c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
I have said that the soul is not more than the body,And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is,
— Walt Whitman
Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus.
— Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits. (King Follett Discourse) 
— Joseph Smith Jr.
Rather he consoled himself with the fact that, in the real world, when he looked closely into the darkness he might find the presence of a light, damaged and bruised, but a little light all the same.
— Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin
The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe
—  the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.
I've always been spiritual but I've never had a proper context, and it took me a while to find the proper context. It's hard to realize you can have any kind of relationship with God you want... and so I now have a punk rock relationship with God
— Billy Corgan
God is alive, real, and wants to heal you in every aspect of your life where you are hurting.
— Robert A. Schuller
It comforts me to think that if we are created beings the thing that created us would have to be greater than us, so much greater, in fact, that we would not be able to understand it. It would have to be greater than the facts of our reality and so it would seem to us, looking out from within our reality that it would contradict reason. But reason itself would suggest it would have to be greater than reality or it would not be reasonable.
— Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
Cynicism is when a small mind and a hurt heart rejects the hope, love, and truth of a big and caring God.
— Jayce O'Neal
I am unaware of his plans but I shall never stop believing in them because I cannot fathom them and I prefer to mistrust my own intellectual capacities than his justice.
— Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.
— Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
If we assume that man actually does resemble God, then we are forced into the impossible theory that God is a coward, an idiot and a bounder.
— H.L. Mencken
I had always thought that life was the actual thing, the natural thing, and that death was simply the end of living. Now, in this lifeless place, I saw with a terrible clarity that death was the constant, death was the base, and life was only a short, frgile dream. I was dead already. I had been born death, and what I thought was my life was just a game death let me play as it waited to take me. . . Death has an opposite, but the opposite is not mere living. It is not courage or faith or human will. The opposite of death is love. How had I missed that? How does anyone miss that? Love is our only weapon. Only love can turn mere life into a miracle, and draw precious meaning from suffering and fear. For a brief, magical moment, all my fears lifted, and I knew that I would not let death control me. I would walk through the godforsaken country that separated me from my home with love and hope in my heart. I wouuld walk until I had walked all the life out of me, and when I fell I would die that much closer to my father.
— Nando Parrado, Miracle in the Andes
I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.
— Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
I regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark
— Stephen Hawking
God doesn't bless us just to make us happy
—  He blesses us to make us a blessing.
For every thing that lives is Holy.
— William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
I pray for you, that all your misgivings will be melted to thanksgivings. Remember that the shadow a thing casts often far exceeds the size of the thing itself (especially if the light be low on the horizon) and though some future fear may strut brave darkness as you approach, the thing itself will be but a speck when seen from beyond. Oh that He would restore us often with that 'aspect from beyond,' to see a thing as He sees it, to remember that He dealeth with us as with sons.
— Jim Elliot
Imagine that Jesus is calling you today. He extends a second invitation to accept His Father's love. And maybe you answer, "Oh, I know that. It's old hat."And God answers, 'No, that's what you don't know. You don't know how much I love you. The moment you think you understand is the moment you do not understand. I am God, not man. You tell others about Me - your words are glib. My words are written in the blood of My only Son. The next time you preach about My love with such obnoxious familiarity, I may come and blow your whole prayer meeting apart.Did you know that every time you tell Me you love Me, I say thank you?
— Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who says there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. (The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University, page 214)
— Albert Einstein
If you are a Christian, you are not a citizen of this world trying to get to heaven; you are a citizen of heaven making your way through this world. 
— Vance Havner
There is no logical reason to believe in God. There are emotional reasons, certainly, but I cannot have faith that nothing is something simply because it would be reassuring. I can no more believe in God than I can believe an invisible monkey lives in my ass; however, I would believe in both if they could be scientifically proven. 
— Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
It may not always be easy, convenient or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always. 
— M. Russell Ballard
The greatest thing a man can do in this world, is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.
— Orison Swett Marden, Learn to Expect a Great Deal of Life
We must transcend the illusion that money or power has any bearing on our worthiness as children of God.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
At such times, the heart of man turns instictively towards his Maker. In prosperity, and whenever there is nothing to injure or make him afraid, he remembers Him not, and is ready to defy Him; but place him in the midst of dangers, cut him off from human aid, let the grave open before him, then it is, in the time of his tribulation, that the scoffer and unbelieving man turns to God for help, feeling there is no other hope, or refuge, or safety, save in his protecting arm.
— Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave
Men always makes gods in their own image.
— Xenophanes
To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.
— Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians
The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)
— Augustine of Hippo
Believe what you believe and it will be, believe what others believe and they will consume you!
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
He had no faintest conception till that very hour of how they would look, and even doubted their existence. But when he saw them he knew that he had always known them and realized what part each one of them had played at many an hour in his life when he had supposed himself alone, so that now he could say to them, one by one, not ‘Who are you?’ but ‘So it was you all the time.’ All that they were and said at this meeting woke memories. The dim consciousness of friends about him which had haunted his solitudes from infancy was now at last explained; that central music in every pure experience which had always just evaded memory was now at last recovered...He saw not only Them; he saw Him. This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire to you is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a man.
— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Before you realize this truth, say the Yogis, you will always be in despair, a notion nicely expressed in this exasperated line from the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus: 'You bear God within you, poor wretch, and know it not.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
A foe to God was never true friend to man
— Edward Young
I have no such powers. If I did I would be more merciful than God, believe me.
— Mario Puzo, The Godfather
There's no safety outside of God.
— Beth Nimmo
Spirituality is not about being fixed
—  it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness. (Messy Spirituality)
Every time I create something, whether an idea or a work of art, initially, its supposed completion seems absolutely perfect to me. However the more I think about it, stare it down, the more it marinates in my soul over the hours, days, and weeks, the more flaws I start to find in it; and finally, the more I'm pressed to continue enhancing it. It essentially turns out that whatever thing a flawed and imperfect, human eye once thought was amazing begins to appear quite wretched. This is why, eternally, God cannot be impressed by mere talents or by mortal achievements. To perfect eyes, I imagine that great is not really that great; rather, humility is ultimately a human being's true greatness.
— Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality
Angels had fallen, men have sinned.It does not mean that God has failed.
— Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
Here I am going to say something which may come as a bit of a shock. God doesn't necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable. Worthy of love. Able to be loved by Him. We don't start off being all that lovable, if we're honest. What makes people hard to love? Isn't it what is commonly called selfishness? Selfish people are hard to love because so little love comes out of them.
— William Nicholson, Shadowlands
The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.
— Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis.
— LeeAnn Taylor
There can only be two basic loves... the love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self unto the forgetfulness and denial of God.
— Augustine of Hippo
If you understood him, it would not be God.
— Augustine of Hippo
Many Spirit-filled authors have exhausted the thesaurus in order to describe God with the glory He deserves. His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us that our words can't contain Him. Isn't it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?
— Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency... God's sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed.
— Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging
Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. 
— Meister Eckhart
I feel the healinghands of Godtouch my heartand kiss my soul.
— Harley King
A friend once said, and I found to be true,That everyday people, they lie to God too,So what makes you think, that they won't lie to you.
— Lauryn Hill
God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us. 
— Socrates
The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.
— Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry
If there's a God out there, then i would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork.
— Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner: A Portrait of the Marc Forster Film
It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.
— Eugene H. Peterson
If you are able to judge God so easily, you certainly can judge the world. You must choose two of your children to spend eternity in God's new heavens and new earth....And you must choose three of your children to spend eternity in hell.....I am only asking you to do something that you believe God does. He knows every person ever conceived, and he knows them so much more deeply and clearly than you will ever know your own children...You believe he will condemn most to an eternity of torment, away from his presence and apart from his love."Mack: "I don't want to be the judge...I can't do this." You suppose then that God does this so easily, but you cannot?"This couldn't be real. How could God ask him to choose among his own children? Even if Katie or Josh, or Jon or Tyler committed some heinous crime, he still wouldn't do it. He couldn't! For him, it wasn't about their performance; it was about his love for them. Mack: "I can't, I can't....Could I go instead?....I'll go in their place...Could I do that?" He fell at her feet crying and begging now. "Please let me go for my children..I am begging you. Please...Please..."-"Now you sound like Jesus.....That is how Jesus loves.
— William Paul Young, The Shack
If the Almighty directs our steps, we've no need to look back over our shoulders.
— Liz Curtis Higgs, Here Burns My Candle
I think music is what language once aspired to be. Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.
— Simon Van Booy
Are you asking me if there is a god?' he said, still in that soft voice. 'All I can say is, I believe there is. I feel him when I sing. He has responded to my prayers countless times. He guides my actions and he dwells in my heart. I know he is there.
— Sharon Shinn, Archangel
. . . the only legitimate reason that kingship is not attractive to us is because in this age and this world the only kings available are finite and sinful. Listen to C. S. Lewis describe why he believes in democracy:A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is . . . Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.1If there could be a king who is not limited in his wisdom and power and goodness and love for his subjects, then monarchy would be the best of all governments. If such a ruler could ever rise in the world—with no weakness, no folly, no sin—then no wise and humble person would ever want democracy again.The question is not whether God broke into the universe as a king. He did. The question is: What kind of king is he? What difference would his kingship make for you?
— John Piper
If you wish to befriend someone, look for a person who loves first God then themselves. If they love God, they will be able to love their neighbor, too.
— Petar Dunov
Sometimes God calms the storm and sometimes He calms his child.
— John H. Groberg, The Other Side of Heaven
There’s always a choice. That’s God’s way, always will be. Your will is still free. Do as you will. There’s no set of leg-irons on you. But... this is what God wants of you.
— Stephen King, The Stand
How do you know when you're God?" "When I pray to him I find I am talking to myself.
— Peter Barnes, The Ruling Class: A Baroque Comedy
You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold'. You knew, but you didn't understand." He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy's cold cheeks. "Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?
— Stephen King, Desperation
I know I'm not God, are you? Don't be silly.God? God? Everybody's God? Don't be silly.
— Allen Ginsberg, Death and Fame: Last Poems, 1993-1997
Let our voices be heard. I hope they will not be shrill voices, but, I hope we shall speak with such conviction that those to whom we speak shall know of the strength of our feeling and the sincerity of our efforts. 
— Gordon B. Hinckley
Science Fiction: Any scientific acclaim that omits God.
— Johnny Hart
The worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without Him.
— Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder
Ô, Wanderess, WanderessWhen did you feel your most euphoric kiss? Was I the source of your greatest bliss?
— Roman Payne
It (trying to keep the law) grants you the power to judge others and feel superior to them. You believe you are living to a higher standard than those you judge. Enforcing rules, especially in its more subtle expressions like responsibility and expectation, is a vain attempt to create certainly out of uncertainty. And contrary to what you might think, I have a great fondness for uncertainty. Rules cannot bring freedom; they only have the power to accuse. 
— William Paul Young, The Shack
The gods have become our diseases.
— C.G. Jung
Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.
— Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
I have always been a firm believer in God and the power of prayer, though to be honest, my faith has made for alist of questions I definitely want answered after I'm gone.
— Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it then seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar ask, that the answers to riddles of creation would be supplied by people too ignorant to understand the mechanics of rainfall? Had Almighty God, in all His infinite wisdom, really been afraid that men six thousand years ago would succeed in building a tower to heaven?
— Joseph Heller, Catch 22
I do not think there is a demonstrative proof (like Euclid) of Christianity, nor of the existence of matter, nor of the good will and honesty of my best and oldest friends. I think all three are (except perhaps the second) far more probable than the alternatives. The case for Christianity in general is well given by Chesterton…As to why God doesn't make it demonstratively clear; are we sure that He is even interested in the kind of Theism which would be a compelled logical assent to a conclusive argument? Are we interested in it in personal matters? I demand from my friend trust in my good faith which is certain without demonstrative proof. It wouldn't be confidence at all if he waited for rigorous proof. Hang it all, the very fairy-tales embody the truth. Othello believed in Desdemona's innocence when it was proved: but that was too late. Lear believed in Cordelia's love when it was proved: but that was too late. 'His praise is lost who stays till all commend.' The magnanimity, the generosity which will trust on a reasonable probability, is required of us. But supposing one believed and was wrong after all? Why, then you would have paid the universe a compliment it doesn't deserve. Your error would even so be more interesting and important than the reality. And yet how could that be? How could an idiotic universe have produced creatures whose mere dreams are so much stronger, better, subtler than itself?
— C.S. Lewis
I told him I had once lost everything I had, too, and that I think that can be God’s way of building walls around us to force us to look up at Him.
— Kimberly Novosel, Loved
Marriage isn't about Winning - It's about Lasting
— Mark Gorman
Bare heights of loneliness...a wilderness whose burning winds sweep over glowing sands, what are they to HIM? Even there He can refresh us, even there He can renew us.
— Amy Carmichael
The goal of prayer is to live all of my life and speak all of my words in the joyful awareness of the presence of God.Prayer becomes real when we grasp the reality and goodness of God's constant presence with 'the real me.' Jesus lived his everyday life in conscious awareness of his Father.
— John Ortberg Jr., The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's Best Version of You
Ask and it shall be given you,'" I began. "'Seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.' We have the same message in the Book of Saint John," I said, sounding for all the world like a preacher...."Well, but how could I just stop there? Those words were worse than nothing if I didn't tell what they meant to Grandpa. Looking at the long rough box, I spoke timid, in a mumbled voice. Not preachified at all. "Grandpa didn't think Jesus meant, by that, that we should ast God for things, or for special favors. He said we could trust that in the nature of things, without astin', we'll get lots of blessin's and happy surprises and maybe a miracle or two. When Jesus said ast and you'll get it, He meant things of the spirit, not the flesh. Right now for instance, I could ast, 'Lord please raise Grandpa from the dead,' but it wouldn't happen. But I can say, 'Please, God, comfort me,' and I'll get heart's ease. Grandpa said Jesus meant us to ast for hope, forgiveness, and all that. Ast, 'Hep us not be scared, hep us not be greedy, give us courage to try." I was really carried away. "Ast any such and God will give it to you. But don't ast Him not to let fire burn, or say spare me from death. At least, uh, that's what Grandpa said.
— Olive Ann Burns, Cold Sassy Tree
[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.
— Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
I had a standing agreement with god. I'd agree to believe in him, barely, so long as he let me sleep in on Sundays.
— Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy
Every Christian would agree that a man's spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God.
— C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
He was there alone with himself, collected, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him, mysterious interchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
No matter what the cause, God is only as willing as you are.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Those who live as though God sets the rules are not going by their own rules. That is the self-sacrifice, or selflessness, that peace more often than not requires. Those who insist on going by their own rules cannot make that sacrifice. They are the steady adherents of (global) conflict because they are forever fighting both themselves and others to do whatever they think that they want to do.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
Each of us is aware he's a material being, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and that the strength of all our emotions combined cannot counteract those laws. It can only hate them. The eternal belief of lovers and poets in the power of love which is more enduring that death, the finis vitae sed non amoris that has pursued us through the centuries is a lie. But this lie is not ridiculous, it's simply futile. To be a clock on the other hand, measuring the passage of time, one that is smashed and rebuilt over and again, one in whose mechanism despair and love are set in motion by the watchmaker along with the first movements of the cogs. To know one is a repeater of suffering felt ever more deeply as it becomes increasingly comical through a multiple repetitions. To replay human existence - fine. But to replay it in the way a drunk replays a corny tune pushing coins over and over into the jukebox?
— Stanisław Lem, Solaris
—¿Por qué sigues creyendo en Dios? ¿No estás enfadada con Él por todas las cosas malas que te han pasado?Ella interrumpió lo que estaba haciendo y se volvió hacia él. Gabriel parecía muy infeliz.—A todo el mundo le pasan cosas malas. ¿Por qué iba a ser yo distinta a los demás?—Porque eres buena.Ella se miró las manos.—El universo no se basa en la magia. No hay unas reglas para las personas buenas y otras para las personas malas. Todo el mundo sufre en un momento u otro. Lo importante es lo que haces con tu dolor, ¿no crees?
— Sylvain Reynard, Gabriel's Rapture
I swear to God . . .”“God doesn’t come to this part of the house, so swear to me.” -Liam C
— J.J. McAvoy
They believe themselves Lucifer's equals, Cain, all these pitiful little gnats. But there is only one that we have ever owned to be our superior. There is but one greater than us, and to him... to him we no longer speak.
— Neil Gaiman, Season of Mists
Fear is to begin with the end in mind. There is no end. Life is eternal. Live life knowing that the end was your past, and the future is only full of beautiful beginnings through an eternity built around God’s love.
— Shannon L. Alder
I am Sunai,” he said. “I am holy fire. And if I have to burn the world to cleanse it, so help me, I will.
— Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song
It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look at. My gods dwell in temples made with hands; and within the circle of actual experience is my creed made perfect and complete: too complete, it may be, for like many or all of those who have placed their heaven in this earth, I have found in it not merely the beauty of heaven, but the horror of hell also.
— Oscar Wilde, De Profundis and Other Writings
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2)But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
In monasteries, seminaries, retreats and synagogues, they fear hell and seek paradise. Those who know the mysteries of God never let that seed be planted in their souls.
— Omar Khayyám, Quatrains
He is your Father, and His role is to protect you; He will comfort you and guide you. He will feed you; He will carry you when you are weak. He will seek you out when you go astray; He will help you in times of trouble. He will not let your enemies go unpunished; He will cherish you like a father cherishes his daughter. When you fall, He will pick you up; when you don’t understand, He will always understand. When you feel like life is weighing you down, He will lift you up. When you feel like giving up, He will encourage you to keep going. When you are sad, He will lighten your spirits. When you need advice, His line is open 24-7. When you feel unsafe, He will be your safety; when you are worried, He will be an ear to your concerns. When you feel burdened, offer your burden to Him and He will take it. Where you have been burnt, He will make you beautiful; where you hurt, He will heal. Whenever you feel lonely, He will always be with you. Where others have not supported you, He will support you. When you feel discouraged, He will be your encouragement. Where you don’t know, He will tell you when the time is right. When you feel unloved, remember that He has always loved you. You see limitations; God sees opportunities. You see faults; God sees growth. You see problems; God sees solutions. You see limitations; God sees possibilities. You see life; God sees eternity.
— Corallie Buchanan, Watch Out! Godly Women on the Loose
To see evil and call it good, mocks God. Worse, it makes goodness meaningless. A word without meaning is an abomination, for when the word passes beyond understanding the very thing the word stands for passes out of the world and cannot be recalled.
— Stephen R. Lawhead, Arthur
All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reackoned on God being with them.
— James Hudson Taylor
Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.
— C.S. Lewis
I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker," he continued, as though he had not heard her. "We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, The Signature of All Things
I decided I would fill the emptiness in me with God and with paint.
— Kimberly Novosel
And so will I here state just plainly and briefly that I accept God. But I must point out one thing: if God does exist and really created the world, as we well know, he created it according to the principles of Euclidean geometry and made the human brain capable of grasping only three dimensions of space. Yet there have been and still are mathematicians and philosophers-among them some of the most outstanding-who doubt that the whole universe or, to put it more generally, all existence was created to fit Euclidean geometry; they even dare to conceive that two parallel lines that, according to Euclid, never do meet on earth do, in fact, meet somewhere in infinity. And so my dear boy, I’ve decided that I am incapable of understanding of even that much, I cannot possibly understand about God.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals.
— Charles C. Ryrie
CONCERNED BUT NOT CONSUMED!
— Ron Sanders
He hath never failed thee yet.Never will His love forget.O fret not thyself nor letThy heart be troubled,Neither let it be afraid.
— Amy Carmichael
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
— Gerard Manley Hopkins
Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love - but sometimes it was so hard to love.
— Yann Martel
When we try to focus our thought upon One who is pure uncreated being we may see nothing at all, for He dwelleth in light that no man can approach unto. Only by faith and love are we able to glimpse Him as He passes by our shelter in the cleft of the rock.
— A.W. Tozer
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for, and against the same thing at the same time.
— Abraham Lincoln
God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
The ancients were afraid that if they went to the end of the earth they would fall off and be consumed by dragons. But once we understand that Christianity is true to what is there, true to the ultimate environment - the infinite, personal God who is really there - then our minds are freed. We can pursue any question and can be sure that we will not fall off the end of the earth.
— Francis A. Schaeffer, Art & the Bible
God didn’t give fear a body. God gave love a body.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
We are beautiful because we are sons and daughters of God, not because we look a certain way.
— Kate Wicker, Weightless: Making Peace with Your Body
Anything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or futility; and because your god having to be one or the other of the two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, and in the second a fool.
— Marquis de Sade
Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Am I full of the little things that cheer His heart over me, or am I whimpering because things are going hardly with me? There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes.
— Oswald Chambers
Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.''I understand the concept. It's just . . . there seems to be a contradiction.''Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man's starvation, war, sickness . . .''Exactly!' Chartrand knew the camerlengo would understand. 'Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn't He?'The camerlengo frowned. 'Would He?'Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn't ask? 'Well . . . if God loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.''Do you have children, Lieutenant?'Chartrand flushed. 'No, signore.''Imagine you had an eight-year-old son . . . would you love him?''Of course.''Would you let him skateboard?'Chartrand did a double take. The camerlengo always seemed oddly "in touch" for a clergyman. 'Yeah, I guess,' Chartrand said. 'Sure, I'd let him skateboard, but I'd tell him to be careful.''So as this child's father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?''I wouldn't run behind him and mollycoddle him if that's what you mean.''But what if he fell and skinned his knee?''He would learn to be more careful.'The camerlengo smiled. 'So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child's pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?''Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It's how we learn.'The camerlengo nodded. 'Exactly.
— Dan Brown, Angels & Demons
all his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved.
— Truman Capote
God made you the way He wanted you to be and He does not make mistakes. He has a plan for your life that is much bigger than you can imagine.
— Michele Woolley, God's Favor - Breath Of Heaven
I don't know whether I believe in God or not. I think, really, I'm some kind of a Buddhist. But the essential thing is to put oneself in a frame of mind which is close to that of prayer.
— Henri Matisse
I wonder sometimes what the memory of God looks like. Is it a palace of infinite rooms, a chest of many jeweled objects, a long, lonely landscape where each tree recalls an eon, each pebble the life of a man? Where do I live, in the memory of God?
— Catherynne M. Valente, The Habitation of the Blessed
You are angry at the God you were taught to believe in as a child. The God who is supposed to watch over you and protect you, who answers your prayers and forgives your sins. This God is just a story. Religions try to capture God, but God is beyond religion. The true God lies beyond our comprehension. We can't understand His will; He can't be explained in a book. He didn't abandon us and He will not save us. He has nothing to do with our being here. God does not change. He simply is. I don't pray to God for forgiveness or favors, I only pray to be closer to Him, and when I pray, I fill my heart with love. When I pray this way, I know that God is love. When I feel that love, I remember that we don't need angels or a heaven, because we are a part of God already.
— Nando Parrado, Miracle in the Andes
He was a wise man who invented God.
— Plato
God hides the fires of hell within paradise.
— Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays
God will never disappoint us… If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline. …To the unbeliever the fact of suffering only convinces him that God is not to be trusted, does not love us. To the believer, the opposite is true.
— Elisabeth Elliot, Discipline: The Glad Surrender
But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness.
— Robert Uttaro, To the Survivors: One Man's Journey as a Rape Crisis Counselor with True Stories of Sexual Violence
You and I were created by God to be so much more than normal…Following the crowd is not a winning approach to life. In the end it’s a loser’s game, because we never become who God created us to be by trying to be like everybody else.
— Tim Tebow, Through My Eyes
If your heart takes more pleasure in reading novels, or watching TV, or going to the movies, or talking to friends, rather than just sitting alone with God and embracing Him, sharing His cares and His burdens, weeping and rejoicing with Him, then how are you going to handle forever and ever in His presence...? You'd be bored to tears in heaven, if you're not ecstatic about God now! 
— Keith Green
It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is. (60).
— Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never enjoy the world.
— Thomas Traherne, Centuries Of Meditations
God leads us. God will do the right thing at the right time. And what a difference that makes.
— Max Lucado, Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear
The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert, that God spoke to them; and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.Isaiah answer'd, I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I was then persuaded, & remain confirm'd; that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.
— William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency?
— Marquis de Sade
To love someone is to desire and work toward their becoming the best version of themselves. The one person in all the universe who can do this perfectly for you is God.
— John Ortberg Jr., The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's Best Version of You
Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version
wonder what day god created the egg' 'how should we know? we should not question. our stay on earth is not for long. let us rejoice and believe and give thanks'. 'eat a egg
— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Even though you can't finally grasp me, guess what? I still want to be known.
— William Paul Young
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator's love for it.
— Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what i want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.
— Elizabeth Gilbert
It's time we capture our imaginations for Christ
— Peter E. Gillquist, Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Christian Faith
Define the word exist, and you'll know whether God exists.
— Bill Gaede, Why God Doesn't Exist
All of a sudden, we’ve lost a lot of control,’ he said. ‘We can’t turn off our internet; we can’t turn off our smartphones; we can’t turn off our computers. You used to ask a smart person a question. Now, who do you ask? It starts with g-o, and it’s not God…
— Steve Wozniak
Christianity is not about how much faith you have. Its about Who your faith is in.
— Mike Donahey
The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God's image in someone who is not in my image, who language, faith, ideal, are different from mine? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his.
— Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations
სამხრეთის კედელზე მაცხოვრის ერთადერტი თვალდახრილი და სახედაფხეკილი ფრესკის ქვეშ ვიღაც ლაზღანდარა ათეისტს მუშაირა ჰქონდა გამართული თვითონ მაცხოვართან. უცხვირპირო და უთვალო, როგორ გიწამო, უფალო?!-კომკავშირელი ათეისტი. ასე აწერდა ხელს ლექსის ატორი. ცოტა ქვევით უფლის პასუხი იყო, ასევე ლურსმნით ამოკაწრული: კომკავშირელო, თუ არ გწამს, სახარება და ღმერთიო, ამ სიმაღლეზე მეორედ, გთხოვ, აღარ ამოეთრიო!-იესო ქრისტე. ასე აწერდა ხელს პასუხის ავტორი.
— Nodar Dumbadze, მარადისობის კანონი
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that God is a very creative author, and He writes a different story for every person. No two lives or stories alike.
— Robin Jones Gunn, With This Ring
I don't think it is a good mental health practice to fantasize that you know the infinite thoughts of imaginary entities.
— Stefan Molyneux
We are human, and we suffer, and unlike the animals on the farm, we are self-aware, and we know that we suffer, and it doesn't hurt more or less if God caused it or could stop it, at least for me. I am definitely of the school that believes God has bigger stuff to worry about than me.
— Jon Katz
For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change. When Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened," He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way. These words are a touching testimony to the genuine humanness of Jesus. He had no romantic notion of the cost of discipleship. He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love.
— Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
Far better it is for you to say: "I am a sinner," than to say: "I have no need of religion." The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God.
— Fulton J. Sheen, Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary
Never doubt God in the darkness what he has given us in the light.
— Francine Rivers, A Voice in the Wind
You must know that you are worth much to me whether you accomplish anything or not. Even if you are rejected in the world's eyes, you are valuable to me.
— Stormie Omartian, Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing
I think God is a callous bitch not making me a lesbian. I'm deeply disappointed by my sexual interest in men.
— Diamanda Galás
God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through.
— Paul Valéry