quotations about God
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
I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
The Book of Hours
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
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
Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,
But God to man doth speak in solitude.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
Highland Solitude
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
Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Glimpses
There are many men, and a large number, who, though they do not wish to be rid of God, do not very much care to have him.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.
MARY MCCARTHY
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
God sinks into dust before man.
MAX STIRNER
The Ego and Its Own
If the ox could think, it would attribute oxality to God.
XENOCRATES
attributed, Personality: The Beginning and End of Metaphysics
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
When the gods know that a god hath fallen,
With this kindly feeling
They do encourage him--
Be thou a god again and again.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka
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
Gods must be seen to be omnipotent, or the sky will fall.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires
The ethical is the universal, and as such it is again the divine. One has therefore a right to say that fundamentally every duty is a duty toward God; but if one cannot say more, then one affirms at the same time that properly I have no duty toward God. Duty becomes duty by being referred to God, but in duty itself I do not come into relation with God. Thus it is a duty to love one's neighbor, but in performing this duty I do not come into relation with God but with the neighbor whom I love. If I say then in this connection that it is my duty to love God, I am really uttering only a tautology, inasmuch as "God" is in this instance used in an entirely abstract sense as the divine, i.e. the universal, i.e. duty. So the whole existence of the human race is rounded off completely like a sphere, and the ethical is at once its limit and its content. God becomes an invisible vanishing point, a powerless thought, His power being only in the ethical which is the content of existence.
SOREN KIERKEGAARD
Fear and Trembling
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
If you're sincerely seeking God, God will make His existence evident to you.
WILLIAM LANE CRAIG
God?: A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist
Wherever you have seen God pass, mark that spot, and go and sit in that window again.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God was someone I wound up turning over and over in my mind each night.... Was He punishing me with this meal or was He rewarding me? Did He actively watch me or take me for granted like a fish you don't notice until it's floating on the surface of the tank?
DAVID SEDARIS
Naked