Ancient God Quotes

sight. In his essay On The Sublime, Edmund Burke observes, "Represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have...and when you have collected your audience, just at the moment when their minds are filled with expectation, let it be reported that a criminal is on the point of being executed in the adjoining square..." And in a moment, the theater will be empty. In these bloody rituals of execution and repression, the leader becomes the ancient God-King stepping forward to save his people, a promise as dangerous as it is seductive. If there is one lesson we can take away from the extravagant lives of our tyrants it is the fragility of our democratic society which, after all, is the exception, not the norm, in that dark, violent story known as human history. ~ Daniel Myerson

"Oh, ancient god, whatever your name," whispered Ahmed. "Help this lost son of a good father, this evil boy who meant no harm but slept in school, ran errands slowly, did not pray from his heart, ignored his mother, and did not hold his family in great esteem. For all this I know I must suffer. But here in the midst of silence, at the desert's heart, where even the wind knows not my name? Must I die so young? Am I to be forgotten without having been?" ~ Ray Bradbury

The ancient God created the old man, capable of erring
thus he erred himself. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

The multiplication table is more wise and more absolute than the ancient god, for the multiplication table never (do you understand - never) makes mistakes! There are no more fortunate and happy people than those who live according to the correct, eternal laws of the multiplication table. No hesitation! No errors! There is but one truth, and there is but one path to it; and that truth is: four, and that path is: two times two. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The pair sat in silence: the ancient god from across the oceans who had retired, the human host of an ancient god visiting from the heavens. ~ Adam Christopher

Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever. ~ Donald Miller

When I get to heaven one day, I'm going to ask God how it's possible that time moves so much quicker on the weekends than on school days. ~ Jenny B. Jones

If gratitude is not rooted in the beauty of God before the gift, it is probably disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to delight in him for who he is so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver! ~ John Piper

I was afraid that if I surrendered my life over to God, God would tell me not to do those things that I desperately wanted to do. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

You'll get through this. It won't be painless. It won't be quick. But God will use this mess for good. In the meantime don't be foolish or naïve. But don't despair either. With God's help you will get through this. ~ Max Lucado

God and God alone is the final, ultimate goal of our quest. All that God is for us in Jesus is the Object of our quest for joy. When I speak of fighting for joy, I mean joy in God, not joy without reference to God. When I speak of longing for happiness, I mean happiness in all that God is for us in Jesus, not happiness as physical or psychological experience apart from God. ~ John Piper

[There is] a widespread approach to ideas which Objectivism repudiates altogether: agnosticism. I mean this term in a sense which applies to the question of God, but to many other issues also, such as extra-sensory perception or the claim that the stars influence man's destiny. In regard to all such claims, the agnostic is the type who says, "I can't prove these claims are true, but you can't prove they are false, so the only proper conclusion is: I don't know; no one knows; no one can know one way or the other."

The agnostic viewpoint poses as fair, impartial, and balanced. See how many fallacies you can find in it. Here are a few obvious ones: First, the agnostic allows the arbitrary into the realm of human cognition. He treats arbitrary claims as ideas proper to consider, discuss, evaluate - and then he regretfully says, "I don't know," instead of dismissing the arbitrary out of hand. Second, the onus-of-proof issue: the agnostic demands proof of a negative in a context where there is no evidence for the positive. "It's up to you," he says, "to prove that the fourth moon of Jupiter did not cause your sex life and that it was not a result of your previous incarnation as the Pharaoh of Egypt." Third, the agnostic says, "Maybe these things will one day be proved." In other words, he asserts possibilities or hypotheses with no jot of evidential basis.

The agnostic miscalculates. He thinks he is avoiding any position that will antagonize anybody. In fact, ~ Leonard Peikoff

The worst speak something good; if all want sense,
God takes a text, and preacheth patience. ~ George Herbert

Antony said to Poemen, 'Our great work is to lay the blame for our sins upon ourselves before God, and to expect to be tempted to our last breath. ~ Benedicta Ward

In order to gain mastery, you need to dismantle as much as you put together.'
'Then there'd be no buildings left in the world,' Jahan ventured. 'Everything would be razed to the ground.'
'We are not destroying the buildings, son. We are destroying our desire to possess them. Only God is the owner. Of the stone and of the skill. ~ Elif Shafak

You'll never forget October 9, 2005, ... Every time you see the National Mall, every time you see that [Capitol] building back there, every time you see the national monument, you'll say 'I met God on the National Mall.' ~ Luis Palau

there is nothing we can do or not do that would cause God to love us any more than he does right now. ~ Peter Scazzero

That men should live honestly, quietly, and comfortably together, it is needful that they should live under a sense of God's will, and in awe of the divine power, hoping to please God, and fearing to offend Him, by their behaviour respectively. ~ Isaac Barrow

What will people remember us for? Are other people's lives better because we lived? Did we make a difference? Did we use to the fullest the gifts and abilities God gave us? Did we give our best effort, and did we do it for the right reasons? ~ Tony Dungy

If you've been served by God, you've arrived. ~ Louie Giglio

True love had awakened in two hearts. Through all the shifting scenes of earth-life, nothing like this had ever come to this mand and this woman. Love had waited all this time. The power that draws kindred souls together is not limited to the few years of earth-life. While time lasts, God will provide sometime, somewhere, in which to give opportunity for every deserving soul. Here were two whose hearts beat as one; but one must needs have left mortality early in his course, while the other went on to the end alone. The reason for this was difficult to see by mortal eyes, but now . . . ~ Nephi Anderson

But he looks no more than thirty. He's very handsome
so much you will admit; nor will you deny that he is very wealthy and very powerful; the greatest nobleman in Brittany. He will make me a great lady.'
'God made you that, Aline. ~ Rafael Sabatini

Focus on faith in God. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

He can't quite picture God except as a huge ball of light with an old man's deep voice like in the pickup truck ads on TV coming out of the ball of light dictating the way everything in Eden is supposed to work. ~ Russell Banks

William looked up ... through his tears ... past the catwalk and lights ... past the sky ... through the dark and clouds and stars and into the void where he once knew God existed, then turned himself outside-in, alone, and asked, 'Why? ~ Jake Vander Ark

No one perfectly loves God who does not perfectly love some of his creatures. ~ Marguerite De Valois

Oh my god," I said, but I couldn't help but laugh. "You can't make jokes about eating dead people if you actually eat dead people. ~ Kali Wallace

The ladders of glory we are told to climb to behold the "naked God" are now marked, "Danger: No Entry." Just as we would not have expected to find God in a feeding trough of a barn in an obscure village, much less hanging, bloody, on a Roman cross, we do not expect to find him delivering his gifts in such humble places and in such humble ways as human speech, a bath, and a meal. Think cross, not glory. ~ Michael S. Horton

And morning came ... It still comes. Our God is here, Emmanuel, among us, always coming towards us, always standing behind us, always standing up for us, always standing with us in solidarity in communion asking us to come with Him now as disciple, as follower, as believer, as a friend, as intimate beloved child of God, now and forever. ~ Megan McKenna

Communism has decided against God, against Christ, against the Bible, and against all religion. ~ Billy Graham

You parents and you families whose lives must be reordered because of a handicapped one, whose
resources and time must be devoted to them, are special heros. You are manifesting the works of God
with every thought, with every gesture of tenderness and care you extend to the handicapped loved one.
Never mind the tears nor the hours of regret and discouragement; never mind the times when you feel
you cannot stand another day of what is required. You are living the principles of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ in exceptional purity. And you perfect yourself in the process, 6 April 1991 ~ Boyd K. Packer

The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away that which it can't return even if it wants to. ~ Anton Chekhov

God is neither manifest nor hidden; He is neither revealed nor unrevealed; there are no words to tell that which He is. He is without form, without quality, without decay. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Sir Thomas More: Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher; perhaps a great one.
Richard Rich: If I was, who would know it?
Sir Thomas More: You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that. ~ Robert Bolt

The Bible does not say that God speaks and then proceeds to act, that he names and then proceeds to shape - but that God's speaking and acting are the same thing. His word is his action, his divine power. ~ Timothy Keller

In every human society of which we know - prehistoric, ancient or modern, whether hunter-gatherer, pastoral, agricultural or industrial - at least some form of art is displayed, and not only displayed, but highly regarded and willingly engaged in. ~ Ellen Dissanayake

Of course, if one does not fully trust the promise of God's Kingdom, he will have a hard time taking risks and making sacrifices in this life. A gospel centered around the temporal self - fleeting happiness, earthly success, vain prosperity, things such as these - is the primary ambition of the half-hearted Christian; the one who somewhat believes he is subject to an eternal death; the one who just might believe in men before God, who morbidly fears seeming less than anyone else. The man of this school feels deeply that he has but one life to live, that this must be his only chance, and therefore must have it all in his favor - from glory to comfort to riches - and have it right this instant. He is but hinting that he is overcome because he insists always that he must overcome, that his judgment comes now and by the persons around him. The point is, however, in this sense, that by grace the Christian is indeed free, but only for as long as he wants to be free - the practicality of true freedom: that of God which offers not so much freedom to be like the world as it does freedom from the pressures of having to be like the world. For Divine Law is based solely on love and freedom; whereas secular law, pressure and imitation. ~ Criss Jami

How did it ever happen that, when the dregs of the world had collected in western Europe, when Goth and Frank and Norman and Lombard had mingled with the rot of old Rome to form a patchwork of hybrid races, all of them notable for ferocity, hatred, stupidity, craftiness, lust, and brutality--how did it happen that, from all of this, there should come Gregorian chant, monasteries and cathedrals, the poems of Prudentius, the commentaries and histories of Bede, the Moralia of Gregory the Great, St. Augustine's City of God, and his Trinity, the writings of Anselm, St. Bernard's sermons on the Canticles, the poetry of Caedmon and Cynewulf and Langland and Dante, St. Thomas' Summa, and the Oxoniense of Duns Scotus?

How does it happen that even today a couple of ordinary French stonemasons, or a carpenter and his apprentice, can put up a dovecote or a barn that has more architectural perfection than the piles of eclectic stupidity that grow up at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars on the campuses of American universities? ~ Thomas Merton

I pray that God, the Universe, Fate or whoever is out there watching had a plan all along, and this is not the final chapter but the first one, and all that I lived up to this point was just the prequel for an amazing adventure. I hope that adventure will always include you. ~ Erica Alexander

God's sovereignty is not in His right hand; God's sovereignty is not in His intellect; God's sovereignty is in His love. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

We should get jerseys, cause we make a good team; but yours would look better than mine, cause you're outta my league. ~ Relient K

If we are all made of God, it is our friends who remind us. We pass the gift of God to them. They pass it back to us when we need it most. ~ Erica Jong

God wants you to view the other Christians in your life as partners in ministry. God has not called you to make disciples in isolation; He has placed you in the context of a church body so that you can be encouraged and challenged by the people around you. And you are called to encourage and challenge them in return. ~ Francis Chan

God doesn't want you to go to church. He wants you to want to go to church. ~ Curtis Martin

W. S. Plumer said, "We never see sin aright until we see it as against God...All sin is against God in this sense: that it is His law that is broken, His authority that is despised, His government that is set at naught...Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas each said, 'I have sinned'; but the returning prodigal said, 'I have sinned against heaven and before thee'; and David said, 'Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned. ~ Jerry Bridges

The first chapters of the Bible tell us of the sin of man. The guilt of that sin had rested upon every single one of us, it guilt and its terrible results..but..it also tells us of something greater still; it tells us of the grace of the offended God. ~ John Gresham Machen

We are always completely, and therefore equally, known to God. That is our destiny whether we like it or not. But though this knowledge never varies, the quality of our being known can….Ordinarily, to be known by God is to be, for this purpose, in the category of things. We are, like earthworms, cabbages, and nebulae, objects of Divine knowledge, But when we (a) become aware of this fact--the present fact, not the generalization--and (b) assent with all our will to be known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but as persons. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled his sight. The change is in us. The passive changes to the active. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view. ~ C.S. Lewis

God. He was beautiful. A beautiful, troubled man forged by the fires of hell, ravaged by monsters. ~ Christine Feehan

Sufism is the reconciliation of all opposites: the outer and the inner, the material and the spiritual, the finite and the infinite, the here and the hereafter, freedom and servanthood, the human and the divine. Enlightenment in this tradition does not prevent us from functioning in a practical and humble way in life, does not entitle us to special treatment, does not exclude us from the inevitable joys and griefs of life. The Sufi's union with God does not cancel servanthood. What I found through Sufism far exceeded my hopes. As an example, one poet said to me: "All of my reading, study, and creative writing could not have prepared me for the poetry of Rumi." And yet all Rumi's poetry is just the wave on the surface of the ocean of Sufi spirituality. Perhaps it is consistent with the idea of Divine generosity that it should exceed in actuality the gift we had foreseen in our imagination. The Source is not only infinitely generous, it is infinitely creative, and its gifts surpass human imagination. ~ Kabir Edmund Helminski

In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we've done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can't. ~ Desmond Tutu

It is a flowing waterfall of alchemical and astrological symbols, ancient marks for planets and elements all emblazoned in black ink upon her fair skin. ~ Erin Morgenstern