ crucified is to-day as much as ever "unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;" as much as ever the power and wisdom of God to those that comprehend it.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
God Himself is simple, and employs simple men to shape the world.
JOHN UPDIKE
Terrorist
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
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
If the ox could think, it would attribute oxality to God.
XENOCRATES
attributed, Personality: The Beginning and End of Metaphysics
Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Glimpses
Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,
But God to man doth speak in solitude.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
Highland Solitude
We seem to think that God speaks by seconding the ideas we've already adopted, but God nearly always catches us by surprise. If it's God's Spirit blowing, someone ends up having feathers ruffled in an unforeseen way. God tends to confound, astonish, and flabbergast.
SUE MONK KIDD
When the Heart Waits
The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.
LORD ACTON
The History of Freedom in Antiquity
My God is in the hearts of those that seek Him ... And in my heart I carry an assurance of His love that life cannot disturb. I know His love as the babe knows its mother's love, lying upon her breast. It knows her love though it neither understands her nature nor her ways.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I 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 it
Gods must be seen to be omnipotent, or the sky will fall.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires
To believe there is a God is to believe the existence of all possible Good and Perfection in the Universe: And it is to be resolved upon this--that things either are, or finally shall be, as they should be.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Those 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 Aphorisms
There is not the slightest question but that the God of the Old Testament is a jealous, vengeful God, inflicting not only on the sinful pagans but even on his Chosen People fire, lighting, hideous plagues and diseases, brimstone, and other curses.
STEVE ALLEN
Steve Allen on the Bible