Miracles

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.

All the events narrated in Scripture came to pass naturally, and are referred directly to God because Scripture, as we have shown, does not aim at explaining things by their natural causes, but only at narrating what appeals to the popular imagination, and doing so in the manner best calculated to excite wonder, and consequently to impress the minds of the masses with devotion. ~ Benedict de Spinoza

The proper course, therefore, is ... to ascertain and examine the doctrine; ... then after it has been proved, but not till then, it may receive confirmation from miracles. ~ John Calvin

For the 2004 film, see Miracle (film).

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations · See also · External links

A

• There has always been a belief in miracles in the popular mind. As L. Sprague de Camp once said, the public would rather be bunked than debunked.
  • Brian W. Aldiss, Science Fiction on the Titanic, in Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison (eds.) The Year's Best SF 9 (1976), ISBN 0-8600-7894-9, p. 205

B

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

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

• Every believer is God's miracle.
  • Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene Home.

• Man's need of self-esteem entails the need for a sense of control over reality – but no control is possible in a universe which, by one's own concession, contains the supernatural, the miraculous and the causeless, a universe in which one is at the mercy of ghosts and demons, in which one must deal, not with the unknown, but with the unknowable; no control is possible if man proposes, but a ghost disposes; no control is possible if the universe is a haunted house.
  • Nathaniel Branden, "Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice" (1963)

C

• The proper course, therefore, is, in the first instance, to ascertain and examine the doctrine; ... then after it has been proved, but not till then, it may receive confirmation from miracles. But the mark of sound doctrine given by our Saviour himself is its tendency to promote the glory not of men, but of God (John 7:18; 8:50). Our Saviour having declared this to be test of doctrine, we are in error if we regard as miraculous, works which are used for any other purpose than to magnify the name of God.
  • John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, preface

• Being a miracle doesn't mean it's mysterious. Being a miracle means it's beautiful and important.
  • Paul Alan Cox, 2021, LDS Earth Stewardship Fall Forum

D

• “I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a goddam miracle, that’s what it is.”
  “Come, now,” the older man murmured. “I don’t believe in miracles—neither do you.”
  • Stephen R. Donaldson, The Power That Preserves (1977), Chapter 21

F

• A miracle: a chance distribution of events, occurring one time in a billion.
  • Philip José Farmer, The Fabulous Riverboat (1971), Chapter 3

G

• Nimrod, becoming weary of arguing with Abraham, decided to cast him before his god--fire--and challenged Abraham's deliverance by the God of Abraham, but God saved him out of the fiery furnace. Haran too was challenged to declare his god, but halted between two opinions, and delayed his answer until he saw the result of Abraham's fate. When he saw the latter saved he declared himself on the side of Abraham's God, thinking that he too, having now become an adherent of that God, would be saved by the same miracle. But since his faith was not real, but depended on a miracle, he perished in the fire, into which like Abraham he was cast by Nimrod. This is hinted in the words (Gen. 11. 28): 'And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.'
  • Genesis Rabbah 38, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 78

H

• 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.
  • David Hume, Section 10 : Of Miracles Pt. 1; Variant: A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence. in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748; 1751).

I

• 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.
  • Jean Ingelow, Story of Doom (1867), Book VII, line 271.

J

• 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.

K

• Miracles were nonsense, mere coping mechanisms.
  • Jaroslav Kalfař, Spaceman of Bohemia (2017), Chapter 6

• 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.

N

• Miracles are very often thought of, both by those who believe in them and by those who do not, as events, or purported events, that contradict the laws of nature and that therefore cannot be explained by science or reason. But this is not at all what the Bible means by a miracle, as any Biblical scholar will tell you. “The laws of nature” is a modern scientific concept. The Bible knows nothing about nature, let alone the laws of nature.
  • Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity: The Gospel of Liberation (1976)

P

• That miracles are things in themselves possible, must be allowed so long as it is evident that there is in nature a power equal to the working of them. And certainly the power, principle, or being, by whatever name it be denominated, which produced the universe, and established the laws of it, is fully equal to any occasional departures from them. The object and use of those miracles on which the christian religion is founded, is also maintained to be consonant to the object and use of the general system of nature, viz. the production of happiness. We have nothing, therefore to do, but to examine, by the known rules of estimating the value of testimony whether there be reason to think that such miracles have been wrought, or whether the evidence of Christianity, or of the christian history, does not stand upon as good ground as that of any other history whatever.
  • Joseph Priestley, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, General Conclusions, Part I.

R

• 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.

S

• This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary... you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite...
  This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. (introduction)
  • Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles (1976)

• Great floods have flown
  From simple sources, and great seas have dried
  When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
  • William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act II, scene 1, line 142.

• It must be so; for miracles are ceased
  And therefore we must needs admit the means
  How things are perfected.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry V (c. 1599), Act I, scene 1, line 67.

• As nothing happens in nature which does not follow from her laws, and as her laws embrace everything conceived by the Divine intellect, and lastly, as nature preserves a fixed and immutable order; it most clearly follows that miracles are only intelligible as in relation to human opinions, and merely mean events of which the natural cause cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary occurrence, either by us, or at any rate, by the writer and narrator of the miracle. ...

  Since miracles were wrought according to the understanding of the masses, who are wholly ignorant of the workings of nature, it is certain that the ancients took for a miracle whatever they could not explain by the method adopted by the unlearned in such cases, namely, an appeal to the memory, a recalling of something similar, which is ordinarily regarded without wonder; for most people think they sufficiently understand a thing when they have ceased to wonder at it. The ancients, then, and indeed most men up to the present day, had no other criterion for a miracle; hence we cannot doubt that many things are narrated in Scripture as miracles of which the causes could easily be explained by reference to ascertained workings of nature.

  • Benedict de Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise (1677), 6:22

• All the events narrated in Scripture came to pass naturally, and are referred directly to God because Scripture, as we have shown, does not aim at explaining things by their natural causes, but only at narrating what appeals to the popular imagination, and doing so in the manner best calculated to excite wonder, and consequently to impress the minds of the masses with devotion.
  • Benedict de Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise (1677), 6:73

W

• Mohammed did not claim the power of working miracles. The Koran itself, he said, was a miracle sufficient to convince the most stubborn.
  • A. J. B. Wavell, "Introduction". A Modern Pilgrim in Mecca. 1912. p. 12. 

• 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.
  • Walt Whitman, Song of Myself § 24, in Leaves of Grass.

• 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.
  • Walt Whitman, Song of Myself § 31, in Leaves of Grass.

• Why, who makes much of a miracle?
  As to me I know of nothing else but miracles.
  • Walt Whitman, in Miracles (1856), in Leaves of Grass.

• 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.
  • Walt Whitman, Miracles (1856) in Leaves of Grass.

• 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?
  • Walt Whitman, Miracles (1856) in Leaves of Grass.

• 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.

Y

• Miracles are magic processed by faith and a lack of a scientific imagination.
  • Jane Yolen, Dick W. and His Adequate Pussy, reprinted in Mike Resnick (ed.) This is My Funniest (2006), ISBN 978-1-932100-95-2, p. 35

• 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.

• 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.