Bible Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Bible. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.
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Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
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Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
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Isaac Asimov
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The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.
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G.K. Chesterton
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Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
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The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.
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Mark Twain
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The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
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Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
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Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.
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Frank Sinatra
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The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.
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SΓΈren Kierkegaard (Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard)
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One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad.
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Aleister Crowley (Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4)
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You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?
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Mark Twain
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Above all else, guard your heart for it affects everything else you do.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.
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Sylvia Plath (Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts)
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Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.
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Ronald Reagan
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I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
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Galileo Galilei (Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina)
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Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:34
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.
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Steven Weinberg
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Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.
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Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
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Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.
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Bernard Branson
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I have a problem with people who take the Constitution loosely and the Bible literally.
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Bill Maher
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These books can't possibly compete with centuries of established history, especially when that history is endorsed by the ultimate bestseller of all time." Faukman's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about the Holy Grail." "I was referring to the Bible." Faukman cringed. "I knew that.
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Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
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The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that β€˜if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me’.
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Christopher Hitchens
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Everything you're sure is right can be wrong in another place.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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Listen. Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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God knows your value; He sees your potential. You may not understand everything you are going through right now. But hold your head up high, knowing that God is in control and he has a great plan and purpose for your life. Your dreams may not have turned out exactly as you’d hoped, but the bible says that God’s ways are better and higher than our ways, even when everybody else rejects you, remember, God stands before you with His arms open wide. He always accepts you. He always confirms your value. God sees your two good moves! You are His prized possession. No matter what you go through in life, no matter how many disappointments you suffer, your value in God’s eyes always remains the same. You will always be the apple of His eye. He will never give up on you, so don’t give up on yourself.
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Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
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The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.
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Robert Anton Wilson
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The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.
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Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything)
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If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.
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Augustine of Hippo
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The word 'God' is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.
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Albert Einstein
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I am a nice young girl here to pick up your granddaughter for the weekend... We're going to a Bible retreat to scare the devil out of her. - Bones to Cat's grandparents
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Jeaniene Frost (Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1))
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Take the Kama Sutra. How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible? Who wins?
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Frank Zappa
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A sort of good-bye without saying good-bye," he said. "It is a reference to a passage in the Bible. 'And Mizpah, for he said, the Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another.
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1))
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I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on meβ€”they’re cramming for their final exam.
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George Carlin
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God doesn’t need to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.
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Noam Chomsky
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The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.
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Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
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God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.
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Martin Luther
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Tonight, darling, we are going to right a lot of wrongs. And we are going to wrong some rights. The first shall be last; the last shall be first; the meek shall do some earth-inheriting. But before we can radically reshape the world, we need to shop.
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John Green (Paper Towns)
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My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it'll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It's like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.
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A.J. Jacobs (The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible)
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Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matthew 7:1-2]
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.
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SΓΈren Kierkegaard
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When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
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Desmond Tutu
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The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. (Psalm 28:7 NIV)
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: The New King James Version)
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I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. (Psalms 116:1-2 NIV)
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
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Isaac Asimov (The Roving Mind)
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Well, there aren’t any graves in mundane wedding ceremonies,” said Tessa. β€œThough your ability to quote the Bible is impressive. Better than my aunt Harriet’s.” β€œDid you hear that, James? She just compared us to her aunt Harriet.
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
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To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries
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Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
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Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us.
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Ravi Zacharias (I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah)
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Nature is God's first missionary. Where there is no Bible there are sparkling stars. Where there are not preachers there are spring times... If a person has nothing but nature, then nature is enough to reveal something about God.
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Max Lucado
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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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Angels are violent creatures.” β€œSo I noticed. I used to think they were all sweet and kind.” β€œWhy would you think that? Even in your Bible, we’re harbingers of doom, willing and able to destroy entire cities. Just because we sometimes warned one or two of you beforehand doesn’t make us altruistic.
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Susan Ee (Angelfall (Penryn & the End of Days, #1))
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I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: But a woman who fears the Lord, She shall be praised. (Proverbs 31:30 Modern King James Version)
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Anonymous (Modern King James Version of the Holy Bible)
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Wear your heart on your skin in this life.
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Sylvia Plath (Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts)
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God's viewpoint is sometimes different from ours - so different that we could not even guess at it unless He had given us a Book which tells us such things....In the Bible I learn that God values us not for our strenght or our brains but simply because He has made us.
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Corrie ten Boom (The Hiding Place)
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My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
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Anonymous
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The power is in the balance: we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: New International Version)
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The bible says no man can take your joy. That means no person can make you live with a negative attitude. No circumstance, no adversity can force you to live in despair. As Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of wheelchair-bound President Franklin D. Roosevelt, often said, β€˜No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
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Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
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There is a strange moment in time, after something horrible happens, when you know it's true, but you haven't told anyone yet.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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The need for intimacy with the Creator never left us; it was embedded in our very nature.
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Ami Loper (Constant Companion: Your Practical Path to Real Interaction with God)
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There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, NIV)
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Anonymous (Study Bible: NIV)
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Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.
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Abigail Adams
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Why should I not hate mine enemies―if I "love" them does that not place me at their mercy?
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Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
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Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book.
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Anatole France
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But isn't that what love is, Clarissa? Ownership? 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine,' as the Song of Songs goes." "No. And don't quote the Bible at me. I don't think you get it...It's not just that someone belongs to you, it's that you give yourself to them. I doubt you've ever given anything to anyone. Except maybe nightmares." "To give yourself to someone?" The thin smile didn't waver. "As you've given yourself to Jonathan?" "What?" "You think I haven't seen the way you two look at each other? The way he says your name? You may not think I can feel, but that doesn't mean I can't see feelings in others.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
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Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrew 11:1 KJV)
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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To those whom much is given, much is expected.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31 NIV) a
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Anonymous
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And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: New American Standard Version, NASB)
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We live by faith and not by sight.
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
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Anonymous (Holy Bible: The New King James Version)
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Blessed are the destroyers of false hope, for they are the true Messiahs - Cursed are the god-adorers, for they shall be shorn sheep!
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Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
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The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.
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Matthew Henry (Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible)
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There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. . . . Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord. . . .
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: 'Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.' Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible.
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Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation)
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When you go through difficult times, make sure you pass the test. Don’t be stubborn and hardheaded. Recognize that God is refining you, knocking off some of your rough edges. Stand strong and fight the good fight of faith. God has called each of us to be champions; you are destined to win. If you will work with God and keep a good attitude, then no matter what comes against you, the bible says that all things – not just the good things in life, but all things – work together for your good.
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Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
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A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that' s love by a different name.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.
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Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)
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Love is one of the most intense feelings felt by man; another is hate. Forcing yourself to feel indiscriminate love is very unnatural. If you try to love everyone you only lessen your feelings for those who deserve your love. Repressed hatred can lead to many physical and emotional aliments. By learning to release your hatred towards those who deserve it, you cleanse yourself of these malignant emotions and need not take your pent-up hatred out on your loved ones.
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Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
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The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
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Dave Barnhart
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What you and I might rate as an absolute disaster, God may rate as a pimple-level problem that will pass. He views your life the way you view a movie after you've read the book. When something bad happens, you feel the air sucked out of the theater. Everyone else gasps at the crisis on the screen. Not you. Why? You've read the book. You know how the good guy gets out of the tight spot. God views your life with the same confidence. He's not only read your story...he wrote it.
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Max Lucado (Grace for the Moment Daily Bible, New Century Version)
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When a Satanist commits a wrong, he realizes that is it natural to make a mistake―and if he is truly sorry about what he has done, he will learn from it and take care not to do the same thing again. If he is not honestly sorry about what he has done, and knows he will do the same thing over and over, he has no business confessing and asking forgiveness in the first place.
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Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
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Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ``What shall we eat?'' or ``What shall we drink?'' or ``What shall we wear?'' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. - Matthew 6:25-34
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Anonymous (The Holy Bible: King James Version)
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Lieutenant Chatrand: I don’t understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity. Lieutenant Chatrand: Exactly. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning. Lieutenant Chatrand: I understand the concept. It’s just... there seems to be a contradiction. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man’s starvation, war, sickness... Lieutenant Chatrand: Exactly! Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn’t he? Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Would He? Lieutenant Chatrand: Well... if God Loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Do you have children? Lieutenant Chatrand: No, signore. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Imagine you had an eight-year-old son... would you love him? Lieutenant Chatrand: Of course. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Would you let him skateboard? Lieutenant Chatrand: Yeah, I guess. Sure I’d let him skateboard, but I’d tell him to be careful. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: So as this child’s father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes? Lieutenant Chatrand: I wouldn’t run behind him and mollycoddle him if that’s what you mean. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: But what if he fell and skinned his knee? Lieutenant Chatrand: He would learn to be more careful. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child’s pain, you would choose to show you love by letting him learn his own lessons? Lieutenant Chatrand: Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Exactly.
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Dan Brown (Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1))
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Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza’s? Was his brain equal to Kepler’s or Newton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?
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Robert G. Ingersoll (About The Holy Bible)
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4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country. Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureΓ’. ...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... I forgot to observe, when speaking of the New Testament, that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us, to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration, as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason, and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost... [Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, 1787]
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Thomas Jefferson (Letters of Thomas Jefferson)