c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different, we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application.
— Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
He paused, twisting his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought. "Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this one matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.
— Joe Hill, Horns
Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon.
— Thomas Merton, The Hidden Ground Of Love: The Letters Of Thomas Merton On Religious Experience And Social Concerns
If I marry: He must be so tall that when he is on his knees, as one has said he reaches all the way to heaven. His shoulders must be broad enough to bear the burden of a family. His lips must be strong enough to smile, firm enough to say no, and tender enough to kiss. Love must be so deep that it takes its stand in Christ and so wide that it takes the whole lost world in. He must be active enough to save souls. He must be big enough to be gentle and great enough to be thoughtful. His arms must be strong enough to carry a little child.
— Ruth Bell
I mean that the reason God seems to act in ways that make no sense to us is that our perceptions are wrong. Our expectations are subtly twisted. We long for things that harm us and run from the things that grow and heal us. We think good is bad and bad is good. God acts rightly, but to us, it seems confusing. Or sometimes plain wrong.
— Tessa Afshar, Pearl in the Sand
Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.
— Robert C. Shannon
Let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version
Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered, Oh God.
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road
How was she created? I'm not sure if you realize this, but it was in God's image. How can anybody dare to speak ill of something which bears such a noble imprint?
— Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
Our intellect is not intended to be an end in itself, but only a means to the very mind of God.
— Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message
God would seem to indicate to us and not allow us to doubt that these beautiful poems are not human, or the work of man, but divine and the work of God; and that the poets are only the interpreters of the Gods...
— Socrates
Something of God... flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself.
— C.S. Lewis
Think outside the box? Indeed. But to add balance to that, one should not in the process forget what the inside of the box looks like as well. Those who are best at thinking outside the box do it not to puff themselves up, but to see how small they really are. As a contented fish in its fish tank appears to have a small, boring existence to us, imagine a larger, more perceptive kingdom (even by scientific taxonomy) to whom our contented existences may appear to be small and boring. This is where true creativity and massive perceptive abilities spawn a sense of intellectual humility; the kind which God adores.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
I won't put my ignorance on an altar and call it God. It feels like idolatry, like the worst kind of idolatry.
— Robert Charles Wilson, Darwinia
Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.
— Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock
Ah, how many Marahs have been sweetened by a simple, satisfying glimpse of the Tree and the Love which underwent its worst confict there. Yes, the Cross is the tree that sweetens the waters. 'Love never faileth.
— Jim Elliot
We were all born to be peaceful citizens of the world. Take care of your global garden and do not allow evil gardeners to try and convince you which flowers are ugly and which should be destroyed. This is God's universe and he is the master gardener of all. If you see ugliness in his creations, then you see ugliness in our Creator. Wake up. If we eliminate all colors in his garden, then what would be a rainbow with only one color? And what would be a garden with only one kind of flower? Why would the Creator create a vast assortment of plants, ethnicities, and animals, if only one beast or seed is to dominate all of existence?
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
He believed in God even if he was doubtful of men's claims to know God's mind. But that a God unable to forgive was no God at all.
— Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
Thank God I am not God! Thank God I am not God!
— Allen Ginsberg, Kaddish and Other Poems
I wish we had the technology to fight God on an equal basis. To beard him in his den. To fight back for all of the injustices heaped on humanity. To allow him to alter his smug arrogance or be blown to hell.
— Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion
If you search for God you will find him and He will not give up on you".
— Michele Woolley, God's Favor - Breath Of Heaven
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever - do not abandon the works of your hands.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
The Divine Voice is not always expressed in words. It is made known as a heart-consciousness.
— A.J. Russell, God Calling
Dr. Keller begins pacing. "I don't think we've been hearing Faith just right. Her guard...the words..they sound alike."What do you mean?"Your daughter," Dr. Keller says flatly. "I think she's seeing God.
— Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith
There is no sin too great for God's grace. There is no habit too big for his healing. There is no label too strong for his love.
— Craig Groeschel, Altar Ego: Becoming Who God Says You Are
Don’t worry when you meet opposition for obeying God. Worry when you don’t have opposition, because you’re probably not obeying God.
— Craig Groeschel, Altar Ego: Becoming Who God Says You Are
Before I could turn to look up, a voice boomed from the heavens: "What the heck is going on down there?
— Kat Falls, Rip Tide
‎"If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.
— William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith
It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause
— David Hume
As we experience this love, there is a temptation at times to become hostile to our earlier understandings, feeling embarrassed that we were so "simple" or "naive," or "brainwashed" or whatever terms arise when we haven't come to terms with our own story. These past understandings aren't to be denied or dismissed; they're to be embraced. Those experiences belong. Love demands that they belong. That's where we were at that point in our life and God met us there. Those moments were necessary for us to arrive here, at this place at this time, as we are. Love frees us to embrace all of our history, the history in which all things are being made new.
— Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
Think of God and not religion, of ecstasy and not mysticism. The difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.
— Emil M. Cioran
Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good; Love alone lightens every burden, and makes the rough places smooth. It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable. The love of Jesus is noble, and inspires us to great deeds; it moves us always to desire perfection. Love aspires to high things, and is held back by nothing base. Love longs to be free, a stranger to every worldly desire, lest its inner vision become dimmed, and lest worldly self-interest hinder it or ill-fortune cast it down. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God, and can rest only in God above all created things.Love flies, runs, leaps for joy; it is free and unrestrained. Love gives all for all, resting in One who is highest above all things, from whom every good flows and proceeds. Love does not regard the gifts, but turns to the Giver of all good gifts. Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds. Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength; love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things. Love therefore does great things; it is strange and effective; while he who lacks love faints and fails.
— Thomas à Kempis, The Inner Life
God is here. This truth should fill our lives, and every Christmas should be for us a new and special meeting with God, when we allow his light and grace to enter deep into our soul.
— Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing by
God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden... The best gift of the desert is God's presence... The protective love of the Shepherd gives me courage to face the interior journey.
— Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain...This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines - they are a way of sowing to the Spirit... By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.
— Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
Everyone knows that God protects drunkards and lovers.
— Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
God's ways are higher than our ways not because he is less compassionate than we are but because he is more compassionate than we can ever imagine.
— Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions
We don't know the Devil's side of the story, because God wrote all the books.
— J.A. Konrath, Origin
We speak, but it is God who teaches.
— Augustine of Hippo
I have always considered "Pascal's Wager" a questionable bet to place, since any God worth believing in would prefer an honest agnostic to a calculating hypocrite.
— Alan M. Dershowitz, Letters to a Young Lawyer (Art of Mentoring
My God is love and sweetly suffers all.
— Sri Aurobindo, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol
It is straightforward—and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.
— Martin Amis, The Second Plane: 14 Responses to September 11
God lives in the place of praise. If we want to be where He is, we need to go to His address.
— Nancy Leigh DeMoss
But we all suffer. For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering. Love in our world is suffering love. Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much. Suffering is for the loving. This, said Jesus, is the command of the Holy One: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer.
— Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
Creation discloses a power that baffles our minds and beggars our speech. We are enamored and enchanted by God's power. We stutter and stammer about God's holiness. We tremble before God's majesty... and yet, we grow squeamish and skittish before God's love.
— Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
Sometimes when we say "God is silent," what's really going on is that he hasn't told the story the way we wanted it told. He will be silent when we want him to fill in the blanks of the story we are creating. But with his own stories, the ones we live in, he is seldom silent.
— Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
— Yann Martel, Beatrice and Virgil
A Short TestamentWhatever harm I may have doneIn all my life in all your wide creationIf I cannot repair itI beg you to repair it,And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the oldWhom I have roughly dismissedAs if I were not one of them.Where I have wronged them by itAnd cannot make amendsI ask youTo comfort them to overflowing,And where there are lives I may have withered around me,Or lives of strangers far or nearThat I've destroyed in blind complicity,And if I cannot find themOr have no way to serve them,Remember them. I beg you to remember themWhen winter is overAnd all your unimaginable promisesBurst into song on death's bare branches.
— Anne Porter, Living Things: Collected Poems
There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)
— Stephen Levine, A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
How do we accomplish this matter of gathering life together in God? We must begin primarily by refocusing our attention keeping our minds and hearts directed toward God. The essence of the centered life is attention to God in all we think, say and do. It is the growing realization of His presence in our most down-to-earth living.
— Sue Monk Kidd, God's Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved
God is the name we give to the science we don't understand. Science is the name we give to the God we don't understand.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
To love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourself.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work …
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
When you saw a wounded who cry out for help,you may be the one sent by God to bring a favor.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Worshiping the Devil is no more insane than worshiping God...It is precisely at the moment when positivism is at its high-water mark that mysticism stirs into life and the follies of occultism begin.
— Joris-Karl Huysmans
The world is a goddamned evil place, the strong prey on the weak, the rich on the poor; I’ve given up hope that there is a God that will save us all. How am I supposed to believe that there’s a heaven and a hell when all I see now is hell.
— Aaron B. Powell, Doomsday Diaries III: Luke the Protector
There is never a moment when God is not in control. Relax! He’s got you covered.
— Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass
Don't allow the opinions of other people to shape your concept of him. Get to know him yourself, and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out.
— Judah Smith, Jesus Is: Find a New Way to Be Human
Spontaneously, without any theological training, I, a child, grasped the incompatibility of God and shit and thus came to question the basic thesis of Christian anthropology, namely that man was created in God's image. Either/or: either man was created in God's image - and has intestines! - or God lacks intestines and man is not like him.The ancient Gnostics felt as I did at the age of five. In the second century, the Great Gnostic master Valentinus resolved the damnable dilemma by claiming that Jesus "ate and drank, but did not defecate."Shit is a more onerous theological problem than is evil. Since God gave man freedom, we can, if need be, accept the idea that He is not responsible for man's crimes. The responsibility for shit, however, rests entirely with Him, the creator of man.
— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees.
— Lao Tzu
To me, God is like this happy bus driver.
— Jerry Stahl, Permanent Midnight
We're more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God's heart.
— Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness
[Orange] is one of God's favorite colors--- He stuck it right there between red and yellow as the second color in the rainbow. He decorates entire forests with shades of orange every autumn. It shows up in sunrises at the start of the day, sunsets at the end of the day, and in the glow of the moon at the right time of night.
— Reggie Joiner, The Think Orange: Imagine the Impact When Church and Family Collide...
Conscience is thus explained only as the voice of God in the soul.
— Peter Kreeft, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics
I believe that people who are devoutly religious, within any specific religion, have no true respect for the ultimate vastness that is God.
— Clair Huffaker, The Cowboy and the Cossack
If we had more sleepless nights in prayer, there would be fewer souls to have a sleepless eternal night in hell.
— Leonard Ravenhill, Revival God's Way
The paradox in Christian truth is invariably due to the fact that it is the truth that exists for God. The standard of measure and the end is superhuman
—  and there is only one relationship possible: faith.
It was by faith, nothing wavering, that Joseph saw God our Eternal Father and Jesus Christ, His Son.
— Thomas S. Monson
The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God', says St. Irenaeus, getting to the heart of what happens when man meets God on the mountain in the wilderness. Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself as living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God.
— Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy
Chimerical and empty being, your name alone has caused more blood to flow on the face of the earth than any political war ever will. Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race. What crimes would have been spared the world, if they had choked the first imbecile who thought of speaking of you.
— Marquis de Sade
In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkof was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer..."I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting.
— Norman Schwarzkopf
To question the world around us and all its complexities is not blasphamy, but simply using the mind God gave us for its intended purpous. God is an artist. Artist do not create to have someone just glance and say "That is pretty." Artist want viewers to look closer, deeper--to really see what they have created--not just glance.
— Cristina Marrero
And so must learn to love with our mouths and voices, as well as with our eyes, flesh, heart, brains, and with everything we have, right down to our toenails. There is not anything about us that cannot love, and that is not called to love, and that is not destined to be turned, conformed, and reduced to pure love. It ...is the priceless deposit left by the burning away of selfishness.
— Mike Mason
And fragile is thy tenure of this worldStill haunted by the monstrous ghost of God.("To Science")
— George Sterling, The Thirst of Satan: Poems of Fantasy and Terror
God is our Father and loves us, even when his silence remains incomprehensible.
— Pope Benedict XVI
Worthy character is best forged from a life of consistent, correct choices centered in the teachings of the Master. 
— Richard G. Scott
When we look for success, it should be for the sole purpose of boasting sincerely in Christ. There's no other reason for it. Success is only worth it when the more intense it gets for you, the more you find yourself bragging for his glory rather than your own.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Man invents nothing God did not create first.
— Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper
Atheism is a conclusion reached by the most reasonable methods and one which is not asserted dogmatically but is explained in its every feature by the light of reason. The atheist does not boast of knowing in a vainglorious, empty sense. He understands by knowledge the most reasonable and clear and sound position one can take on the basis of all the evidence at hand. This evidence convinces him that theism is not true, and his logical position, then, is that of atheism.We repeat that the atheist is one who denies the assumptions of theism. he asserts, in other words, that he doesn't believe in a God because he has no good reason for believing in a God. That's atheism -- and that's good sense.
— E. Haldeman-Julius, The meaning of atheism
I don't belive in God. I believe in...Al Pacino.
— Javier Bardem
We need god to prosper those without him will not.
— Nostradamus, Prophecies of Nostradamus
Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.
— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Don't forget to pray today because God did not forget to wake you up this morning.
— Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest Journal
We will never be happy until we make God the source of our fulfillment and the answer to our longings. He is the only one who should have power over our souls.
— Stormie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Woman
And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?
— Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses
A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour
—  light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.
The art of life is to live in the present moment and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God himself.
— Emmet Fox
Do you remember? Do you remember the world before the poison?
— Amy Reed, Clean
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Don't sit back and wait for God to do it all. Ask for His advice, but be prepared to do the hard yards yourself.
— Morris Gleitzman, Grace
Without God man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is... One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation... Poverty is often produced by a rejection of God's love, by man's basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself, thinking himself to be self-sufficient or merely an insignificant and ephemeral fact, a "stranger" in a random universe...The human being develops when ... his soul comes to know itself and the truths that God has implanted deep within, when he enters into dialogue with himself and his Creator... It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God.
— Pope Benedict XVI
There is no fact, no detail of our life too sordid for God's intervention. God has seen murder. God has seen rape. God has seen drug addiction's and alcoholism's utter degradation. God is available to us no matter what our circumstances. God can find us in a crack house. God can find us crumpled in a doorway or cowering on a park bench. We need only reach out to discover that God reaches back. We are led a step at a time even when we feel we are alone. Sometimes God talks to us through people. Sometimes God reaches us through circumstances or coincidence. God has a million ways to reach out to us, and when we are open to it, we begin to sense the touch of God coming to us from all directions.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives
What a comfort to know that God is a poet.
— Rachel Held Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions
Bidden or unbidden, God is present.
— Erasmus
With or without God, good decisions can be made; But only with God will great decisions be made.
— Damon Thueson
Men and women are needed whose prayers will give to the world the utmost power of God; who will make His promises to blossom with rich and full results. God is waiting to hear us and challenges us to bring Him to do this thing by our praying. He is asking us, to-day, as He did His ancient Israel, to prove Him now herewith." Behind God's Word is God Himself, and we read: "Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, his Maker: Ask of me of things to come and concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me." As though God places Himself in the hands and at the disposal of His people who pray - as indeed He does. The dominant element of all praying is faith, that is conspicuous, cardinal and emphatic. Without such faith it is impossible to please God, and equally impossible to pray.
— E.M. Bounds, The Weapon of Prayer
It takes a lot of strength to hold onto and care for the things we love, so why is it that god seems to have made humans unable to conjure up that degree of power and love?
— Ai Yazawa
Whose little boy are you?
— James     Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
There are certain mortal moments and minutes that matter. Certain hingepoints in the history of each human. Some seconds are so decisive they shrink the soul, while others are spent, so as to stretch the soul.
— Neal A. Maxwell
Self abandoned, relaxed and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, I felt the torrent come; to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
Suffering can bend & break us. But it can also break us open to become the persons God intended us to be. It depends on what we do with the pain. If we offer it back to God, He will use it to do great things in us & through us, because suffering is fertile... it an grow new life.
— John Green
A miracle is a single mom who works two jobs to care for her kids and still helps them with their homework at night. A miracle is a child donating all the money in their piggy bank to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That's where you'll find the hand and face of God.
— Cathie Linz, Good Girls Do
No more is your master a god, Nobility, but he wants offerings from all. When Black God claims us, who will be punished for giving worship and power to a false god? The prince? Or Banjiku?
— Tamora Pierce, Emperor Mage
It did not look like the work of God, but it might have represented the handicraft of a God with a joyous sense of humor, a dancing God who loved mischief as much as prayer, and playfulness as much as mischief.
— Pat Conroy, South of Broad
He that hath the steerage of my course,Direct my sail.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I've been a Christian since I was a little girl. But my Christianity is a muddy mess of thoughts and opinions and making God into what works for me-like going shopping at the mall and picking out whatever I want, putting together faith like I would an outfit. Somehow I don't think the Creator, the I AM, the savior of the world is something we can mix and match to out liking.
— Cindy Martinusen Coloma, Caleb + Kate
I never wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I was simply liberated by the thought that there might be a way to engage with religion without having to subscribe to its supernatural content - a way, to put it in more abstract terms, to think about Fathers without upsetting my respectful memory of my own father. I recognized that my continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife or of heavenly residents was no justification for giving up on the music, buildings, prayers, rituals, feasts, shrines, pilgrimages, communal meals and illustrated manuscripts of the faiths.
— Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion
It is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy. His sophistry lessens the obligation of the divine law and gives men license to sin. At the same time he causes them to cherish false conceptions of God so that they regard Him with fear and hate rather than with love. The cruelty inherent in his own character is attributed to the Creator; it is embodied in systems of religion and expressed in modes of worship.
— Ellen G. White, Great Controversy: Between Christ and Satan
THE FOUR HEAVENLY FOUNTAINSLaugh, I tell youAnd you will turn backThe hands of time.Smile, I tell youAnd you will reflectThe face of the divine.Sing, I tell youAnd all the angels will sing with you!Cry, I tell youAnd the reflections found in your pool of tears -Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterdayTo guide you through the fears of tomorrow.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
... one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.
— Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
Rafael?””Yeah?”„Do we all have monsters?”„Yes.”„Why does God give us so many monsters?”„You want to know my theory?”„Sure.”„I think it’s other people who give us monsters. Maybe God doesn’t have anything to do with it.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster
Whoever possesses God in their being has Him in a divine manner, and He shines out to them in all things; for them all things taste of God and in all things it is God's image that they see.
— Meister Eckhart
The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails
— James Joyce
Many may have stopped believing in you, but God hasn't.
— Anita R. Sneed-Carter
Even if there were pains in Heaven, all who understand would desire them.
— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
He said focus. The word focus. I hear angels singing. Everything goes dark except for a light that beams down on Sean. It is a God-given sign- like when people see the Virgin Mary in their grilled cheese, except this isn't religious and I'm actually not a big fan of dairy. I stare at the back of his head. His HEAD. Something I see every day but never really see because it's been there forever. Since the first day of third grade.I crumple up my web. I don't need it. Praise be, the Focus Gods have spoken.I am going to write about Sean Griswold's Head.
— Lindsey Leavitt, Sean Griswold's Head
The saints, too, had wandering minds. The saints, too, had constantly to recall their constantly wandering mind-child home. They became saints because they continued to go after the little wanderer, like the Good Shepherd.
— Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners
Why don't you think of [God] as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity... the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
What the spiritual journey is all about is uniting our will with God's will, wanting what He wants, loving what He loves, living a life that in all its aspects honors Him and gives Him glory.
— Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire: A Guidebook for the Journey to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints
If all men are made in God's reflection, then why do some people continue to acknowledge only what is in their part of the mirror? If every man was created equal and in the image of God, then how can any man claim that one race is better than another?
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
With life. Rooter says that life is how God gives purpose to the universe.
— Orson Scott Card, Xenocide
Heaven means to be one with God.
— Confucius, Essential Writings of Confucianism: The Analects of Confucius and the Mencius
Christians walk as strangers in the world: They are untamed. They are free. To persevere with love, yet untamed by man, is often what leaves that open space for divine revelation when God so wills.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Regardless of your chosen faith, at the end of your life's journey, your heart will be measured in two ways. One, the weight of your conscience must far outweigh the weight of a feather. Two, any impurities in your heart must weigh no more than one feather.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
We try too much and trust too little. Count the times God's Book tells us to "try." Now count the times it tells us to "trust.
— Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners
I am very close to HIM, sometimes I think I am HIM, with my mood is the weather,bright and sunny forever.
— Santosh Kalwar
People often ask: If there’s a God, how can He allow so much suffering in the world? Realize all world suffering you perceive is a mirror to your own psychological self-abuse, gender imbalance, prejudice, poverty, and hunger. You couldn’t even perceive each suffering aspect of external reality if it didn’t already exist within you. Touch and transmute your own psychological suffering, and perceive the world in kind.
— Alexandra Katehakis, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence
പുറത്തിത്രയും മമതകള് മുഴുവന്ആടയാഭരണങ്ങളും അണിഞ്ഞ്കൈകൊട്ടി വിളിച്ചിട്ടും നിങ്ങളുടെ ഉറ്റവര്എന്തുകൊണ്ട് വീട്വിട്ടിറങ്ങി പോകുന്നില്ല , എന്തുകൊണ്ട്നിങ്ങളുടെ കൗമാരകാരനായ മകന്മദ്യപിക്കുന്നിലല് ,പെണ്കുട്ടി പ്രണയത്തിന്റെ മായ പങ്കാളിയെ ചുറ്റിപിടിച്ചുപുലരിയോളം നൃത്തം ചവിട്ടുന്നില്ല ,പുറത്തേക്ക്പോകാന് ഉയര്ത്തിയ പാദങ്ങള് ഒരു നിലവിളിയോടെ താഴ്ത്തി അവര്ട് ഉള്ളിലേക്ക് ഓടിപോയതെന്തുകൊണ്. രണ്ടു പേര്ക്കിടയില് സംഭവിച്ചതതാണ് , ശരിയായ രണ്ടു പേര് തെറ്റായ ഒരു കാലത്തില് കണ്ടു മുട്ടുകയെന്നു പറയുന്നതുപോലെ .ആരോ ചിലര്കുറുകെ കടക്കാനുള്ള വൈമുഖ്യം കൊണ്ട് അവര് അങ്ങനെ നിന്ന്പോയതാണ് .അങ്ങനെതന്നെയായ­ിരിന്നോ അതുവേണ്ടിയിരുന്നതെന്ന്പറയാനുള്ള ധൈര്യമോന്നുമില്ല.ദൈവമേ, ഈ വാതില് പടികള് എന്തുകൊണ്ടാണ്നീ ഉണ്ടാക്കിയിരിക്കുന്നത് ... ?തടി തരങ്ങള് കൊണ്ടല്ല എന്ന് വരുമോ ..?നിങ്ങളുടെ സ്നേഹം ഒരുകടമ്പയായി കുറുകെ കിടക്കുമ്പോള് ആര്ക്കാണ്പുറത്തു കടക്കാനാവുക ..
— Boby Jose Kattikad, Vaathil | വാതില്‍
There better not be a God because I'll be in big trouble.
— Patricia Marx, Him Her Him Again the End of Him
You ever seen that painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, where God’s reaching out and touching the finger of an angel? That was what it felt like at the moment my lips touched hers. It was more than just a kiss. It was something spiritual.
— Chance Carter, Bad Boy Daddy
Yes. There is one God, and he lives in the sky, and he hears all of us. It is just that here on earth, we are confused about how to believe in him. But what does it matter, as long as we trust he is there?
— Kristin Harmel, The Sweetness of Forgetting
As you gave the ring to one another and have now received it a 2nd time from the hand of the pastor, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As high as God is above man, so high are the sanctity, the rights, and the promise of love. It is not your love tht sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
​Oh God, it is amazing that men can talk so much about man's creaturely power and goodness, when, if thou didst not hold us back every moment, we should be devils incar​​nate.
— Arthur Bennett, The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions
When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.
— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Because you’re a creation of God, you reflect the Divine qualities of creativity, wisdom, and love.
— Doreen Virtue
When a child is given to his parents, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents who raise a child without consciousness of that eternal crown!
— Fulton J. Sheen, Life Is Worth Living
Be content not with your lot in life but with being here in the flow of life. The glories of creation are in your very cells; you are made of the same mindstuff as the angels, the stars, and god himself.
— Deepak Chopra, The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life
For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.
— Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
Self-sufficiency is the enemy of salvation. If you are self-sufficient, you have no need of God. If you have no need of God, you do not seek Him. If you do not seek Him, you will not find Him.
— William Nicholson, Shadowlands
I want to encourage you by letting you know that there’s hope for you and your situation whatever you are dealing with. God is intimately involved with every detail of your future and His desire is for you to be an overcomer.
— Sue Augustine, When Your Past Is Hurting Your Present: Getting Beyond  Fears That Hold You Back
Comparing what we're looking for misses the point. It's wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we're going out the way we came in. That's why you can't believe in the afterlife, Valentine. Believe in the after, by all means, but not the life. Believe in God, the soul, the spirit, the infinite, believe in angels if you like, but not in the great celestial get-together for an exchange of views. If the answers are in the back of the book I can wait, but what a drag. Better to struggle on knowing that failure is final.
— Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
All men are Prophets or else God does not exist.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Maybe there’s a heaven, like they say, a place where everything we’ve ever done is noted and recorded, weighed on big karma scales. Maybe not. Maybe this whole thing is just a giant experiment run by aliens who find out human hijinks amusing. Or maybe we’re an abandoned project started by a deity who checked out a long time ago, but we’re still hard-wired to believe, to try to make meaning out of the seemingly random. Maybe we’re all part of the same unconscious stew, dreaming the same dreams, hoping the same hopes, needing the same connection, trying to find it, missing, trying again—each of us playing our parts in the other’s plotlines, just one big ball of human yarn tangled up together. Maybe this is it.
— Libba Bray
Personally, I always wondered about authors and celebrities who loudly declared there was no God. It was usually when they were healthy and popular and being listened to by crowds. What happens, I wondered, in the quiet moments before death? By then, they have lost the stage, the world has moved on. If suddenly, in their last gasping moments, through fear, a vision, a late enlightenment, they change their minds about God, who would know?
— Mitch Albom, Have a Little Faith: a True Story
‎Mark it down: God loves you with an unearthly love. You can't win it by being winsome. You can't lose it by being a loser. But you can be blind enough to resist it
— Max Lucado
God does not play games with His loyal servants", said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice."Whoopee", said Crowley.
— Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
So the gods must mean something else,” said Jix.“God, not gods!” insisted Johnnie.Nick threw up his hands. “God, gods, or whatever,” said Nick. “Right now, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Jesus, or Kukulcan, or a dancing bear at the end of the tunnel. What matters is that we have a clue, and we have to figure it out.”“Why?” Johnnie asked again. “Why does God – excuse me, I mean ‘the Light of Universal Whatever’- why does it just give us a freakin’ impossible clue? Why can’t it just tell us what we’re supposed to do?”“Because,” said Mikey. “the Dancing Bear wants us to suffer.
— Neal Shusterman, Everfound
Seth's quote from his book:"And if I only couldI'd make a deal with God and I'd get Him to swap our places"-"Running up that Hill" by Kate Bush
— Richelle Mead, Succubus Heat
If you wait, your heavenly Father will pick you up, carry you out into the night, and make your life sparkle. He wants to dazzle you with the wonder of his love.
— Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World
Among all the creatures of creation, the gods favor us: We are the only ones who can empathize with their problems.
— David Eagleman, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
This heart belongs to you alone.
— Skillet, Awake
When you are convinced that everything that happens is the will of God, what is there to do but wait until God has mercy?
— Maaza Mengiste, Beneath the Lion's Gaze
From all of our beginnings, we keep reliving the Garden story.
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Dylan Jerome," the lawyer admits, "wanted to sue God for not caring enough about him.
— Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
The most important lesson that we're supposed to be learning right now is how completely lost we are without God. If we don't learn this lesson, then our lives are going to have zero meaning. (Stronger: Forty Days of Metal and Spirituality)
— Brian Welch
Is it folly to believe in something that is intangible? After all, some of the greatest intangibles are Love, Hope, and Wonder.Another is Deity.The choice to be a fool is yours.
— Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
God’s sovereign will is not at the whim and mercy of our person and individual responses to it.
— R.C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross
Shoulders are from God, and burdens too.
— Isaac Bashevis Singer, Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories
The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system. An approach like that doesn't require any knowledge. Just a few memorized formulas plus so-called intuition and so-called common sense.
— Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic
When the stars threw down their spears, and watered heaven with their tears, did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
— William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience
God sends meat and the devil sends cooks.
— Thomas Deloney
You, God, who live next door--If at times, through the long night, I trouble youwith my urgent knocking--this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.I know you're all alone in that room. If you should be thirsty, there's no oneto get you a glass of water.I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!I'm right here...Sen komşu tanrı,Uzun geceler bazen,Kapına vura vura uyandırıyorsam seniSolumanı seyrek duyduğumdandır...Bilirim, yalnızsın odanda.Sana birşey gerekse kimse yok,Bir yudum su versin aradığında.Hep dinlerim, yeter ki bir ses edin,Öyle yakınım sana...
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
What do I love when I love my God?
— Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Only 8% of our worry will come to pass. 92% of our worry is wasted. DON'T PANIC
— Mark Gorman
Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision. The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation.
— Norman Mailer
Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!
— Hans Christian Andersen
If that were God's plan, it's a bad bargain; I don't want to have to deal with a God like that...My sense is God and I came to an accommodation with each other a couple of decades ago, where he's gotten used to the things that I'm not capable of and I've come to terms with things he's not capable of...and we care very much about each other.
— Harold S. Kushner
There's a major fault in Western society. It makes room for only one god, and in only one gender. There's no balance, no co-existence, no partnership.
— Tomson Highway
If God rewards us on earth for good deeds—the Old Testament suggests it’s so, and the Puritans certainly believed it—then maybe Satan rewards us for evil ones.
— Stephen King, Full Dark, No Stars
They found grace out in the desert,  these people who survived the killing.Israel, out looking for a place to rest,  met God out looking for them!"God told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will.  Expect love, love, and more love!And so now I'll start over with you and build you up again,  dear virgin Israel.You'll resume your singing,  grabbing tambourines and joining the dance.You'll go back to your old work of planting vineyards  on the Samaritan hillsides,And sit back and enjoy the fruit—  oh, how you'll enjoy those harvests!The time's coming when watchmen will call out  from the hilltops of Ephraim:'On your feet! Let's go to Zion,  go to meet our God!
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
Your Excellency, I have no need of this hypothesis.
— Pierre-Simon Laplace
The Garden is a metaphor for the following: our minds, and our thinking in terms of pairs of opposites--man and woman, good and evil--are as holy as that of a god. (50)
— Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
God can give or take away, Well who would make such an awful rule.
— Josh Ritter
Much blood has been spilled over words, and a great deal of it over the word ‘God.’ (125)
— Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity
we need not avoid our active lives, but simply bring to them a new vision and shift of gravity. for in the center we are rooted in god's love. in such a place there is no need for striving and impatience and dashing about seeking approval.
— Sue Monk Kidd, God's Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved