quotes, quotations and passages on God

God 2 - God 3 - God 4 - God 5 - God 6

We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within
us. It's not just in some
of us, it's in everyone.

Marianne Williamson

An important note: Our pages on God are not meant in any way to change anyone's
minds or beliefs-- rather, we're simply trying to present the many complex ways that
people of all faiths look at their idea of a deity. Some passages may mention a particular
religion or denomination, but that doesn't mean that that perspective is being presented
as right or wrong-- it just is. The concept of God is so predominant among humans,
though, that it seems wrong not to include these words on this site.

God will of necessity always be a hidden God. His loudest cry is silence. If he does not manifest himself to us, we will say that he hides himself. And if he manifests himself, we will accuse him of veiling himself. Ah! it is not easy for God to make himself known to us! Louis Evely

The majority of us do not enthrone God, we enthrone common sense. We make our decisions and then ask the real God to bless our God's decision. Oswald Chambers

God made sun and moon to distinguish the seasons, and day and night; and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their seasons. But God hath made no decrees to distinguish the seasons of His mercies. In Paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in heaven it is always autumn. His mercies are ever in their maturity. John Donne

God is bigger than any problem. God in you is greater than any difficulty you have to meet. God cares for you more than it is possible for any human being to realize. God can help you in proportion to the degree in which you worship him. You worship God by really putting your trust in him instead of in outer conditions, or in fear, or in depression, or in seeming dangers, and so forth. You worship God by recognizing his presence everywhere, in all people and conditions that you meet; and by praying regularly. You pray well when you pray with joy. Emmet Fox

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark,
but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a man-made world.

Helen Keller

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For many people, God is a frightening idea. Asking God for help doesn't
seem very comforting if we think of Him as something outside ourselves,
or capricious, or judgmental. But God is love and He dwells within us.
We are created in His image, or mind, which means that we are extensions
of His love, or Sons and Daughters of God. . . . Rather than accepting
that we are the loving beings that He created, we have arrogantly thought
that we could create ourselves, and then create God. We have made up
a God in our image. Because we are angry and judgmental, we have
projected those characteristics onto Him. But God remains who He is
and always will be: He is the energy, the thought of unconditional love.
He cannot think with anger or judgment.
He is mercy and compassion and total acceptance.

Marianne Williamson

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,
All through the night;
Guardian angels God will lend thee,
All through the night;
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping,
Love alone his watch is keeping--
All through the night.

Old Welsh Air

If someone were to ask me whether I believed in God, or saw God,
or had a particular relationship with God, I would reply that
I don't separate God from my world in my thinking.
I feel that God is everywhere. That's why I never feel separated
from God or feel I must seek God, any more than a fish in the ocean
feels it must seek water. In a sense, God is the "ocean" in which we live.

Robert Fulghum

In our first, most immature relationship with God, we perceive
God as the big parent in the sky, the omnipresent, omnipotent
flock of angels that supports us. Based on this relationship, we
grow and come to know ourselves and our abilities. We begin
to use the support we have received in our life to serve. And as
we serve our children, as we serve society, as we serve the
world, as we serve our soul, we gradually discover ourselves
to be pure instruments in the service of God.

John Gray

God doesn't dwell on some distant cloud. God doesn't live in the church or in the temple or within the crystals, crosses and statues that we imbue with attributes of the divine. And God doesn't need our pleas or even our praise. To prostrate ourselves and plead for the things we want doesn't draw them nearer to us. Beseeching a faraway God only engenders feelings of separation and alienation. It is practicing the absence, not the presence, of God.
God is right here, wherever you are. God is within you and everywhere around you. God is omnipresent and omniscient. You never have to beg or bargain with God for anything. The Holy Spirit knows your needs even before you do. And it is God's very nature to fulfill your needs, at the time and in the manner that is best for you. There are many lessons we must learn in our lifetime, but none is more essential to our happiness than this one.
We never have to entreat God to be more kind and benevolent. God is kindness and benevolence. The very substance of God is love--the love that created you and me and all living things. It is the love within the little acorn that becomes the great oak tree, the love that protects the lilies of the field. God is the love that is breathing for you, the love that is beating your heart.

Susan L. Taylor

God 2 - God 3 - God 4 - God 5 - God 6

One of the most powerful concepts, one which is a sure cure for lack of
confidence, is the thought that God is with you and helping you. This is
one of the simplest teachings in religion, namely, that Almighty God will
be your companion, will stand by you, help you, and see you through. No
other idea is so powerful in developing self-confidence as this simple belief
when practiced. To practice it simply affirm "God is with me; God is helping
me; God is guiding me." Spend several minutes each day visualizing his
presence. Then practice believing that affirmation.

Norman Vincent Peale

I believe that life is given us so we may grow in love, and I believe
that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance
of a flower--the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.

Helen Keller

The highest condition of the religious sentiment is when. . . the worshiper
not only sees God everywhere, but sees nothing which is not full of God.

Harriet Martineau

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the
omnipresent God bursts through everywhere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best way to know God is to love many things.

Vincent van Gogh

I once heard a man say he knew there was a God, he just didn’t think he needed
Him. It is nice to take care of yourself and be independent, but it is also nice
to know that you have a resource to rely on in times of need. If you are used to
fending entirely for yourself, then when a catastrophe occurs you will expend
a lot of energy looking for help at a time when you need your energy looking for
help at a time when you need your energy for creative work.

Bernie Siegel

I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory
to the Creator to suppose that He has a sense of humor.

Dean Inge

The heavens are not filled with hostility. The sky does not
express a frown. When I look up I do not contemplate a face
of brass, but the face of infinite good will. Yet when I was a child,
many a picture has made me think of God as suspicious, inhumanly
watchful, always looking round the corner to catch me at the fall.
That “eye,” placed in the sky of many a picture, and placed there
to represent God, filled my heart with chilling fear. . . . Heaven overflows
with good will toward us! Our God not only wishes good, he wills it!

John Henry Jowett

A tragic mistake that is often made is to assume that the will of God
is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively
unpleasant. Consciously or not some persons look upon God as a
hard taskmaster, or a severe parent. . . . The truth is that the will of God
for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, newer and
brighter experience, wider opportunity of service to others—life more abundant.

Emmet Fox

People substitute tradition for the living experience of the love of
God. They talk and think as though walking with God was attained
by walking in the footsteps of people who walked with God.

Francis Howgill

There's an old saying that God made us in His image, and we've
been trying to return the favor ever since. People often view God
in a human image. This God changes His mind, gets upset, answers
some prayers but not others, loves some people but not others.
But even with that limited image, if we pray sincerely, we'll
eventually realize that God is changeless. He's the same all the time
because He's not in time--time is in Him.

Michael Beckwith

God, you see, loves us in a way the world does not: unconditionally.
Without an agenda. With no fine print that says He loves us now,
but it’s only an introductory-rate offer that will change after six months,
based on prime interest rates. With no campaign promise that He’ll
love us, but only if we vote for Him or give to His campaign fund.
With no prenuptial agreement that says He’ll love us, but just in
case, let’s put together a contract.
Grace promises that eternal life awaits not those who live a perfect
life, say so many Hail Marys, never miss church, or donate so
much money. It awaits those who believe with a childlike faith.

Bob Welch

A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God
of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you
are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who
never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files.

Anne Lamott

It is of course evident that everything in one’s religious life depends
upon the sort of God one worships. The character of the worshiper
must necessarily be molded by the character of the object worshipped.
If it is a cruel and revengeful God, or a selfish and unjust God,
the worshiper will be cruel, and revengeful, and selfish,
and unjust, also. If it is a loving, tender, forgiving,
unselfish God, the worshiper will be loving, and tender,
and forgiving, and unselfish, as well.

Hannah Whitall Smith

It seems to be a general belief that the will
of God is to make things distasteful for us,
like taking bad-tasting medicine when we are sick,
or going to the dentist. Somebody needs to tell
us that the sunrise is also God’s will. There is the
time of harvest, the harvest which will provide
food and clothes for us, without which life could
not be sustained on earth. God ordered the
seasons—they are his will. In fact, the good
things in life far outweigh the bad. There are
more sunrises than cyclones.

Charles L. Allen

God doesn't do the work for you; he does the work through you.
It's not enough to look up; you must also look within.

Patti LaBelle

Articles and book excerpts on God:

The Houdini Syndrome      Bob Welch
The Christmas Alone      tom walsh
God Loves You      Joe Mazzella

We have some inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is through the sale of books, either physical copies or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the online reader). All of the money that we earn through them comes back to the site in one way or another. Just click on the picture to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and non-fiction!

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal
deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated
by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder,
the source of which is beyond all reason.

Dag Hammarskjold

The air we breathe is necessary to keep us alive, but we must continually
breathe it out so we can breathe fresh air back into our lungs. God gives
us his love, which we can keep in action by breathing it out to others, thus
making room in our hearts for a fresh supply of love.

John Marks Templeton
Worldwide Laws of Life

How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness
of our knowledge. . . . We are to find God in what we know, not in
what we don't know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in
unsolved problems but in those that are solved. . . . God is no
stop-gap; he must be recognized as the center of life, not when
we are at the end of our resources.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God 2 - God 3 - God 4 - God 5 - God 6

Where were you, God of kindness, in Auschwitz? What was going on in heaven,
at the celestial tribunal, while your children were marked for humiliation, isolation,
and death only because they were Jewish?
These questions have been haunting me for more than five decades.
At one point, I began wondering whether I was not unfair with you. After all,
Auschwitz was not something that came down ready-made from heaven. It was
conceived by men, implemented by men, staffed by men. And their aim was to destroy
not only us but you as well. Ought we not to think of your pain, too? Watching your
children suffer at the hands of your other children, haven't you also suffered?
Let us make up, Master of the Universe.
In spite of everything that happened? Yes, in spite. Let us make up: For the child in
me, it is unbearable to be divorced from you so long.

Elie Wiesel
The New York Times

God is alive in flowers and snowflakes, in sunsets and rainbows,
in the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder, in the calm
in the eye of the hurricane. Wherever there is life there is God.
God is not far off on a throne in the sky; He is alive today
in all men who walk the earth. He is the life that surrounds
and penetrates us here and now. God is alive in people. . . .
God is not a static image; He lives in everything and everyone.
He is in the flight of an eagle and in the writing of a sonnet.
He is everywhere. He is in the farthest star and the newborn baby.
He will survive the denial of men and the blast of nuclear destruction.
Let us affirm the invincibility of God--for God is life eternal.

Wilferd A. Peterson