Only God Understands Quotes & Sayings

Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death. — Steven Erikson

An angel is an intelligent essence, always in motion. It has free will, is incorporeal, serves God, and has been bestowed with immortality. Only the Creator understands its true nature. — John Of Damascus

The centre of the soul is God; and, when the soul has attained to Him according to the whole capacity of its being, which is the strength and virtue of the soul, it will have reached the last and the deep centre of the soul, which will be when with all its powers it loves and understands and enjoys God. — John Of The Cross

God has no interest in violating our boundaries so that he can relate to us. He understands that this would cause injuries of trust. It is our responsibility to open up to him in need and repentance. — Henry Cloud

America understands itself as God's handiwork, but the black body is the clearest evidence that America is the work of men. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God. — Thomas Aquinas

Rarely do I truly understand the disease which ails me. Therefore, rarely do I truly understand the fix that would cure me. And so maybe I should truly contemplate how rarely I recognize that God understands both. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

The darkness knows neither the light nor itself; only the light knows itself and the darkness also. None but God hates evil and understands it. — George MacDonald

I believe deeply that God does his best work in our lives during times of great heartbreak and loss, and I believe that much of that rich work is done by the hands of people who love us, who dive into the wreckage with us and show us who God is, over and over and over. There are years when the Christmas spirit is hard to come by, and it's in those seasons when I'm so thankful for Advent. Consider it a less flashy but still very beautiful way of being present to this season. Give up for a while your false and failing attempts at merriment, and thank God for thin places, and for Advent, for a season that understands longing and loneliness and long nights. Let yourself fall open to Advent, to anticipation, to the belief that what is empty will be filled, what is broken will be repaired, and what is lost can always be found, no matter how many times it's been lost. — Shauna Niequist

A person could read the Bible, not to become smart, but rather to feel that they are not alone, that somebody understands them and love them enough to speak to them, on purpose, in a way that makes a person feel human. — Donald Miller

In my opinion, it is not the writer's job to solve such problems as the existence of God, pessimism, etc. The job of the artist is only to record who under which circumstances said or thought what about God or pessimism. The artist must not judge his characters or their words; he must only be an impartial witness ... It is high time for writers - and especially for true artists - to admit that it is impossible to explain anything ... if an artist whom the crowd trusts admits that he understands nothing of what he sees, this fact alone will make a great contribution to the realm of thought and will mark a great step forward. — Anton Chekhov

There is no physical pain, no spiritual wound, no anguish of soul or heartache, no infirmity or weakness you or I ever confront in mortality that the Savior did not experience first. In a moment of weakness we may cry out, 'No one knows what it is like. No one understands.' But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He has felt and borne our individual burdens. — David A. Bednar

God wants to take us step by step to free us from any unhealthy distractions. Don't expect other people to change, nor should we live in the past. He understands our hearts. We are not afraid to go forward because we are his children. Part of healing is understanding the past including the good and bad things — Phil Mitchell

What we call "the laws of nature" merely reflect the normal way in which God sustains or governs the natural world. Perhaps the most wicked concept that has captured the minds of modern people is the belief that the universe operates by chance. That is the nadir of foolishness. Elsewhere, I have written more extensively on the scientific impossibility of assigning power to chance, because chance is simply a word that describes mathematical possibilities.* Chance is not a thing. It has no power. It cannot do anything, and therefore it cannot influence anything, yet some have taken the word chance, which has no power, and diabolically used it as a replacement for the concept of God. But the truth, as the Bible makes clear, is that nothing happens by chance and that all things are under the sovereign government of God, which is exceedingly comforting to the Christian who understands it. — R.C. Sproul

I used unexpectedly to experience a consciousness of the presence of God, or such a kind that I could not possibly doubt that He was within me or that I was wholly engulfed in Him. This was in no sense a vision: I believe it is called mystical theology. The soul is suspended in such a way that it seems to be completely outside itself. The will loves; the memory, I think, is almost lost; while the understanding, I believe, thought it is not lost, does not reason - I mean that it does not work, but is amazed at the extent of all it can understand; for God wills it to realize that it understands nothing of what His Majesty represents to it. — Teresa Of Avila

When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, And skill a man, When God wants to mold a man To play the noblest part; When He yearns with all His heart To create so great and bold a man That all the world shall be amazed, Watch His methods, watch His ways! How He ruthlessly perfects Whom He royally elects! How He hammers him and hurts him, And with mighty blows converts him Into trial shapes of clay which Only God understands; While his tortured heart is crying And he lifts beseeching hands! How He bends but never breaks When his good He undertakes; How He uses whom He chooses, And with every purpose fuses him; But every act induces him To try His splendor out - God knows what He's about. SELECTED Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character. GOETHE — Lettie B. Cowman

Marriage [is] not just a bond between two people but a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors ... Lovers must not ... live for themselves alone ... They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and on its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers ... are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could ever join them. Lovers, then, 'die' into their union with one another as a soul 'dies' into its union with God ... If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing ... It is the fundamental connection without which nothing holds, and trust is its necessity. — Wendell Berry

Otherwise, there were no long goodbyes or emotional scenes. That isn't part of foster care. You just leave and you just die a little bit. Just a little bit because a little bit more of you understands that this is the way it's going to be. And you grow hard around the edges, just a little bit. Not in some big way, but just a little bit because you have to, because if you don't it only hurts worse the next time and a little bit more of you will die. And you don't want that because you know that if enough little bits of you die enough times, a part of you leaves. Do you know what I mean? You're still there, but a part of you leaves until you stand on the sidelines of life, simply watching, like a ghost that everyone can see and no one is bothered by. You become the saddest thing there is: a child of God who has given up. — John William Tuohy

There's no anger ever in a spiritual. There's always the dream of a hope of a better day coming. That God understands the troubles that I'm experiencing. — Jessye Norman

During hard times, such as serious illness, if you had to choose, which would you pick, healing or knowing God is with you? If you're a Christian, maybe you'll get both, but knowing that, just as He said, He will be with us through anything and everything is the most comforting aspect of our God's nature. No other faith offers 'the God who draws near'. No other faith offers the God who walked in our shoes, Jesus, the One who understands our troubles, not just by His omniscience but by actual experience. — H.L. Wegley

Acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. (1 Chron. 28:9) — Beth Moore

The Christian worldview, contra-postmodernism, understands language not as a Self-referential, merely human and ultimately arbitrary system of signs that is reducible to contingent cultural factors, but it has the gift of a rational God entrusted to beings made in his own image and likeness. — Douglas Groothuis

God understands that part of us which is more than what we think we are. — Madeleine L'Engle

The Emperor, you see, protects ... He protects mankind, through the Legions, through the Martial corps, through the war machines of the Mechanicum. He understands the dangers. The inconsistencies. He uses you, and all the instruments like you, to protect us from harm. To protect our physical bodies from murder and damage, to protect our minds from madness, to protect our souls ... There are insane dangers in the cosmos, dangers that mankind is fundamentally unable to comprehend, let alone survive. So he protects us. There are truths out there that would drive us mad by one fleeting glimpse of them. So he chooses not to share them with us. That's why he made you ... Remember, Garviel. The Emperor is our truth and out light. If we trust in him, he will protect. — Dan Abnett

Loss taught me the strength of faith. Faith in a God who understands. Faith in a Saviour who gave His all. Faith in a Comforter who walked by my side. — Nana Awere Damoah

What is probable, gentlemen, is that in fact the god is wise and that his oracular response meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing, and that when he says this man, Socrates, he is using my name as an example, as if he said: This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless. — Plato

Every man carries his kingdom within, and no one knows what is taking place in another's kingdom. 'No one understands me!' Of course they don't, each one of us is a mystery. There is only One Who understands you, and that is God. Hand yourself over to Him. — Oswald Chambers

The person who understands that God is the only One who builds, becomes His beloved. And to that kind of pastor God will give sleep. — Sunday Adelaja

Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments. — Pope Pius IX

The object of life is not happiness, but to serve God or the Grail. All of the Grail quests are to serve God. If one understands this and drops his idiotic notion that the meaning of life is personal happiness, then one will find that elusive quality immediately at hand. — Robert A. Johnson

The incarnation is what those inside and outside the Christian faith are looking for, and if every Jesus follower truly "got it," it would fix every negative stereotype people have about Christians, Christianity, and the church. The incarnation of Jesus will give you proof that God understands how hard it is to be human, and it will help you see how to be human to the fullest. — Hugh Halter

Only God understands and reveals such a prophecy. Never will any man uncover or stumble onto such a prophecy - or any prophecy of God. — Gerald Flurry

They took Einstein to the process department, where they had a Ford set up on a scaffolding. He and Mrs. Einstein sat in it and the cameramen filmed them while, unbeknownst to the Einstein's, projecting an aerial film of New York, Niagra Falls, Chicago, and Los Angeles behind them. Then they developed this film of the Einstein's flying over America in a Ford and showed it. Einstein stared at it and kept saying in German, "My god, what have they done? I don't understand." My father said, "Relativity he understands!"
-Jack Warner, Jr. — Jean Stein

Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build on the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Thus a man supported by faith, hope, and charity, with an unshaken hold upon them does not need the scriptures ... And many live by these three things in solitude without books. — Saint Augustine

It is Satan's work to fill men's hearts with doubt. He leads them to look upon God as a stern judge. He tempts them to sin, and then to regard themselves as too vile to approach their heavenly Father or to excite His pity. The Lord understands all this. Jesus assures His disciples of God's sympathy for them in their needs and weaknesses. Not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father's heart. — Ellen G. White

Humanity should be our Religion and every Human should be our God, This world should be our Temple and doing good to fellow Humans should be our Prayer.
Quran Bible and Bhagwad Geeta all have this message if not just read but also understood properly.
Share it, even if one misguided person reads and understands it and gets back to humanity you will for sure be blessed! — Honeya

Everyone who understands the nature of God rightly necessarily knows that God is to be believed and hoped in, that he is to be loved and called upon, and to be heard in all things. — William Ames

Let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says the LORD. — Anonymous

God understands more about the financial markets than many who write about them. — Jean-Claude Juncker

We must not only do what is right. We must act for the right reasons. The modern term is good motive. The scriptures often signify this appropriate mental attitude with the words full purpose of heart or real intent. The scriptures make clear that God understands our motives and will judge our actions accordingly. — Dallin H. Oaks

I think it's already apparent that a good part of this Nation understands - if only instinctively - that anything which seems to suggest that God favors a political party or the establishment of a state church, is wrong and dangerous. — Mario Cuomo

One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one's actions, and that includes one's words and silences, yes, one's silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one's silences. — Roberto Bolano

Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever. — Donald Miller

from The Barretts of Wimpole Street
Elizabeth: Sometimes there are passages . . . which rather puzzle me.
Browning: Oh, Sordello! I've done my best to forget it. However . . ( His smile fades. He mutters.) Extraordinary. . .But - but a passage torn from context . . .
Elizabeth: Well?
Browning: Well, Miss Barrett - when that passage was written only God and Robert Browning understood it. Now only God understands it. — Rudolf Besier

As we have learned, power and authority exercised with persistence is the only language that the devil understands. We need to grasp the concept of holy violence, and to develop the boldness it takes to use spiritual aggression effectively against the enemy. God wants to teach us about this in order to help us move forward into our promised inheritance. — Rabbi K. A. Schneider

But the Almighty determines what is right!"
"Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality - which answers only to my heart - is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution."
"But that is the soul of the law," the king said, sounding confused. "If there is no punishment, there can only be chaos."
"If there were no law, some men would do as they wish, yes," Jasnah said. "But isn't it remarkable that, given the chance for personal gain at the cost of others, so many people choose what is right?"
"Because they fear the Almighty."
"No," Jasnah said. "I think something innate in us understands that seeking the good of society is usually best for the individual as well. Humankind is noble, when we give it the chance to be. That nobility is something that exists independently of any god's decree. — Brandon Sanderson

A blessed life is one that understands that when God saves you, He has others in mind. I believe every Christian needs to know that they are not only saved, but are also called to live a life of purpose. — Brian Houston

Did God tell you to do this, Merry? Did he lead you in this direction?" Through the tears, Merry nodded again. "Then you have to believe he has it all under control. If it is his plan that you lose her, then you must face the fact that God knows best. We will pray that that is not in his plan. But, Merry, you know as well as anyone that God's plans are his own and no man understands his ways. We just have to trust him. It's hard to let him have control when you think he might change all you've ever known. Imagine what Abraham must have felt when God asked him to sacrifice his only son on an altar. At the last second, God stepped in by way of an angel and kept him from being obedient. Obedience is always better than sacrifice. You were obedient in doing what God has told you to do. You may also have to sacrifice, but we don't know that yet, do we? Trust God, sister. We'll all be praying for you. — Darlene Shortridge

Christians are to avoid foolish living. Wise living understands the folly of immorality and the value of doing whatever is pleasing to the Lord. The days are so evil, and the need for properly functioning, serving Christians is so great, wise Christians will make good use of their time, taking opportunities for ministry as they come. Knowledge of the moral will of God will give discernment not only between good and evil, but between what is wise and what is foolish. — Garry Friesen

I know-that things exist beyond our reasoning. They DO exist. We may not understand them but that doesn't mean they can't BE. You find people so ready to-to scoff at anything they can't figure out, can't reason, and those same people will turn straight round and tell you that they believe in God. Is HE understandable? Is that belief backed up by reasoning, scientific logic? We live with mysteries all day long, all our lives, but because they're familiar mysteries, we accept them. Well, you'd have to-or go mad. Who understands LIFE? Yet we live it. We hang on to it. We accept it just as we accept the inevitability of death. Life and death: the only two absolute certainties we're aware of, but we can't even BEGIN to explain them. — Bernard Taylor

God teaches those who come to him in another manner without interior speech or action. It takes place with such secrecy that the soul itself does not know it at the time, nor until it sees itself growing in discretion, and in knowledge of how to direct its own and other people's affairs prudently It also understands many things in Holy Scripture that it could not comprehend before, though it knows not whence this knowledge came. I think that God treats these people as we treat thrushes and birds that we teach; but they know they are learning. This way of learning is excellent if free from presumption and combined with faith and right reason. However, there is danger in great unrestraint, for it is hateful that a man should concern himself with what is beyond him. — Francisco De Osuna

Our Heavenly Father loves each one of us and understands that this process of climbing higher takes preparation, time, and commitment. He understands that we will make mistakes at times, that we will stumble, that we will become discouraged and perhaps even wish to give up and say to ourselves it is not worth the struggle. We know it is worth the effort, for the prize, which is eternal life, is "the greatest of all the gifts of God." And to qualify, we must take one step after another and keep going to gain the spiritual heights we aspire to reach. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

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

You, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotionw and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heartx and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him,y he will be found by you; but if you forsakez him, he will rejecta you forever. 10Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary. Be strong and do the work. — Anonymous

Having become conscious of the truth he once perceived, man now sees only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence, he now understands the symbolic element in Ophelia's fate, he now recognizes the wisdom of the woodland god, Silenus: it nauseates him. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Why would you family think about it?"
"Oh, my mother's the only one that counts, and she likes you very much from what she's seen of you."
"So you had me inspected?"
"No-dash ti all, I seem to be saying all the wrong things today. I was absolutely stunned that first day in court, and I rushed off to my mater, who's an absolute dear, and the kind of person who really understands things, and I said, 'Look here! here's the absolutely one and only woman, and she's being put through a simply ghastly awful business and for God's sake come and hold my hand!' You simply don't know how foul it was. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Romans expounds the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to both Jewish and Gentile believers. It's written to everyone! Anybody who truly understands and embraces its message will be forever changed in the way they relate to God. — Andrew Wommack

But [religious faith]'s not extinct, Janet. It's become nearly universal in the fleet and is growing very quickly in the Alliance."

"Yes, and that's why I cannot now or I think ever will have a chosen faith. There should be no pressure for the path one takes. Oh, it's no secret that Islam has more of an appeal to me than the others, but Allah understands this as he understands all things. The notion of faith is, I believe, far more important than the choice of a particular one."

"And what of the unfaithful?" asked Justin. "What of them?"

"If they have faith, I believe they'll have greater understanding of things; if not, I can't order someone to believe. It would be stupid to try and evil to force someone to pretend. As if God wants frightened adherents bowing on trembling knees. The harm all those fanatics did before the Grand Collapse," she said with true rancor, "those idiots I'd shoot, if I had the ability. — Dani Kollin

You must hand yourself and all your inward experiences, your temptations, your temperament, your frames and feelings, all over into the care of your God, and leave them there. He made you and therefore He understands you, and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it. — Hannah Whitall Smith

When you speak in other tongues, no one understands what you're saying, because you're speaking to God. It's a direct communication between your spirit and God. You're speaking the language that only He understands. — Chris Oyakhilome

Man understood in the end what man is. He renounces the analysis of God, penetrating the impalpable, in which he has not seen, to give laws to the phantasms of his brain. Man understands that his inheritance is the greater world whose dominion is within his grasp. Tired of useless and presumptuous labor he bows his head and looks about him, and now he sees how our poets are born. Little by little nature's muses open their treasures and start to smile upon us, and lead us far from such labors. — Jose Rizal

The person who understands Dharma will have the opposite reaction to a "hard" job. That person will be eager to get started, no matter what kind of work is in front of her, because she understands that she's doing God's work. And when you're working for God, nothing is too hard. — Russell Simmons

Moreover, although the people are guilty, Peter understands that it was precisely through the evil execution of Jesus that "God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer" (3:18). That is the supreme irony of all history. — D. A. Carson

He who understands nature walks close with God. — Edgar Cayce

I spent my next hour reshelving, and the next thirty minutes straightening out the Mc's and Mac's. Nobody on God's earth understands the Mc/Mac principle anymore. In order to do that, you have to be willing to think about something other than your genitals for a full minute. — Jincy Willett

Paul does not abandon the collective framework, but rather redefines it around Jesus. Paul thus, like other Jewish writers of his day, understands "election" to be about God's people as a people. — A. Chadwick Thornhill

Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought. — Augustine Of Hippo

Nobody who understands the free grace of God takes sin lightly. — Timothy Keller

Wishing to open my mouth, O brethren, and speak on the exalted theme of humility, I am filled with fear, even as a man who understands that he is about to discourse concerning God with the art of his own words. For humility is the raiment of the Godhead. — Isaac Of Nineveh

As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. — Isaac Newton

Mother, I spoke to the duke. He understands that this is not a formal meal. And he specifically told me that he was looking forward to a change of pace. He has no family himself, so he has never experienced anything like a Bridgerton family dinner." "God help us." Violet's face went utterly pale. — Julia Quinn

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. — J.I. Packer

Atheism is a conclusion reached by the most reasonable methods and one which is not asserted dogmatically but is explained in its every feature by the light of reason. The atheist does not boast of knowing in a vainglorious, empty sense. He understands by knowledge the most reasonable and clear and sound position one can take on the basis of all the evidence at hand. This evidence convinces him that theism is not true, and his logical position, then, is that of atheism.
We repeat that the atheist is one who denies the assumptions of theism. he asserts, in other words, that he doesn't believe in a God because he has no good reason for believing in a God. That's atheism
and that's good sense. — E. Haldeman-Julius

Sometimes when your child talks, your friends cannot understand what he says; but the mother understands very well. So if our prayer comes from the heart, God understands our language. — Dwight L. Moody

God understands us, He waits for us. He doesn't get tired of forgiving us. If we repent and go to him with a truly open heart. — Pope Francis

Can he who understands not God's word, understand God's works? — Martin Luther

Don't worry, God understands,' Mom said. 'He knows that your father is a cross we must bear. — Jeannette Walls

Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another "until death," are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. Lovers, then, "die" into their union with one another as a soul "dies" into its union with God. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing ... — Wendell Berry

He understands that it is the hidden life, not the outward presentation, that moves God "to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him" (2 Chronicles 16:9). For if we disregard small things while attending to large things, then it is plain that our first priority is pleasing men rather than serving our Lord Who sees all things. — Bryan Fraser

It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another that it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant neither one nor the other, but something different from both; and this they have called understanding the Bible.
It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen to the former part of 'The Age of Reason' have been written by priests: and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, and understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not. — Thomas Paine