quotations about angels
Angels are winged with God's power.
SOLON
attributed, Day's Collacon
For when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light," if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God.
ST. AUGUSTINE
City of God
Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Arcana Coelestia
Death is terrible, tho' borne on angels' wings!
WILLIAM BLAKE
King Edward the Third
I have need of angels. Enough hell has swallowed me for too many years. But finally understand this--I have burned up one hundred thousand human lives already, from the strength of my pain.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Lettres a Genica Athanasiou
For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans.
BRIAN L. WEISS
Miracles Happen: The Transformational Healing Power of Past-Life Memories
In this dim world of clouding cares, we rarely know, till 'wildered eyes see white wings lessening up the skies, the Angels with us unawares.
GERALD MASSEY
The Ballad of Babe Christabel
But all God's angels come to us disguised: sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, one after other lift their frowning masks, and we behold the Seraph's face beneath, all radiant with the glory and the calm of having looked upon the front of God.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"On the Death of a Friend's Child"
If angels rarely appear, it's because we all too often mistake the medium for the Message.
EILEEN ELIAS FREEMAN
The Angels' Little Instruction Book: Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers
But now that we may lift up our eyes (as it were) from the footstool to the throne of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the state of heavenly and divine creatures: touching Angels, which are spirits immaterial and intellectual, the glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where nothing but light and blessed immortality, no shadow of matter for tears, discontentments, griefs, and uncomfortable passions to work upon, but all joy, tranquility, and peace, even for ever and ever doth dwell: as in number and order they are huge, mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience unto the law, which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate, hath imposed upon them, such observants they are thereof, that our Saviour himself being to set down the perfect idea of that which we are to pray and wish for on earth, did not teach to pray or wish for more than only that here it might be with us, as with them it is in heaven.
RICHARD HOOKER
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
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
Be an angel to someone else whenever you can, as a way of thanking God for the help your angel has given you.
EILEEN ELIAS FREEMAN
The Angels' Little Instruction Book: Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Goodness and Goodness in Nature", Essays
When the Angels arrive, the devils leave.
EGYPTIAN PROVERB
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
Lord, give Thine angels every day / Command to guard us on our way / And bid them every evening keep / Their watch around us while we sleep / So shall no wicked thing draw near / To do us harm or cause us fear / And we shall dwell, when life is past / With angels round Thy throne at last.
JOHN M. NEALE
Hymns for Children
I am a believer in angels, though not the picture-book kind with wings and harps. Such angelic accoutrements seem as nonsensical to me as devils sporting horns and carrying pitchforks. To me, angel wings are merely symbolic of their role as divine messengers.
RICHARD PAUL EVANS
The Christmas Box
Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure and are awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Each single angel is terrifying.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Duino Elegies
We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?
JOHN PAGE
letter to Thomas Jefferson about the American Revolutionary War, Jul. 20, 1776
Angels have very nasty tempers. Especially when they're feeling righteous.
CLIVE BARKER
Mister B. Gone