quotations about God
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
RICHARD DAWKINS
attributed, The Root of All Evil
You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
ANNE LAMOTT
Bird by Bird
God speaks silently, he speaks in your heart; if your heart is noisy, chattering, you will not hear.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER
This War is the Passion
As the innermost Essence of God is self-existence, so the cosmos (by which we mean everything not-God) is essentially dependent on God as its first and sole cause. The universe is no ens a se; it is entirely ab alio. This dependency is co-existent with the universe in all its phases. From the moment of its creation down to the hour of its consummation the universe is and remains essentially ens ab alio. It depends on God for its being and operation, and would sink back into nothingness without Him.
JOSEPH POHLE
God: The Author of Nature and the Supernatural
God is not only fatherly,
God is also mother
who lifts her loved child
from the ground to her knee.
The Trinity is like a mother's cloak
wherein the child finds a home
and lays its head on the maternal breast.
MECHTILD OF MAGDEBURG
attributed, Soul Weavings
If God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty -- by ceasing to exist.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
The way to God is by our selves.
PHINEAS FLETCHER
The Purple Island
Those who know God know that it is quite a mistake to suppose that there are only five senses.
COVENTRY PATMORE
The Rod, the Root, and the Flower
Being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket.
GOD
Futurama
I conceive of God, in fact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others.
JAMES BALDWIN
address delivered at Kalamazoo College, February 1960
I think everyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego.
MICHAEL CRICHTON
Next
God, whom the wisest men acknowledge to be a power uneffable, and virtue infinite; a light by abundant clarity invisible; an understanding which itself can only comprehend; an essence eternal and spiritual, of absolute pureness and simplicity; was and is pleased to make himself known by the work of the world: in the wonderful magnitude whereof, (all which he embraceth, filleth, and sustaineth,) we behold the image of that glory which cannot be measured, and withal, that one, and yet universal nature which cannot be defined. In the glorious lights of heaven we perceive a shadow of his divine countenance.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
The First Part of the History of the World: Intreating of the Beginning and First Ages of the Same
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
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
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
Remember the perfections of that God whom you worship, that he is a Spirit, and therefore to be worshipped in spirit and truth; and that he is most great and terrible, and therefore to be worshipped with seriousness and reverence, and not to be dallied with, or served with toys or lifeless lip-service; and that he is most holy, pure, and jealous, and therefore to be purely worshipped; and that he is still present with you, and all things are naked and open to him with whom we have to do. The knowledge of God, and the remembrance of his all-seeing presence, are the most powerful means against hypocrisy.
RICHARD BAXTER
Christian Ethics
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"
I can't bring myself to believe in a God with a personality like my own. I base that on the paucity of lightning attacks on people who deserve it.
SCOTT ADAMS
Stick to Drawing Comics
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
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