Quotes: God

The idea in bold-face print is a summary of the quote. The number after the topic is the page on which the quote was found.

God
God 22 "If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance." Twain. Late 19th century. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

God 31 Was the world God created a mistaken experiment? "...could not...our world be the work of one who did not know his job properly--an experiment?" Lichtenberg. 1764-99. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

God 193 "God prefers that you approach him thoughtful, not penitent." Thoreau. 1850. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

God 363 If the world's justice is any indication, God's justice will receive the wicked in heaven and send the good to hell. "I can believe anything, but the justice of this world does not give me a very reassuring idea of the justice in the next; I’m very much afraid that God will go on blundering: he will receive the wicked in Paradise and hurl the good into Hell." Jules Renard. 1906. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

God 363 "God is growing bitter; He envies man his mortality." Jacques Rigaut. 1920. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

God 120 "If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which he has inflicted upon men, He would kill himself." Alexandre Dumas fils. Portable Curmudgeon.

God 120 "Which is it: is man one of God’s blunders, or is God one of man’s blunders?" Nietzsche. Portable Curmudgeon.

God 120 "I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time." Nietzche. Portable Curmudgeon.

God 121 "It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him." H. L. Mencken. Portable Curmudgeon.

God 121 "Perhaps God is not dead; perhaps God is himself mad." R. D. Laing. Portable Curmudgeon.

God 189 "Man is a dog’s ideal of what God should be." Holbrook Jackson. Portable Curmudgeon.

God 3 From God, we must accept good and evil. Job: "Shall we...take good at God’s hands, and not be content to take evil also?" F. Bacon, “Of Revenge.” 1625. Gross, ed. Essays.

God 267 "[Of God]...that it is fair and right to send afflictions upon the just--upon the unoffending as well as upon the offending, without discrimination." Mark Twain. “Thoughts of God.” 1890s. Gross, ed. Essays.

God 267 "God ...allow[s] no man peace till he get it in the grave...." Mark Twain. “Thoughts of God.” 1890s. Gross, ed. Essays.

God 268 "We hear much about His [God’s] patience and forbearance and long-suffering; we hear nothing about our own, which much exceeds [His]." Mark Twain. “Thoughts of God.” 1890s. Gross, ed. Essays.

God 268 "If men neglected ‘God’s poor’ and ‘God’s stricken and helpless ones’ as He does, what would become of them?" Mark Twain. “Thoughts of God.” 1890s. Gross, ed. Essays.

God 268 Is God a sinner? "The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow which we can relieve and not do it, we sin, heavily; there was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve; does He sin then?" Mark Twain. “Thoughts of God.” 1890s. Gross, ed. Essays.

God 117 Just as we cannot know what the sleeper knows, we cannot know the relationship between God and the departed. "Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows what the sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee." [Grandfather Burden’s prayer at Mr. Shimerda’s burial.] Cather, My Ántonia

God 264 Blaming God for his troubles. "Struggling through the storm, he felt more and more disgusted with God Almighty; to take him away from Beret now would be a wicked thing…what could he expect to accomplish by such a wrong?…was this the way God cared for His own?" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

God 320 "How could the good God permit creatures made in His image to fall into such tribulations?" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

God 321 Where was God's guiding hand? "Must man perish because of his own foolishness?…where then, was the guiding hand?" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

God 154 "I went to a denominational college and learned that since dictating the Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

God 10 On God's accomplishments. "He [Leeuwenhoek] not only believed in God but he admired him intensely--what a being to know how to fashion bees’ wings so prettily." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

God 184 "And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways, Yossarian continued…there’s nothing so mysterious about it; He’s not working at all; He’s playing; or else He’s forgotten all about us." Heller, Catch-22.

God 293 The image of God is beginning to waver. "…the lifelong trust he had placed in the wisdom and justice of an immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, humane, universal, anthropomorphic, English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon, pro-American God, which had begun to waver." Heller, Catch-22.

God 472 “Listen, Polack, you think there’s a God?” Polack grinned… “If there is, he sure is a sonofabitch.” Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

God vs. humanity 26 Man does not measure up very well to God. "...there is in God an infinite nature, immensity or vastness without extension or limit, immutability, omnipotence, omniscience, holiness, dominion, providence, bounty, mercy, justice, perfection in himself, and the end to which all things and all actions must be directed, and will at last arrive; the consideration of which may be heightened, if we consider our distance from all these glories; our smallness and limited nature, our nothing, our inconstancy, our age like a span, our weakness and ignorance, our poverty, our inadvertency and inconsideration, our disabilities and disaffections to do good, our harsh natures and unmerciful inclinations, our universal iniquity, and our necessities and dependencies, not only on God originally and essentially but even our need of the meanest of God’s creatures, and our being obnoxious to the weakest and most contemptible." Jeremy Taylor, “Of charity, Or the Love of god.” 1650. Gross, ed. Essays.

gods 544 Gods cannot grow old. "The intention of thus putting a limit to the life of the human god was…to secure him from the weakness and frailty of age." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.