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;void(0)) GOD . . . see: "RELIGION" for related links God lives to help him who strives to help himself. --Aeschylus (525456 B.C.) Greek tragic dramatist. Fragment 223 - All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all. --Cecil Frances Alexander (18181895) English hymnwriter. "All Things Bright and Beautiful" [1848] st. 1 & note: He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) English poet, critic, and philosopher. _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ [1798] - [Sandy Bates (Woody Allen) speaking:] To you, I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the loyal opposition. --Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (b. 1935) American actor, screenwriter, and director. "Stardust Memories" [1980 film] Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is. --Jean [-Marie-Lucien-Pierre] Anouilh (19101987) French playwright. _L'Alouette_ (The Lark) [1952] When a pious visitor inquired sweetly, 'Henry, [David Thoreau] have you made your peace with God?' he replied 'We have never quarelled.' --Brooks Atkinson (18941984) American journalist and critic. _Henry Thoreau, The Cosmic Yankee_ [1927] Put your trust in God, my boys, And keep your powder dry. --Valentine Blacker (17781823) Army officer in the East India Company. "Oliver's Advice" [1834] If God is, whence come evil things? If He is not, whence come good? --Boethius [Anicius Manlius Severinus] (480?524) Roman scholar and Christian philosopher. _The Consolation of Philosophy_ [c. 524, written in prison while awaiting execution.] [On seeing criminals being led to their execution:] But for the grace of god there goes John Bradford. --John Bradford (15101555) English Protestant martyr. Quoted in _The Writings of John Bradford_ [1853]. - Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. --John Bradshaw (16021659) English lawyer. He presided at the trial of Charles I. Buried in Westminster Abbey, his body was exhumed at the Restoration and hanged in public, like that of Cromwell. Quoted by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Edward Everett [24 February 1823]. but see: Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. --Wikiquote attributes this to Edmund Andros (16371714) Early colonial English governor in North America. - Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist there is no God. --Heywood Broun (18881939) American journalist & father of Heywood Hale Broun. Attributed in Lloyd Cory _Quote Unquote_, p. 23 [1977]. And lips say, 'God be pitiful,' Who ne'er said, 'God be praised.' --Elizabeth Barrett Browning (18061861) _The Cry of the Human_, l. 7 [1844] God's in His Heaven, All's right with the world. --Robert Browning (18121889) English poet. _Pippa Passes_ [1841] God is usually on the side of the big squadrons and against the small ones. --Roger Bussy-Rabutin (16181693) French soldier and poet. _Letter to the Comte de Limoges_ [18 October 1677]. A haze on the far horizon, The infinite, tender sky, The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields, And the wild geese sailing high; And all over upland and lowland The charm of the golden-rod, Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God. --William Herbert Carruth (18591924) American educator and author. "Each in His Own Tongue," in _Poems_ [1908]. When I was young, I said to God, 'God, tell me the mystery of the universe.' But God answered, 'that knowledge is for me alone.' So I said, 'God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.' Then God said, 'Well, George, that's more nearly your size.' --attributed to George Washington Carver (18641943) American agricultural chemist and agronomist. I look upon life as a gift from God. I did nothing to earn it. Now that the time is coming to give it back, I have no right to complain. --Joyce Cary [Arthur Joyce Lunel Cary] (18881957) Irish novelist and artist. Quoted in Barbara Fisher _Joyce Cary: The Writer and His Theme_ [1980]. If I did not believe in God, I should still want my doctor, my lawyer and my banker to do so. --attributed to G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. - Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith's door And heard the anvil sing the vesper chime; Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor Old hammers, worn with blasting years of time. "How many anvils have you had," said I, "To wear and batter all these hammers so?" "Just one," said he; and then, with twinkling eye, "The anvil wears the hammers out, you know." And so I thought, the anvil of God's Word For ages, skeptic blows have beat upon. Yet tho' the noise of falling blows was heard The anvil is unharmed the hammers gone. --John Clifford, "The Advil Of God's Word" - And almost everyone when age, Disease, or sorrows strike him, Inclines to think there is a God, Or something very like Him. --Arthur Hugh Clough (18191861) English poet. "Dipsychus" [1865] - The blasphemous words whereof Arabella was found guilty were spoken in great passion occasioned by the spilling of some scalding pitch upon one of his feet. By an act passed in Maryland, 30 Oct. 1704, to punish Blasphemy, for the first offense the offender is to be bored through his tongue and fined 20 pounds sterling to H.M. [Queen Anne] towards defraying the County charge where such offense was committed, or if ye party hath not an estate sufficient to answer that sum, then to suffer six months imprisonment ... the said Charles Arabella in having been bored through the tongue and lain in prison six months has thereby fully suffered ye penalty of the Law for such his offense ... The premises considered, if H.M. shall judge him a fit object of her royal compassion and shall be graciously pleased to order that he be released out of prison. --Council of Trade and Plantations to Lord Dartmouth, secretary of state, Whitehall, [19 December 1710]. - God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. --William Cowper (17311800) English poet and hymnodist. "Light Shining Out of Darkness" [1779 hymn] When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?' --Quentin Crisp [Denis Pratt] (19081999) English writer. Interview with the author in Jon Winokur _The Portable Curmudgeon_ [1992]. I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose. --Clarence Darrow (18571938) American lawyer. Speech in Toronto, Canada [1930]. I cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent design, or indeed of design of any kind. --Charles Darwin (18091882) English naturalist. Letter to J.D. Hooker [12 July 1870]. Aside from a few odd words in Hebrew, I took it completely for granted that God had never spoken anything but the most dignified English. --Clarence Day (18741935) American author. _Life With Father_ [1935], "Father Interferes With the Twenty-Third Psalm" Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States. --Porfirio Dνaz (18301915) Mexican soldier and president of Mexico [18771880 & 18841911]. Attributed in Hudson Strode _Timeless Mexico_ [1944]. I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' 'No,' said the priest, 'not if you did not know.' 'Then why,' asked the Eskimo earnestly, 'did you tell me?' --Annie Dillard (b. 1945) American author and winner of Pulitzer Prize. _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_, ch. 7 [1974] If you were to destroy in mankind the belief in immortality, not only love but every living force maintaining the life of the world would at once be dried up. Moreover, nothing then would be immoral, everything would be permissible, even cannibalism. --Fyodor Dostoyevsky (18211881) Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer. _The Brothers Karamazov_ [18791880], bk. II, ch. 6 One and God make a majority. --Frederick Douglass [Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey] (c. 18181895) American abolitionist, reformer, and writer. Quoted in James Willis Westlake _Common-School Literature, English And American ..._, Part III [1877]. I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Quoted in his obituary in _The N.Y. Times_ [19 April 1955]. Long Island represents the American's idea of what God would have done with Nature if he'd had the money. --Peter Fleming (19071971) English travel writer. Letter to Rupert Fleming [29 September 1929]. [Remark while moving along a line of sailors passing ammunition, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941:] Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. --Howell Forgy (19081972) American naval chaplain. Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [1 November 1942]. God helps those who help themselves. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1736] - Where does the world come from? She hadn't the faintest idea. Sophie knew that the world was only a small planet in space. But where did space come from? It was possible that space had always existed, in which case she would not also need to figure out where it came from. But could anything have always existed? Something deep down inside her protested at the idea. Surely everything that exists must have had a beginning? So space must sometime have been created out of something else. But if space had come from something else, then that something else must also have come from something. Sophie felt she was only deferring the problem. At some point, something must have come from nothing. But was that possible? Wasn't that just as impossible as the idea that the world had always existed? They had learned at school that God created the world. Sophie tried to console herself with the thought that this was probably the best solution to the whole problem. But then she started to think again. She could accept that God had created space, but what about God himself? Had he created himself out of nothing? Again there was something deep down inside her that protested. Even though God could create all kinds of things, he could hardly create himself before he had a "self" to create with. So there was only one possibility left: God had always existed. But she had already rejected that possibility! Everything that existed had to have a beginning. --Jostein Gaarder (b. 1952) Norwegian author. _Sophie's World_ [1996], "The Garden of Eden" - I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. --Galileo Galilei (15641642) Tuscan astronomer and physicist. Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany [1615]. When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator. --Mohandas K. Gandhi (18691948) Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule. Quoted in _The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi_ Published by Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India [1958]. No matter how I probe and prod I cannot quite believe in God. But oh! I hope to God that he Unswervingly believes in me. --E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (18961981) American songwriter. "The Agnostic" [1965] The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] "Intermission" All gods and devils that have ever existed are within us. --Hermann Hesse (18771962) German novelist, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. _Reflections_ [1974], #307 When men cease to be faithful to their God, he who expects to find them so to each other will be much disappointed. --George Horne (17301792) English divine. _Commentary on the Book of Psalms_ [1833] Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. --Julia Ward Howe (18191910) American Unitarian lay preacher. "Battle Hymn of the Republic" [1862] God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." _A Thousand and One Epigrams_ [1911] God became a man, granted. The devil became a woman. --Victor Hugo (18021885) French poet, dramatist, and novelist. _Ruy Blas_, II, v [1838] All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (grandson of T.H. Huxley.) _Island_ [1962] - The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. _Notes on the State of Virginia_, query 17 [1784] Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, He must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Peter Carr [10 August 1787]. If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. Letter to Thomas Law [13 June 1814]. - Young man Your arm's too short to box with God. --James Weldon Johnson (18711938) American teacher, poet, songwriter, and civil rights activist. "The Prodigal Son" l. 2 [1927] 'Twas only fear first in the world made gods. --Ben Jonson (c.15731637) English dramatist and poet. _Sejanus_, II, ii [1603] - If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you're doing tomorrow. --The Rev. Mychal Judge, 68, of New York, a Franciscan monk and New York Fire Department chaplain who was killed by debris falling from the World Trade Center. Judge, a 68-year-old Franciscan priest, died while giving last rites to a firefighter who perished when the twin towers collapsed after two hijacked passenger jets rammed into them on Tuesday. The Franciscan priest had removed his fire hat to pray when he was hit by falling debris. The funeral Mass for Judge took place at St. Francis of Assisi Church, across from the firehouse of Engine Co. 1/Ladder Co. 24, which lost seven firefighters in the disaster. - For if the God does not exist it would of course be impossible to prove it: and if he does exist it would be folly to attempt it. ... the paradox is the source of the thinker's passion, and the thinker without paradox is like a lover without feeling; a paltry mediocrity. --Sφren Kierkegaard (18131855) Danish philosopher. "Philosophical Fragments" [1844] A man with God is always in the majority. --John Knox (1505 to 15151572) Scottish religious leader. Quoted in Inscription on Reformation Monument, Geneva, Switzerland. I should like to see a man sober in his habits, moderate, chaste, just in his dealings, assert that there is no God; he would speak at least without interested motives; but such a man is not to be found. --Jean de La Bruyθre (16451696) French essayist and moralist. _Les Caractθres_ [1688] All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable. --Fran Lebowitz (b. 1946) American humorist. _Metropolitan Life_ [1978] "Manners" I'd always suspected that there was a God, even when I thought I was an atheist just in case. --John Lennon (19401980) English pop singer and songwriter. In _The Beatles Anthology_ [2000], "John Lennon." - When man comes to the realization that he is not the "favorite" of God; that he was not specifically created, that the universe was not made for his benefit, and that he is subject to the same laws of nature as all other forms of life, then, and not until then, will he understand that he must rely upon himself, and himself alone, for whatever benefits he is to enjoy; and devote his time and energies to helping himself and his fellow men to meet the exigencies of life and to set about to solve the difficult and intricate problems of living. --Joseph Lewis (18891968) American author and teacher. "An Atheist Manifesto" [1954] The human race has suffered for centuries and is still suffering from the mental disorder known as religion, and atheism is the only physician that will be able to effect a permanent cure. --Joseph Lewis (18891968) American author and teacher. _Atheism and Other Addresses_ [1999 ed.] - - "God is on our side." "It is more important to know that we are on God's side." --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. Reply to delegation that visited him during the war as quoted in Ralph Keyes _The Quote Verifier_, p. 129 [2006]. - The churches used to win their arguments against atheism, agnosticism, and other burning issues by burning the ism-ists, which is fine proof that there is a devil but hardly evidence that there is a God. --Ben Barr Lindsey (18691943) American judge. _The Revolt of Modern Youth_ [1925] - And Nature, the old nurse, took The child upon her knee, Saying: "Here is a story-book Thy Father has written for thee." "Come, wander with me," she said, "Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God." --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. "Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz" Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. _Hyperion_, bk. iii, ch. 5 [1839] - Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide: When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me. --Henry Francis Lyte (17931847) British hymn-writer. "Eventide" [1847] [On his controversial goal against England in the 1986 World Cup:] The goal was scored a little bit by the hand of God and another bit by the head of Maradona. --Diego Maradona (b. 1960) Argentine football player. In "Guardian" [1 July 1986]. If an all-good and all-powerful God created the world, why did he create evil? The monks said, so that man by conquering the wickedness in him, by resisting temptation, by accepting pain and sorrow and misfortune as the trials sent by God to purify him, might at long last be made worthy to receive his grace. It seemed to me like sending a fellow with a message to some place and just to make it harder for him you constructed a maze that he had to get through, then dug a moat that he had to swim and finally built a wall that he had to scale. I wasn't prepared to believe in an all-wise God who hadn't common sense. I didn't see why you shouldn't believe in a God who hadn't created the world, but had to make the best of the bad job he'd found, a being enormously better, wiser and greater than man, who strove with the evil he hadn't made and who might be hoped in the end to overcome it. But on the other hand I didn't see why you should. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Razor's Edge_, ch. 4 [1944] Man is quite insane. He would not know how to create a mite, and he creates gods by the dozens. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essais_ (Essays) [94 chapters written 15711580 & published 1580; the last 13 chapters were written 15851587 & published 1588.] Bk. 3, ch. 2 [1580]. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but on what foundation did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him. --Napoleon I (17691821) Emperor of France [18041815]. Quoted in "The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine" [May 1843]. - God is dead, but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we we still have to vanquish his shadow, too. --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _The Gay Science_ (Die frφhliche Wissenschaft), bk. 3 [1882] What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man? --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _Twilight of the Idols_ [1888] - God is Spanish and fights for our nation these days. --Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmαn y Pimentel (15871645) Spanish prime minister [1623-1643]. Attributed, during the Thirty Years' War. He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him). --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. _Down and Out in Paris and London_, ch. 30 [1933] [Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit, esse putemus] It is convenient that there be gods, let us believe that there are. --Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso] (43 B.C.18 A.D.) Roman poet. _Ars Amatoria_, bk. 1 l. 637 - 'God is or he is not.' But to which side shall we incline? ... Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate the two chances. If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that He is! --Blaise Pascal (16231662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. _Pensιes_ ("Thoughts"), no. 680 [1670]. Known as "Pascal's wager." What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke, that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself? Does he think that in that way he will have straightway persuaded us to have complete confidence in him, to look to him for consolation, for advice, and for help, in the vicissitudes of life? Do such men think that they have delighted us by telling us that they hold our souls to be nothing but a little wind and smoke and by saying it in conceited and complacent tones? Is that a thing to say blithely? Is it not rather a thing to say sadly as if it were the saddest thing in the world? --Blaise Pascal (16231662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. _Pensιes_ [1670] - One, on God's side, is a majority. --Wendell Phillips (18111884) American abolitionist and reformer. "Harper's Ferry" Lecture in Brooklyn, N.Y. [1 November 1859]. - Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. --Alexander Pope (16881744) English poet. "An Essay on Man", epistle II [1733] An honest man's the noblest work of God. --Alexander Pope (16881744) English poet. "An Essay on Man", epistle 4, [1734] - You see many stars at night in the sky but find them not when the sun rises; can you say that there are no stars in the heaven of day? So, O man! because you behold not God in the days of your ignorance, say not that there is no God. --Ramakrishna (18361886) Hindu religious leader, founder of the school of religious thought that became the Ramakrishna Order. Quoted in "The Nineteenth Century" [August 1896]. No one is so much alone in the world as a denier of God. --Jean Paul Richter (17631825) German novelist. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 27 [1886]. I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. --attributed to Sir Stephen Henry Roberts (19011971) Australian historian. As the custom, although without legal warrant, had grown up, I might have felt at liberty to keep the inscription (In God we trust) had I approved of its being on the coinage. But as I did not approve of it, I did not direct that it should again be put on. ... very firm conviction that to put such a motto on coins . . . not only does no good but does positive harm. ... In all my life I have never heard any human being speak reverently of this motto on the coins or show any sign of its having appealed to any high emotion in him, ... the existence of this motto on the coins was a constant source of jest and ridicule. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [19011909]. Quoted in "The Numismatist" [January 1908]. - The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent Being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _Religion and Science_ [1935] I was told that the Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _Autobiography_ [1968] - I fear God, and next to God, I chiefly fear him who fears Him not. --Sa'di [Muslih-uddin] (c. 12131292) Iranian poet. Quoted in James Wood (ed.) _Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources_, p. 166 [1893]. I would rather believe that God did not exist than believe that He was indifferent. --George Sand [pseudonym of Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin] (18041876) French author. _Impressions et Souvenirs_ [1896] A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. --Carl Sandburg (18781967) American poet. "Remembrance Rock", ch. 2 [1948] - That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject. --George Santayana (18631952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. _The Life of Reason_ [1905], ch. 3, "Reason in Religion" My atheism . . . is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests. --George Santayana (18631952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. "On My Friendly Critics" in _Soliloquies in England_ [1922]. - God helps those who help themselves. --Algernon Sidney (16221683) English Whig politician. _Discourses Concerning Government_, ch. 2 [1698] The body of a young woman is God's greatest achievement. ... Of course, He could have built it to last longer but you can't have everything. --Neil Simon (b. 1927) American playwright. _The Gingerbread Lady_ [1970] If you tell your troubles to God, you put them into the grave; they will never rise again when you have committed them to Him. If you roll your burden anywhere else, it will roll back again like the stone of Sisyphus. --Charles Haddon Spurgeon (18341892) English nonconformist preacher. Quoted in Rev. Elon Foster _New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations_, p. 638 [1870]. God heard the embattled nations sing and shout 'Gott strafe England!' and 'God save the King!' God this, God that, and God the other thing 'Good God!' said God, 'I've got my work cut out.' --J.C. Squire (18841958) English man of letters. _The Dilemma_ [1916] If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. --Thomas Szasz (b. 1920) American psychiatrist. _The Second Sin_ [1973] "Schizophrenia" What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster! --Jeremy Taylor (16131667) English Anglican clergyman and writer. Quoted in Rev. B.H. Draper (ed.) _The Amaranth; A Selection of Religious and Perceptive Pieces in Prose_ [1840]. Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892) English poet. "Enoch Arden" [1864] For man proposes, but God disposes. --Thomas a' Kempis (13801471) German ascetical writer. _The Imitation of Christ_, bk. 1, ch. 19, sec. 2 [c.1420] If you are out on the golf course during a lightning storm, protect yourself by holding a one-iron high in the air ... even God can't hit a one-iron. --attributed to Lee Trevino (b. 1939) American professional golfer who won 6 "majors." If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Notebooks_ [1935] - I want my attorney, my tailor, my servants, and even my wife to believe in God, and I think that then I shall be robbed and cuckolded less often. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. _Dialogues Between A, B, and C_ [1768] If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. _Epξtres_, No. 96 [1770] It is said that God is always on the side of the big battalions. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. Letter to Franηois-Louis-Henri Leriche [6 February 1770]. & see: God is always with the strongest battalions. --Frederick II [Frederick the Great] (17121786) King of Prussia [17401786]. Letter to Duchess Louise Dorothea von Gotha [8 May 1760]. & see: The gods are on the side of the stronger. --Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus] (c.55c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian. _Histories_, bk. 4, ch. 17 - For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible. --Franz Werfel (18901945) German poet, playwright, and novelist. _Das Lied von Bernadette_ (The Song of Bernadette) [1941] Where was God in all this? Was this another test, one more? Or a punishment? And if so, for what sins? What crimes were being punished? Was there a misdeed that deserved so many mass graves? Would it ever again be possible to speak of justice, of truth, of divine charity, after the murder of one million Jewish children? --Eliezer [Elie] Wiesel (b. 1928) Romanian Jew and Holocaust survivor. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. "To Be a Jew" in _A Jew Today_, tr. Marion Wiesel [1978]. So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths while just the act of being kind is all the world needs. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (18501919) American author and poet. "The World's Need" In Kate Louise Roberts _Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_, p. 665 [1922]. When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _An Ideal Husband_, act 2 [1895] ^ [...] Which brings us to the most famous statement in all of modern philosophy: Nietzsche's "God is dead." The year was 1882. The book was Die Frohliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science). Nietzsche said this was not a declaration of atheism, although he was in fact an atheist, but simply the news of an event. He called the death of God a "tremendous event," the greatest event of modern history. The news was that educated people no longer believed in God, as a result of the rise of rationalism and scientific thought, including Darwinism, over the preceding 250 years. But before you atheists run up your flags of triumph, he said, think of the implications. "The story I have to tell," wrote Nietzsche, "is the history of the next two centuries." He predicted (in Ecce Homo) that the twentieth century would be a century of "wars such as have never happened on earth," wars catastrophic beyond all imagining. And why? Because human beings would no longer have a god to turn to, to absolve them of their guilt; but they would still be racked by guilt, since guilt is an impulse instilled in children when they are very young, before the age of reason. As a result, people would loathe not only one another but themselves. The blind and reassuring faith they formerly poured into their belief in God, said Nietzsche, they would now pour into a belief in barbaric nationalistic brotherhoods. "If the doctrines ... of the lack of any cardinal distinction between man and animal, doctrines I consider true but deadly" he says in an allusion to Darwinism in Untimely Meditations - "are hurled into the people for another generation ... then nobody should be surprised when ... brotherhoods with the aim of the robbery and exploitation of the non-brothers ... will appear in the arena of the future." --Tom Wolfe (b. 1931) American journalist and novelist. _Hooking Up_ [2000] (ellipis in original text.) ^ If oxen or lions had hands, and could work in man's fashion, And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead, Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, Each kind the Divine with its own form and nature endowing. --Xenophanes (c. 560478 B.C.), Greek philosopher and poet. Attributed in "Fraser's Magazine" [November 1875]. ----- pantheon [PAN-thee-on; -uhn], noun: 1. A temple dedicated to all the gods; especially (capitalized), the building so called at Rome. 2. The collective gods of a people; as, a goddess of the Greek pantheon. 3. A public building commemorating and dedicated to the famous dead of a nation. 4. A group of highly esteemed persons. end page | GAMBLING - GARDENS | GARFIELD - GENERATION GAP | GENEROSITY - GENTLEMEN | GEOGRAPHY - GERSHWIN | GHOSTS - GLASSES | GLOBALIZATION - GOALS | GOD | GOLF | GOOD DEEDS - GOODBYES | GOODNESS - GOVERNMENT | GRACE - GRASS | GRATITUDE | GRAVEYARDS - GREED | GREETINGS - GROWING | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 1 (A-L) | GROWING OLDER - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | GROWING UP - GULLIBLE | GUN CONTROL & GUNS | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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