GOD QUOTES XXI

quotations about God

To say that the Great Companion is dead, is not to say that there is no God. The dead also live; but between them and ourselves all communion and companionship seem to most of us impossible. So to many in our own time, to many without the Church, to some within it, living companionship with a living God is an experience unknown. They believe in what Carlyle calls a "hypothetical God," but he is to them only a hypothesis. They look back through the ages for some evidence of a God who revealed himself centuries ago; they look forward with anticipation to a God who will reveal himself in some future ephiphany; but of a God here and now, a God who is a perpetual presence, a God whom they can see as Abraham saw him, with whom they can talk as Moses talked with him, who will inspire them with courage as he inspired Gideon, with hope as he inspired Isaiah, and with praise as he inspired David, they do not know.

LYMAN ABBOTT

The Great Companion


God is revealing Himself to humanity. He is a Word, always speaking. He speaks through His works; all nature interprets Him to us. He speaks through His prophets; all men who have felt the inspiration of His presence interpret Him to us.

LYMAN ABBOTT

The Theology of an Evolutionist

Tags: Lyman Abbott


Gods die when they are forgotten.

NEIL GAIMAN

American Gods


For the existence of any religion there must be a belief that there is, somewhere in the universe, an intelligence of a higher order than man's, and that this intelligence possesses a power superior to what we call the ordinary powers of nature. And religion is simply the condition or adjustment of the relations between each individual human soul and that higher intelligence, call it by what name you will.

ROSSITER JOHNSON

"The Whispering Gallery"


Within you lies embedded in the marble of your human life the Spirit that is God, hidden beneath the flesh, hidden beneath the bodies, the emotions and the mind, so that it is not visible to the outer eyes. You have not to create that image. It is there. You have not to manufacture it; you have only to set it free.

ANNIE BESANT

There Is No Death

Tags: Annie Besant


Try to comprehend the unity of all; there is one God, and all are one in Him. If we can but bring home to ourselves the unity of that Eternal Love, there will be no more sorrow for us; for we shall realize, not for ourselves alone but for those whom we love, that whether we live or die, we are the Lord's, and that in Him we live and move and have our being, whether it be in this world or in the world to come.

C. W. LEADBEATER

The Science of the Sacraments


What deity in the realms of dementia, what rabid god decocted out of the smoking lobes of hydrophobia could have devised a keeping place for souls so poor as is this flesh. This mawky wormbent tabernacle.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

Suttree

Tags: Cormac McCarthy


I think, Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
Found for mortals the fear of gods,
Thereby to frighten the wicked should they
Even act or speak or scheme in secret.

EURIPIDES

Sisyphus (fragment)


God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the theologian it seems, at once must adhere and cannot consistently adhere to all three.

J. L. MACKIE

Evil and Omnipotence

Tags: J. L. Mackie


These are thy glorious works Parent of Good,
Almighty, thine this universal Frame,
Thus wondrous fair; thy self how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitst above these Heavens
To us invisible or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works, yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and Power Divine:
Speak ye who best can tell, ye Sons of light,
Angels, for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, Day without Night,
Circle his Throne rejoicing, ye in Heav'n,
On Earth join all ye Creatures to extoll
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.

JOHN MILTON

Paradise Lost


All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

The Night of the Iguana


To seek God within ourselves avails us far more than to look for Him amongst creatures.

TERESA OF AVILA

The Interior Castle

Tags: Teresa of Avila


If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Religion and Science


God is the only being who need not even exist in order to reign.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

Fusées

Tags: Charles Baudelaire


Many 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 God

Tags: Neal Donald Walsch


Since ancient times, the philosophers' secret has always been this: we know that God does not exist, or, at least, if he does, he's utterly indifferent to our individual affairs--but we can't let the rabble know that; it's the fear of God, the threat of divine punishment and the promise of divine reward, that keeps in line those too unsophisticated to work out questions of morality on their own.

ROBERT J. SAWYER

Calculating God

Tags: Robert J. Sawyer


Curiously, neither God nor the devil may wear modern dress, but must retain Grecian vestments.

SINCLAIR LEWIS

Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1930


Many deeds are enacted in God's name which fill the Devil's heart with envy.

ABRAHAM MILLER

Unmoral Maxims


Mistrusts sometimes come over one's mind of the justice of God. But let a real misery come again, and to whom do we fly? To whom do we instinctively and immediately look up?

B. R. HAYDON

Table Talk


God like Us suffers the ambition to make a destiny more extraordinary than was conceived for Him, yes God is like Me, only more so.

NORMAN MAILER

"Advertisement for Myself on the Way Out," Advertisements for Myself