quotations about God
God writes a lot of comedy ... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny.
GARRISON KEILLOR
Happy to be Here
I have often a suspicion God is still trying to work things out and hasn't finished.
REBECCA WEST
The Paris Review, spring 1981
I'm never tempted by God but I like his trappings.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Passion
If God were not a necessary being of himself, he might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of men.
JOHN TILLOTSON
Sermons
Men may tire themselves in a labyrinth of search, and talk of God: But if we would know him indeed, it must be from the impressions we receive of him; and the softer our hearts are, the deeper and livelier those will be upon us.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
attributed, The Best Liberal Quotes Ever
The divine qualities of man are but the slightest hints, the faintest intimations, of the attributes of God.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
WILLIAM JAMES
Lecture XX, "Conclusions," The Varieties of Religious Experience
They are always saying God loves us. If that's love I'd rather have a bit of kindness.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Captain and the Enemy
Every attentive and intelligent student of the Bible will perceive, that revelation was vouchsafed to man, in order to deliver or preserve him from idolatry, by instructing him in the character and perfections of the one living and true God, and the way in which he would be worshipped; as well as to teach other duties, and to influence him to perform them. The jealous care of Jehovah, to distinguish betwixt himself and every idol, to secure the glory himself without allowing any of it to be given to another, and the terrible denunciations pronounced against, and severe judgments executed upon idolaters, must attract the notice of all who are conversant with the sacred oracles, and convince every impartial person that idolatry is the greatest of all sins, atheism alone excepted.
THOMAS SCOTT
"On the Scripture Character of God", Essays on the Most Important Subjects in Religion
I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
telegram response to New York rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, Apr. 24, 1929
To recognize God where and as he reveals himself is the only true bliss on earth.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
All human love is a faint type of God's;
An echoing note from a harmonious whole;
A feeble spark from an undying flame;
A single drop from an unfathomed sea:
But God's is infinite; it fills the earth
And heaven, and the broad, trackless realms of space.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Love of God"
Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Glimpses
Except during my childhood, when I was probably influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel depiction of God with a flowing white beard, I have never tried to project the Creator in any kind of human likeness. The vociferous debates about whether God is male or female seem ridiculous to me. I think of God as an omnipotent and omniscient presence, a spirit that permeates the universe, the essence of truth, nature, being, and life. To me, these are profound and indescribable concepts that seem to be trivialized when expressed in words.
JIMMY CARTER
Living Faith
God deceiveth thee not.
THOMAS À KEMPIS
Imitation of Christ
God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Note-Books
I don't want my kids growing up with the image of God that I had -- Plato's white grandfatherly god -- because that god is not a very good father. When it comes down to it, you can't trust him with your kids.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
"The Love Shack", Christianity Today, Mar. 4, 2013
If religion be supposed to produce any effect on the conduct of mankind, every person of common sense must allow, that the character and actions ascribed to the object of worship, must be of the greatest possible importance; for as these are, so will the sincere worshipper be. To please, to resemble, to imitate the object of adoration, must be the supreme aim and ambition of every devotee; whether of Jupiter, Mars, Bacchus, Venus, Moloch, or Mammon; as well as of every spiritual worshipper of Jehovah: and we may, therefore, know what to expect from every man, if we are acquainted with his sentiments concerning the God that he adores, provided we can ascertain the degree in which he is sincere and earnest in his religion. It would be absurd to expect much honesty from him who devotedly worshipped Mercury as the god of thieving; much mercy from a devotee of Moloch; love of peace from the worshipper of Mars; or chastity from the priestess of Venus: and whatever philosophical speculators may imagine, both the scriptures and profane history (ancient and modern) show that the bulk of mankind, in heathen nations, were far more sincere in, and influenced by their absurd idolatries, than professed Christians are by the Bible; because they are far more congenial to corrupt nature. Nay, it is a fact, that immense multitudes of human sacrifices are, at this day, annually offered according to the rules of a dark superstition; and various other flagrant immoralities sanctioned by religion amongst those idolaters, who have been erroneously considered as the most inoffensive of the human race. But these proportional effects on the moral character of mankind are not peculiar to gross idolatry: if men fancy that they worship the true God alone, and yet form a wrong notion of his character and perfections, they only substitute a more refined idolatry in the place of paganism, and worship the creature of their own imagination, though not the work of their own hands: And in what doth such an ideal being, though called Jehovah, differ from that called Jupiter or Baal? The character ascribed to him may indeed come nearer the truth than the other, and the delusion may be more refined; but, if it essentially differ from the scripture character of God, the effect must be the same, in a measure, as to those who earnestly desire to imitate, resemble, and please the object of their adoration.
THOMAS SCOTT
"On the Scripture Character of God", Essays on the Most Important Subjects in Religion
Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Twilight of the Idols