quotations about God
God is a foreman with certain definite views
Who orders life in shifts of work and leisure.
SEAMUS HEANEY
Docker
I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.
WILLIAM JAMES
Lecture III, "Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically Considered," Pragmatism
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
Our notions of God are tinged by our own characters and ignorance.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
No god save self, that is the way to live ...
CONRAD AIKEN
"Youth"
God's beneficence streams out from the morning sun, and his love looks down upon us from the starry eyes of midnight. It is his solicitude that wraps us in the air, and the pressure of his hand, so to speak, that keeps our pulses beating. O! it is a great thing to realize that the Divine Power is always working; that nature, in every valve and every artery, is full of the presence of God.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
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
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
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
God is infinite and we are finite; and, at the best, we can only know him a very little.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
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
The gods of men are sillier than their kings and queens, and emptier and more powerless.
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Elizabeth the Queen
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
Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.
SIMON MAWER
The Gospel of Judas
God deceiveth thee not.
THOMAS À KEMPIS
Imitation of Christ
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
Let every man come to God in his own way.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
God has no religion.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
In reality, each thought we have carries with it a little spiritual power, a tug toward or away from God. No thought is purely neutral.
JOHN ORTBERG
God Is Closer Than You Think
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