quotations about God
Before we deny or believe the existence of anything, it is necessary that we should have a tolerably clear idea of what it is. The word "God," a vague word, has been, and will continue to be, the source of numberless errors, until it is erased from the nomenclature of philosophy. Does it imply "the soul of the universe, the intelligent and necessarily beneficent, actuating principle?" This it is impossible not to believe in; I may not be able to adduce proofs, but I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are, in themselves, arguments more conclusive than any which can be advanced, that some vast intellect animates infinity.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
letter to Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Jan. 3, 1811
The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
lecture, Nov. 18, 1862
The eternal Being is forever if he is at all.
BLAISE PASCAL
Thoughts
I've come to understand that the best one can hope for as a human is to have a relationship with that emptiness where God would be if God were available, but God isn't.
ANNE CARSON
The Paris Review, fall 2004
The difference between the truth of God and revelation is very simple. Truth is where God's been. Revelation is where God is. Truth is God's tracks. It's His trail, His path, but it leads to what? It leads to Him. Perhaps the masses of people are happy to know where God's been, but true God chasers are not content just to study God's trail, His truths; they want to know Him. They want to know where He is and what He's doing right now.
TOMMY TENNEY
The God Chasers
A bad God is worse than no God at all.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
It should not be so hard to believe in God, for man himself is scarcely less wonderful.
FRANK CRANE
"The Part of Me That Doubts", Four Minute Essays
I have too much respect for the idea of God to hold Him responsible for such an absurd world.
GEORGES DUHAMEL
The Pasquier Chronicles
Ignorance of nature's ways led people in ancient times to invent gods to lord it over every aspect of human life. There were gods of love and war; of the sun, earth, and sky; of the oceans and rivers; of rain and thunderstorms; even of earthquakes and volcanoes. When the gods were pleased, mankind was treated to good weather, peace, and freedom from natural disaster and disease. When they were displeased, there came draught, war, pestilence, and epidemics. Since the connection of cause and effect in nature was invisible to their eyes, these gods appeared inscrutable, and people at their mercy.
STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW
The Grand Design
God does not accept me conditionally, on the basis of my performance, but bestows his love and forgiveness freely, despite my innumerable failures.
PHILIP YANCEY
Reaching for the Invisible God: What Can We Expect to Find?
God created man and He created the world for him to live in and I reckon He created the kind of world He would have wanted to live in if He had been a man--the ground to walk on, the big woods, the trees and the water, and the game to live in it. And maybe He didn't put the desire to hunt and kill game in man but I reckon He knew it was going to be there, that man was going to teach it to himself, since he wasn't quite God himself yet.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Go Down
There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual into the other.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
They say that God is a comedian playing to an audience that's just afraid to laugh.
KYLE
8 Simple Rules...for Dating My Teenage Daughter
O thou mighty mind! whose powerful word
Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were!
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"A Summer Evening's Meditation"
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing.
Our helper He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
MARTIN LUTHER
Psalm. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
If there's a God, I want to see Him. It's pointless to believe in something without proof, and Krishna consciousness and meditation are methods where you can actually obtain God perception. In that way you can see, hear and play with God. Perhaps this may sound weird, but God is really there next to you.
GEORGE HARRISON
introduction, Krsna
There is no particular way that God wants you to worship God. Nor, in fact, does God need to be worshipped at all. God's ego is not so fragile that She must require you to bow down to Her in fearful reverence, or grovel before Him in earnest supplication, in order to find you worthy of receiving blessings. What kind of Supreme Being would need to do this? What kind of God would this be?
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
The New Revelations: A Conversation with God
Giving yourself up o love is melting into God. It is falling into the hands of the living God with complete abandon. This is the deep, interior prayer for which we have been striving. Here we must let go of our dependency on thoughts, words, and images. We go into the beautiful darkness. We stop struggling. We let the angels carry us. Surrender is the only word we know.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR
A Tree Full of Angels
God, that checkroom of our dreams.
JEAN ROSTAND
The Substance of Man
The Christian's God is a God of metamorphoses. You cast grief into his bosom: you draw thence, peace. You cast in despair: 'tis hope that rises to the surface. It is a sinner whose heart he moves. It is a saint who returns him thanks.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Thoughts," The Writings of Madame Swetchine