Quotes by American Authors - Page 3273

We live in a world filled with evil and moral confusion. There is only one way out: affirmation of a God Whose primary demand of us is that we treat our fellow human beings decently. Faith in any god who makes any other primary demand will ultimately fail to solve the problem of evil. And any moral system that is detached from God, no matter how noble and sincerely held, will likewise fail
Dennis Prager
Any moral system that is detached from God, no matter how noble and sincerely held, will likewise fail.
Dennis Prager
God is calling us home to each other.
Eileen Anglin
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry and an atheist, theorized that one’s attitude toward one’s father largely shaped one’s attitude toward God.
Dennis Prager
Take the helm and sail your own ship. Don't just get into the boat with nobody at the helm and merely hope that the waves of life take you somewhere good.
Joyce Meyer
If I had a dollar for everytime my mother told me god had a plan I'd probably buy a new prada bag.
Naya Rivera
Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference(a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive]. ( Colossians 3:13 )
Joyce Meyer
The Maker offers us creation itself as proof of his greatness.
Anne Rice
During the Allied invasion of World War II, hundreds of life-like rubber dummy paratroopers were dropped into the French countryside. These distractions drew German fire away from the Allies and wasted a great deal of the Germans' ammunition and other military resources. While the Germans were busy firing at dummies, Allied troops were busy sneaking behind enemy lines. The real battle was taking place elsewhere, while the unwitting Germans were squandering their firepower and energy on mere rubber dummies.1 I submit to you, as Christians we are attacking the “rubber dummy” of evolution, while the real enemy slips past us unnoticed and unchallenged. How will we answer God on judgment day when He asks us why we pointlessly besieged so many distractions, meanwhile the real battle was taking place elsewhere?
Aaron R. Yilmaz
Jesus told them, "God is like the dad who couldn't stop loving his boy, And people are like the son who said, "Does my dad really want me to be happy?" Jesus told people this story to show them what God is like. And to show people what they are like. So they could know, however far they ran, however well they hid, however lost they were- it wouldn't matter. Because God's children could never run to far, or be too lost, for God to find them.
Sally Lloyd-Jones
But Jesus could see inside people. And inside, in their hearts, Jesus saw that they did not love God or other people. They were running away from God, and they thought they didn't need a rescuer. They thought they were good enough because they kept the rules. But sin had stopped their hearts from working properly. And their hearts were hard and cold. "This woman knows she's a sinner," Jesus told them. "She knows she'll never be good enough. She knows she needs me to rescue her. That's why she loves me so much. You look down on this woman because you don't look up to God. She is sinful on the outside-but you are sinful on the inside.
Sally Lloyd-Jones
Sadly, many people don't make it through the storms of life. Or they give up or they start doing and saying foolish things and abort the journey altogether.It is easy to begin, but God is looking for people who will finish.The apostle Paul declared the stand that he would take in order to complete his journey:, But none of these things move me; neither do I esteem my life dear to myself, if only I may finish my course with joy. Acts 20:24
Joyce Meyer
I am not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be.
Joyce Meyer
God is not anybody's problem, nor are the many paths to him. However, man is God's problem. Most of the problems across the land are due to man's hand. Men playing God. Men tampering with the divine plan. If it was all left to God then there would be peace among all living things. Yet man is his own enemy. People doubt Satan exists, but he has always existed in left eye of every man. In the moon of man, which harbors the ego of man. Only when you train yourself to see only through your right eye, which reflects the sun, conscience and heart of man - will you have truly defeated Satan. Know which eye reflects the heart and which reflects the mind and only then will you really begin to see the light. Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them.
Suzy Kassem
When deeply religious subjects view sacred iconography or reflect on their notion of God, brain scans reveal hyperactivity in the caudate nucleus, a part of the pleasure system that correlates with feelings of joy, love, and serenity. But Lindstrom and Calvert found that this same brain region lights up when subjects view images associated with strong brands like Ferrari or Apple.
Steven Kotler
The Kingdom of God is a tricky concept, and I was always taught it referred to our heavenly reward for being good, which, now that I actually read the Bible for myself, makes very little sense. Others say that the Kingdom of God is another way of talking about the church, and still others say that it's the dream God has for the wholeness of the world, a dream being made true little by little among us right here, right now. My answer? All of the above.
Nadia Bolz-Weber
There is but one supremacy... and it remains known and unknown to it's human creation... of many hues, shapes and sizes.
T.F. Hodge
There used to be a time when i thought of god i'd look to the power in the sky, now when i think of god i look at the power within myself.
John Maiorana (oohGiovanni)
And He was the one who invented marriage so that the blazing fire of romantic love could become something even more beautiful - a pulsing, red-hot ember of covenant love in marriage.Why did He do it? For the same reason that He made sunsets and mountain ranges and fireflies! Because He's good. Because He wants to give us a million different opportunities to see just how wonderful He is.
Joshua Harris
If it meant brighter stars, she would follow God into the darkness.
Bethany Kaczmarek
Sometimes God pulls us away from normal just long enough to begin something great in us.
Bethany Kaczmarek
Isn't forgiveness a holy virtue? And if so, then why do we insist on keeping historical records of resentment? Is the Creator an advocate of love or hate? And if love, then why are we still pushing so much hatred? What is there ever to be gained from vocalizing hatred? Only more hatred. Who wants that? And why?
Suzy Kassem
I craved to make my faith as real as possible, which meant being recklessly honest in His presence.
Natalie Brenner
Forgiveness allows the burdens that we carry to become the histories that we forget.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
...hope is never wasted. Even if what I hoped for did not come to fruition as I had imagined, as I had hoped. Hope is placing the beautifully vulnerable parts of ourselves, our raw selves, into His hands. I believe hope moves His heart; but hope also moves our hearts into His hands. Hope builds trust.
Natalie Brenner
I promise if you come to my car I won't cuff you unless..." his voice dropped in a sensuous tone, "...that's what you want.
Zoe Forward
Kissing her wasn't just a kiss. It was a full-body, mid-altering experience.
Zoe Forward
So, you're the Santa Claus of the magic world with a naughty and nice list?
Zoe Forward
I'd like to see you dance around a caldron naked.
Zoe Forward
We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
Ronald Reagan
No one can find God without having first been found by Him. A monk is a man who seeks God because he has been found by God.
Thomas Merton
We can't change by fancy methods. We can't change by mere willpower. But God's Spirit working in us can help us to "will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13).
Joshua Harris
The only thing on Earth you can count on is that there is nothing on Earth you can count on.
Eleanor Brownn
Your God would never punish you for being a human being: this life itself is your penance...But it is also more than that: it is a crucible for transformation. Each trial, every loss, is an opportunity for you to meet suffering with love and make of it an offering, a prayer. The minute you lift your pain like a candle the darkness vanishes, and mercy comes rushing in to heal you.
Mirabai Starr
Ever since that troublemaker Eve handed that gullible Adam the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they say, human beings have been continuously messing up and suffering the consequences. But in the depths of your darkest despair your Beloved calls to you: "Look," he says, and opens the fathomless beautiful wound of his heart so that you can peer inside. All creation is nestled there, bathed in beauty. "Do you see any sin here?" he asks. "Do you detect a shred of retribution?" You do not. All you perceive, from horizon to endless horizon, is love.
Mirabai Starr
Let God leave us! Let us grow up. Let us walk forward on our own. Because we need the silence of the holy: we need the sacred and equally we need its maddening silence. And in the curious privacy and relief of that silence we can go out into the chaos and commit a thousand acts of minor and gleeful splendor all our own. If it's our tragedy to be left by God, then let it also be our luck.
Lydia Millet
The temple of truth has never suffered so much from woodpeckers on the outside as from termites within.
Vance Havner
Dear God, Why don't you ever get inspired by those carmakers who recall defective models? Please be humble, accept that you made and mistake and recall all idiots, criminals, haters, terrorists and replace their defective minds.
EverSkeptic
In a godless universe, all we have is each other.
Marty Rubin
Garden’s hush opens upan abyss at my center, still point.Someone touches me, mystery, otherness.No words are spoken, silencethe language of God.Silence, calm, hushed garden usher me into a presence, presence of my beloved.Let me rest in this quiet visit, gift that puts a beautifulend to a hectic day.Someone is with me—that is all that matters!-Evening Hush
Robert Trabold
It sucks. I think you'd make a pretty snake woman, but I'm not really into that kind of girl. Those pointy teeth and slitted nose. Their mindless need to kill..." He shuddered.
Zoe Forward
Faith is rare because fear is rampant. For faith will demand that I step into places that fear itself fears to go.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Ethics are the things that say, 'Don’t stick your finger in the socket.' The world says, 'It’s okay because we’ve shut off the electricity.' And at the point that we’ve chosen to listen to the world and ignore our ethics, we say, 'I’m having a really hard time getting back up.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Pray to whatever you believe in that they don't send the snakes.
Zoe Forward
The darkness that follows a sunset is never so dark that it can change the inevitability of a sunrise.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Tomorrow’ is the thing that’s always coming but never arrives. ‘Today’ is the thing that’s already here and never leaves. And because that’s the case, I would much prefer to invest in today than sit around waiting for an arrival that’s not arriving.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
In the end, if we don't have God we don't have anything other than an end.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
If God wanted us to get high, he'd have created plants that became psychoactive when eaten or smoked.
Stephen Colbert
The Awakening Land" p628 A strange, uneasy feeling ran over him. If he had been wrong about his mother in this, might he by any chance have been wrong in other things about her also? Could it be even faintly possible that the children of pioneers like himself, born under more benign conditions than their parents, hated them because they themselves were weaker, resented it when their parents expected them to be strong, and so invented all kinds of intricate reasoning to prove that their parents were tyrannical and cruel, their beliefs false and obsolete, and their accomplishments trifling? Never had his mother said that. But once long ago he had heard her mention, not in as many words, that the people were too weak to follow God today, that in the Bible God made strong demands on them for perfection, so the younger generation watered God down, made Him impotent and got up all kinds of reasons why they didn't have to follow Him but could go along their own way.
Conrad Richter
There are 300 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, and there are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe. In all of this vastness there is, and will ever be, only one of you. Who you are is the rarest and most unique thing in the universe - value yourself accordingly.
John Chaplin
This life is the only opportunity we will have to worship God in the midst of trials and tests. Heaven will be perfect.
James Cooley
Every mother should endeavor to be a true artist. I do not mean by this that every woman should be a painter, sculptor, musician, poet, or writer, but the artist who will write on the table of childish innocence thoughts she will not blush to see read in the light of eternity and printed amid the archives of heaven, that the young may learn to wear them as amulets around their hearts and throw them as bulwarks around their lives, and that in the hour of temptation and trial the voices from home may linger around their paths as angels of guidance, around their steps, and be incentives to deeds of high and holy worth.
Frances E. W. Harper
Forbidden things - my God, I'm drawn to them like a moth to a flame.
Melody Lee
Whether it’s an Iraqi widow mourning her dead loved ones standing helplessly in the rubble of her former home or a dying soldier in an Iraqi city street asking, “Why, God? Why is this happening? Where are you?” I can’t help but wonder the same. You realize that there is no justice, no karmic retribution swift enough, and that happy endings are a terrible, terrible lie. We are all subject to the same blind boot stomp and our luck is merely where we happen to be standing when death inevitably comes roaring down upon us.
M.B. Dallocchio
Despite tribulation, distress, famine, peril, and sword, God had allowed them all to emerge as conquerors.
Donna Lynn Hess
My parents didn't raise me to ask God for blessings or benefits. For guidance, yes. For the strength to do the right thing, yes. Not for a winning lottery number, not for love or health, or happiness. Prayer is not a gimme list; God isn't Santa Claus.
Dean Koontz
Belief acts as a temporary bridge when we are trying to accept something that seems incomprehensible. We use belief and simply accept the workings we cannot understand until the time comes when at last we comprehend.
L.M. Browning
Evil demons dwelling in underworlds, Gods sitting on-high, angels battling and protecting. We have become so wrapped up in these stories, and in the in-fighting between the different religions, that the reality of the matter has gone unseen and unresolved. We—humanity—must move out of this adolescence, put down the fairy tales, and take responsibility for our actions. There is no devil to blame, and there is no God to plead to. There is simply you and the choices you make each day—choices that will either make you a force of good in this world or an ill-presence. People are the evil in this world, and likewise we are the divine. “Evil”—all that is detrimental to humanity—has come about as a result of poor choices and, by the same hand, the divine—the immortal goodness—endures as a result of loving, compassionate choices. Heaven is created here—on this earth—by a community of compassionate people, and Hell is created here—on this earth—by a community of greedy, self-centered, apathetic people. Our small choices define the greater picture.
L.M. Browning
Question everything—no matter how beloved, or how long-held, or how exalted—without apology. Only those who build their world upon lies need fear an inquisitive mind. The truth will remain, even after a storm of doubt and revolution has washed over it. Only illusions need be protected. The truth need not be defended; it existed before us and will continue to exist after us.
L.M. Browning
Life doesn’t have a singular purpose and yet we try to pigeonhole this infinite gift by searching for a single meaning behind our existence. We hunger for meaning the way a starving man does food—convinced we will waste away without it. As though to experience what it is to be alive weren’t enough to justify drawing breath. Life is a multi-layered practice in exploration, self-definition, connection, and realization. The greatest challenge presented to us as human beings is to allow the infinite to be infinite; to accept that we will always be the student never the teacher, and allow the truths we’ve gathered to evolve because what we seek to understand is a living thing and is in a perpetual state of change. Humanity’s progression of understanding is open-ended. Anyone who professes mastery only shows their ignorance of the infinite procession of enlightenment of which they are a part. Each of us get to add a line into the coverless tome of understanding, which has no beginning and no end.
L.M. Browning