God and Religion

"Because we cannot know what God is, but only what He is not, we cannot consider how He is but only how He is not."

St. Thomas Aquinas "Summa Theologiae"

God and Religion

"Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case."

William James

God and Religion

Various

"Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life."

Paul Tillich "Christianity and the Encounter of the World Reli"

God and Religion

Life and Death

"A single thankful thought towards heaven is the most perfect of all prayers."

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing "Minna von Barnhelm"

God and Religion

"God is the tangential point between zero and infinity."

Alfred Jarry "Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, ..."

God and Religion

"In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion."

Robert Runcie

God and Religion

Various

"God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice."

John Donne "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"

God and Religion

"Religion is a great force: the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours."

George Bernard Shaw "Getting Married"

God and Religion

"Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true."

Blaise Pascal "Pensées"

God and Religion

"The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it."

Minna Antrim "Naked Truth and Veiled Allusions"

God and Religion

Truth and Falsity

"Men have always need of god! A god to defend them against other men."

Francis Picabia

God and Religion

Human

"Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God."

Jean Anouilh "Becket"

Beauty and Ugliness

God and Religion

"Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is."

Jean Anouilh "The Lark"

God and Religion

Richness and Money

"Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he "lives" his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy."

G. I. Gurdjieff

God and Religion

"Silence alone is respectable and respected. I believe God to be silence."

Henry Brooks Adams

God and Religion

Oration and Silence

"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe."

Voltaire "Questions sur l'Encyclopédie"

God and Religion

Intellect, Judgement

"See in what peace a Christian can die."

Joseph Addison (last words)

God and Religion

Life and Death

"God, that checkroom of our dreams."

Jean Rostand "The Substance of Man"

Dreams and Desires

God and Religion

"Both Socrates and Jesus were outstanding teachers; both of them urged and practiced great simplicity of life; both were regarded as traitors to the religion of their community; neither of them wrote anything; both of them were executed; and both have become the subject of traditions that are difficult or impossible to harmonize."

Jaroslav Pelikan "Jesus Through the Centuries"

God and Religion

Various

"I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays."

Henny Youngman

God and Religion

"I believe in the sun even if it isn't shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when He is silent."

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God and Religion

Optimism and Hope

"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not."

Eric Hoffer

God and Religion

"Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God."

Heywood Broun

God and Religion

"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."

Frank Lloyd Wright

God and Religion

Nature and Animals

"The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

God and Religion

"There is in superstition a senseless fear of God."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Courage and Fear

God and Religion

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

Albert Einstein

God and Religion

Wisdom and Stupidity

"God sells knowledge for labour -- honour for risk."

Arabic Proverbs

God and Religion

Knowledge, Ignorance

Work and Laziness

"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children."

William Makepeace Thackeray

Family and Loneliness

God and Religion

"Saints are simply men and women who have fulfilled their natural obligation which is to approach God."

Evelyn Waugh

God and Religion

"Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation."

Edmund Burke

God and Religion

Human

"Life + Desire = Man; Life - Desire = God"

Sathya Sai Baba

Dreams and Desires

God and Religion

Human

"To me faith is not just a noun but also a verb."

Jimmy Carter

God and Religion

Trust

"Religion assures us that our afflictions shall have an end; she comforts us, she dries our tears, she promises us another life. On the contrary, in the abominable worship of atheism, human woes are the incense, death is the priest, a coffin the altar, and annihilation the Deity."

Chateaubriand-Francois-Rene-de

God and Religion

Life and Death

"God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend."

Charles Spurgeon

Forgiveness

God and Religion

"Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness."

G. I. Gurdjieff

God and Religion

"God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the Light."

Abraham Joshua Heschel

God and Religion

"All the best songs are co-written by God."

Bono (U2)

Art and Culture

God and Religion

"Nature is none other than God in things."

Giordano Bruno

God and Religion

Nature and Animals

"Feed you faith and your doubts will starve to death!"

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God and Religion

"For God is not against us because of our sin. He is with us; against our sin."

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God and Religion

Sin and Conscience

"Sometimes the Lord calms the storm. Sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms His child."

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Destiny and Fate

God and Religion

"Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God."

Abraham Joshua Heschel

God and Religion

Sin and Conscience

"A conscience without God is like a court without a judge."

Alphonse de Lamartine

God and Religion

Sin and Conscience

"Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money."

Tertullian

God and Religion

Richness and Money

"Why do people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?"

Annie Dillard

God and Religion

Various

"Jesus did not come to make God's love possible, but to make God's love visible."

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God and Religion

"Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people."

Ernest Renan

God and Religion