Nearest To God Quotes & Sayings

It's where we're nearest to our humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is good, too, but it's for the faint-hearted, an elaboration of the real thing, which is only to shine some light, it doesn't matter where on what, it's the light itself, against the darkness, it's what's left of God's purpose when you take away God. — Tom Stoppard

The nearest I'd come to feeling anything like God was the plan blue cloudless sky and a certain silence, but how do you pray to that? — Janet Fitch

I give my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin, charging them to remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ. — Michelangelo

The nearest thing we have to a defence against [the gods] (but there is no real defence) is to be very wide awake and sober and hard at work, to hear no music, never to look at earth or sky, and (above all) to love no one. — C.S. Lewis

That's what the family is for,' he said. 'Calvin says it is the Providence of God that we look after those nearest to us. So it is the will of God that we help our brothers, and it is equally the will of God that we accept their help and receive the blessing of it. As if it came from the Lord Himself. Which it does. So I want you boys to promise me that you will help each other. — Marilynne Robinson

I have lived long enough to learn how much there is I can really do without ... He is nearest to God who needs the fewest things. — Socrates

Shakespeare - The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God. — Laurence Olivier

The nearest each of us can come to God is by loving the truth. — R. Buckminster Fuller

We can never know for certain where our prayers are likely to go, nor from whom the answers will come. Just when we think we are at our nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil. — Norman Mailer

To love one's neighbour in the immovable depths means to love in others that which is eternal; for one's neighbour, in the truest sense of the term, is that which approaches the nearest to God; in other words, all that is best and purest in man; and it is only by ever lingering near the gates I spoke of, that you can discover the divine in the soul. — Maurice Maeterlinck

We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, and He packs our life with surprises all the time ... Leave the whole thing to Him, it is gloriously uncertain how He will come in, but He will come. — Oswald Chambers

Teach me to listen, O God, to those nearest me, my family, my friends, my co-workers. Help me to be aware that no matter what words I hear, the message is, "Accept the person I am. Listen to me. — Philippa Alby

Apropos of Eskimo, I once heard a missionary describe the extraordinary difficulty he had found in translating the Bible into Eskimo. It was useless to talk of corn or wine to a people who did not know even what they meant, so he had to use equivalents within their powers of comprehension. Thus in the Eskimo version of the Scriptures the miracle of Cana of Galilee is described as turning the water into blubber; the 8th verse of the 5th chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter ran: 'Your adversary the devil, as a roaring Polar bear walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.' In the same way 'A land flowing with milk and honey' became 'A land flowing with whale's blubber,' and throughout the New Testament the words 'Lamb of God' had to be translated 'little Seal of God,' as the nearest possible equivalent. The missionary added that his converts had the lowest opinion of Jonah for not having utilised his exceptional opportunities by killing and eating the whale. — Frederick Hamilton

The nearest we approach God ... is as creative beings. The poet , by echoing the primary imagination , recreates. Through his work he forces those who read him to do the same, thus bringing them ... nearer to the actual being of God as displayed in action . — R.S. Thomas

The God that is nearest to you in the people around you is the real one you need — Sunday Adelaja

You've already said this is your dream job. And forgive me if I'm wrong, but I promised before God, Reverend Walsh, and a congregation of our nearest and dearest to 'cherish you, uphold your hopes and dreams, and keep you safe at my side.' — E.L. James

Of all teachings that which presents a far distant God is the nearest to absurdity. Either there is none, or he is nearer to every one of us than our nearest consciousness of self. An unapproachable divinity is the veriest of monsters, the most horrible of human imaginations. — George MacDonald

Let us not fear that the issues of natural science shall be scepticism or anarchy. Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in his universe is linked to that which lies nearest the Throne. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Ronkers was getting out of the elevator on the first floor when the intercom paged 'Dr Heart'. There was no Dr Heart at University Hospital. 'Dr Heart' meant someone's heart had stopped.
'Dr Heart?' the intercom asked sweetly. 'Please come to 304 ... '
Any doctor in the hospital was supposed to hurry to that room. There was an unwritten rule that you looked around and made a slow move to the nearest elevator, hoping another doctor would beat you to the patient. Ronkers hesitated, letting the elevator door close. He pushed the button again, but the elevator was already moving up.
'Dr Heart, room 304,' the intercom said calmly. It was better than urgently crying, 'A doctor! Any doctor to room 304! Oh my God, hurry!' That might disturb the other patients and the visitors. — John Irving

As God loves me, when I consider this, then every modern society seems to me to be nothing but a conspiracy of the rick, who while protesting their interest in the common good pursue their own interests and stop at no trick and deception to secure their ill-gotten possessions, to pay as little as possible for the labor that produces their wealth and so force its makers to accept the nearest thing to nothing. They contrive rules for securing and assuring these tidy profits for the rich in the name of the common good, including of course the poor, and call them laws! — Thomas More

Artists are nearest God. Into their souls he breathes his life, and from their hands it comes in fair, articulate forms to bless the world. — J.G. Holland

What is man - and of course the writer means all of us puny little insignificant creatures - what is a mere human being that God who made the immense universe should ever notice?' She chuckled. 'The sky does take you down to size.'
Not even big as bugs. Not even a speck of dust to the nearest star,' Angel agreed.
But the psalmist answers his own question. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor ... " '
What?' Angel asked, not sure she had heard right.
A little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor.'
The real angels? Do you believe that?'
Yes, Angel, I do. When people look down on me, and these days' - she laughed shortly - 'these days everyone over the age of five does. When people look down on me, I remember that God looks at this pitiful, twisted old thing that I have become and crowns me with glory. — Katherine Paterson

[God] will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of heaven as a shortcut to the nearest chemist's shop. — C.S. Lewis

People are more afraid of the laws of Man than of God, because their punishment seems to be nearest. — William Penn

The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection. — John Milton

God took Eve from the side of Adam, not from his foot to be his menial or slave or servant, not from his head to be his mental superior, and did take him from that which is nearest his heart, that he might love her, and that which is under his arm, that he might protect her. — Matthew Henry

Prayer is my chief work; by it I carry on all else. Prayer is the nearest approach to God and the highest enjoyment of him that we are capable of in this life. It is the noblest exercise of the soul. It is the most exalted use of our best faculties. It is the highest imitation of the blessed beings of heaven. — William Laws

You can travel with the speed of thought! You just think you're on Jupiter and you're there, boom! You just think you're on Saturn and you're there, boom! You just think you're on the nearest star and you're there, boom! You don't have to have transporters, spaceships or speed of light or anything, you're just there like that! So we will have the might and the power of angels and the speed and the ability and we will be ruling and reigning spirits with resurrected bodies, but spiritual bodies which have enormous angelic powers like the angels of God, like Jesus when He was resurrected! — David Berg

You dont get your black ass away from this fire I'll kill you graveyard dead. He looked to where Glanton sat. Glanton watched him. He put the pipe in his mouth and rose and took up the apishamore and folded it over his arm. Is that your final say? Final as the judgement of God. The black looked once more across the flames at Glanton and then he moved away in the dark. The white man uncocked the revolver and placed it on the ground before him. Two of the others came back to the fire and stood uneasily. Jackson sat with his legs crossed. One hand lay in his lap and the other was outstretched on his knee holding a slender black cigarillo. The nearest man to him was Tobin and when the black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowieknife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony Tobin started to rise. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head. — Cormac McCarthy

There was a patient who sat with her family in a circle around her, all holding hands. Sister Philomena asked if they would like to join her for prayers and they said yes, they would. They closed their eyes as Sister Philomena whispered the words and I thought this must be the nearest humans get to whatever God is, when they hold hands and listen. — Rachel Joyce

I swear to God," she muttered, fighting a laugh, "if you've dusted me with blue, I'll tie your balls in a knot and hang you up by them on the nearest sharp object I see. — Nalini Singh

When men enter into the state of marriage, they stand nearest to God. — Henry Ward Beecher

You will not enter paradise until you have faith; and you will not complete your faith, till you love one another.
God is gentle and loves gentleness.
God is a unity, and likes unity.
That person is nearest to God, who pardons, when he has someone in his power, one who would have injured him. — Anonymous

The vector equilibrium is the true zero reference of the energetic mathematics. Zero pulsation in the vector equilibrium is the nearest approach we will ever know to eternity and god: the zero phase of conceptual integrity inherent in the positive and negative asymmetries that propagate the differentials of consciousness. — R. Buckminster Fuller

The best worship that we ever render to God is far from perfect. Our praises, how faint and feeble they are! Our prayers, how wandering, how wavering they are! When we get nearest to God, how far off we are! When we are most like Him, how greatly unlike Him we are! — Charles Spurgeon

I don't want to spoil the magic, but it's a very curious thing that honestly baffles me. It's the nearest we'll ever get to playing God, to suddenly produce these fully formed creatures. It is a bit odd. Other aspects you work out more - you rework sentences, you rework imagery. But not characters. — Kate Atkinson

But three, now, Christ three A.M.! Doctors say the body's at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You're the nearest to dead you'll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you'd slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot! — Ray Bradbury

To what object are my views directed?" he asked. "Am I grasping at money, or scheming for power?" Yes, he was amassing a library, but to what purpose? "Fame, fortune, power say some, are the ends intended by a library. The service of God, country, clients, fellow men, say others. Which of these lie nearest my heart? — David McCullough

It is deeply interesting to notice also where the citizens were put to work. Each was set to labor on the bit of all opposite his home ... I do not say that men are not called to service in far distant places ... But I do say that for the vast majority the task that God appoints is the task lying at the door. The nearest thing is God's thing. The nearest duty is God's duty. He who cannot find his service there is little likely to be useful anywhere. — George H Morrison

It had been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. (Waterloo 18 June 1815)

'I hope to God,' he said one day,'that I have fought my last battle.It is a bad thing to be always fighting.While in the thick of it,I am much too occupied to feel anything;but it is wretched just after.It is quite impossible to think of glory.Both mind and feeling are exhausted.I am wretched even at the moment of victory,and I always say that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.Not only do you lose those dear friends with whom you have been living,but you are forced to leave the wounded behind you.To be sure one tries to do the best for them,but how little that is!At such moments every feeling in your breast is deadened.I am now just beginning to retain my natural spirits,but I never wish for any more fighting. — Arthur Wellesley