Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

God

Love Friendship Happiness Hope Fear Courage Death Life Time War Peace Freedom Truth Wisdom Knowledge Science Art Music Nature Money Work Power God Beauty Laughter Family Success and failure Change Dreams Books and reading

“It isn't always the middle-aged who refuse to listen, who will not even try to understand another point of view. One boy would not get it through his head that for all adults God is not an old man in a white beard sitting on a cloud. As far as this boy was concerned, this old gentleman was the adult's god, and therefore he did not believe in God.”
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since geometry is co-eternal with the divine mind before the birth of things, God himself served as his own model in creating the world (for what is there in God which is not God?), and he with his own image reached down to humanity.”
Johannes Kepler (1572–1630) said by 1630 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Book IV, Ch. 1, as quoted in "Kepler's Astrology"in Kepler, Four Hundred Years (1975) ed. Arthur and Peter Beer.
“A progressive Muslim is a Muslim who respects all religions. He doesn’t politicize his God. God is not a book. God is justice and freedom and love and honesty. That is what my father taught me–to be honest.”
Nawal El Saadawi (1931–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God... is helping the believers and the Muslims. God says he will never be satisfied with the infidels. In terms of worldly affairs, America is very strong. Even if it were twice as strong or twice that, it could not be strong enough to defeat us. We are confident that no one can harm us if God is with us.”
Mohammed Omar (1960–2013) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Spozhmai Maiwandi, Voice of America, 23 September 2001
“You rejoice in having made a convert to Atheism. I think there is something unnatural in a zeal of proselytism in an Atheist. I do not believe in an intellectual God, a God made after the image of man. In the vulgar acceptation of the word, therefore, I think a man is right who does not believe in God, but I am also persuaded that a man is wrong who is without religion.”
William Godwin (1756–1836) first seen 1820 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to H. B. Rosser (7 March 1820), quoted in C. Kegan Paul, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries, Vol. II (1876), p. 263
“Thank God I'm alive In the light of the Sun! It's a quarter to five; Thank God I'm alive! Now the hum of the hive Of the world has begun, Thank God I'm alive In the light of the Sun!”
Maurice Baring (1874–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any Name of God in any language is worthy of respect but the original Name of God in the Semitic language is Allah. This (Semitic) is the language of the celestial entities. It is by this Name that the angels call upon God and it is attached to the Title of every Prophet.”
Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi (1941–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And though I have been innocent in the world, since men have called me "God," and "Son of God," God, in order that I be not mocked of the demons on the day of judgment, has willed that I be mocked of men in this world by the death of Judas;, making all men to believe that I died upon the cross.”
Jesus (6 BC–33) said by 33 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank him for the liberty you will hereafter enjoy. I am but God's humble instrument; but you may rest assured that as long as I live no one shall put a shackle on your limbs; and you shall have all the rights which God has given to every other free citizen of this republic.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: After witnessing a man bow down to him. In Richmond, Virginia (April 4, 1865), as quoted in Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), by David Dixon Porter, p. 295
“God did not create the world in order to get anything for himself. In fact, there is no need of God’s that we can supply, no luxury of His that we can provide. Actually, God created the world in order to bestow his blessings on his creatures and to give them a share in his own goodness.”
Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kunnumpuram, Kurien, 2011 “Theological Exploration,” Jnanadeepa: Pune Journal of Religious Studies 14/2 (July-Dec 2011)
“Transcendence is the way God is immanent. God is present in every created reality, without being identified with it. This is the meaning of God’s transcendence.”
Kurien Kunnumpuram (1931–2018) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kunnumpuram, Kurien, 2011 “Theological Exploration,” Jnanadeepa: Pune Journal of Religious Studies 14/2 (July-Dec 2011)
“The Sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice. Today, and thanks to God, America is not facing an individual or a group, but a rebelling nation, which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance.”
Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The headlands and the hedges were so fresh and wonderful, so gay with the dawn of the world. Tarry never tired looking at these ordinary things as he tired of the Mass and of religion. In a dim way he felt that he was not a Christian. In the god of Poetry he found a God more important to him than Christ. His god had never accepted Christ.”
Patrick Kavanagh (1904–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We may be damned at last, by God or our consciences; and though I've met a good many people who profess to credit no God, I've never met one who believed he had no conscience—this though he could no more produce it for my inspection than I could point out the God he demanded to see.”
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction for R. A. Lafferty, Episodes of the Argo (1990), Reprinted in Gene Wolfe, Castle of Days (1992)
“Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's Holy Commandment 'Thou shalt not kill,' which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished.”
Clemens August Graf von Galen (1878–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You may call God truth, you may call God hope. But the best name for God is love.”
Michael Elmore-Meegan (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly, by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.”
Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God does not love you because you are good, God loves you because God is good.”
Richard Rohr (born 1943) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Politics and Spirituality conference, Washington D.C. 2006
“Group-think is a substitute for God-think. The belief is that God is found only by our group. The next step is to establish that identification with our group as the only way to serve God.”
Richard Rohr (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many Christians have been misled for centuries about the nature of God’s kingdom by the well-known mistranslation of Luke 17:21: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Today all serious scholars and translators would agree that the test should read: “The kingdom of God is among you or in your midst.” The Greek word entos can means “within” or “among.”
Albert Nolan (1934–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...the covenant people must wage war against the enemies of God, because this war is unto death. The deliberate, refined, and obscene violence of the anti-God forces permits no quarter...this warfare must continue until the Amalekites of the world are blotted out, until God's law-order prevails and His justice reigns.”
Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Revolution was and is in each step and breath of those who dare follow this man called Jesus. Revolution comes about only when there is at least one person willing to take a stand for God and say "the present system" is wrong and thus will not accomplish the purposes of God. All of God's purposes center on His glory and meeting the needs of people. Jesus was the ultimate revolutionary.”
Kip McKean (born 1954) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: http://www.kipmckean.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/Revolution_through_Restoration_1_2_3.pdf, Revolution Through Restoration, 1992.
“Philosophers do not claim that God does not know particulars; they rather claim that He does not know them the way humans do. God knows particulars as their Creator whereas humans know them as a privileged creations of God might know them.”
Averroes (1126–1198) said by 1198 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed to Averroes in Voices of Islam: Voices of change (2007) by Vincent J. Cornell, p. 35
“You do your best, we do the rest." That fit the way I felt about God. I was going to give God my best and then it was up to God to do the rest.”
Ben Carson (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying — and this is the fundamental thing — that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”
Pope Francis (1936–2025) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Leading Atheist: Pope Francis “Is The Kind Of World Leader We Need”" by Joe Keohane, at Esquire (12 September 2013)
“This Jubilee is a privileged moment for the Church to learn to choose only ‘what pleases God most.’ And what is it that ‘pleases God most’? To forgive his children, to have mercy on them, so that they too might forgive their brothers and sisters, and become shining like torches of God’s mercy in the world.”
Pope Francis (1936–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God’s joy is to forgive. God’s being is mercy. Therefore, over the course of this year we need to open our hearts, so that this love, this joy of God might fill us all with this mercy.”
Pope Francis (1936–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a distinction and differentiation, According to our reason, Between God and the Godhead, Between action and rest. The fruitful nature of the Persons (Trinity) Ever worketh in a living differentiation. But the simple Being of God, According to the nature thereof, Is an eternal Rest of God And of all created things”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As much as is iron, so much is fire; And as much as is fire, so much is iron; Yet the iron doth not become fire, Nor the fire iron, But each retains its substance and nature. So likewise the spirit of man doth not become God, But is deified, And knows itself breadth, length, height and depth: And as far as God is God, So far the loving spirit is made one with Him In love.”
John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) said by 1381 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aspiring then is an expression of love: a love so purely and radically expressed that it transcends all loves that are comprehensible by the senses, the reason or the intellect. By the impetuosity and force of the Spirit of God, it arrives at union with God, not by chance but by a sudden transformation of the spirit in God.”
John of St. Samson (1572–1636) said by 1636 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In order to attain perfect union, we must divest ourselves of God...The common belief about God, that He is a great Taskmaster, whose function is to reward or punish, is cast out by perfect love; and in this sense the spiritual man does divest himself of God as conceived of by most people.”
Henry Suso (1295–1366) said by 1366 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That nothing happens without God we know from many sources; and, reversely, that God’s dispensations have no element of chance and confusion in them every one will allow, who realizes that God is Reason, and Wisdom, and Perfect Goodness, and Truth, and could not admit of that which is not good and not consistent with His Truth.”
Gregory of Nyssa (born 335) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If I conceive God as existing separately from the world my ideal will be likewise; but if God is nearness to the world I will stay at my post. My spiritual life will then consist in continually relating my particular personality to the centre of all personalities. The world is not everything, but neither is it nothing, it is a multiplicity of finite beings for whom God is absolute nearness.”
Aldo Capitini (1899–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God became man in order to make me God; therefore I want to be changed completely into pure God”
Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) said by 1510 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think I'm a very religious person. I think I believe in God as much as any man does. I don't only believe in God, I know there's God.”
Ernest J. Gaines (1933–2019) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Response after being asked "Do you regard yourself as a religious person?", in an interview with Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, February 18, 2011
“I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use.”
Nadine Dorries (born 1957) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The War Cry" The War Cry (No. 6812, 2 June 2007), pp. 4–5
“Mysticism is the realisation of God, of the Universal Self. It is attained either as a realisation of God outside the Mystic, or within himself. In the first case, it is usually reached from within a religion, by exceptionally intense love and devotion, accompanied by purity of life, for only "the pure in heart shall see God".”
Annie Besant (1847–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John the Evangelist (10–98) said by 98 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are free to do any action as you want. That’s not done by destiny. What you get is destiny. Because, that’s the result of your own actions. Destiny is not given by God, one thing to one man, something else to another man. Then God would be unjust, partial and would cease to be God.”
Morarji Desai (1896–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For those who believe in God the matter is simpler still and clearly than anything else: because those who believe in God believe that God is the Creator of the whole Universe and there is nothing that does not come from Him.”
Morarji Desai (1896–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us not fail to realise that pantheism means, not simply the all-pervasive interblending and interpenetration of God and other life, but the sole causality of God, and so the obliteration of freedom, of moral life, and of any immortality worth the having; in a word, of the true being of God himself.”
George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have in yourself some thing similar to God, and therefore use yourself as the temple of God, on account of that which in you resembles God.”
Quintus Sextius (51–101 BC) said by 101 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is in this wrestling that Jacob 'prevails with God', and realises that he has seen God face to face. He has overcome not God but his own rivalry. After this mysterious struggle he was able to recognise his wrongdoing and look his brother Esau in the face. Thus he was able to learn to live in peace with his brother—and become Israel, a community of brethren.”
James Alison (born 1959) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From a religious point of view the triadic classification of being as nature, spirit, and God has no validity. There is only the dyad: nature, which includes the human spirit, and God. The only way man can break the bonds of nature is by cleaving to God; by acting in compliance with the divine will rather than in accordance with the human will.”
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you and I were born, only one thing was certain about the rest of our lives: that you and I would someday die. Just as a trillion, trillion, trillion (1036) microorganisms, animals and plants have died before us. ...A God who slaughters is no God at all. Or if he is... He is a God who must be stopped.”
Howard Bloom (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the divine mystery is inherent in the divine, a part of the nature of God, and can never disappear. And this means that it is still a mystery even to the mystic who has directly experienced it, nay, even to God Himself. That is why it is ineffable. The mystery and the ineffability of God are one and the same thing.”
Walter Terence Stace (1886–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O venerable father Bernard, I lay my claim before you, for, highly honored by God, you bring fear to the immoral foolishness of this world and, in your intense zeal and burning love for the Son of God, gather men [cf. Luke 5.10] into Christ's army to fight under the banner of the cross against pagan savagery. I beseech you in the name of the Living God to give heed to my queries.”
Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) first seen 1146 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1146-47
“If we believe in God, we should not say "I believe in God," but "God believes in me.”
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913–1994) said by 1994 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The theory of an existing and benevolent god simply doesn't make sense to anyone who is rational. A benevolent and omnipotent god would never allow such imbalances as I see to exist for one second. If by chance I am wrong, however I must then assume that being born black called for some automatic punishment for sins I know nothing about, and being innocent it behooves me to defy god.”
George Jackson (activist) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: July 28 , 1967
“May God give a blessed Laylat Al-Bara’ah to the whole Islamic World. May God give all Muslims faith in the degree of Haqq al-yaqîn (the total reality of Certainty), may God give them all the faith of the Prophets. May the decision for the system of the Mahdi, for the Unity of Islam be given insha’Allah in this night.”
Adnan Oktar (born 1956) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 23 June 2013.