Voltaire Quotes

Man made God in his own image.

We talk about God as though he was like a somebody. We ask him to bless our nation, or save our Queen, or give us a fine day for the picnic. And we actually expect him to be on our side in an election or war even though our opponents are also God's children.

Men create the gods in their own image.

We have no right to pick out all that is noblest and fairest in man, to project these qualities into space, and to call them God. We only thus create an ideal figure, a purified, ennobled, 'magnified' Man.

If a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped.

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.

My brothers and my sisters, do always persevere in true and earnest prayer, and the Lord will hear you. Believe that the highest revelations of science are conformable to the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer; that in this doctrine the highest philosophy harmonizes with the purest devotion.

Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the world? In our tradition God is a male. This male and female differentiation is made, however, within the field of time and space, the field of duality. If God is beyond duality, you cannot say that God is a "He." You cannot say God is a "She." You cannot say God is an "It." (18)

God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man said, 'Let us make God in our image.

A loving God who has no wrath is no God. He is an idol of our own making as much as if we carved Him out of stone.

God warms his hands at man's heart when he prays.

Make the most of prayer. ... Prayer is the master-weapon. We should be wise if we used it more, and did so with a more specific purpose.

And if by prayer Incessant I could hope to change the will Of Him who all things can, I would not cease To weary Him with my assiduous cries.

Prayer from the heart can achieve what nothing else can in the world.

Prayer is the difference between the best we can do and the best God can do.

Prayer is the forerunner of mercy. Turn to sacred history, and you will find that scarecely ever did a great mercy come to this world unheralded by supplication.

The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.

We can have no conception of God higher than man, so our God is man, and man is God.

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

Philosophers call God the great unknown The great misknown is more like it!

Prayer flies where the eagle never flew.

Prayer honors God, acknowledges His being, exalts His power, adores His providence, secures His aid.

We pray when there's nothing else we can do; Jesus wants us to pray before we do anything at all.

I can write about prayer, you can read about prayer, but sooner or later you have to fall to your knees and just plain pray. Then, and only then, will you begin to operate in the vein of God's miracle-working ways.