GOD QUOTES XVIII

quotations about God

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


If the consciousness of God is possible to all healthful souls, why are so many men and women without this consciousness? There are men and women, not a few, who do not want God. They would be very glad to have God if he were always on their side; glad to have God if he would always do what they want him to do. But a supreme will, a masterful will, a will to which they must conform, they do not want.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Seeking After God


Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.

SIMON MAWER

The Gospel of Judas


The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal -- God is the Omnipotent Father -- hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates.

GORE VIDAL

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire


The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.

WOODY ALLEN

Love and Death


Everyone who believes in God carries around a basic assumption of how God acts in relation with us. The French novelist Flaubert said that a great writer should stand in his novel like God in his creation: nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be heard. God is everywhere and yet invisible, silent, seemingly absent and indifferent. A few intellectuals may enjoy worshiping such an absentee God, but most Christians prefer Jesus' image of a God as a loving father. We need more than a watchmaker who winds up the universe and lets it tick. We need love and mercy and forgiveness and grace -- qualities only a personal God can offer.

PHILIP YANCEY

Reaching for the Invisible God: What Can We Expect to Find?


God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion.

SAMUEL BUTLER

Note-Books


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

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


The God whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.

WILLIAM JAMES

Lecture XX, "Conclusions," The Varieties of Religious Experience


To recognize God where and as he reveals himself is the only true bliss on earth.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe


Who knoweth God the sum of science owns.
The heavens record His handiwork; the earth
Worships His footsteps; life His breath repeats;
The soul His image; everlasting space,
The harmonies of His nature echoing, round
Reflects His vast extension; the great whole,
His boundless being, and His infinite mind.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY

Universal Hymn


Be careful how you talk about God. He's the only God we have. If you let him go he won't come back. He won't even look back over his shoulder. And then what will you do?

HAROLD PINTER

Ashes to Ashes

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God is Alpha and Omega in the great world, let us endeavour to make him so in the little world; let us practice to make him our last thought at night when we sleep; and our first in the morning when we awake; so shall our fancy be sanctified in the night, and our understanding rectified in the day; so shall our rest be peaceful, and our labours prosperous; our life pious, and our death glorious.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine


God, so to speak, is myriad-minded. We cannot look, therefore, to put ourselves in accord with his plans any more than any one man can run a line for a railroad which it requires a small army to survey.

SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY DUFFIELD

Fragments

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

MADAME SWETCHINE

"Thoughts," The Writings of Madame Swetchine


If you and I have not seen God, we cannot bear witness to God.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Problems of Life: Selections from the Writings of Rev. Lyman Abbott


Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Twilight of the Idols


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


Men may tire themselves in a labyrinth of search, and talk of God: But if we would know him indeed, it must be from the impressions we receive of him; and the softer our hearts are, the deeper and livelier those will be upon us.

WILLIAM PENN

Some Fruits of Solitude