about God

Does he exist or not?
- If Rocco Buttiglione exists there cannot be a God. Andrea Gaddini (1961-)
- I don't know if God exists, but if he doesn't he cut's a better figure. Stefano Benni (1947-) from Baol (1990)
- If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse. Daniel Pennac (1944-) from The Fairy Gunmother (1987)
- The only excuse of God is that he doesn't exist. Stendhal (Henri Beyle) (1783-1842) from Pensées et réflexions
- I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't. Jules Renard (1864-1910) Journal, January 26th, 1906
- There is Auschwitz, then there cannot be a God. Primo Levi (1919-1987) from If This Is a Man (Se questo è un uomo) (1947)
- If there is a supreme being, he's crazy. Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992)
- If God exists, we can only observe the state of our world to understand he's insane. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- If God exists, why does he give a wide berth to us? Wouldn't he be perhaps an atheist? Eduardo Galeano (1940-2015) from The Book of Embraces (1989)
- God exists, but he hates us. Roberto "Freak" Antoni (1954-2014)
- If God exists we are all sons of bitch. Jean-Claude Izzo (1945-2000)
- If there's a God, he's a wicked brute. Mark Twain (1835-1910)
- If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1814-1876)
- The bastard! He doesn't exist! Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) from Endgame
- If god exists, he will have to ask me for forgiveness. anonymous on a wall in Auschwitz
- Which is it: is man one of God's blunders, or is God one of man's blunders? Friedrich W. Nietzsche (1844-1900)
- Imagine there's no heaven / It's easy if you try / No hell below us / Above us only sky. John Lennon (1940-1980) Imagine (1971)
- I don't see any god up here. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (1934-1968)
- Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends. Woody Allen (1935-) from My Philosophy (1971)
- Some say God exists, others are convinced he don't. The truth, as usual, will be in the middle. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
- I sent my Soul through the Invisible, / Some letter of that After-life to spell: / And by and by my Soul return'd to me, / And answered "I myself am Heav'n and Hell." Omar Khayyàm (12th C.) from Rubáiyát
- What do I believe? I believe in God, if he exists. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909-1966) from Unkempt Thoughts (1962)
- There is no hell. There is only France. Frank Zappa (1940-1993) from You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore
- It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us. Peter De Vries (1910-1993) from The Mackerel Plaza, ch. 1 (1958)
- God is a benchmark for million people, which is not bad for a being who doesn't even exist. Giovanni Soriano (1969-) from Umano, poco umano (2008)
- God could have his faults, but he still has the peerless quality of not existing. Giovanni Soriano (1969-) from Umano, poco umano (2008)

believing?
- The people of the world are divided into two kinds: the one sort with brains hold no religion, the other hold religion with no brains. (Abul 'Ala Al-Ma'arri, 973-1058) Syrian philosopher
- Do I believe? God only knows. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909-1966) from Unkempt Thoughts (1962)
- How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? (Woody Allen, 1935-) from Without Feathers (1975)
- I am an atheist still, thank God. Luis Buñuel (1900-1983)
- I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose. Clarence Seward Darrow (1857-1938)
- God give me strength not to trust God. Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
- In real life, Keaton believes in God. But she also believes that the radio works because there are tiny people inside it. Woody Allen (1935-)
- "You ought to be ashamed," a woman in an Easter bonnet told Stein. "Your race gave us our religion...." From ancient polytheism, the belief in lots of gods," the woman continued a little more eruditely, "the Hebrew nation led us on to the idea that there is only one."
"Which is just a step from the truth," said Stein. Peter De Vries (1910-1993) from The Blood of the Lamb.
- Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) from The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
- I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels. I have enough for this life. Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) Treasury of Women's Quotations.
- Do I believe in God? Well, believing it's too much, I'd better say I do esteem him. Walter Fontana (1957-)
- The Invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike. Dr.Thomas Vernon (1914-2000)
- The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) from Androcles and the Lion (1913)
- Sometimes the devil tempts me to believe in God. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909-1966) from Unkempt Thoughts (1962)
- Recently I read the Bible. Not so bad, but the main character is not much likely. Woody Allen (1935-)
- For which end have you have been created? / To say no. / To what do you want to say no? / To you, above all. / What have I done? / You took my faith off. Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972) from Diario degli errori (1995)

Does God deal in politics?
- As you know, God is generally on the side of the big squadrons against the small ones. Earl de Bussy-Rabutin (1618-1693) letter, Oct. 18th 1677
- God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best. Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694-1778) Notebooks, vol. 2
- Has God forgotten all I have done for Him? Louis XIV (1638-1715)
- As for myself, I do not believe that such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed; but as the people are inclined to superstition, it is proper not to oppose them. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
- The idea of God is the most useful to the tyrants. Stendhal (1783-1842) from Le Rouge et le Noir, 1830.
- Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know he is. Jean Anouilh (1910-1987)
- God: a disease we imagine we are cured of because no one dies of it nowadays. Emil Cioran (1911-1995) The Trouble with Being Born, ch. 10 (1973)
- When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" Quentin Crisp (1908-1999).

image and likeness?
- If oxen and horses and lions could draw and paint, they would delineate the gods in their own image. Xenophanes of Colophon (ca. 570-475 B.C.E.) in Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V, 110.
- Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life. Aristotle (ca. 384-322 B.C.E.)
- I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle that the divine nature is eminently circular; and thus would every one ascribe his own attributes to God. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) from Epistles, 60
- If triangles made a god, they would give him three sides. Charles de Montesquieu, (1689-1755) from Lettres Persanes, 59 (1721)
- Is it imaginable que Dieu ait pu, par rancune, créer l'homme à son image dans le seul but de le rendre fou? Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) from The Rationale of Verse,
- From the point of view of a tapeworm, man was created by God to serve the appetite of the tapeworm. Edward Abbey (1927-1989) from Vox Clamantis In Deserto

is he good?
- I was at ease, but He shattered me, and He has grasped me by the neck and shaken me to pieces; he has also set me up as His target. His archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground, He breaks through me with breach after breach; He runs at me like a warrior. Job from The Bible, Job, 16, 12-14.
- Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; Or he can, but does not want to; Or he cannot and does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. But, if God both can and wants to abolish evil, then how come evil is in the world? Epicurus (ca. 341-270 B.C.E.)
- I've steered clear of God. He was an incredible sadist. John Collier (1884-1968)
- The cruelty of a Fijian god, who, represented as devouring the souls of the dead, may be supposed to inflict torture during the process, is small compared with the cruelty of a God who condemns men to tortures which are eternal. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
- If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever. Woody Allen (1935-)
- If God is God He is not good, if God is good He is not God; take the even, take the odd. Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)
- The orthodox faith painted God as a revengeful being, and yet people talk about loving such a being? Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891)
- All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) from The Night of the Iguana, 1961
- If God is as good as they say, why we must beg so much for his help? Valerio Peretti Cucchi (1956-2003)
- [Let us inquire] what glory there was in an omnipotent being torturing forever a puny little creature who could in no way defend himself? Would it be to the glory of a man to fry ants? Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) His Religion and Hers (1923) p. 160
- We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991) from Free Inquiry (autumn 1992)
- Kill a man one is a murderer; kill a million, a conqueror; kill them all, a God. Jean Rostand (1894-1977) Pensées d'un Biologiste (1939)
- Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God. Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) from Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)
- It is an insult to God to believe in God. For on the one hand it is to suppose that he has perpetrated acts of incalculable cruelty. On the other hand, it is to suppose that he has perversely given his human creatures an instrument - their intellect - which must inevitably lead them, if they are dispassionate and honest, to deny his existence. It is tempting to conclude that if he exists, it is the atheists and agnostics that he loves best, among those with any pretensions to education. For they are the ones who have taken him most seriously. Galen Strawson (1952-) from the Independent June 24th 1990
- Whatever may be God's future, we cannot forget His past. William H. Mallock (1849-1923), from Is Life Worth Living? (1879)
- God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)
- Why God don't let us to see him? Has he maybe done something he's ashamed of? Mauro Montanari
- The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of religion ever set up. Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
- You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say "God is love," they will claim that you are taking things out of context! Dan Barker (1949-), from Losing faith in faith.
- Man don't cause his own misfortune, and if we have troubles, it's by God's will, even if I can't understand why He thinks it His duty to give us so much of it. Woody Allen (1935-) from Getting Even, 1971.
- If I find the God of Christians I'm lost: he's a despot and therefore he's full of ideas of revenge, His Bible speak only of atrocious punishments. I never loved him; I neither wanted to believe that somebody love him sincerely. Stendhal (Henri Beyle, 1783-1842) from Le Rouge et le Noir, 1830.
- He - and if there is a God, I am convinced he is a he, because no woman could or would ever fuck things up this badly. George Carlin (1937-2008)
- Does God watch over the poors? Maybe yes, maybe no. But it's sure he has lunch at the master's table! Atahualpa Yupanqui (1908-1992) from Preguntitas sobre Dios, 1951 link

miracles
- That same day [11th July, 1694], Sunday, following the devotion and concourse to that miraculous Crucified Christ, Our Lord God was pleased to show us a kind of a miracle, and it happened that a 4 years old girl who was ill for a certain time was taken there by her mother, and she had prayed that image with plenty of heart affection that she were healed or taken away from this world, so that she could stop suffering, suddenly the girl died and was buried that same day. Domenico Confuorto (17th Century.) from Giornali di Napoli dal MDCLXXIX al MDCIC. Volume II,
- If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. Woody Allen (1935-) from Selections from the Allen Notebooks on New Yorker, 1973 November 5th
- The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to them were fishermen. Arthur Binstead (1846-1915)
- Surely one smart enough to translate the Bible to English would also be smart enough to know that one cannot walk on water. Jim Grill, February 1, 2001
- To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance. Dan Barker (1949-) from Losing faith in faith.
- He turned the water into wine, he multiplicated the loaves and the fishes, mass miracles, he knew his public well. Ennio Flaiano (1910-1972) from Diario degli errori.
- I am not a believer, I do not believe in miracles, but I believe in the need of men for a miracle. Émile Zola (1940-1902) from : Mon voyage à Lourdes. Friday 26th August.
- I do not believe in miracles. I have seen too many. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
- TV News: "A church falls down near Belluno. Saved by miracle all the atheists standing outside" Simone Salis StaiSerena, Rai Radio2, 20th March 2015
- TV News: "Heals by a Saint Anthony's miracle but thanks Padre Pio: Saint Anthony strikes him dead" Simone Salis StaiSerena, Rai Radio2, 27th March 2015

creation and origin of the man
- Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work. worthy the interposition of a deity, more humble I believe true to consider him created from animals. Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
- My ideas about religion are confined to the absurd belief that God created man and vice versa. André Glucksmann (1937-)
- Ok, God created the heaven and the earth. But what has he done recently? anonymous
- God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through. Paul Valéry (1871-1945) from Mauvaises pensées et autres (1942)

origin of God
- Fear is the mother of all gods. Titus Lucretius Carus (B.C.E. 94?-55?)
- It was the fear who first introduced the gods in this world. Petronius Arbiter (20-66 C.E.) from Fragment 27
- Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, (1533-1592) from Essays, book 2, ch. 12
- lf there is someone God owes everything to, it's Bach. Emile Cioran (1911-1995) from All Gall Is Divided, (1952).
- What was God doing with himself before the creation? Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) from Molloy (1951)
- My studies in Speculative philosophy, metaphysics, and science are all summed up in the image of a mouse called man running in and out of every hole in the Cosmos hunting for the Absolute Cheese. Benjamin De Casseres (1893-1961)
- All Gods were immortal. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909-1966) from Unkempt Thoughts (1962)
- God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore. Edward Abbey (1927-1989) from Vox Clamantis In Deserto
- Whatever we cannot easily understand we call God; this saves much wear and tear on the brain tissues. Edward Abbey (1927-1989) from Vox Clamantis In Deserto
- Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup. David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) from Etruscan Places, ch. 2 (1932)
- Even the Messiahs wait impatiently their own coming. Stanislaw J. Lec (1909-1957)
- Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world. Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)
- God is better known in the ignorance. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) from De Ordine..
- It's easier to suppose that the universe always existed from the eternity, than to conceive a being out of its limits, able to create it. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) from The Necessity of Atheism, 1810.

dialogues with God
- If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) from The Second Sin (1973)
- I never take the name of God in vain, I always do it with a clear object. Maurizio Sangalli (1969-)
- If only God would give me some sign. If He would just speak to me once, anything, one sentence, two words. If He would just cough. Woody Allen (1935-)
- Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee / And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963) from Cluster of Faith (1962)
- How can one better magnify the Almighty than by sniggering with him at his little jokes, particularly the poorer ones? Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) from Happy Days, act 1 (1961)
- I did not know that we had ever quarreled. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) (attributed), having been urged to make his peace with God
- Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me. Dan Barker (1949-) from Losing faith in faith
- If God has spoken, why the world is not convinced? Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) The Necessity of Atheism, 1810.

Quotes from:

- Gino & Michele, Matteo Molinari (1991) Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo s'incazzano. Einaudi, Torino.
- Gino & Michele, Matteo Molinari (1992) Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo s'incazzano. Anno secondo. Baldini & Castoldi, Milano
- Gino & Michele, Matteo Molinari (1993) Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo s'incazzano. Anno terzo. Baldini & Castoldi, Milano
- Gino & Michele, Matteo Molinari (1994) Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo s'incazzano. Volume quarto. Zelig, Milano
- Gino & Michele, Matteo Molinari (1999) Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo s'incazzano. Anno 2000. Baldini & Castoldi, Milano
- Gino & Michele, Matteo Molinari (2001) Anche le formiche nel loro piccolo s'incazzano. Anno 2002. Baldini & Castoldi, Milano
- Gino & Michele, Matteo Molinari (2003) Le formiche e le cicale. Kowalski, Milano.
- http://www.aforismario.it/
- http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/

... and from the books of the authors of the quotes

quotes on non-religious paranormal

page last updated: May 22nd, 2021