Quotes about God

Papa used to say that wealth is a sin and poverty is a punishment but that God apparently wants there to be no connection between the sin and the punishment. One man sins and another is punished. That's how the world is made.

They taught us always to respect other peoples: every man is made in the image of God, even if he has a tendency to forget it.

That's how God created us: wealth is a crime and poverty is a punishment, though the punishment is not given to the one who sinned, but to the one who hasn't got the money to escape the punishment. The woman, naturally, cannot deny that she is pregnant. The man denies it as much as he likes, and what can you do? God gave men the pleasure and us the punishment.

Agnon himself was an observant Jew who kept the Sabbath and wore a skullcap; he was, literally, a God-fearing man: in Hebrew, fear and faith are synonyms. There are corners in Agnon's stories where, in an indirect, cleverly camouflaged way, the fear of God is portrayed as a terrible dread of God: Agnon believes in God and fears him, but he does not love him.

A forgiving God would be the noblest work of man. We accepted as proven that each stage of civilization creates its own God, and that as man ascends and becomes better his conception of the Unknown likewise improves. Thereafter we all became less theological, but I am sure more truly religious.

Stand by; for I am holier than you! What a parody on holiness! Jesus the Holy One is the humble One: the holiest will ever be the humblest. There is none holy but God: we have as much of holiness as we have of God.

As truly as God by His power once created, so truly by that same power must God every moment maintain.

Use every opportunity of humbling yourself before your fellow-men as a help to abide humble before God.

Humility is, nothing but that simple consent of the creature to let God be all, in virtue of which it surrenders itself to His working alone.

Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray. He did not speak much of what was needed to preach well, but much of praying well. To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man. Not power with men, but power with God is the first thing. Jesus loves to teach us how to pray.

It is not the law, and not the book, not the knowledge of what is right, that works obedience, but the personal influence of God and His living fellowship. And even so it is not the knowledge of what God has promised, but the presence of God Himself as the Promiser, that awakens faith and trust in prayer.

And to every waiting heart that will make the sacrifice, and give up everything, and give time to cry and pray to God, the answer will come. The blessing is not far off. Our God delights in helping us. He will enable us to perfect, not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, what was begun in the Spirit.