"Deist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hamilton's death called forth "the voice of deep lament" save from "the rancorous Jacobin, the scoffing deist, the snivelling fanatic, and the imported scoundrel." "Were I asked," said an apologist, "whether General Hamilton had vices, in the face of the world, in the presence of my God, I would ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... authority, to consider all inward experiences as fanatical delusions;—I say, I can scarcely conceive such a young man to make a serious study of the Fathers of the first four or five centuries without becoming either a Romanist or a Deist. Let him only read Petavius and the different Patristic and Ecclesiastico -historical tracts of Semler, and have no better philosophy than that of Locke, no better theology than that of Arminius and Bishop Jeremy Taylor, and I should tremble for his belief. Yet why tremble for a belief ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... be envied here are the victims of their religious opinions. The nuns, who are more distressed than any of us,* employ themselves patiently, and seem to look beyond this world; whilst the once gay deist wanders about with a volume of philosophy in his hand, unable to endure the present, and dreading still more ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... And he brought over so many to a submission to his opinion, that I never knew any man equal to him in the art of governing parties, and of making himself the head of them. He was as to religion a Deist at best: He had the dotage of Astrology in him to a high degree: He told me, that a Dutch doctor had from the stars foretold him the whole series of his life. But that which was before him, when ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... The fact too frequently is that he swallowed luxuries beyond his means. A gentleman asked a child who made him. The answer was: "God made me so long—measuring the length of a baby—and I growed the rest." The mistake of the little deist in leaving out the God of his growth illustrates a conviction: We are what ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... most startling revelation he owed to Robespierre's wisdom was that of the crimes and infamies of atheism. Gamelin had never denied the existence of God; he was a deist and believed in a Providence that watches over mankind; but, admitting that he could form only a very vague conception of the Supreme Being and deeply attached to the principle of freedom of conscience, he was quite ready to allow that right-thinking men might follow the example of Lamettrie, Boulanger, ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph; but, each of them having afterwards wrong'd me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me (who was another free-thinker), and my own towards Vernon ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... the land he beheld a means that might help the fulfilment of his strong desires. Chief among these were the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne, and the realization of his own inordinate ambition. A deist in belief, he abhorred catholicism; a worshipper of self, he longed for power. He had boasted Cromwell had wanted to crown him king, and he narrated to Burnet that a Dutch astrologer had predicted he would ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... said; he was himself a deist, she believed, and his praise of Bolingbroke made her mad to read his books, and then the rest followed easily. She also gave me an account of her private and domestic life; of her misery at home, her search of dissipation, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... effects, we would be right in assuming that all morality is perfectly incompatible with the religious opinions of men. "Imitate God," is constantly repeated to us. Ah! what morals would we have if we should imitate this God! Which God should we imitate? Is it the deist's God? But even this God can not be a model of goodness for us. If He is the author of all, He is equally the author of the good and of the bad we see in this world; if He is the author of order, He is ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... very fine specimen of it too. A tall stout man with broad shoulders, and that division of lower limb which intervenes between the knee and the ankle powerfully developed. He would have knocked down a deist as soon as looked at him. It is told by the Sieur de Joinville, in his Memoir of Louis, the sainted king, that an assembly of divines and theologians convened the Jews of an Oriental city for the purpose of arguing ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Christ in Germany. . . . Another thing, dearest brethren, how shall we in the future supply our congregations with pastors? Where shall we find ministers to meet our need, which will increase from time to time! From Germany? Possibly a secret Arian, Socinian, or Deist? For over there everything is full of this vermin. God forbid! Under present circumstances, no one from Germany! We ourselves must put our hands to the plow. God will call us to account for it, and will let our children suffer for ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... demoralizing Dogmas and Mysteries of the Christian Religion. Now first translated from the French of Freret, but supposed to be written by Baron Holbach, author of the System of Nature, Christianity Unveiled, Common Sense, Universal Morality, Natural Morality. R. Carlile, The Deist, etc., Vol. II, 1819, etc. (8vo, pp. 185.) ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... freethinking Chesterfield[10] tells his son that the profession of atheism is ill-bred. De Foe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Johnson all attack infidelity. "Conform! Conform!" said in effect the most authoritative writers of the century. "Be sensible: go to church: pay your rates: don't be a vulgar deist—a fellow like Toland who is poor and has no social position. But, on the other hand, you need not be a fanatic or superstitious, or an enthusiast. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... familiarity with him after he went to Washington. Lamon could not have seen very much of him—no one but his secretaries and his wife did. And his taciturnity must be borne in mind. Nicolay has recorded that he did not know what Lincoln believed. Lamon, 492. That Lincoln was vaguely a deist in the 'forties—so far as he had any theology at all—may be true. But it is a rash leap to a conclusion to assume that his state of mind even then was the same thing as the impression it made on so practical, bard-headed, unpoetical a ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... his awin death. For thow madest the falt, and he suffered the pane, and that for the luif he had to thee, befoir ever thow wast borne, when thow haddest done neither good nor evill. Now, since he hath payed thy debt, thow deist nott: no, thow canst nott, bot shouldest have bene damned, yf his death war not.[67] Bot since he was punished for thee, thow shalt not be punished. Fynallie, he hath delivered thee from thye condemnatioun, and desyrith nought of thee, but that thow shouldest acknowledge what ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... considerable personal risk, and his talent for collecting information in London itself by means of correspondence from abroad, had gradually recommended him to the Protector. Burnet, who knew him well in after life, when he was more a frantic Deist than either a Protestant or "Christian," had more anecdotes about Cromwell from him than from any other man. The anecdotes he liked best to tell were those in which his own intriguing ability figured. Thus it was Stoupe, according ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... heartily believing the truths taught by the church of which he is privileged to be an humble minister. Before doing so, he had read thoughtfully the great works of evidences of the last century, and knew directly or indirectly the character of the deist doubts against which they were directed. His own faith was one of the head as well as the heart; founded on the study of the evidences, as well as on the religious training of early years. But he perceived in the English church earnest men who held a different view; and, on becoming acquainted ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... the idea? This is now the question. In answering it I shall assume no ground but that which all parties say is true. The Christian, the Deist and Atheist will admit that we have learned all we know, and that we have learned only through the aid of the five senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling are the porters of the mind. One or another of these ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... proceeded: 'Sir, there is a great cry about infidelity[1071]; but there are, in reality, very few infidels. I have heard a person, originally a Quaker, but now, I am afraid, a Deist, say, that he did not believe there were, in all England, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill |
