Lin Yutang Quotes

I think we shape God in our own image a lot of the time.

To me, it's the folly of man to make God human.

In a sermon entitled “God's Providence,” C. H. Spurgeon said, “Napoleon once heard it said, that man proposes and God disposes. 'Ah,' said Napoleon, 'but I propose and dispose too.' How do you think he proposed and disposed? He proposed to go and take Russia; he proposed to make all Europe his. He proposed to destroy that power, and how did he come back again? How had he disposed it? He came back solitary and alone, his mighty army perished and wasted, having well-nigh eaten and devoured one another through hunger. Man proposes and God disposes.

The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is.

We always believe God is like ourselves, the indulgent think him indulgent and the stern, terrible.

With God thoughts are colors, with us they are pigments-even the most abstract one may be accompanied by physical pain.

I think the Bible is hugely patriarchal. There are so many sexist comments and homophobic comments and comments that are not in keeping with nurturing and loving the human spirit.

Christianity at any given time is strong or weak depending upon her concept of God.

Man can think of divine things only in his own human way, to us the Absolute can be expressed only in our relative language.

Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, "What comes into your mind when you think about God?" we might predict with certainty the future of that man.

Like a mirror, God appears to be more and more a reflection of whoever it is that happens to be talking about God at the moment.

Well, I don't call you an atheist then. I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, then that is what God is. That is what God is, not the bearded guy in the sky.

And what would our ideas of God, of religion, be like if they had come to us through the minds of women? Ever think of that?

The real essence, the internal qualities, and constitution of even the meanest object, is hid from our view; something there is inevery drop of water, every grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding to fathom or comprehend. But it is evidentthat we are influenced by false principles to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know nothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.

When I think of God I feel like an ant crawling into a computer.

The holy word of God is on everyone's lips...but...we see almost everyone presenting their own versions of God's word, with the sole purpose of using religion as a pretext for making others think as they do.

The development of artificial intelligence may well imply that man will relinquish his intellectual supremacy in favor of thinking machines. With oceans of time available for future innovation, there seems to be no reason why machines cannot achieve and surpass anything of which the human brain is capable.

I think you'd be pretty in any color."-Posy to Octavia

A good work can be communicated across languages ... [provided one does not] fall into the trap of narrow-minded nationalistic or chauvinistic thinking.

I think you can get away with so much more offensiveness when you're operating behind a stuffed teddy bear or a cartoon or something that's not real, because it's forgiven. It's like having a little kid in a movie curse - it's funny because it's not natural.

Many people make their own God; and he is much what the French may mean when they talk of le bon Dieu,--very indulgent, rather weak, near at hand when we want anything, but far away out of sight when we have a mind to do wrong. Such a God is as much an idol as if he were an image of stone.

I think viewing people by the color of their skin is one of the dumbest ways to view people.

Oh, lord. I was beginning to think like Neith. Soon I'd be huddled in an underground bunker eating army rations and cackling as I sewed together the pockets of all the boys who'd jilted me.

How anyone can remain a Catholic - I mean who has ever been aroused to think, and is not biased by the partialities of childish years - after seeing Catholicism here in Italy I cannot conceive.

Hey, let's get serious... God knows what he's doin' He wrote this book here And the book says: 'He made us all to be just like Him', So... If we're dumb... Then God is dumb... (And maybe even a little ugly on the side)