quotations about angels
How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves the porch light on?
TOM WAITS
"Mr. Siegal", Heartattack and Vine
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"The Eternal Revolution", Orthodoxy
Six wings he wore, to shade his lineaments divine; the pair that clad each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast with regal ornament; the middle pair girt like a starry zone his waist, and round skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold, and colours dipp'd in heaven; the third his feet shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail, sky-tinctur'd grain.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
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
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
ALEXANDER POPE
An Essay on Criticism
We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
THOMAS DEKKER
The Honest Whore
Don't be on the side of the angels, it's too lowering.
D.H. LAWRENCE
letter to Rolf Gardiner, Dec. 18, 1927
Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you.... Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.
ST. FRANCIS DE SALES
Introduction to the Devout Life
Some reputable scientists deny and others assert that UFOs do appear to people from time to time. Some scientists have reached the place where they think they can prove that these are possibly visitors from outer space. Some Christian writers have speculated that UFOs could very well be apart of God's angelic host who preside over the physical affairs of universal creation. While we cannot assert such a view with certainty, many people are now seeking some type of supernatural explanation for these phenomena. Nothing can hide the face, however, that these unexplained events are occurring with greater frequency around the entire world and in unexpected places.
BILLY GRAHAM
Angels: Ringing Assurance that We Are Not Alone
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
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
The very names assigned to angels by their Creator, convey to us ideas pre-eminently pleasing, fitted to captivate the heart, and exalt the imagination; ideas which dispel gloom, banish despondency, enliven hope, and awaken sincere and unmingled joy.
TIMOTHY DWIGHT
Theology Explained and Defended
Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their own way, but we, poor mortals in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company.
JEROME K. JEROME
"On Vanity and Vanities", Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
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
Angels, living light most glorious! Beneath the Godhead in burning desire in the darkness and mystery of creation you look on the eye of your God never taking your fill: What glorious pleasures take shape within you!
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
"O gloriosissimi"
Ye holy angels bright, who stand before God's throne and dwell in glorious light, praise ye the Lord each one. Assist our song, or else the theme too high doth seem for mortal tongue.
RICHARD BAXTER
Poetical Fragments
Angels have very nasty tempers. Especially when they're feeling righteous.
CLIVE BARKER
Mister B. Gone
This is the state of all creatures, whether men or angels; as they make not themselves, so they enjoy nothing from themselves; if they are great, it must be only as great receivers of the gifts of God; their power can only be so much of the divine power acting in them; their wisdom can be only so much of the divine wisdom shining within them; and their light and glory, only so much of the light and glory of God shining upon them.
WILLIAM LAW
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
Songs of praise the angels sang, Heav'n with alleluias rang, when creation was begun, when God spoke and it was done.
JAMES MONTGOMERY
"Songs of Praise the Angels Sang"
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