John Gillespie Magee Quotes

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; ... And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

One who truly meets the world goes out also to God.

May your divinity, Lord, take pleasure in me and lead me above the world to be with you.

I had a million questions to ask God: but when I met Him, they all fled my mind; and it didn't seem to matter.

When a wave of love takes over a human being... such an exaltation takes him that he knows he has put his finger on the pulse of the great secret and the great answer.

The outer world, with all its phenomena, is filled with divine splendour, but we must have experienced the divine within ourselves, before we can discover it in our environment

To pray is to mount on eagle's wings above the clouds and get into the clear heaven where God dwelleth.

There were now and then, though rarely, the hours that brought the welcome shock, pulled down the walls and brought me back again from my wanderings to the living heart of the world. Sadly and yet deeply moved, I set myself to recall the last of these experiences. It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two of three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defenses and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart.

God is still in the business of coming down to earth: to this cubicle, this email, this room, this house, this job, this hospital room, this car, this bed, this vacation. Any place can become Bethel, the house of God. Cleveland, maybe. Or the chair you're sitting in as you read these words.

What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a human being.

To see Him and know Him and be in His presence is the soul’s final feast. Beyond this there is no quest. Words fail. We call it pleasure, joy, delight. But these are weak pointers to the unspeakable experience.

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction.

In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.

I feel God when I find myself in a situation which spontaneously opens me to the larger reality that exists all around.

Those who think to reach God by running away from the world, when and where do they expect to meet him? We are reaching him here in this very spot, now at this very moment.

Do not seek God in outer space-- Your heart is the only place in which to meet Him face to face.

You find God the moment you realize that you don't need to seek God

In community, where you have all the affection you could ever dream of, you feel that there is a place where even community cannot reach. That's a very important experience. In that loneliness, which is like a dark night of the soul, you learn that God is greater than community.

But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.

Please do not put earthly expectations on a heavenly experience.

To be used of God. Is there anything more encouraging, more fulfilling? Perhaps not, but there is something more basic: to meet with God.

When a stray animal crosses your path, it may be as close to God as you're going to get in this lifetime.

If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.

What good is all our busy religion if God isn't in it? What good is it if we've lost majesty, reverence, worship-an awareness of the divine? What good is it if we've lost a sense of the Presence and the ability to retreat within our own hearts and meet God in the garden?

Strive to see God in all things without exception. Do not smother yourself...If you start smothering yourself with a host of cares and longings and wishes ... you will be disabling yourself from serving God with all your heart.