quotations about angels
When I was a child and heard about angels, I was both frightened and fascinated by the thought of these enormous, invisible presences in our midst. I conceived of them not as white-robed androgynes with yellow locks and thick gold wings, which was how my friend Matty Wilson had described them to me--Matty was the predecessor of all sorts of arcane knowledge--but as big, dark, blundering men, massive in their weightlessness, given to pranks and ponderous play, who might knock you over, or break you in half, without meaning to. When a child from Miss Molyneaux's infant school in Carrickdrum fell under the hoofs of a dray-horse one day and was trampled to death, I, a watchful six year old, knew who was to blame; I pictured his guardian angel standing over the child's crushed form with his big hands helplessly extended, not sure whether to be contrite or to laugh.
JOHN BANVILLE
The Untouchable
Man is his own star, and the soul that can render an honest and a perfect man commands all light, all influence, all fate. Nothing to him falls early, or too late. Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
JOHN FLETCHER
The Honest Man's Fortune
Entertaining angels unawares: It is always we who are to entertain the angels, and never they us. I cannot, however, think that an angel would be a very entertaining person, either as guest or host.
SAMUEL BUTLER
Notebooks
When God sends his angel to the soul it becomes the one who knows for sure.
MEISTER ECKHART
Sermon 9, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church
Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.
JEANNETTE WALLS
Half Broke Horses
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1861
Man is a mixed being, made up of a spiritual soul and of a fleshly body; the angels are pure spirits, herein nearer to God, only that they are created and finite in all respects, free from decay, free from the power of death, whereas God is infinite and uncreated.
J. C. HARE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Insight is better than eyesight when it comes to seeing an angel.
EILEEN ELIAS FREEMAN
The Angels' Little Instruction Book: Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers
Around our pillows golden ladders rise, and up and down the skies, with winged sandals shod, the angels come, and go, the Messengers of God!
R. H. STODDARD
Hymn to the Beautiful
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
They will come from the bright, sunny land, come on their pinions so fair; Jesus will send them its glory to tell, Angels will carry me there.
FANNY CROSBY
Will the Angels Come?
Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Arcana Coelestia
The angels are so enamored of the language that is spoken in heaven, that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Intellect", Essays
As God enlarges your awareness of the spiritual realm, you will come to realize that these Kingdom beings are always with you in your personal journey, your family and your community. You are never alone; God has made provision for you. Anytime you feel lost, afraid, confused or desperate, you are probably focusing on your situation, not on God. As you turn to God for help, He releases His mighty angels to intervene supernaturally and come to your assistance.
JUDITH MACNUTT
introduction, Encountering Angels: True Stories of How They Touch Our Lives Every Day
One glimpse of full reality would sweep us away, and angels are ambassadors of full reality.
PTOLEMY TOMPKINS & TYLER BEDDOES
Proof of Angels: The Definitive Book on the Reality of Angels and the Surprising Role They Play in Each of Our Lives
We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.
LUCIANO DE CRESCENZO
attributed, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing
Angels shine from without because their spirits are lit from within by the light of God.
EILEEN ELIAS FREEMAN
The Angels' Little Instruction Book: Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers
The angels may have wider spheres of action, may have nobler forms of duty, but right with them and with us is one and the same thing.
EDWIN HUBBELL CHAPIN
Living Words
Cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from ye door.
WILLIAM BLAKE
"Holy Thursday"
Even among the angels, there is the sadness of division.
NICOLE KRAUSS
The History of Love