GOD QUOTES XIX

quotations about God

I don't want my kids growing up with the image of God that I had -- Plato's white grandfatherly god -- because that god is not a very good father. When it comes down to it, you can't trust him with your kids.

WM. PAUL YOUNG

"The Love Shack", Christianity Today, Mar. 4, 2013


I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.

WILLIAM JAMES

Lecture III, "Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered," Pragmatism


It is beyond my power to induce in you a belief in God. There are certain things which are self proved and certain which are not proved at all. The existence of God is like a geometrical axiom. It may be beyond our heart grasp. I shall not talk of an intellectual grasp. Intellectual attempts are more or less failures, as a rational explanation cannot give you the faith in a living God. For it is a thing beyond the grasp of reason. It transcends reason. There are numerous phenomena from which you can reason out the existence of God, but I shall not insult your intelligence by offering you a rational explanation of that type. I would have you brush aside all rational explanations and begin with a simple childlike faith in God. If I exist, God exists. With me it is a necessity of my being.

MAHATMA GANDHI

Young India, Sep. 24, 1931


No god save self, that is the way to live ...

CONRAD AIKEN

"Youth"


The gods of men are sillier than their kings and queens, and emptier and more powerless.

MAXWELL ANDERSON

Elizabeth the Queen


The marvels of God are not brought forth from one's self.
Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played.
The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather,
through the touch of the Musician.
I am, of course, the lyre and harp of God's kindness.

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

attributed, Soul Weavings

Tags: Hildegard of Bingen


God has no religion.

HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS

Re-statements of Christian Doctrine

Tags: Henry Whitney Bellows


God is infinite and we are finite; and, at the best, we can only know him a very little.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Seeking After God

Tags: Lyman Abbott


He who looks for the worst in men will not be without belief in a personal devil; he who looks for the best in men will not be without faith in a personal God.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Seeking After God

Tags: Lyman Abbott


I love God's shadow better than man's light.

MADAME SWETCHINE

"Thoughts," The Writings of Madame Swetchine


Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness of the divine. To love life is to love God.

LEO TOLSTOY

War and Peace

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Only one thing is necessary: to possess God -- All the senses, all the forces of the soul and of the spirit, all the exterior resources are so many open outlets to the Divinity; so many ways of tasting and of adoring God.

HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL

Journal Intime

Tags: Henri-Frederic Amiel


Our notions of God are tinged by our own characters and ignorance.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


The name of God should no longer come from the mouth of man. This word that has so long been degraded by usage no longer means anything.... To use the word God is more than sloth, it is a refusal to think, a king of short cut, a hideous shorthand.

ARTHUR ADAMOV

The Confession


And I knew not God to be a Spirit, not one who hath parts extended in length and breadth, or whose being was bulk; for every bulk is less in a part than in the whole: and if it be infinite, it must be less in such part as is defined by a certain space, than in its infinitude; and so is not wholly every where, as Spirit, as God. And what that should be in us, by which we were like to God, and might be rightly said to be after the image of God, I was altogether ignorant.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Confessions

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God is able to do more than man can understand.

THOMAS À KEMPIS

Imitation of Christ

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God is the only lover and He loves in different forms -- parents, husband, wife, friend, children, animals. All are His forms and He, Himself, has no form.

BABA HARI DASS

Silence Speaks: from the chalkboard of Baba Hari Dass


God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time -- life and death -- stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. Therefore I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out.

RICHARD FEYNMAN

attributed, Superstrings: A Theory of Everything


God: a disease we imagine we are cured of because no one dies of it nowadays.

EMIL CIORAN

The Trouble with Being Born


If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.

JAMES BALDWIN

The Fire Next Time

Tags: James Baldwin