Top 909 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Theologians

Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.

Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his poison, his exercise or his destruction.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I try to keep in my mind the simple question: Am I trying to do good or make myself look good? Too many of our responsibilities get added to our plate when we are trying to please people, impress people, prove ourselves, acquire power, increase our prestige. All those motivations are about looking good more than doing good.

Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world.

Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.

My way of putting it is that Christians are called to live nonviolently not because we believe nonviolence is a strategy to rid the world of war, but in a world of war as faithful followers of Christ, we cannot imagine being anything other than nonviolent.

Science is like a flashlight in the hands of people living in a huge balloon. They can illuminate anything in the balloon, but cannot shine it outside the balloon to see where it is floating - or if it is floating at all.

To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.

When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines.

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.

Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God.

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.

The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.

There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.

Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow.

The functions of these elders, therefore, determine the power of the people; for a representative is one chosen by others to do in their name what they are entitled to do in their own persons; or rather to exercise the powers which radically inhere in those for whom they act.

Foundational autonomy asserts instead that in the most fundamental practical sense, I am my own creator, which means that at the core, I am alone.

Listen, my friend! Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness.

Knowledge without action is wastefulness and action without knowledge is foolishness.

Nature is a divine art; it cannot be the artist. It is a dominical book and cannot be the scribe. It is an embroidery and cannot be the embroiderer. It is a register and cannot be the accountant. It is the law and cannot be the power.

No man ever did, nor ever shall, truly go forth to convert the nations, nor to prophesy in the present state of witnesses against Antichrist, but by the gracious inspiration and instigation of the Holy Spirit of God.

Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.

They always win who side with God.

The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong - and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

The sweet quality is set opposite to the bitter, and is a gracious, amiable, blessed and pleasant quality, a refreshing of the life, an allaying of the fierceness. It maketh all pleasant and friendly in every creature; it maketh the vegetables of the earth fragrant and of good taste, affording fair, yellow, white and ruddy colours.

The kingdom of God is a theocracy. And as it is the only form of government which will redeem and save mankind, it is necessary that every soul should be rightly and thoroughly instructed in regard to its nature and general characteristics.

Theology is not only about understanding the world; it is about mending the world.

Once we truly grasp the message of the 'New Testament', it is impossible to read the 'Old Testament' again without seeing Christ on every page, in every story, foreshadowed or anticipated in every event and narrative.

Why indeed must 'God' be a noun? Why not a verb - the most active and dynamic of all.

Stay the course.

A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope.

If God rewarded the righteous immediately, we would soon be engaged in business, not godliness...we would be pursuing not piety,but profit.

Prayer requires more of the heart than of the tongue.

Faith is not something that goes against the evidence, it goes beyond it. The evidence is saying to us, 'There is another country. There is something beyond mere reason'.

Great men are rarely isolated mountain peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

It seems that not being religious is a form of risk-taking, consistent with other patterns of short-sighted behaviour in men.

The higher the hill, the stronger the wind: so the loftier the life, the stronger the enemy's temptations.

After two world wars, the collapse of fascism, nazism, communism and colonialism and the end of the cold war, humanity has entered a new phase of its history.

God in His wisdom has decided that He will reward no works but His own.

When the principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then the battle is your calling, and peace has become sin. You must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith.

The power of the future lies not in the hands of those who believe in scarcity but of those who trust God's abundance.

There is no persuasiveness more effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a sincere life.

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.

Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight. ...Christians whose eyes are fixed on the awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness of innocent suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute identification with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected, undefended, innocent suffering.

To the first class belong the Gospels and Acts; to the second, the Epistles; to the third, the Revelation.

History is the story of events, with praise or blame.

Jesus is the only way because the Bible says it to be true. Why? Because only He can bridge the gap between God and man; there's no other way.

The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.

A good sermon should be like a woman's skirt: short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the essentials.

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.

Exercise is the chief source of improvement in our faculties.