God and the divine
“Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that GOD IS DEAD!”
— Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
“Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.”
— Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine
“The eternal and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature, acts by the same necessity as that whereby it exists.”
— Baruch Spinoza, Ethics — Part 4
“Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever.”
— Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavad Gita (The Song Celestial)
“A being than which nothing greater can be conceived.”
— Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogium, Monologium, and Cur Deus Homo (Deane)
“If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”
— Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State
“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.”
— Michel de Montaigne, Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete
“The more we understand particular things, the more do we understand God.”
— Baruch Spinoza, Ethics
“All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth... have not any subsistence without a mind.”
— George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
— David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature
“The Universe is either a confusion ravelled and unravelled again, or else a unity compact of order and forethought.”
— Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods
“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.”
— Laozi, The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics
“Stars, darkness, a lamp, a phantom, dew, a bubble. A dream, a flash of lightning, and a cloud - thus we should look upon the world.”
— Diamond Sutra, Buddhist Mahayana Texts: Diamond Sutra, Heart Sutra, Sukhavativyuha (SBE XLIX)
“I myself am able to come out from the burning house through the door, quickly and safely... but my children, those young boys, are staying in the burning house, playing, amusing, and diverting themselves with all sorts of sports.”
— Lotus Sutra, The Saddharma-Pundarika (Lotus of the True Law, SBE XXI)
“Other things include a portion of everything, but mind is infinite and self-powerful and mixed with nothing, but it exists alone itself by itself.”
— Anaxagoras, The fragments of Anaxagoras (Fairbanks)
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
— Bible, The Holy Bible (King James Version)
“Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
— Bible, The Holy Bible (King James Version)
“Let there be no compulsion in Religion.”
— Quran, The Qur'an
“Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity.”
— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars)