When I come to my own beliefs, I find myself quite unable to discern any purpose in the universe, and still more unable to wish to discern one. Those who imagine that the course of cosmic evolution is slowly leading up to some consummation pleasing to the Creator, are logically committed (though they usually fail to realize this) to the view that the Creator is not omnipotent or, if He were omnipotent, He could decree the end without troubling about means.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Is There a God?” (1952)
(Source)
Essay commissioned by Illustrated magazine in 1952, but never published there. First publication in Russell, Last Philosophical Testament, 1943-68 (1997) [ed. Slater/Köllner].
Quotations about:
creation
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
It has been one of the defects of theologians at all times to over-estimate the importance of our planet. No doubt this was natural enough in the days before Copernicus when it was thought that the heavens revolve about the earth. But since Copernicus and still more since the modern exploration of distant regions, this pre-occupation with the earth has become rather parochial. If the universe had a Creator, it is hardly reasonable to suppose that He was specially interested in our little corner. And, if He was not, His values must have been different from ours, since in the immense majority of regions life is impossible.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Is There a God?” (1952)
(Source)
Essay commissioned by Illustrated magazine in 1952, but never published there. First publication in Russell, Last Philosophical Testament, 1943-68 (1997) [ed. Slater/Köllner].
Enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all the living things, our little brothers, to whom thou hast given this earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty, so that the voice of the Earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of travail. May we realize that they live, not for us alone, but for themselves and for thee, and that they love the sweetness of life even as we, and serve thee in their place better than we in ours.
Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) American theologian, social reformer, Baptist pastor
Prayers of the Social Awakening, “For the World” (1910)
(Source)
This prayer is frequently misattributed to St Basil of Caesarea, often in a variant form such as this:Oh God enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to Thee in song, has been a groan of travail.
The attributions to Basil are usually without citation, or with citations that are spurious in some fashion. For example, in Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy (2002), he cites Schaff and Wace, eds., A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Vol. 8 (1897), which is in fact about Basil's writings, but which does not appear to include this prayer.
Further discussion, in detail, can be found here: St. Basil’s “Animal Prayers” are a “Hoax” (Part One) | Animals Matter to God.
Indeed, it is a cruel truth of the history of all art and literature that most would-be poets, writers, and painters fail. The man or woman of real talent is rare, the born genius rarer still. For every book that survives the merciless judgment of time, there are nine hundred and ninety-nine rotting unread in libraries and nine thousand and ninety-nine that were never written in the first place.
Michael Harrington (1928-1989) American writer, political activist, political scientist [Edward Michael Harrington, Jr.]
Fragments of the Century, ch. 2 “The Death of Bohemia” (1973)
(Source)
A book is never finished, it is abandoned.
Gene Fowler (1890-1960) American journalist, author, and dramatist. [b. Eugene Devlan]
Quoted in H. Allen Smith, The Life and Legend of Gene Fowler, ch. 27 (1977)
(Source)
The man who consciously owns a tree and knows how to use it and gives you thanks for it may not know its exact height or how widely the branches spread; but he is better off than the man who, while he has measured the tree and counted all its branches, neither owns it nor knows and loves its creator.
[Sicut enim melior est qui novit possidere arborem et de usu eius tibi gratias agit, quamvis nesciat vel quot cubitis alta sit vel quanta latitudine diffusa, quam ille qui eam metitur et omnes ramos eius numerat et neque possidet eam neque creatorem eius novit aut diligit.]
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
Confessions, Book 5, ch. 4 / ¶ 7 (5.4.7) (c. AD 398) [tr. Warner (1963)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:For as he is better off who knows how to possess a tree, and return thanks to Thee for the use thereof, although he know not how many cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads, than he that can measure it, and count all its boughs, and neither owns it, nor knows or loves its Creator.
[tr. Pusey (1838)]But as he is happier who knows how to possess a tree, and for the use thereof renders thanks to Thee, although he may not know how many cubits high it is, or how wide it spreads, than he that measures it and counts all its branches, and neither owns it nor knows or loves its Creator.
[tr. Pilkington (1876)]For as he is better off who knows how to possess a tree, and gives thanks for its use, though he knows not its height or breadth, than he who has accurate knowledge of its dimensions , and the number of its boughs, and yet does not own it, and neither knows nor loves its Creator.
[tr. Hutchings (1890)]For as he who knows that he owns a tree, and gives thanks to thee for its use, although he knows not how many feet high it is, or how wide it spreads, is better than he who measures it and counts all its branches, yet neither owns it nor knows nor loves its Creator.
[tr. Bigg (1897), 5.4.2]For just as he is better who knows he possesses a tree and gives thanks to You for the use it is to him, although he does not know how many cubits high it is or the width of its spread, than another man who can measure it and number its branches but neither possesses it nor knows and loves Him who created it.
[tr. Sheed (1943)]For just as that man who knows how to possess a tree, and give thanks to thee for the use of it -- although he may not know how many feet high it is or how wide it spreads -- is better than the man who can measure it and count all its branches, but neither owns it nor knows or loves its Creator.
[tr. Outler (1955)]A man who knows that he owns a tree, and gives thanks to you for its fruit, even though he may not know how many cubits high it is or how wide it spreads, is better than one who measures it and counts all its branches, but does not own it and does not know or love its creator.
[tr. Ryan (1960)]A man who knows that he owns a tree and thanks you for the use he has of it, even though he does not know its exact height or the width of its spread, is better than another who measures it and counts all its branches, but neither owns it nor knows and loves its Creator.
[tr. Pine-Coffin (1961)]For example, he is the better man who knows how to own a tree and thanks you for its usefulness, though he does not know how many cubits high it is, or how broad its spread, than the man who measures it, counts its branches, but never calls it his own or esteems the one who made it.
[tr. Blaiklock (1983)]Someone who knows enough to become the owner of a tree, and gives thanks to you for the benefits it brings him, is in a better state, even if ignorant of its height in feet and the extent of its spread, than another who measures and counts all its branches but neither owns it nor knows its creator nor loves him.
[tr. Boulding (1997)]
For of old
Rome said to me — “Your readers are your gold.
By them the stream of Lethe you’ll survive,
By them the better part of you will live.”
The wild fig splits Messalla’s marbles through,
And Crispus’ steeds are shattered quite in two :
But books are helped by time nor hurt by thieves,
Memorials that death uninjured leaves.[Quem cum mihi Roma dedisset.
“Nil tibi quod demus maius habemus” ait.
“Pigra per hunc fugies ingratae flumina Lethes
Et meliore tui parte superstes eris.
Marmora Messallae findit caprificus, et audax
Dimidios Crispi mulio ridet equos:
At chartis nec furta nocent et saecula prosunt,
Solaque non norunt haec monumenta mori.”]Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis]
Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 10, epigram 2 (10.2) (AD 95, 98 ed.)[tr. Pott & Wright (1921)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:Reader, my wealth; whom when to me Rome gave,
Nought greater to bestow (quoth she) I have.
By him ingratefull Lethe thou shalt flye,
And in thy better part shalt never dye.
Wilde Fig-trees rend Messalla's Marbles off;
Crispus halfe-horses the bold Carters scoffe.
Writings no age can wrong, no thieving hand.
Deathlesse alone those Monuments will stand.
[tr. May (1629)]When Fate to me a constant reader gave;
Receive, she said, the greatest boon I have.
By this beyond oblivion's stream arrive;
And in your better party by this survive.
Statues may moulder; and the clown unbred
Scoff at young Ammon's horse without his head.
But finish'd writings theft and time defy;
The only monument, which cannot die.
[tr. Hay (1755)]Reader, our riches! Well, said, Rome, I know,
A blester boon I have not to bestow.
By this though thro' Lethean streams shalt strive,
And in thy better part shalt still survive.
The wilding may Messala's marble cleave,
The speaker silence, and the sculptor reave.
The mule's pert driver may reproachless laugh,
At Crispus' coursers dwindled down to half.
Wit's labors onely rape or age defy:
His monuments alone can never die.
[tr. Elphinston (1782)]When Rome gave you [readers] to me, she said, "I have nothing greater to give you. By his means you will escape the sluggish waves of ungrateful Lethe, and will survive in the better part of yourself. The marble tomb of Messale is split by the wild fig, and the audacious muleteer laughs at the mutilated horses of the statue of Crispus.1 But as for writings, they are indestructible either by thieves or the ravages of time; such monuments alone are proof against death."
[tr. Bohn's Classical (1859)]For when Rome had given you to me, she said: We have nothing greater to give you. By him will you escape unthankful Lethe's sluggish stream, and will in your better part survive. Messalla's marble the wild-fig sunders, and boldly the mule-driver laughs at Crispus' steeds broken in two. But writings thefts do not injure, and time befriends them, and alone these monuments know not death."
[tr. Ker (1919)]Rome can tell how dear,
Who gave thee, saying, "Take my best; 'tis here;
By him ungrateful Lethe thou shallt flee
And thy best parts have immortality."
The fig-tree splits Messala's marble blocks,
And the rough drover draggled Crispus mocks.
Verses grow great with Time and Fate defy;
Such monuments alone can never die.
[tr. Francis & Tatum (1924), ep. 508]When Rome gave you to me, she said: "I have nothing greater to give you. through him you will escape ungrateful Lethe's idle waters and survive in the better part of yourself. The fig tree splits Messalla's marble, the bold muleteer laughs at Crispus' halved horses. But thefts do not harm paper and the centuries do it good. These are the only memorials that cannot die."
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1993)]Reader, Patron, willed to me by Rome
saying: "No greater gift! Through him
You'll flee neglectful Lethe's stagnant flood --
the better part of you survive.
Wild-fig rives the marble, heedless muleteers
deride the busted steeds of bronze.
But verse no decrease knows, time adds to verse,
deathless alone of monuments."
[tr. Whigham (1985), "Rome's Gift"]
To laugh sturdily and often, and to wear a long belt, are not incongruous with sanctity. God’s image is in every man, high or low — a road puddle holds the moon as well as the sea.
Austin O'Malley (1858-1932) American ophthalmologist, professor of literature, aphorist
Keystones of Thought (1914)
(Source)
Civilization is a concerted effort to remedy the blunders and check the practical joking of the Creator.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 2, § 2 (1916)
(Source)
Variant:CIVILIZATION. A concerted effort to remedy the blunders and check the practical joking of God.
[A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)]
Morning has broken,
Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them springing
Fresh from the Word!Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) English author
“Morning Has Broken” (1931)
(Source)
Set to music and popularized by Cat Stevens in Teaser and the Firecat (1971).
The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one’s soul to grow.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) American novelist, journalist
“Despite Tough Guys, Life Is Not the Only School for Real Novelists,” New York Times (1999-05-24)
(Source)
Part of the Times "Writers on Writing" series.
In Man Without a Country, ch. 3 "Here Is a Lesson in Creative Writing" (2005), Vonnegut expanded on this:Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
Therefore Father, you who have given visible light as the first fruits of creation and, at the summit of your works, have breathed intellectual light into the face of man, protect and govern this work, which began in your goodness and and returns to your glory.
[Itaque Tu Pater, qui lucem visibilem primitias creaturae dedisti, et lucem intellectualem ad fastigium operum tuorum in faciem hominis inspirasti; opus hoc, quod a tua bonitate profectum tuam gloriam repetit, tuere et rege.]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Instauratio Magna [The Great Instauration], “Distributo Operis [Plan of the Work]” (1620) [tr. Silverthorne (2000)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:May thou, therefore, O Father, who gavest the light of vision as the first-fruits of creation, and hast inspired the countenance of man with the light of the understanding as the completion of thy works, guard and direct this work, which, proceeding from thy bounty, seeks in return thy glory.
[tr. Wood (1831)]May thou, therefore, O Father, who gavest the light of vision as the first fruit of creation, and who hast spread over the fall of man the light of thy understanding as the accomplishment of thy works, guard and direct this work, which, issuing from thy goodness, seeks in return thy glory!
[tr. Wood/Devey (1844)]Therefore do thou, O Father, who gavest the visible light as the first fruits of creation, and didst breathe into the face of man the intellectual light as the crown and consummation thereof, guard and protect this work, which coming from thy goodness returneth to thy glory.
[tr. Spedding (1858)]
I do not claim any ability to read God’s mind. I am sure of only one thing. When we look at the glory of stars and galaxies in the sky and the glory of forests and flowers in the living world around us, it is evident that God loves diversity. Perhaps the universe is constructed according to a principle of maximum diversity.
Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) English-American theoretical physicist, mathematician, futurist
“Progress in Religion,” Templeton Prize acceptance speech, Washington National Cathedral (9 May 2000)
(Source)
Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God?
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) Russian film director, screenwriter, film theorist [Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский]
Sculpting in Time (1986) [tr. Hunter-Blair]
(Source)
Never try to convey your idea to the audience — it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they’ll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) Russian film director, screenwriter, film theorist [Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский]
Sculpting in Time (1986) [tr. Hunter-Blair]
Hitherto I have been under the guidance of that portion of reason which He has thought proper to deal out to me. I have followed it faithfully in all important cases, to such a degree at least as leaves me without uneasiness; and if on minor occasions I have erred from its dictates, I have trust in Him who made us what we are, and knows it was not His plan to make us always unerring.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Miles King (26 Sep 1814)
(Source)
THE LORD
And do you have no other news?
Do you come always only to accuse?
Does nothing please you ever on the earth?MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find it still of precious little worth.
I feel for mankind in their wretchedness,
It almost makes me want to plague them less.DER HERR
Hast du mir weiter nichts zu sagen?
Kommst du nur immer anzuklagen?
Ist auf der Erde ewig dir nichts recht?MEPHISTOPHELES
Nein Herr! ich find es dort, wie immer, herzlich schlecht.
Die Menschen dauern mich in ihren Jammertagen,
Ich mag sogar die armen selbst nicht plagen.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Faust: a Tragedy [eine Tragödie], Part 1, sc. 3 “Prologue in Heaven,” l. 301ff (1808-1829) [tr. Arndt (1976)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translations:THE LORD
You've nothing more to say to me?
You come but to complain unendingly?
Is never aught right to your mind?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! All is still downright bad, I find.
Man in his wretched days makes me lament him;
I am myself reluctant to torment him.
[tr. Priest (1808)]THE LORD
Have you no more to say. Do you come here
Always to scold, and cavil, and complain?
Seems nothing ever right to you on earth?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find all there, as ever, bad at best.
Even I am sorry for man's days of sorrow;
I could myself almost give up the pleasure
Of plaguing the poor things.
[tr. Shelley (1815)]THE LORD: Have you nothing else to say to me? Are you always coming for no other purpose than to complain? Is nothing ever to your liking upon earth?
MEPHISTOPHELES: No, Lord! I find things there, as ever, miserably bad. Men, in their days of wretchedness, move my pity; even I myself have not the heart to torment the poor things.
[tr. Hayward (1831)]THE LORD
Hast thou naught else to say? Is blame
In coming here, as ever, thy sole aim?
Does nothing on the earth to thee seem right?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find things there, as ever, in sad plight.
Men, in their evil days, move my compassion;
Such sorry things to plague is nothing worth.
[tr. Swanwick (1850)]THE LORD
Hast nothing for our edification?
Still thy old work of accusation?
Will things on earth be never right for thee?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find them still as bad as bad can be.
Poor souls! their miseries seem so much to please 'em,
I scarce can find it in my heart to tease 'em.
[tr. Brooks (1868)]THE LORD
Hast thou, then, nothing more to mention?
Com'st ever, thus, with ill intention?
Find'st nothing right on earth, eternally?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find things, there, still bad as they can be.
Man's misery even to pity moves my nature;
I've scarce the heart to plague the wretched creature.
[tr. Taylor (1870)]THE LORD
Hast thou then nothing more to say?
And art thou here again to-day
To vent thy grudge in peevish spite
Against the earth, still finding nothing right?
MEPHISTOPHELES
True, Lord; I find things there no better than before;
I must confess I do deplore
Man’s hopeless case, and scarce have heart myself
To torture the poor miserable elf.
[tr. Blackie (1880)]THE LORD
Is that the sum of thy narration?
Hast never aught but accusation?
Still upon Earth is nothing to thy mind?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! all things on Earth still downright bad I find.
Mortals their piteous fate upon the rack so stretches,
Myself have scarce the heart to plague the wretches.
[tr. Latham (1908)]THE LORD
Can you not speak but to abuse?
Do you come only to accuse?
Does nothing on the earth seem to you right?
MEPHISTO:
No, Lord. I find it still a rather sorry sight.
Man moves me to compassion, so wretched is his plight.
I have no wish to cause him further woe.
[tr. Kaufmann (1961)]THE LORD
Is this all you can report?
Must you come forever to accuse?
Is nothing ever right for you on earth?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, my Lord. I find it there, as always, thoroughly revolting.
I pity men in all their misery
and actually hate to plague the wretches.
[tr. Salm (1962)]THE LORD
And that is all you have to say?
Must you complain each time you come my way?
Is nothing right in your terrestrial scene?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, sir! The earth's as bad as it has always been.
I really feel quite sorry for mankind;
Tormenting them myself's no fun, I find.
[tr. Luke (1987)]THE LORD
Is that all you have got to say to me?
Is that all you can do, accuse eternally?
Is nothing ever right for you down there, sir?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, nothing, Lord -- all's just as bad as ever.
I really pity humanity's myriad miseries,
I swear I hate tormenting the poor ninnies.
[tr. Greenberg (1992)]THE LORD
Why are you telling me all this again?
Do you always come here to complain?
Could there be something good on earth that you've forgotten?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I'm pleased to say it's still completely rotten.
I feel quite sorry for their miserable plight;
When it's as bad as that, tormenting them's not right.
[tr. Williams (1999), l. 293ff]GOD
Have you nothing else to name?
Do you always come here to complain?
Does nothing ever go right on the Earth?
MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find, as always, it couldn’t be worse.
I’m so involved with Man’s wretched ways,
I’ve even stopped plaguing them, myself, these days.
[tr. Kline (2003)]
I sometimes think that God in creating man, somewhat over-estimated his ability.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
(Attributed)
(Source)
The quotation first appears, without much citation, in Francis Douglas, Oscar Wilde and the Black Douglas, ch. 2 (1940), four decades after Wilde's death. Further discussion of the quotation here: God In Creating Man, Somewhat Overestimated His Ability – Quote Investigator
Cain Mongfish’s masterpiece, A Reasoned Diatribe Regarding thee Methods and Required Madnesses Towards the Manipulation of ye Stuffe of Life and thee Entertaining Consequences Thereof and How Best to Avoid Them is regarded as the seminal work that gathered and codified all of the then-known processes for reanimating, bending, warping, and subjugating life as we know it. Cain died while researching a sequel, which according to his notes was to be entitled How to Promote and Manipulate thee Natural Fealty and Gratitude That Thine Creation Will Express Towards Thou, Their Creator. For some reason, that never works.
—Phil Foglio (b. 1956) American writer, cartoonist
Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle (2014) [with Kaja Foglio]
(Source)
This is what the prophets discovered. History is a nightmare. There are more scandals, more acts of corruption, than are dreamed of in philosophy. It would be blasphemous to believe that what we witness is the end of God’s creation. It is an act of evil to accept the state of evil as either inevitable or final. Others may be satisfied with improvement, the prophets insist upon redemption. The way man acts is a disgrace, and it must not go on forever.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
The Prophets, Vol. 1 (1962)
A transition from an author’s book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples, and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendor, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #14 (5 May 1784)
(Source)
If the human body is obscene, complain to the manufacturer!
Larry Flynt (1942-2021) American publisher and pornographer
Sex, Lies & Politics: The Naked Truth (2004)
(Source)
It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike, he would have made us alike.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Speech to the Jury, Trial of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy, Morristown, New Jersey (May 1887)
(Source)
Perhaps God made cats so that man might have the pleasure of fondling the tiger ….
Robertson Davies (1913-1995) Canadian author, editor, publisher
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, ch. 20 (1947)
(Source)
What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and he might weep when they are gone.
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) Italian Catholic mystic, activist, author
(Attributed)
Which is it? Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?
[Wie? ist der Mensch nur ein Fehlgriff Gottes? Oder Gott nur ein Fehlgriff des Menschen?]
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Twilight of the Idols [Die Götzen-Dämmerung], “Apophthegms and Darts [Sprüche und Pfeile]” #7 (1889)
Alt. trans.:
- "How is it? Is man only a mistake of God? Or God only a mistake of man? --" [tr. Common (1896)]
- "What? Is man just one of God's mistakes? Or is God just one of man's? --" [tr. Large (1998),"Maxims and Barbs"]
- "What? Is man just God's mistake? Or is God just man's mistake?" [tr. Norman (2005), "Arrows and Epigrams"]
- "What? Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?" [tr. Hollingdale (1968)]
- "Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of man?" [tr. Ludovici (1911), "Maxims and Missiles"]
A work of art does not answer questions: it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between their contradictory answers.
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer, pianist
“A Sabbatical Report,” sec. 1, New York Times (24 Oct 1965)
(Source)
Reprinted in The Infinite Variety of Music (1966)
Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad; babies never are.
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) American writer
Diary (1843-09-01)
(Source)
Quoted in Edna D. Cheney, ed., Louisa May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and Journals (1889)
It was easier for me to think of a world without a creator than of a creator loaded with all of the contradictions of the world.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) French author, existentialist philosopher, feminist theorist
Quoted in “Toward a Hidden God,” Time (8 Apr 1966)
(Source)
The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to be a light amid the thorns.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Platonism and the Spiritual Life (1927)
(Source)
Yet I think that to all living things there is a pleasure in the exercise of their energies, and that even beasts rejoice in being lithe and swift and strong. But a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands; and, as a part of the human race, he creates. If we work thus we shall be men, and our days will be happy and eventful.
William Morris (1834-1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“Useful Work versus Useless Toil,” lecture (1884)
(Source)
Printed in Signs of Change (1888).
The universe could have been created ugly, and would have functioned. And yet there is beauty everywhere in creation. Beauty gives us an ache, to be worthy of that creation.
Mary Oliver (1935-2019) American poet
Comments at Wellesley College (20 Oct 2010)
(Source)
The last phrase is frequently paraphrased, "We need beauty because it makes us ache to be worthy of it."
The art object is always passive in relation to its audience. It is alarmingly active, however, in relation to its creator. Far from being like a receptacle in which you, the artist, drop your ideas, and far from being like a lump of clay which you pummel until it fits your notion of an ashtray, the art object is more like an enthusiastic and ill-trained Labrador retriever which yanks you into traffic.
Annie Dillard (b. 1945) American author
Living by Fiction (1983)
(Source)
Often paraphrased, "Art is like an ill-trained Labrador retriever that drags you out into traffic."
I think the author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
Speech, Banquet to Lord Rector, University of Glasgow (19 Nov 1870)
(Source)
Be not afraid! In admitting a creator, refuse not to examine his creation; and take not the assertions of creatures like yourselves, in place of the evidence of your senses and the conviction of your understanding.
Frances "Fanny" Wright (1795-1852) Scottish-American writer, lecturer, social reformer
A Course of Popular Lectures, Lecture 3, “Of the more Important Divisions and Essential Parts of Knowledge” (1829)
(Source)
The Creator had a lot of remarkably good ideas when he put the world together, but making it understandable hadn’t been one of them.
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Blog entry (2001-12-31), “As I Was Saying”
(Source)
We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) American architect, engineer
(Attributed)
Quoted in L. Steven Sieden, A Fuller View (2012).
The only American invention as perfect as a sonnet.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
(Attributed)
Referring to the dry martini cocktail.
Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless. A first-water diamond, an empty spool, bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knife-blade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two still a little fragrant.
In your hand is the brown bag. On the ground before you is the jumble it held — so much like the jumble in the bags, could they be emptied, that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place — who knows?
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) American writer, folklorist, anthropologist
“How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, The World Tomorrow (May 1928)
(Source)
Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer [عمر خیام]
Rubáiyát [رباعیات] [tr. FitzGerald, 3rd ed. (1872), # 99]
(Source)
Also used in FitzGerald, 4th ed. (1879); 5th ed. (1889).
Alternate translations:Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
[tr. FitzGerald, 1st ed. (1859), # 73]Ah Love! could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
[tr. FitzGerald, 2nd ed. (1868), # 108]If I, like God, were master of the heavens, I would blot them from the world, and fashion new skies beneath which free man might gain his heart's desire.
[tr. McCarthy (1879), # 378] (1888)]Had I the right great Allah to advise,
I would bid him sweep away this earth and skies,
And build a better, where, unclogged and free,
The clear soul might essay her high emprise.
[tr. Whinfield (1882), # 200]Had I the power great Allah to advise,
I'd bid him sweep away this earth and skies,
And build a better, where, unclogged and free,
The clear soul might achieve her high emprise.
[tr. Whinfield (1883), # 379]Oh that to Heaven's Control I might aspire,
And sweep away this Universe Entire,
Then from the Ruins build another World,
Where Man might sometimes reach his Heart's Desire.
[tr. Garner (1887), 2.8]If I like God o'er Heaven's high fate could reign,
I'd sweep away the present Heaven's domain,
And from its ruins such a new one build
That an honest heart its wish could aye attain!
[tr. M. K. (1888)]If only I controlled God's Universe,
Would I not wipe away these faulty Heavens
And build from nothing a true Paradise
Where all souls could achieve their hearts' desire.
[tr. Graves & Ali-Shah (1967), # 105]If the firmament were in my hand as in God's,
I would have razed it from the midst:
I would have made another firmament such that
The free of heart might easily attain their desire.
[tr. Avery/Heath-Stubbs (1979), # 25]Like God, if this world I could control
Eliminating the world would be my role
I would create the world anew, whole
Such that the free soul would attain desired goal.
[tr. Shahriari (1998), literal]
This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface, beneath the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and know that the viciousness and evilness of his acts are not quite representative of all that he is. We see him in a new light. We recognize that his hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding, but in spite of this, we know God’s image is ineffably etched in being. Then we love our enemies by realizing that they are not totally bad and that they are not beyond the reach of God’s redemptive love.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Loving Your Enemies,” Sermon, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery (25 Dec 1957)
(Source)
Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken;
Man a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
Ante-room of Hell.Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
“The World’s Age” (1849)
(Source)
If God didn’t want women to be looked at, he would have made ’em ugly — that’s reasonable, isn’t it? God isn’t a cheat; He set up the game Himself — He wouldn’t rig it so that the marks can’t win, like a flat joint wheel in a town with the fix on. He wouldn’t send anybody to Hell for losing in a crooked game.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Stranger in a Strange Land, ch. 27 [Patty] (1961)
(Source)
Gods always behave like the people who make them.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) American writer, folklorist, anthropologist
Tell My Horse, ch. 15 (1938)
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ch. 16 [Ford] (1979)
(Source)
All of God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.
I suppose we think euphemistically that all writers write because they have something to say that is truthful and honest and pointed and important. And I suppose I subscribe to that, too. But God knows when I look back over thirty years of professional writing, I’m hard-pressed to come up with anything that’s important. Some things are literate, some things are interesting, some things are classy, but very damn little is important.
Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
“Rod Serling: The Facts of Life,” interview by Linda Brevelle (4 Mar 1975)
(Source)
Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
Midrash Rabba, Bereshit 10:6
Usually attributed to the Talmud, but actually from a Midrash.Alt. trans.:
- "R. Shimon said: There is not a single herb but has a mazal [constellation] in the heavens which strikes it and says, 'Grow!'" [tr. Rabbi Ruth Adar]
- "Said Rabbi Simon: 'Every single blade of grass has a corresponding 'mazal' in the sky which hits it and tells it to grow." [Source]
Christopher Columbus discovered the West Indies, and Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. We do not call their achievements creations because they are not personal enough. The West Indies were there all the time; and as for the telephone, we feel that Bell’s ingenious thought was somehow not fundamental. The groundwork was there, and if not Bell then someone else would have stumbled on the telephone almost as accidentally as on the West Indies.
By contrast, we feel that Othello is genuinely a creation. This is not because Othello came out of a clear sky; it did not. There were Elizabethan dramatists before William Shakespeare, and without them he could not have written as he did. Yet within their tradition Othello remains profoundly personal; and though every element in the play has been a theme of other poets, we know that the amalgam of these elements is Shakespeare’s; we feel the presence of his single mind. The Elizabethan drama would have gone on without Shakespeare, but no one else would have written Othello.
Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
“The Creative Process,” Scientific American (Sep 1958)
We are all boarders on one table — White man, black man, ox and eagle, bee, & worm.
I will never laugh at anyone for grieving over a loved beast. I think God wants us to love Him more, not to love creatures (even animals) less. We love everything in one way too much (i.e., at the expense of our love for Him), but in another way we love everything too little. No person, animal, flower, or even pebble has ever been loved too much — i.e., more than every one of God’s works deserves.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Mary Willis Shelburne (18 Aug 1956)
(Source)
Whether you believe that life evolved over billions of years or God made everything, you can’t justify torturing an animal for a shampoo.
So give me the political economist, the sanitary reformer, the engineer; and take your saints and virgins, relics and miracles. The spinning-jenny and the railroad, Cunard’s liners and the electric telegraph, are to me, if not to you, signs that we are, on some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that there is a mighty spirit working among us, who cannot be your anarchic and destroying Devil, and therefore may be the Ordering and Creating God.
Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
Yeast: A Problem, ch. 5 (1848)
(Source)
If you have a good idea, get it out there. For every idea I’ve realized, I have ten I sat on for a decade till someone else did it first. Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.
Joss Whedon (b. 1964) American screenwriter, author, producer [Joseph Hill Whedon]
“Dollhouse’s Joss Whedon Answers Your Questions,” Hulu Blog (9 Mar 2009)
(Source)
Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)
The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.
Clarence Day (1874-1935) American author and cartoonist
The Story of the Yale University Press, ch. 2 (1920)
(Source)
Of all the creatures that creep, swim, or fly,
Peopling the earth, the waters, and the sky,
From Rome to Iceland, Paris to Japan,
I really think the greatest fool is man.[De tous les animaux qui s’élèvent dans l’air,
Qui marchent sur la terre, ou nagent dans la mer,
De Paris au Pérou, du Japon jusqu’à Rome,
Le plus sot animal, à mon avis, c’est l’homme.]Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711) French poet and critic
Satires, Satire 8, l. 1 (1716)
Wouldst thou find my ashes? Look
In the pages of my book;
And, as these thy hands doth turn,
Know here is my funeral urn.Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) American poet
“The Immortal Residue” (1915)
You should make something. You should bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. It doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a table or a film or gardening — everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, “I did that.”
Ricky Gervais (b. 1961) English comedian, actor, director, writer
Interview with Scott Raab, Esquire (12 Jan 2012)
(Source)
Variant: "If you spend your days doing what you love, it is impossible to fail. So I go about my days trying to bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. And then everyone gets furious about it. And then I sit back and say, 'I did that!'" [Biography interview (11 Jan 2016)]
The inventor … looks upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea. The spirit of invention possesses him, seeking materialization.
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) Scottish-American scientist, inventor, engineer
Speech (1891)
On a plaque at the entrance to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The body of a young woman is God’s greatest achievement. […] Of course, He could have built it to last longer but you can’t have everything.
Neil Simon (1927-2018) American playwright and screenwriter
The Gingerbread Lady (1970)
God created Reason, and it was the most beautiful being in his creation: and God said to it, “I have not created anything better or more perfect or more beautiful than thou: blessings will come down on mankind on thy account, and they will be judged according to the use they make of thee.”
Muhammad (570-632) Arabian merchant, prophet, founder of Islam [Mohammed]
Hadith
(Source)
In Syed Ameer Ali, A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed (1873), cited to The Kitâb-ul-Mustarif, ch. 2, and The Mishkât, Bk 22, ch. 18, pt. 3 (from Abu Hurairah)
The human soul, the world, the universe are laboring on to their magnificent consummation. We are not fashioned thus marvelously for nought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1820-12)
This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects — education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects — military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden — that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, ch. 8 (1952)
(Source)
The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Elmer Gantry (1927)
The problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.
Robin Williams (1951-2014) American comedian and actor
(Attributed)
The world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, rev. ed., 4.1 (1952)
The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. “But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.” Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this “closing off” that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Homily (22 May 2013)
(Source)
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Religio Medici, Part 1, sec.16 (1642) [ed. Symonds (1886)]
(Source)
Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God.William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet
The Task, 6.123 (1785)
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light; but Eastern Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (1918-2002) Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, actor
The Bible According to Spike Milligan, “The Creation According to the Trade Unions” (1994)
(Source)
Quoted in Spike Milligan's Meaning of Life: A Sort of Autobiography, ch. 1 (2011) [ed. Norma Farnes]
I still think the argument from design the weakest possible ground for Theism, and what may be called the argument from un-design the strongest for Atheism.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Alan Griffiths (20 Dec 1946)
(Source)
By no means is the natural order of things fashioned for us by a divine agency: so greatly do the imperfections with which it has been endowed stand out.
[Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam
naturam rerum: tanta stat praedita culpa]Lucretius (c. 100-c. 55 BC) Roman poet [Titus Luretius Carus]
De Rerum Natura [On the Nature of Things], Book 5, l. 198-9
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Spurious)
This aphorism is frequently attributed to Shaw, but not found in his works and not attributed to him or in this form before around 1990. It may be a misattributed paraphrase from Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (1973): "People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates."
We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.
Chuck Palahniuk (b. 1962) American novelist and freelance journalist
Diary [Grace] (2003)
For all my rational Western intellect and education, I was for the moment overwhelmed by a primitive sense of living in a world ordered by a malign and perverted god, and it coloured my view of everything that afternoon — even the coconuts. The villagers sold us some and split them open for us. They are almost perfectly designed. You first make a hole and drink the milk, and then you split open the nut with a machete and slice off a segment of the shell, which forms a perfect implement for scooping out the coconut flesh inside. What makes you wonder about the nature of this god character is that he creates something that is so perfectly designed to be of benefit to human beings and then hangs it twenty feet above their heads on a tree with no branches.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
Last Chance to See, ch. 2 (1990)
Man — who is he?
Too bad to be the work of God; too good for the work of chance![Der Mensch, wo ist er her?
Zu schlecht für einen Gott, zu gut fürs Ungefähr.]Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) German playwright, philosopher, dramaturg, writer
Fragmente und Fabeln [Fragments and Fables], Fragment 6 “Die Religion” (1753)
As with many of his quotations, frequently misattributed to contemporary author Doris Lessing.
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:Man, whence is he?
Too bad to be the work of a god, too good for the work of chance.
[ed. Wood (1893)]
I believe that the present suffering is nothing compared to the coming glory that is going to be revealed to us. The whole creation waits breathless with anticipation for the revelation of God’s sons and daughters. Creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice — it was the choice of the one who subjected it — but in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from slavery to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains up until now. And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted and for our bodies to be set free. We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Romans 8:18-25
Since geometry is co-eternal with the divine mind before the birth of things, God himself served as his own model in creating the world (for what is there in God which is not God?), and he with his own image reached down to humanity.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) German astronomer
The Harmonies of the World [Harmonices Mundi], Book 4, ch. 1 (1618)
Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity; the ditchdigger, dentist, and artist go about their tasks in much the same way, and any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.
Next to doing things that deserve to be written, there is nothing that gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure, than to write things that deserve to be read.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #44 (1740?)
(Source)
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.
Orson Welles (1915-1985) American writer, director, actor
Comment to Henry Jaglom
Quoted by Jaglom in his essay "The Independent Filmmaker" in Jason E. Quire, ed. The Movie Business Book (1992). See here for more information. Sometimes paraphrased in reverse ("The absence of limitations is the enemy of art").
We may have an excellent Ear in Musick, without being able to perform in any kind. We may judge well of Poetry, without being Poets, or possessing the least of a Poetick Vein: But we can have no tolerable Notion of Goodness, without being tolerably good.
Anthony Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) English politician and philosopher
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 1, “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1711)
“But do you really mean, sir,” said Peter, “that there could be other worlds — all over the place, just round the corner — like that?”
“Nothing is more probable,” said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, “I wonder what they do teach them at these schools.”
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950)
There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god.
J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) English geneticist [John Burden Sanderson Haldane]
“Daedalus, or Science and the Future,” speech, Cambridge (24 Feb 1923)
(Source)
HENRY: I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you might nudge the world a little or make a poem that children will speak for you when you are dead.
Tom Stoppard (b. 1937) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
The Real Thing, Act 2, sc. 5 (1982)
(Source)
We will be held accountable for all the permitted pleasures we failed to enjoy.
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
(Unreferenced)
Let us not torment each other because we are not all alike, but believe that God knew best what He was doing in making us so different. So will the best harmony come out of seeming discords, the best affection out of differences, the best life out of struggle, and the best work will be done when each does his own work, and lets every one else do and be what God made him for.
James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) American theologian and author
(Attributed)
Quoted in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
God writes a lot of comedy, Donna; the trouble is, he’s stuck with so many bad actors who don’t know how to play funny.
Garrison Keillor (b. 1942) American entertainer, author
Happy to be Here (1983)
I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.
Peter Ackroyd (b. 1949) English biographer, novelist, critic
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)
It is a salutary discipline to consider the vast number of books that are written, the fair hopes with which their authors see them published, and the fate which awaits them. What chance is there that any book will make its way among that multitude? And the successful books are but the successes of a season. Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours’ relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey. And if I may judge from the reviews, many of these books are well and carefully written; much thought has gone into their composition; to some even has been given the anxious labour of a lifetime. The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
The pain passes, but the beauty remains.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) French Impressionist artist
(Attributed, 1919)
(Source)
Quoted in Sisley Huddleston, Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios (1928). When asked by a young Henri Matisse why he still painted when suffering from painful, twisting arthritis in his hands.
Dead he is not, but departed — for the artist never dies.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
“Nuremberg,” st. 13
One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of mankind, from generation to generation until the colors fade and blacken out of sight or the canvas rot entirely away.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Marble Faun (1860)
Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think, creation’s.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“The Raison d’E’tre of Criticism in the Arts,” Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) French writer, novelist
Letter to Louise Colet (25 Nov 1853)
Any fool can paint a picture but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)
Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893).
We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
“G. B. S. — Mark V”, I Sing the Body Electric: And Other Stories (1998)
When you feel the story is beginning to pick up rhythm — the characters are shaping up, you can see them, you can hear their voices, and they do things that you haven’t planned, things you couldn’t have imagined — then you know the book is somewhere, and you just have to find it, and bring it, word by word, into this world.
Isabel Allende (b. 1942) Chilean-American writer
In Meredith Maran, ed., Why We Write, ch. 1 (2013)
Did God set grapes a-growing, do you think,
And at the same time make it sin to drink?
Give thanks to Him who foreordained it thus —
Surely He loves to hear the glasses clink!Omar Khayyám (1048-1123) Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer [عمر خیام]
Rubáiyát [رباعیات] [tr. Le Gallienne (1897), # 91]
(Source)
Given LeGallienne's paraphrasing, I am unable to align this with an original quatrain or other translations.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 25 (1898)
A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées, #1809 (1838) [tr. Auster (1983)]
Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook, 23 May 1903 [ed. Paine (1935)]
Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
“On Fairy-Stories” (1939, rev 1947)
(Source)
We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
“The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux and the Flowers,” st. 3, Last Poems, # 9 (1922)
(Source)
Art is man’s nature; nature is God’s art.
God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Gardens,” Essays, No. 46 (1625)
(Source)
DEATH: When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I’ll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Sandman, Book 3. Dream Country, # 20 “Façade” (1990)
(Source)
LUCIFER: I had the hubris originally to regard myself as a collaborator, as a co-author …. Very rapidly I found myself reduced to the status of character, following something of a disagreement in the fundamental direction of the Creation. Now I sometimes feel I’m simply waiting around to see which of us was right, which was wrong.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Sandman, Book 9. The Kindly Ones, # 69 “The Kindly Ones” (1995-07)
(Source)
NARRATOR: There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Phase 2, “Fit the 7th” (BBC radio) (1978-12-24)
(Source)
The Narrator then adds:There is yet a third theory which suggests that both of the first two theories were concocted by a wily editor of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in order to increase the level of universal uncertainty and paranoia and so boost the sales of the Guide. This last theory is of course the most convincing, because The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the only book in the whole of the known Universe to have the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on the cover.
This quotation was brought back to be the epigraph for the second Hitchhiker book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), each paragraph on a different page:There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come.
G. B. Stern (1890-1973) British writer [Gladys Bronwyn Stern]
Paris France, Part I (1940)
In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity.
Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) German politician
(Attributed)
Quoted by Dean Atchison in Arthur Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, ch. 11 (1965).
CREATOR. A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Book of Burlesques, “The Jazz Webster” (1924)
(Source)
The A Little Book in C Major, ch. 4, § 18 (1916), has an alternate definition. This was expanded in Burlesques to include the above, which then became the sole definition in Chrestomathy, ch. 30 "Sententiae" (1949).
Sometimes misattributed to Voltaire.
Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so as long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
Fahrenheit 451, ch. 3 [Granger] (1953)
(Source)
Now we have come to the conclusion that every man has a right to think. Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn’t make a decent thief. When I read a book and don’t believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Speech on Religious Intolerance, Pittsburgh Opera House (14 Oct 1879)
I know a number of highly sensitive and intelligent people in my own communion who consider as a heresy my faith that God’s loving concern for his creation will outlast all our willfulness and pride. No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love […] Some people feel it to be heresy because it appears to deny man his freedom to refuse to love God. But this, it seems to me, denies God his freedom to go on loving us beyond all our willfulness and pride. If the Word of God is the light of the world, and this light cannot be put out, ultimately it will brighten all the dark corners of our hearts and we will be able to see, and seeing, will be given the grace to respond with love — and of our own free will.
Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
The Irrational Season (1977)
Everyone is as God has made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Spanish novelist
Don Quixote, 11.5
Let each man think himself an act of God,
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God;
And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds,
To shew the most of Heaven he hath in him.
“I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it’s all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you’ve built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can’t be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire. And don’t bother to answer. If we could understand, we wouldn’t be us. Because it’s all — all –”
INEFFABLE, said the figure feeding the ducks.Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Good Omens, 7. “Sunday” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]
(Source)
Crowley speculating to Aziraphale about God's motivations in creating a flawed Universe.
For how can anything done by the will of God be contrary to nature, when the will of so great a creator constitutes the nature of each created thing? A portent therefore happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what is known of nature.
[Quo modo est enim contra naturam, quod Dei fit uoluntate, cum uoluntas tanti utique conditoris conditae rei cuiusque natura sit? Portentum ergo fit non contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura.]
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
City of God [De Civitate Dei], Book 21, ch. 8 (21.8) (AD 412-416) [tr. Green (Loeb) (1972)]
(Source)
Commonly: "Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature."
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:For how is that contrary to nature which happens by the will of God, since the will of so mighty a Creator is certainly the nature of each created thing? A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature.
[tr. Dods (1871)]Nothing that happens by the will of God can be ‘contrary to nature.’ The ‘nature’ of any particular created thing is precisely what the supreme Creator of the thing willed it to be. Hence, a portent is merely contrary to nature as known, not to nature as it is.
[tr. Walsh/Honan (1954)]For how can an event be contrary to nature when it happens by the will of God, since the will of the great Creator assuredly is the nature of every created thing? A portent, therefore, does not occur contrary to nature, but contrary to what is known of nature.
[tr. Bettenson (1972)]
Men go forth to marvel at the heights of mountains and the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the orbits of the stars, and yet they neglect to marvel at themselves.
[Et eunt homines mirari alta montium et ingentes fluctus maris et latissimos lapsus fluminum et oceani ambitum et gyros siderum, et relinquunt se ipsos.]
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
Confessions, Book 10, ch. 8 / ¶ 15 (10.8.15) (c. AD 398) [tr. Outler (1955)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.
[tr. Pusey (1838)]And men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the extent of the ocean, and the courses of the stars, and omit to wonder at themselves.
[tr. Pilkington (1876)]And men travel to admire the heights of mountains, and the vast waves of the sea, and the broad streams of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the orbits of stars, and pass over themselves.
[tr. Hutchings (1890)]Here are men going afar to marvel at the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the long courses of great rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the movements of the stars, yet leaving themselves unnoticed.
[tr. Sheed (1943)]Men go forth to marvel at the mountain heights, at huge waves in the sea, at the broad expanse of flowing rivers, at the wide reaches of the ocean, and at the circuits of the stars, but themselves they pass by.
[tr. Ryan (1960)]Yet men go out and gaze in astonishment at high mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad reaches of rivers, the ocean that encircles the world, or the stars in their courses. But they pay no attention to themselves.
[tr. Pine-Coffin (1961)]And men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad streams of rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the turnings of the stars -- and they do not notice themselves.
[tr. Warner (1963)]Men go to wonder at the heights of mountains, and the huge billows of the sea, the broad sweeps of the rivers, the curve of ocean and the circuits of the stars, and yet pass by themselves.
[tr. Blaiklock (1983)]
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist and mathematician
Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, 2.27 [ed. D. Brewster (1855)]
When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the angels in heaven began to break forth in songs of jubilation, but the Holy One, blessed be He, silenced them: “My creatures are perishing — and ye are ready to sing!”
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
(Unreferenced)
In Louis I. Newman, comp. The Talmudic Anthology, 103 (1945): "When the Egyptians were drowning, the angels wished to sing. But God said, 'My children are dying, and you would sing?'"
We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Nature,” Introduction, Nature: Addresses and Lectures (1849)
(Source)