Spiritual Data: Quotes

This is a small sample of secular influencers with Christian ideals. There are many more.

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

  • Flavius Josephus (37–100)

I use the Scriptures, not as an arsenal to be resorted to only for arms and weapons, but as a matchless temple, where I delight to be, to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and the magnificence of the structure, and to increase my awe, and excite my devotion to the Deity there preached and adored.

  • Robert Boyle (1627–1691)

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure remarks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever.

  • Isaac Newton (1642–1726)

For since the fabric of the universe is most perfect and the work of a most wise Creator, nothing at all takes place in the universe in which some rule of maximum or minimum does not appear.

  • Leonhard Euler (1707–1783)

I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.

  • Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)

The book of nature which we have to read is written by the finger of God.

  • Michael Faraday (1791–1867)

Miracles may be, for anything we know to the contrary, phenomena of a higher order of God’s laws, superior to, and, under certain conditions, controlling the inferior order known to us as the ordinary laws of nature.

  • Charles Babbage (1791–1871)

A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.

  • Charles Darwin (1809–1882)

If you study science deep enough and long enough, it will force you to believe in God.

  • Lord Kelvin William Thomson (1824–1907)

I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

  • Joseph Lister (1827–1912)

I have looked into most philosophical systems and I have seen that none will work without God.

  • James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)

Christ alone, of all the philosophers, magicians, etc., has affirmed eternal life as the most important certainty, the infinity of time, the futility of death, the necessity and purpose of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as an artist greater than all other artists, scorning marble and clay and paint, working in the living flesh. In other words, this peerless artist, scarcely conceivable with the blunt instrument of our modern, nervous and obtuse brains, made neither statues nor paintings nor books. He maintained in no uncertain terms that he made … living men, immortals.

  • Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.

  • George Washington Carver (1864–1943)

The problem of disbelieving in God is not that a man ends up believing nothing. Alas, it is much worse. He ends up believing anything.

  • G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936)

I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful…No man can read the gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life…Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.

  • Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

You must picture me all alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.

  • C.S. Lewis (1898–1963)

The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

  • Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976)

I strongly believe in the existence of God, based on intuition, observations, logic, and also scientific knowledge.

  • Charles Hard Townes (1915–2015)

Astronomers who do not draw theistic or deistic conclusions are becoming rare, and even the few dissenters hint that the tide is against them.

  • Hugo Ross (1945–present)

The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.

  • Francis Collins (1950–present)

Quotes not in the Bible

All men are created equal.

  • Originally from the USA’s Declaration of Independence.
  • We are created in God’s image and have inherent value as humans (Galatians 3:28).

Bad things happen to good people.

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

  • Originally an ancient proverb.
  • While the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, hygiene has nothing to do with spirituality (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Follow your heart.

  • An American proverb, history unknown.
  • Our hearts are thoroughly deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

God helps those who help themselves.

  • Originally, it was a Greek proverb in multiple tragedies.
  • All Christians are helpless before salvation and asked to put themselves to death before God (Matthew 16:24, Romans 5:6).

God loves you just the way you are.

  • A popular inspirational quote in the USA.
  • God loves you so much that He doesn’t want you to stay the way you are (Matthew 16:24–25).

God wants me to be happy / God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

  • Originally a popular saying from the Four Spiritual Laws Gospel presentation.
  • God will work everything for good for those who love Him and whom He calls for His purpose (Romans 8:28).

God won’t give you more than you can handle.

  • A popular Christian proverb.
  • For the sake of strengthening faith, God frequently gives Christians things they can’t handle (2 Corinthians 1:8).

Judge not, that you not be judged.

  • Originally in Matthew 7:1 in a long list of beatitudes, usually implying that it’s inappropriate to hold an opinion of someone.
  • Only give judgment after first examining our lives for hypocrisy (John 7:24).

We all worship the same God.

We are all God’s children.

We’re all going to the same place when we die.

  • A misapplication of Ecclesiastes 3:20.
  • We technically are going to the Great White Throne Judgment together, but Christians and non-believers will part ways afterward (Revelation 20:11–15).

When God closes a door, He opens a window.

  • An American proverb from the film The Sound of Music.
  • God does provide a way, but it must conform to His will.

When you die, God gets another angel.

  • An American proverb permuted from the film It’s a Wonderful Life.
  • The angels long to understand the relationship humans have with God (1 Peter 1:12).