quotations about God
Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,
But God to man doth speak in solitude.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/g/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37
Highland Solitude
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 gives as the wheat gives: we sow one grain, and reap a hundred.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
God Himself is simple, and employs simple men to shape the world.
JOHN UPDIKE
Terrorist
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
Everything was God, holy; as God is total, so the driftwood branch was holy. This must be the stuff religion is made of.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shalt learn of God.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Glimpses
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
We seem to think that God speaks by seconding the ideas we've already adopted, but God nearly always catches us by surprise. If it's God's Spirit blowing, someone ends up having feathers ruffled in an unforeseen way. God tends to confound, astonish, and flabbergast.
SUE MONK KIDD
When the Heart Waits
God is subtle, but he is not malicious.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
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
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
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
An honest God's the noblest work of man.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Further Extracts from the Note Books
God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you're sitting in as you read these words.
JOHN ORTBERG
God Is Closer Than You Think
The Divine Being brings comfort and consolation to men. He is a God for men that are weak, and want to be strong; for men that are impure, and want to be pure; for men that are unjust, and want to be just; for men that are unloving, and want to be loving; for men that aspire to all the greatness and glory of which the soul is capable.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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 is infinite and we are finite; and, at the best, we can only know him a very little.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
To see God everywhere is to see Him nowhere.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
Somewhere in the infinite that He occupies, God advances and withdraws the pawns of the other games He plays, but it is too soon to worry about this one, all He need do for the present is allow things to take their natural course, apart from the occasional adjustment with the tip of His little finger to make sure some stray thought or action does not interfere with the harmony of destinies.
JOSé SARAMAGO
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ