God Quotes

The writers with the most entries are not theologians: a Sufi saint, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, then Shakespeare, Homer, Pope and Ovid. The sourced lines are mostly sceptical ones. Bertrand Russell, in Religion and Science (1935), says that with omnipotence and millions of years he would not think Man much to boast of, and Shaw, in 1903, warns against the man whose god is in the skies.

Three famous sayings are marked disputed. Voltaire’s clockwork-and-clockmaker line has no firm source. Newton’s remark that the thumb would convince him of God is reported from a palmistry article in Dickens’s magazine All the Year Round (1864). “I looked and looked but I didn’t see God,” credited to Yuri Gagarin, is traced in the notes only to a 2006 book.

Random quote on God

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.

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