Miracles

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. ~ Albert Einstein

Miracles are unexpected events attributed to divine activities or intentions, sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruptions of the laws of nature. Others views are that divine entities may work with the laws of nature to perform what people perceive as miracles. Theologians assert that, with divine providence, God regularly works through created nature yet is free to work without, above, or against it as well.

For the 2004 film, see Miracle (film).

Quotes

It was a great thing to open the eyes of a blind man, but it is a greater thing to open the eyes of a blind soul. ~ Abbott Eliot Kittredge
Praise be to God. God of all worlds! The compassionate, the merciful! Come out, Richard Parker! Come out you have to see this! It's beautiful! … It's a miracle! ~ David Magee, in Life of Pi (2012)
The miracles of earth are the laws of heaven. ~ Jean Paul
A mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. ~ Walt Whitman
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles... ~ Walt Whitman
  • No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.
  • Parting your soup is not a miracle, Bruce, it's a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs, and still finds time to take her kid to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager who says no to drugs and yes to an education, that's a miracle. People want Me to do everything for them, but what they don't realize is, they have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.
  • A miracle is a supernatural event, whose antecedent forces are beyond our finite vision, whose design is the display of almighty power for the accomplishment of almighty purposes, and whose immediate result, as regards man, is his recognition of God as the Supreme Ruler of all things, and of His will as the only supreme law.
    • Abbott Eliot Kittredge, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 416
  • It was a great thing to open the eyes of a blind man, but it is a greater thing to open the eyes of a blind soul. It was a great thing to bring a dead body back to life, but it is a greater miracle to bring a soul dead in sin back to life. My friends have you ever felt the touch of this Jesus? Oh! that we all might feel His touch, that we might look and be healed and live.
    • Abbott Eliot Kittredge, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 416
  • The miracles of earth are the laws of heaven.
    • Jean Paul, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 416
  • When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salvation is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth.
    • Samuel Rutherford, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 416
  • It must be so; for miracles are ceased
    And therefore we must needs admit the means
    How things are perfected.
  • Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
    Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from,
    The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
    This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
  • The narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
    And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
    And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
  • Why, who makes much of a miracle?
    As to me I know of nothing else but miracles...
  • The wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
    Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
    These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
    The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
  • To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
    Every cubic inch of space is a miracle    ,
    Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
    Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
    To me the sea is a continual miracle,
    The fishes that swim — the rocks — the motion of the waves — the ships with men in them,
    What stranger miracles are there?
  • Miracles in mysticism don't occupy such an important place. It's metaphor, for the peasants, for the crowds, to impress people. What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically. You plunge into it. Philosophy is a slow process of logic and logical discourse: A bringing B bringing C and so forth. In mysticism you can jump from A to Z. But the ultimate objective is the same. It's knowledge. It's truth.
    • Elie Wiesel, in a 1978 interview with John S. Friedman, published in The Paris Review 26 (Spring 1984); and in Elie Wiesel : Conversations (2002) edited by Robert Franciosi, p. 87
  • What is a miracle?—'Tis a reproach,
    'Tis an implicit satire on mankind;
    And while it satisfies, it censures too.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX, line 1,245

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 516-17.
  • Thou water turn'st to wine, fair friend of life;
    Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of Thy reign,
    Distils from thence the tears of wrath and strife,
    And so turns wine to water back again.
    • Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple, To Our Lord upon the Water Made Wine
  • When Christ at Cana's feast by pow'r divine,
    Inspir'd cold water, with the warmth of wine,
    See! cry'd they while, in red'ning tide, it gush'd,
    The bashful stream hath seen its God and blush'd.
    • Aaron Hill, translation of Crashaw's Latin lines. Works, Volume III; O. 241. (Ed. 1754). See also Vida, Christiad, Book III. 9984, and, Book II. 431. Also Hymn of Andrew, Vel Hydriis plenis Æqua
  • Man is the miracle in nature. God
    Is the One Miracle to man. Behold,
    "There is a God," thou sayest. Thou sayest well:
    In that thou sayest all. To Be is more
    Of wonderful, than being, to have wrought,
    Or reigned, or rested.
  • Accept a miracle; instead of wit,—
    See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ.
    • Alexander Pope, to Lord Chesterfield on using his pencil, according to John Taylor, Records of My Life. I. 161, and Oliver Goldsmith in Newbery's Art of Poetry on a New Plan, Volume I. 57. (1762)
  • The water owns a power Divine,
    And conscious blushes into wine;
    Its very nature changed displays
    The power Divine that it obeys.
    • Sedulius ("Scotus Hybernicus"). Hymn written in Fifth century. A solis ortus cardine. Found in Lyra Hibernica Sacra. English translation. by Canon MacIlwaine, editor of the Lyra.
↑Jump back a section

External links

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
Wiktionary has an entry about miracle.
Commons
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
↑Jump back a section
Last modified on 5 April 2013, at 21:59