God And Its Quotes & Sayings

Beyond fashion and its demands, there are higher and more pressing laws, principles superior to fashion, and unchangeable, which under no circumstances can be sacrificed to the whim of pleasure or fancy, and before which must bow the fleeting omnipotence of fashion. These principles have been proclaimed by God, by the Church, by the Saints, by reason, by Christian morality. — Pope Pius XII

The cardinal points are a direct reference to the astrological colures. The Cardinals surround the Pope as the cardinal points surround the sun. The sun casts its rays on the Houses as it passes, turning them crimson. The color worn by the physical Cardinals is red, to symbolize that they are illuminated by their proximity to the Pope, the representative of God on earth. The word Pope, may also be a derivative of the word in Egyptian for the evil serpent Apep, Apophis or Apopsa (See Poop Deck and Pupa, and Pepsi, Pepsid, Dr. Pepper, Sgt. Pepper, etc,). — Michael Tsarion

One helpful way of identifying these kingdom features is to examine closely the "preview" passages in the Bible. Pop a movie into your DVD player, and you'll first see previews of coming attractions. Similarly, throughout the Bible are previews of the "feature film": the kingdom of God in all its consummated fullnness. These texts offer us glimpses into what live will be like in the new heavens and new earth. — Amy L. Sherman

The doctrine of the carnal Christian[32] has destroyed more lives and sent more people to hell than you can imagine! Do Christians struggle with sin? Yes. Can a Christian fall into sin? Absolutely. Can a Christian live in a continuous state of carnality all the days of his life, not bearing fruit, and truly be Christian? Absolutely not ! - or every promise in the Old Testament regarding the New Testament covenant of preservation has failed, and everything God said about discipline in Hebrews is a lie (Heb 12:6)! "A tree is known by its fruit" (Luk 6:44). — Paul David Washer

But your greatest blessing was of another order. In gaining my friendship through your charity - I have never encountered its equal - you have furnished me with a source of inspiration more powerful and more pure that one could find among human things. For nothing among human things is as powerful for maintaining our gaze, applied ever more intensely on God, than friendship with the friends of God. — Simone Weil

To image the being of God towards the world, to be the priest of creation, is to behave towards the world in all its aspects, of work, and of play, in such a way that it may come to be what it was created to be, that which praises its maker by becoming perfect in its own way. In all this, there is room for both usefulness and beauty to take their due place, but differently according to differences of activity and object. — Colin Gunton

Like the lotus flower, business blooms in the mud, and in the dark of night. The lotus is an amazing creation of God, because for all of its beauty, it is the sum total of work performed in a mess. It is also a creation that has the ability to create seeds in its habitat for a very long time without help from human hands. The lotus has the ability to survive beyond the mercurial nature of weather (storms, frost). The lotus is one strong, powerful, and resilient flower that blossoms in a substance (mud) that none of us would want to touch. — Robin Caldwell

The body will shine if the character is fine; service of man and worship of God will preserve its charm. — Sathya Sai Baba

It remained for the twentieth century to discover that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released, however, the atom must be bombarded from without. So too, locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine-the imago dei-image of God, it is sometimes called. And it too can be activated only through bombardment, in its case love's bombardment — Huston Smith

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea. That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife. — Audre Lorde

Art imitates nature not in its effects as such, but in its causes, in its 'manner,' in its process, which are nothing but a participation in and a derivation of actual objects, of the Art of God himself. — Paul Claudel

What is the devotion if there is no temptation which is master on their own? The man is not God and his strength is just in that to suppress its nature, if there is nothing to suppress what's the difference? — Mesa Selimovic

For human beings to destroy the biological diversity of God's creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth's waters, its land, its air, and its life -- these are sins. — Patriarch Bartholomew

Men professing godliness offer their bodies upon Satan's altar, and burn the incense of tobacco to his satanic majesty. Does this statement seem severe? The offering must be presented to some deity. Since God is pure and holy, and will accept nothing defiling in its character, He refuses this expensive, filthy, and unholy sacrifice; therefore we conclude that Satan is the one who claims the honor. — Ellen G. White

To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the living banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God? — Thomas Carlyle

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men's hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], — Anonymous

Resurrection. In the crude form in which it is preached to console the weak, it is alien to me. I have always understood Christ's words about the living and the dead in a different sense. Where could you find room for all these hordes of people accumulated over thousands of years? The universe isn't big enough for them; God, the good, and meaningful purpose would be crowded out. They'd be crushed by these throngs greedy merely for the animal life.
But all the time, life, one, immense, identical throughout its innumerable combinations and transformations, fills the universe and is continually reborn. You are anxious about whether you will rise from the dead or not, but you rose from the dead when you were born and you didn't notice it. — Boris Pasternak

Though, in debating with regard to theories, it be lawful to say whether this or that is consistent with the Divine attributes, yet, when we find that God has actually done any thing, all question about its justice, wisdom, and benevolence, is forever out of place. — Nehemiah Adams

There is a fine line between humility and humiliation, and when Augustine's critics, both loyal and disloyal, fault him for morbid self-criticism, they generally mean to imply that he has crossed the line. You can have a relationship with another person only if you know something of humility; otherwise your ego gets in the way. If, however, you are humiliated instead of humbled, there is no 'you' to enter into a relationship. Massilians and Pelagians had differing understandings of when humility before God became too much of a good thing, but they had common cause in not liking Augustine's scruples about the human will to relate to God. If everything about the soul's relationship to God is God's doing, including the very desire to be in relation, where exactly does the soul surface in its redemption? The Word seems to have become a monologue. — James Wetzel

The cruel man is of misanthropic temperament, and is a man of moods, oscillating from quiet brooding to sudden explosions. If a man like this does not fight this unhappy provision of his soul during his youth, under no circumstances could he a void becoming furious - and foolish. There are those who would leave it up to God, but to ensure justice on the earth, and not fob it off to the Divinity, it is mandatory that people know both virtue and its benefits, since the virtues lead to unity among them, not the war of all against all. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to conserve them, and show that crime can only return misfortunes and destruction, including of the criminal himself. Who is the last victim of his crimes. — Frederick The Great

Festivals and fasts are unhinged, traveling backward at a rate of ten days per year, attached to no season. Even Laylat ul Qadr, the holiest night in Ramadan, drifts
its precise date is unknown. The iconclasm laid down by Muhammed was absolute: you must resist attachment not only to painted images, but to natural ones. Ramadan, Muharram, the Eids; you associate no religious event with the tang of snow in the air, or spring thaw, or the advent of summer. God permeates these things
as the saying goes, Allah is beautiful, and He loves beauty
but they are transient. Forced to concentrate on the eternal, you begin to see, or think you see, the bones and sinews of the world beneath its seasonal flesh. The sun and moon become formidable clockwork. They are transient also, but hint at the dark planes that stretch beyond the earth in every direction, full of stars and dust, toward a retreating, incomprehensible edge — G. Willow Wilson

If we deny the grief its right in our lives, then we must question the love for which the grief is supposedly rooted. God's grief is founded in His love for Himself and His love for us. Looking at God as our model is healthy. Facing the pain means honoring those with whom our love is rooted. — W. Scott Lineberry

[A]bove all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe, as an expression of Allah's will and creation, that has inspired in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah.'"

His Highness the Aga Khan's 2003 Address to the International Colloquium 'Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur'an and its Creative Expressions' organised by The Institute of Ismaili Studies (London, United Kingdom) — Aga Khan

There is in all our strivings a profound homesickness for God. When we touch another we touch God. When we look at a flower, its radiance, its fragrance, its stillness is another moment's experience of something deeper within. When we hold a baby, when we hear extraordinary music, when we look into the eyes of a great saint, what draws us is that deep homesickness for our true nature, for the peace and healing that is our birthright. This homesickness for God directs us toward the healing we took birth for. — Stephen Levine

There are two aspects to the life of every man: the personal life, which is free in proportion as its interests are abstract, and the elemental life of the swarm, in which a man must inevitably follow the laws laid down for him.
Consciously a man lives on his own account in freedom of will, but he serves as an unconscious instrument in bringing about the historical ends of humanity. An act he has once committed is irrevocable, and that act of his, coinciding in time with millions of acts of others, has an historical value. The higher a man's place in the social scale, the more connections has with others, and the more power he has over them, the more conspicuous is the inevitability and predestination of every act he commits. "The hearts of kings are in the hand of God." The king is the slave of history. — Leo Tolstoy

The remarkable thing about the world of insects, however, is precisely that there is no veil cast over these horrors. These are mysteries performed in broad daylight before our very eyes; we can see every detail, and yet they are still mysteries. If, as Heraclitus suggests, god, like an oracle, neither "declares nor hides, but sets forth by signs," then clearly I had better be scrying the signs. The earth devotes an overwhelming proportion of its energy to these buzzings and leaps in the grass. Theirs is the biggest wedge of the pie: Why? I ought to keep a giant water bug in an aquarium on my dresser, so I can think about it. — Annie Dillard

Nevertheless, in a passage that is very often commented upon because it summarizes the entire salvific economy of faith, the Apostle calls Christ the 'pioneer and perfecter of our faith' (Heb. 12:2), because he has to accomplish the same act as the Christian, only in the opposite direction, as it were. Whereas by venturing to let go of everything the Christian takes a stand beyond finitude and comes into the limitlessness of God, Christ, in order to make this act possible and to be its source, has dared to emerge from the infinitude of the 'form of God' and 'did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped,' has dared to set out into the limitation and emptiness of time. This involved a transcendence and a boundary crossing no less fundamental than that of the Christian, and Christ undertook it so as to entrust himself henceforth within time, with no guarantee or mitigation from eternity, to the Father's will, which is always given to him in the present moment. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

God's revelation ... unmasks our illusions about ourselves. It exposes our pride, our individualism, our self-centeredness - in short, our sin. But worship also offers forgiveness, healing, transformation, motivation, and courage to work in the world for God's justice and peace - in short, salvation in its largest sense. — Marva J. Dawn

And we must - absolutely must - maintain a fundamental humility before the Great Mystery. If we do not, religion always worships itself and its formulations and never God. — Richard Rohr

Love wakes much and sleeps little and, in sleeping, does not sleep. It faints is not weary; it is restricted in its liberty and is great freedom. It sees reasons to fear and does not fear, but, like an ember or a spark of fire, flames always upward, by the fervor of its love, toward God, and through the special help of grace is delivered from all perils and dangers — Thomas A Kempis

At its core, black theology is predicated on the assertion that God has a unique relationship with African Americans. God is not a passive bystander in human history but rather an active participant in the struggles of oppressed and dispossessed people. — Melissa V. Harris-Perry

In his Word we can never go astray. We can never be deluded or confounded or destroyed in his Word. If you think there can be no assurance or certainty for the soul, listen to the certainty of the Word of God. The soul can be instructed and enlightened ... so that it perceives that its whole salvation and righteousness, or justification, is enclosed in Jesus Christ."8 — Justo L. Gonzalez

We don't pray for the land. We pray for the humans, all humans ... starting with the president, Mohammed Morsi, and all officials, and for God to give everyone wisdom and responsibility to manage the affairs of this country and its people in true Egyptian spirit. — Pope Theodoros II

If there's a god, it knows exactly what it would take to convince me and has refused to provide it. In fact, it has gone to great lengths to hide any evidence of its existence. That doesn't seem like a deity that wants to be worshiped to me. — David G. McAfee

When the day comes in which the Kingdom of God will bear rule, the flag of the United States will proudly flutter unsullied on the flag staff of liberty and equal rights, without a spot to sully its fair surface; the glorious flag our fathers have bequeathed to us will then be unfurled to the breeze by those who have power to hoist it aloft and defend its sanctity. — Brigham Young

Guardian of the cave in the Hill Cumorah On December 11, 1869, then-Elder Wilford Woodruff recorded significant portions of President Brigham Young's remarks at a meeting, including President Young's explanation that Joseph Smith did not return the gold plates to the box "from where he had received them. But he went into a cave in the Hill Cumorah with Oliver Cowdery and deposited those plates upon a table or shelf. In that room were deposited a large amount of gold plates, containing sacred records; and when they first visited that room, the sword of Laban was hanging upon the wall and when they last visited it, the sword was drawn from the scabbard and lain upon the table, and a messenger who was the keeper of the room informed them that that sword would never be returned to its scabbard until the Kingdom of God was established upon the earth and until it reigned triumphant over every enemy. Joseph Smith said that cave contained tons of choice treasures and records."16 — Donald W. Parry

God's word is unpredictable in its power ... The Church has to accept this unruly freedom of the word, which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking. — Pope Francis

I have been told that when a baby bird is ready to hatch, if you break the egg for the bird, it will die. The bird must peck its own way out of the egg into the world. This aggressive "workout" strengthens the bird, allowing it to function in the outside world. Robbed of this responsibility, it will die. This is also the way God has made us. If he "hatches" us, does our work for us, invades our boundaries, we will die. We must not shrink back passively. Our boundaries can only be created by our being active and aggressive, by our knocking, seeking, and asking — Henry Cloud

He is saying, as he says extensively in Romans 8, that the whole creation is longing for its exodus, and that when God is all in all even the division between heaven and earth, God's space and human space, will be done away with (as we see also in Revelation 21). Paul's message to the pagan world is the fulfilled-Israel message: the one creator God is, through the fulfilment of his covenant with Israel, reconciling the world to himself. — N. T. Wright

A church that is deeply aware of it's misery and nakedness before a holy God will cling tenaciously to an all sufficient Savior, while one that is self-confident and relatively unaware of its inherent sinfulness will reach for religion and morality whenever it seems convenient — Michael Horton

And indeed man has invented God. And the strange thing, the wonderful thing, is not that God really does exist, but that an idea like that - the idea of God's necessity - could find its way into the head of a savage and vicious animal such as man, so sacred is it, that idea, so touching, so exceedingly wise and so greatly to his honour. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The law of karma is neither fatalistic nor punitive; nor is man a hapless, helpless victim in its bonds. God has blessed each one of us with reason, intellect and discrimination, as well as the sovereign free will. Even when our past karma inclines us toward evil, we can consciously tune our inclination towards detachment and ego-free action, thus lightening the karmic load. — Dada Vaswani

(a) God intended Jesus to die as the climax of his rescue operation; (b) the intentions and actions that sent Jesus to his death were desperately wicked. This doesn't for a moment justify the wickedness. Rather, it declares that God, knowing how powerful that wickedness was, had long planned to nullify its power by taking its full force upon himself, in the person of his Messiah, the man in whom God himself would be embodied. — N. T. Wright

I haven't been here long, but, nevertheless, all the same, what I've managed to observe and verify here arouses the indignation of my Tartar blood. By God, I don't want such virtues! I managed to make a seven-mile tour here yesterday. Well, it's exactly the same as in those moralizing little German picture books: everywhere here each house has its Vater, terribly virtuous and extraordinarily honest. So honest it's even frightening to go near him. I can't stand honest people whom it's frightening to go near. Each such Vater has a family, and in the evening they all read edifying books aloud. Over their little house, elms and chestnuts rustle. A sunset, a stork on the roof, and all of it extraordinarily poetic and touching ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Bible shows the clear statement of God's purposes concerning the earth, and man once made its prince. Its opening chapters show that it was intended for man's instruction. — Joseph Franklin Rutherford

The indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality in a recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things, a holistic and balanced view of the world. All things are bound together. All things connect. What happens to the Earth happens to the children of the earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life; we are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. — Rebecca Adamson

Regularity in Nature is not proof of the control of Nature by a Divine intelligence; it is rather the reverse. If something- call it matter, or ether, or x - exists, it must operate in accordance with its innate qualities; and so long as this x remains uncontrolled, its manifestations will continue unchallenged- in other words, there will be order. The same causes, the same results. That is the manifest signs of a natural order that knows nothing of God. — Chapman Cohen

He had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track was lost in the darkness of night. It would never return to the sky again, because life was given only once and never came a second time. If he could have turned back the days and years of the past, he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity to those whom he had robbed of it. He would have found God and goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair. — Anton Chekhov

If we are given gold, would we not test it to determine it's value? If we doubted its genuineness - we would test it by fire ... and so God with us ... — John Calvin

He listened to the keening of the wind whistling through holes in the walls, and he pondered the thought that there might be something out there in the dark - God or Devil or something more elemental than either - that looked at humankind as Josh had viewed the roach - less than intelligent, certainly nasty, but struggling onward on its journey, never giving up, fighting through obstacles or going around them, doing whatever it had to do to survive. And he hoped that if the time ever came for that elemental fist to come crashing down, its wielder might take a moment of pause as well. — Robert McCammon

You think God will never forgive you, but the only God is beauty and beauty always forgives. It forgives with its infinite indifference. — Glen Duncan

The poem 'What Teachers Make' is not without its detractors. This one person wrote to me and said: 'Gee, Mr. Mali. You don't possibly have a teacher-God complex, do you?' And that was the first time I'd ever heard of that expression. So, yeah, I'm sure I have a teacher-God complex. — Taylor Mali

Thank God for running. It is the ultimate detox for me, whether my poison is bubbles, a foul mood, or a bad attitude. If I combat inertia, get out, and get moving, eventually every kind of toxin works its way out. — Kristin Armstrong

The United States turned its back on the Jewish people and an awesome tragedy occurred, starting a pattern that continues until this day. There are literally dozens of examples like the Great Hurricane of 1938 where disasters strike America on the very day the United States meddles with God's covenant land of Israel. — John P. McTernan

God abhors a naked singularity because that's when things stop making sense. Predictability breaks down. That's why the universe takes all its dirty little secrets and hides them in the centre of a black hole. — Gavin G. Smith

Doubt is a precipice on the way to God. Blessed is he who is freed from its bonds. He who fares without any doubt, adhere to his footprints if you do not know the way. Cleave to the footprints of the deer and advance with care that you may reach the musk-gland. By means of such trekking, even if you walk on fire, you will reach the luminous peak. — Rumi

Human life is God's outer church. Its needs and urgencies are priests and pastors. — Henry Ward Beecher

And yet viewing several depictions of even an imaginary city, is enlightening in a way," Leibniz said. "Each painter can view the city from only one standpoint at a time, so he will move about the place, and paint it from a hilltop on one side, then a tower on the other, then from a grand intersection in the middle
all in the same canvas. When we look at the canvas, then, we glimpse in a small way how God understands the universe
for he sees it from every point of view at once. By populating the world with so many different minds, each with its own point of view, God gives us a suggestion of what it means to be omniscient. — Neal Stephenson

The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own. — Meister Eckhart

Small yet strong in the love of God, like Saint Francis of Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over
and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its peoples. — Pope Francis

I will miss myself in relation to others. The rareness. The exceptional differences. I will miss the gift that comes with hardship and paying the price. I will miss the tragedy of my own life. As I once spoke...emphatically, but I now repeat here, quietly - the pain, the pain is what made it so God damn beautiful. I endured. You can wait a lifetime for thirty seconds, five minutes, or for an hour to come into your life - a brief interval that makes all the suffering purposeful. In such moments of splendor and rapture - even if the rapture be stilled, the private hours and years of reckoning are unloaded, a burden lifted and the spirit feels as it did on the happiest day of its life when it was young and untormented Or rather, unconscious of the torment waiting to be ignited. — Wheston Chancellor Grove

There are only two places where the powerful and great in this world lose their courage, tremble in the depths of their souls, and become truly afraid. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ ... No priest, no theologian stood at the cradle of Bethlehem. And yet, all Christian theology finds its beginnings in the miracle of miracles, that God became human. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The night above. We two. Full moon.
I started to weep, you laughed.
Your scorn was a god, my laments
moments and doves in a chain.
The night below. We two. Crystal of pain.
You wept over great distances.
My ache was a clutch of agonies
over your sickly heart of sand.
Dawn married us on the bed,
our mouths to the frozen spout
of unstaunched blood.
The sun came through the shuttered balcony
and the coral of life opened its branches
over my shrouded heart.

- Night of Sleepless Love — Federico Garcia Lorca

The aim of this book is not to make atheism a popular belief or even to overcome its invisibility. My object is not utopian. It is merely to provide good reasons for being an atheist. ... My object is to show that atheism is a rational position and that belief in God is not. I am quite aware that atheistic beliefs are not always based on reason. My claim is that they should be. — Michael Martin

Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. — Augustine Of Hippo

III
But may I, when alone again I have the city's crush
and tangled noise-skein and the furor
of its traffic all around me,
may I above the mindless swirl
recall sky and the gentle mountain rim
on which the far-off herd curved homeward.
May my spirit be hard as rock
and the shepherd's life to me seem possible-
the way he drifts and turns brown in the sun and with a practiced
stone-throw mends his flock, whenever it frays.
Steps slow, not light, his body pensive,
but in his standing there, majestic. Even now a god
might enter this form and not be lessened.
He lingers for a while, then moves on, like the day itself,
and shadows of the clouds
pass through him, as though space were slowly
thinking thoughts for him. — Rainer Maria Rilke

The inner life is bruised by a running against the laws of the Kingdom. The bruises are guilt complexes, a sense of inferiority, of missing the mark, of being out of harmony with God and with oneself, a sense of wrongness. Divine forgiveness wipes out all that sense of inner hurt and condemnation. Brings a sense of at-homeness- at home with God and oneself and with life. The universe opens its arms and takes one in. You are accepted- by God, by yourself, and by life. All self-loathing, self-rejection, all inferiorities drop away. You are a child of God; born from above, you walk the earth, a conqueror, afraid of nothing. Healed at the heart, you can say to life: Come on, I'm ready for anything. — E. Stanley Jones

And more than once in the course of time, the same theme reappears: among the mystics of the fifteenth century, it has become the motif of the soul as a skiff, abandoned on the infinite sea of desires, in the sterile field of cares and ignorance, among the mirages of knowledge, amid the unreason of the world - a craft at the mercy of the sea's great madness, unless it throws out a solid anchor, faith, or raises its spiritual sails so that the breath of God may bring it to port. — Michel Foucault

People of very different opinions
friends who can discuss politics, religion, and sex with perfect civility
are often reduced to red-faced rage when the topic of conversation is the serial comma or an expression like more unique. People who merely roll their eyes at hate crimes feel compelled to write jeremiads on declining standards when a newspaper uses the wrong form of its. Challenge my most cherished beliefs about the place of humankind in God's creation, and while I may not agree with you, I'll fight to the death for your right to say it. But dangle a participle in my presence, and I'll consider you a subliterate cretin no longer worth listening to, a menace to decent society who should be removed from the gene pool before you do any more damage. — Jack Lynch

Get the heat and emotion out worry, and put cold, ruthless scrutiny onto the problem, and worry loses its power. When we are worried and filled with apprehension, we become panicky and are likely to see only gloom and failure. There isn't any situation so bad that it won't become a lot better when you think rationally - and spiritually - about it. God gives you the ability to think rationally about things by filling you with peace and faith. — Norman Vincent Peale

Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman, the god-within ... underlying its whirlpool of transient feelings, emotions, and delusions is the self-luminous, abiding point of the transpersonal god. As the sun lights the world even when cloud-covered, "the Immutable is never seen but is the Witness; it is never heard but is the Hearer; it is never thought but is the Thinker; it is never known but is the Knower. There is no other witness but This, no other knower but This." from the Upanishad — Huston Smith

To love mankind for the sake of God-that has been the most nobel and far-fetched feeling yet achieved by human beings. The idea that without some sanctifying ulterior motive, a love of mankind is just one more brutish stupidity, that the predisposition to such a love must first find its weight, its refinement, its grain of salt and pinch of ambergris in another even higher predisposition-whoever first felt and 'witnessed' this, and however much his tongue may have stuttered in attempting to express such a delicate idea: may he remain forever venerable and holy in our sight as the man who as yet has flown the highest and erred the most beautifully! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Indeed, when God's glory dwells in me, there is nothing too far away, nothing too painful, nothing too strange or too familiar that it cannot contain and renew by its touch. Every time I recognize the glory of God in me and give it space to manifest itself to me, all that is human can be brought there and nothing will be the same again. — Henri Nouwen

What a man pays for bread and butter is worth its market value, and no more. What he pays for love's sake is gold indeed, which has a lure for angels' eyes, and rings well upon God's touchstone. — James Russell Lowell

As an individual, I myself feel impelled to fancy ... a limitless succession of Universes ... Each exists, apart and independently, in the bosom of its proper and particular God. — Edgar Allan Poe

Happiness increases and decreases depending on the level of power one has. When you have more power, more control on your life, you feel more happy and self-confident, as your power decreases and the control of your life slips away, you get less and less happy and when you no longer have any power to rely on you reach depression and despair. This is the point where your power meter has hit 0. You now need to rely on the good favors of others to live. For those who believe in the power of god, it sustains them through this dark hour. For those who do not believe, they think they have reached the end and may take their lives. That's why all conflict in life is about power and many lose life in its pursuit. Power is life itself. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

The Church, if it is to be the Church, must be the revelation of that divine Love which God "poured out into our hearts." Without this love nothing is "valid" in the Church because nothing is possible. The content of Christ's Eucharist is Love, and only through love can we enter into it and be made its partakers. — Alexander Schmemann

When the soul opens its shell, it liberates the fundamental center that is the spirit. And once born, the spirit spreads its wings and flies with all the freedom of love, going to nestle in the heart where resides true Divine love. Love is God in full flight, and it is found inside our own selves. It is the bird coming back to its nest, the spirit returning to its reality, and the creature to the Creator, all coming together in the domain of the One who is and always was. — Alex Polari De Alverga

Most of these super-sovereigns feel that God can comment if he wants to, but God must avoid getting loud. While God is welcome to his opinions, he is only one voice, and he doesn't get extra points just for being God. The unstudied opinionated are prone to say, even to God, "Yes, but here's what I think." In such a world, classic apologetics has lost much of its force. — Calvin Miller

Jesus says, "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5). You see these dynamics when David arrives at King Saul's camp, bringing food for his older brothers. David is surprised to hear Goliath taunting the Israelites and their God. He is shocked that no one has the courage to challenge Goliath and blurts out, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" (1 Samuel 17:26). David reacts to the split between Israel's public faith and its battlefield ... — Paul Miller

Without moral progress, stimulated by faith in God, immorality in all its forms will proliferate and strangle goodness and human decency. Mankind will not be able to fully express the potential nobility of the human soul unless faith in God is strengthened. — James E. Faust

Second, as Luther stated, because God's love isn't caused by its object, it can love those who are not lovable, "sinners, evil persons, fools, and weaklings in order to make them righteous, good, wise, and strong". Luther concluded, "rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good". — Miroslav Volf

the moment when the kingdom of God overcomes the kingdoms of the world. It is the moment when a great old door, locked and barred since our first disobedience, swings open suddenly to reveal not just the garden, opened once more to our delight, but the coming city, the garden city that God had always planned and is now inviting us to go through the door and build with him. The dark power that stood in the way of this kingdom vision has been defeated, overthrown, rendered null and void. Its — N. T. Wright

Militant atheists seek to discredit religion based on a highly selective reading of history. There was a time not long ago - just a couple of centuries - when the Western world was saturated by religion. Militant atheists are quick to attribute many of the most unfortunate aspects of history to religion, yet rarely concede the immense debt that civilization owes to various monotheist religions, which created some of the world's greatest literature, art, and architecture; led the movement to abolish slavery; and fostered the development of science and technology. One should not invalidate these achievements merely because they were developed for religious purposes. If much of science was originally a religious endeavor, does that mean science is not valuable? Is religiously motivated charity not genuine? Is art any less beautiful because it was created to express devotion to God? To regret religion is to regret our civilization and its achievements. — Bruce Sheiman

God is love;' Creation is the outflow of love. Redemption is the sacrifice and the triumph of love. Holiness is the fire of love. The beauty of the life of Jesus is love. All we enjoy of the Divine we owe to love. Our holiness is not God's is not Christ's, if we do not love.
[ ... Again, faith works by love]:
"For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love" (Galatians 5:6, KJV).
Faith has all its worth from love, from the love of God, whenever it draws and drinks, and the love to God and man which streams out of it. Let us be strong in faith, then shall we abound in love. — Andrew Murray

The building is rather like a medieval Castle and was established in the Sixth Century and soon afterwards, as the Moslem armies advanced Westwards from the Arabian Peninsula, somebody had the prescience to build a small Mosque in its courtyard to guard against it being burned or demolished. At the time of the Crusades it was the turn of the Monastery to protect the Mosque, and so it has been down the ages, each House of God extending its shelter to the other as opposing armies came and went. — Ahdaf Soueif

Be it observed, moreover, that suffering such as God accepts and rewards for Christ's sake, must have God's glory as its end. If I suffer that, I may earn a name, or win applause among men; if I venture into trial merely that I may be respected for it, I shall get my reward; but it will be the reward of the Pharisee, and not the crown of the sincere servant of the Lord Jesus. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

People belittle or ignore or even rebel against God, because they view the
processes of nature as having self-sufficient causes, normally regarded by them as
ultimate. They do not realize that the universe is a sign pointing to something
"beyond" itself, something without which the universe, with all its natural causes,
would be and could be nothing. — Fazlur Rahman

Mankind has no right to employ its genius in the creation of another intelligent species, then treat it like property. If we've come so far that we can create as God creates, then we have to learn to act with the justice and mercy of God. — Dean Koontz

People say to you, 'you've changed', or something like that. Well, I hope, for the sake of God, that I have changed, because I don't want to be the same person all my life. I want to be growing, I want to be expanding. I want to be changing. Because animate things change, inanimate things don't change. Dead things don't change. And the heart should be alive, it should be changing, it should be moving, it should be growing and its knowledge should be expanding. — Hamza Yusuf

God decreed to save and damn certain particular persons. This decree has its foundation in the foreknowledge of God, by which he knew from all eternity those individuals who would, through his preventing [going before] grace, believe, and, through his subsequent grace would persevere by which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere. — Jacobus Arminius

19. Before the divine fire is introduced into the substance of the soul and united with it through perfect and complete purgation and purity, its flame, which is the Holy Spirit, wounds the soul by destroying and consuming the imperfections of its bad habits. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit, in which he disposes it for divine union and transformation in God through love. The very fire of love that afterward is united with the soul, glorifying it, is what previously assailed it by purging it, just as the fire that penetrates a log of wood is the same that first makes an assault on the wood, wounding it with the flame, drying it out, and stripping it of its unsightly qualities until it is so disposed that it can be penetrated and transformed into the fire. Spiritual writers call this activity the purgative way. — San Juan De La Cruz

With its continued dismissal of the law of God in ethics, Fundamentalism expressed both a "spiritualized" form of situational ethics and a "Christianly submissive" statism. — Greg L. Bahnsen

To be one of God's lilies means an interior abandonment of the rarest kind. It means that we are to be infinitely passive, and yet infinitely active also; passive as regards self and its workings, active as regards attention and response to God. It is very hard to explain this so as to be understood But it means that we must lay down all the activity of the creature, as such, and must let only the activities of God work in us, and through us, and by us. Self must step aside, to let God work. — Hannah Whitall Smith

Justice is that which is practiced by God himself, and to be practiced in its perfection by none but him. Omniscience and omnipotence are requisite for the full exertion of it. — Joseph Addison

Religion, in its most general view, is such a Sense of God in the soul, and such a conviction of our obligations to him, and of our dependence upon him, as shall engage us to make it our great care to conduct ourselves in a manner which we have reason to believe will be pleasing to him. — Philip Doddridge

God has the capacity to look at the world through two lenses. When God looks at a painful or wicked event through his narrow lens, he sees the tragedy or the sin for what it is in itself and he is angered and grieved. "I do not delight in the death of anyone, says the Lord God" (Ezek. 18:32). But when God looks at a painful or wicked event through his wide-angle lens, he sees the tragedy or the sin in relation to everything leading up to it and everything flowing out from it. He sees it in all the connections and effects that form a pattern or mosaic stretching into eternity. This mosaic, with all its (good and evil) parts he does delight in (Ps. 115:3). — John Piper

If in the middle of an air raid God sends out the gospel call to his kingdom in baptism, it will be quite clear what that kingdom is and what it means. It is a kingdom stronger than war and danger, a kingdom of power and authority, signifying eternal terror and judgment to some, and eternal joy and righteousness to others, not a kingdom of the heart, but one as wide as the earth, not transitory but eternal, a kingdom that makes a way for itself and summons men to itself to prepare its way, a kingdom for which it is worth while risking our lives. - — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We cannot understand the meaning of many trials; God does not explain them. To explain a trial would be to destroy its object, which is that of calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience. If we knew why the Lord sent us this or that trial, it would thereby cease to be a trial either of faith or of patience. — Alfred Edersheim