Religion

"Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles."

"The narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels."

"Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from, The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds."

"Mohammed did not claim the power of working miracles. The Koran itself, he said, was a miracle sufficient to convince the most stubborn."

"I’ve always tried to be a rational man. I don’t have much use for the idea of miracles. Things are what they are, that’s all."

"All the events narrated in Scripture came to pass naturally, and are referred directly to God because Scripture, as we have shown, does not aim at explaining things by their natural causes, but only at narrating what appeals to the popular imagination, and doing so in the manner best calculated to excite wonder, and consequently to impress the minds of the masses with devotion."

"As nothing happens in nature which does not follow from her laws, and as her laws embrace everything conceived by the Divine intellect, and lastly, as nature preserves a fixed and immutable order; it most clearly follows that miracles are only intelligible as in relation to human opinions, and merely mean events of which the natural cause cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary occurrence, either by us, or at any rate, by the writer and narrator of the miracle. ...Since miracles were wrought according to the understanding of the masses, who are wholly ignorant of the workings of nature, it is certain that the ancients took for a miracle whatever they could not explain by the method adopted by the unlearned in such cases, namely, an appeal to the memory, a recalling of something similar, which is ordinarily regarded without wonder; for most people think they sufficiently understand a thing when they have ceased to wonder at it. The ancients, then, and indeed most men up to the present day, had no other criterion for a miracle; hence we cannot doubt that many things are narrated in Scripture as miracles of which the causes could easily be explained by reference to ascertained workings of nature."

"There has always been a belief in miracles in the popular mind. As L. Sprague de Camp once said, the public would rather be bunked than debunked."

"It must be so; for miracles are ceased And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected."

"Great floods have flown From simple sources, and great seas have dried When miracles have by the greatest been denied."

"This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary... you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite... This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

"When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salvation is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth."

"That miracles are things in themselves possible, must be allowed so long as it is evident that there is in nature a power equal to the working of them. And certainly the power, principle, or being, by whatever name it be denominated, which produced the universe, and established the laws of it, is fully equal to any occasional departures from them. The object and use of those miracles on which the christian religion is founded, is also maintained to be consonant to the object and use of the general system of nature, viz. the production of happiness. We have nothing, therefore to do, but to examine, by the known rules of estimating the value of testimony whether there be reason to think that such miracles have been wrought, or whether the evidence of Christianity, or of the christian history, does not stand upon as good ground as that of any other history whatever."

"Miracles are very often thought of, both by those who believe in them and by those who do not, as events, or purported events, that contradict the laws of nature and that therefore cannot be explained by science or reason. But this is not at all what the Bible means by a miracle, as any Biblical scholar will tell you. “The laws of nature” is a modern scientific concept. The Bible knows nothing about nature, let alone the laws of nature."

"It was a great thing to open the eyes of a blind man, but it is a greater thing to open the eyes of a blind soul. It was a great thing to bring a dead body back to life, but it is a greater miracle to bring a soul dead in sin back to life. My friends have you ever felt the touch of this Jesus? Oh! that we all might feel His touch, that we might look and be healed and live."

"A miracle is a supernatural event, whose antecedent forces are beyond our finite vision, whose design is the display of almighty power for the accomplishment of almighty purposes, and whose immediate result, as regards man, is his recognition of God as the Supreme Ruler of all things, and of His will as the only supreme law."

"Miracles were nonsense, mere coping mechanisms."

"The miracles of earth are the laws of heaven."

"Man is the miracle in nature. God Is the One Miracle to man. Behold, "There is a God," thou sayest. Thou sayest well: In that thou sayest all. To Be is more Of wonderful, than being, to have wrought, Or reigned, or rested."

"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish."

"Nimrod, becoming weary of arguing with Abraham, decided to cast him before his god--fire--and challenged Abraham's deliverance by the God of Abraham, but God saved him out of the fiery furnace. Haran too was challenged to declare his god, but halted between two opinions, and delayed his answer until he saw the result of Abraham's fate. When he saw the latter saved he declared himself on the side of Abraham's God, thinking that he too, having now become an adherent of that God, would be saved by the same miracle. But since his faith was not real, but depended on a miracle, he perished in the fire, into which like Abraham he was cast by Nimrod. This is hinted in the words (Gen. 11. 28): 'And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.'"

"A miracle: a chance distribution of events, occurring one time in a billion."

"“I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a goddam miracle, that’s what it is.” “Come, now,” the older man murmured. “I don’t believe in miracles—neither do you.”"

"Being a miracle doesn't mean it's mysterious. Being a miracle means it's beautiful and important."

"The proper course, therefore, is, in the first instance, to ascertain and examine the doctrine; ... then after it has been proved, but not till then, it may receive confirmation from miracles. But the mark of sound doctrine given by our Saviour himself is its tendency to promote the glory not of men, but of God (John 7:18; 8:50). Our Saviour having declared this to be test of doctrine, we are in error if we regard as miraculous, works which are used for any other purpose than to magnify the name of God."

"Man's need of self-esteem entails the need for a sense of control over reality – but no control is possible in a universe which, by one's own concession, contains the supernatural, the miraculous and the causeless, a universe in which one is at the mercy of ghosts and demons, in which one must deal, not with the unknown, but with the unknowable; no control is possible if man proposes, but a ghost disposes; no control is possible if the universe is a haunted house."

"The water owns a power Divine, And conscious blushes into wine; Its very nature changed displays The power Divine that it obeys."

"Accept a miracle; instead of wit,— See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ."

"When Christ at Cana's feast by pow'r divine, Inspir'd cold water, with the warmth of wine, See! cry'd they while, in red'ning tide, it gush'd, The bashful stream hath seen its God and blush'd."

"Thou water turn'st to wine, fair friend of life; Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of Thy reign, Distils from thence the tears of wrath and strife, And so turns wine to water back again."

"What is a miracle?—'Tis a reproach, 'Tis an implicit satire on mankind; And while it satisfies, it censures too."

"Miracles are magic processed by faith and a lack of a scientific imagination."

"For whatever reasons, Ray, call it . . . fate, call it luck, call it karma. I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that we were destined to get thrown out of this dump."

"My fearful trust "en vogant la galère." (Come what may.)"

"Des Schiksals Zwang ist bjtter."

"Blindlings that er blos den Willen des Geschickes."

"This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin."

"Ah me! what boots us all our boasted power, Our golden treasure, and our purple state. They cannot ward the inevitable hour, Nor stay the fearful violence of fate."

"I saw him even now going the way of all flesh."

"Fata vocant."

"Perge; decet. Forsan miseros meliora sequentur."

"Fata viam invenient."

"Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque sequamur."

"Dare fatis vela."

"Ad restim mihi quidem res rediit planissume."

"Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams; Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams."

"From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea."

"Jacta alea esto. (Jacta est alea.)"

"Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart, And speak in different tongues, and have no thought Each of the other's being; and have no heed; And these, o'er unknown seas to unknown lands Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death; And, all unconsciously, shape every act to this one end: That one day out of darkness they shall meet And read life's meanings in each other's eyes."

"Yet what are they, the learned and the great? Awhile of longer wonderment the theme! Who shall presume to prophesy their date, Where nought is certain save the uncertainty of fate?"