Paul Ricoeur Quotes

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

Without moral progress, stimulated by faith in God, immorality in all its forms will proliferate and strangle goodness and human decency. Mankind will not be able to fully express the potential nobility of the human soul unless faith in God is strengthened.

The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest.

You can't lie to God - it's ridiculous.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer, but art is very self-referential, whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.

The Lord never lays more on us, in the way of chastisement, than our state of heart makes needful; so that whilst He smites with the one hand, He supports with the other.

I do not believe that God has imposed suffering upon anyone to punish them or to teach them a lesson.

The Word of God is so much broader than people are giving it credit for. Look at Proverbs, a book written on how to live.

Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.

I definitely consider myself a Christian. There's things that I believe in, there's things I have a self-belief on. I know I got a great relationship with God and the universe. I just believe in being a righteous person and karma. Doing unto others as you would have done unto you. I really want to help teach that.

Jesus Christ tells us that a man cannot be wrong if he argues towards God from what he finds best in himself.

The Great Spirit will not make me suffer because I am ignorant. He will put me in a place where I shall be better off than in this world.

We often represent God to ourselves as being able to draw from non-being a world without sorrows, faults, dangers - a world in which there is no damage, no breakage. This is a conceptual fantasy and makes it impossible to solve the problem of evil.

I was never much bothered about moral questions like, 'How could there be a good God when there's so much evil in the world?'

It is necessary to bear in mind that Scripture only teaches the chief points of those true principles which lead to the true perfection of man, and only demands in general terms faith in them.

Comfort, or revelation: God owes us one of these, but surely not both.

I myself will perhaps cry out with all the rest, looking at the mother embracing her child's tormentor: 'Just art thou, O Lord!' but I do not want to cry out with them. While there's still time, I hasten to defend myself against it, and therefore I absolutely renounce all higher harmony. It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little fist and prayed to 'dear God' in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears!

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Just are the ways of God, And justifiable to men; Unless there be who think not God at all.

Who would complain if God allowed one hour of suffering in an entire lifetime of comfort? Why complain about a lifetime that includes suffering when that lifetime is a mere hour of eternity?

And I, the for­mer mys­tic, was think­ing: Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve de­ceived You, You chased them from par­adise. When You were dis­pleased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your fa­vour, You caused the heav­ens to rain down fire and damna­tion. But look at these men whom You have be­trayed, al­low­ing them to be tortured, slaugh­tered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray be­fore You! They praise Your name!

The greater hardship you endure, the greater the authority God entrusts to you.

It would not be worth your while to reach the age of seventy if all the wisdom of the world were to be foolishness before God.

When God sets His heart on you, you will be tried often. But the longer and harder your affliction, the more deeply God has set His heart on you, to show you His love and care.