A new concept of God: "something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled God. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature?that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow?Mars?the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us.

if God had intended us to follow recipes, He wouldn't have given us grandmothers.

The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

Don't be disheartened by the forces of evil. Nothing can happen that God hasn't allowed. Even resistance is all part of grand orchestration. The devil always has you right were God wants you.

"God doesn't like lesbians," Grandma Huberman hised, throwing the magazine in the trash.

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?" Instead they say, "No, no, no! My God is a little God, and I want him to stay that way." A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.

This is a special kind of depression. It comes from the great burden laid on our shoulders. A depression you can't shake off, so that it is part and parcel of you all the time you go on with your military activities. This depression leads to melancholy. It's od to point to somebody young and say: there goes a sad man. That is our lot. One of the things that weighs me down most is that it's forbidden to speak of this sadness outside the limits of the army. In fact, I'm forbidden to share it with anyone. The main reason is the secrecy that surrounds everything that has to do with the military. In order to explain the depression, you have to talk about its origins, and that's prohibited, of course. Another reason is that it's almost impossible to explain the nature of this sadness to anyone who doesn't know it; the sadness will always be interpreted as something else. Within itself it's not mentioned-- It exists, but for each man separately. it is never discussed. Thus another factor comes into the picture-- loneliness. But loneliness, sadness and depression are the lot of great masses of people in this world. Well, then, What kind of God-forsaken world are we living in? It contains so much beauty, so much grandeur and nobility- but men destroy everything that is beautiful in the world. It seems, indeed, that from time immemorial we have been forgotten by the Gods.

Both [Quine and Feyerabend] want to revise a version of positivism. Quine started with the Vienna Circle, and Feyerabend with the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics. Both the Circle and the school have been called children of Ernst Mach; if so, the philosophies of Feyerabend and Quine must be his grandchildren.

In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big ? ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of belief squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith.

aquele que quer responder ?s inj?rias com o ?dio vive na tristeza ou na m?goa, aquele que quer vencer o ?dio com o amor combate alegremente e sem temor. Triunfa tanto sobre um grande n?mero de inimigos quanto sobre um ?nico, prescindindo de todo socorro da fortuna. Aqueles a quem ele consegue vencer ficam alegres por terem sido derrotados; e, derrotados, eles n?o s?o menos fortes; ao contr?rio, s?o mais fortes.

Quando ouvimos os sinos, ouvimos aquilo que j? trazemos em n?s mesmos como modelo. Sou da opini?o que n?o se dever? desprezar aquele que olhar atentamente para as manchas da parede, para os carv?es sobre a grelha, para as nuvens, ou para a correnteza da ?gua, descobrindo, assim, coisas maravilhosas. O g?nio do pintor h?-de se apossar de todas essas coisas para criar composi??es diversas: luta de homens e de animais, paisagens, monstros, dem?nios e outras coisas fant?sticas. Tudo, enfim, servir? para engrandecer o artista.

You cannot be buried in obscurity: you are exposed upon a grand theater to the view of the world. If your actions are upright and benevolent, be assured they will augment your power and happiness.

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,-a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

On a grander scale, when a society segregates itself, the consequences affect the economy, the emotions, and the ecology. That's one reason why it's easy for pro-lifers to eat factory-raised animals that disrespect everything sacred about creation. And that is why it's easy for rabid environmentalists to hate chainsaws even though they snuggle into a mattress supported by a black walnut bedstead.

The role played by time at the beginning of the universe is, I believe, the final key to removing the need for a Grand Designer, and revealing how the universe created itself. ? Time itself must come to a stop. You can't get to a time before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. We have finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means there is no possibility of a creator because there is no time for a creator to have existed. Since time itself began at the moment of the Big Bang, it was an event that could not have been caused or created by anyone or anything. ? So when people ask me if a God created the universe, I tell them the question itself makes no sense. Time didn't exist before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It's like asking for directions to the edge of the Earth. The Earth is a sphere. It does not have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.

Grandfather informs me that is not possible.

Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.

Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the heck she is.

I have a dream." "Is your dream very big?" "No." "Well is it very grand?" "Not either." "Neither?" "Neither." "What is it then?" "It is very shiny.

What is grander than a country and more valuable than gold? Strength of heart.