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
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attributed, The Root of All Evil
As it is impossible to be outside God, the best is consciously to dwell in Him.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
God -- if he really exist -- is good, alive, self-conscious, and governs all things according to his benevolent and holy providence; but the world shows no indications of such a benevolent and holy Providence. This earth appears to be a hell, or at best a planet condemned -- a sort of purgatory: it is filled with violence, tyranny and injustice, and yet God, if he exist, is absolute sovereign, and has willed that things should be as they are! -- Therefore there is no God.
WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE
Remarks on the Science of History
God is not the author of all things, but of good only.
PLATO
The Republic
God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Note-Books
People ... have tried to evoke God or devil to justify them in what their glands insisted upon.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Absalom
God appears and god is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
God is only a great imaginative experience.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence
'Twas only fear first in the world made gods.
BEN JONSON
Sejanus
God never made his work for man to mend.
JOHN DRYDEN
Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton, 1700
Men fail to find God because they curiously reverse the position -- the natural, legitimate, rightful position -- between the soul and God. There is a word common in theology, though not very familiar in ordinary intercourse, -- theodicy, which means justifying the ways of God to man. When a man begins to justify the ways of God to man, he has entered on a very dangerous process. For example, it is said, " If there is a God, he must be omnipotent and omniscient; and an omnipotent and omniscient God could and would make a world without sin and without suffering; but the world is not without sin nor without suffering, therefore there is no God." Such a man frames in his own mind his notion of what a God must be, and then brings God himself to that standard, and measures him by it. Theodicy! Justifying the ways of God to man! Sit, my soul, on the judgment throne, and summon God to stand before thee. "Now, Almighty One, I will see whether thou art righteous. Why didst thou allow famine in India? What right hast thou to allow a deluge in Japan? What right hast thou to allow man to go to war with his fellow-man in Europe? Justify thyself; explain thyself; answer for thyself." No man will ever find his way to the heart of God in that spirit.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
The prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason as to the will of man: so that as we are to obey His law, though we find a reluctation in our will, so we are to believe His word, though we find a reluctation in our reason.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
God's commandments are the iron door into himself. To keep them is to have it opened and his great heart of love revealed.
SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY DUFFIELD
Fragments
God, a born extremist, is the diplomat's worst enemy. Quite apart from the fact that His decrees are irrevocable, the Absolute will not allow anyone to relativize matters.
RéGIS DEBRAY
God: An Itinerary
It is too frequent to begin with God and end with the World. But He is the good man's Beginning and End; his Alpha and Omega.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
It isn't so much that God is the unified state of consciousness that each of us came from and will return to, but more so that God is the creative energy flowing between all states of consciousness. God is in the land beyond the mountains, but God is also in the mountains and in the valley of illusions cradled within the mountains. God is not one thing or another, rather God flows between and through all things.
ELIZABETH LESSER
The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure
The way to God is by our selves.
PHINEAS FLETCHER
The Purple Island
They are always saying God loves us. If that's love I'd rather have a bit of kindness.
GRAHAM GREENE
The Captain and the Enemy
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
You are as close to God in your own sitting room as in the basilica; but the basilica has worth if it strengthens your faith.
SIMON MAWER
The Gospel of Judas