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Angels

From Wikiquote
(Redirected from Seraphim)
For other uses of "Angel", see Angel (disambiguation).
It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God alone. ~ William Blake
The Wounded Angel, Hugo Simberg, 1903, voted Finland's "national painting" during 2006.

Angels are divine messengers or transcendental beings found in many religions. This page is for quotes about or referring to Angels.


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 · See also · External links

A

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Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. ~ Joseph Addison
  • So when an angel by divine command
    With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
    Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,
    Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
    And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,
    Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
  • The people who walk angelically according to their free will and practice discipline in the life of the angels remove themselves completely from the desires of the flesh, beloved brothers; they die daily in the life that belongs to earth, but they live in the life of the angels, just as they share in the life of the Lord.
    • [Athanasius of Alexandria]] “The advanced life of virtue,” Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (1995), p. 314

B

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The Lord will command his angels to take good care of you. They will lift you up in their hands. Then you won't trip over a stone. ~ The Bible
A tear is an intellectual thing,
And a sigh is the Sword of an Angel King. ~ William Blake
I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing:
"Mercy, Pity, and Peace
Are the world's release." ~ William Blake
I don't mind if it's dangerous
I don't mind if it's raining
Take me up to the top of the city
And put me up on the angel's shoulders. ~ Kate Bush
I can see angels standing around you.
They shimmer like mirrors in Summer.
But you don't know it.
And they will carry you o'er the walls.
If you need us, just call. ~ Kate Bush
  • O white-robed Angel, guide my timorous hand to write as on a lofty rock with iron pen the words of truth, that all who pass may read.
  • A tear is an intellectual thing,
    And a sigh is the Sword of an Angel King.
  • It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God alone.
  • The player is a liar when he says : "Angels are happier than men, because they are better." Angels are happier than men and devils, because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another, and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan's gratification.
  • If God will send his angels
    I sure could use them here right now
    Well if God would send his angels
    And I don't have to know how.
    • Bono, "If God Will Send His Angels" on Pop (1997); also used in City of Angels (1998).
  • Angels and Demons can't cross over into our plane. So, instead we get what I call half-breeds. The influence peddlers. They can only whisper in our ears. A single word can give you courage, or turn your favorite pleasure into your worst nightmare. Those with the demon's touch and those part angel, living alongside us. They call it the balance. I call it hypocritical bullshit.
  • As the moths around a taper,
    As the bees around a rose,
    As the gnats around a vapour,
    So the spirits group and close
    Round about a holy childhood, as if drinking its repose.
  • We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty; and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another. Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today: to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life. This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.
  • I don't mind if it's dangerous
    I don't mind if it's raining
    Take me up to the top of the city
    And put me up on the angel's shoulders.
  • Aren't we all the same? In and out of doubt.
    I can see angels standing around you.
    They shimmer like mirrors in Summer.
    But you don't know it.
    And they will carry you o'er the walls.
    If you need us, just call.

C

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Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. ~ G. K. Chesterton
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
    Weep to record, and blush to give it in.
  • What though my winged hours of bliss have been
    Like angel visits, few and far between.
  • What is all this shit about angels? Have you heard this? Three out of four people now, believe in angels. What're you, fucking stupid? Has everybody lost their fucking minds in this country? Angels, shit. You know what I think it is? I think it's a massive collective psychotic chemical flashback of all the drugs — all the drugs — smoked, swallowed, snorted, shot, and absorbed rectally by all Americans from 1960 to 1990. Thirty years of adulterated street drugs'll get you some fucking angels, my friend.
  • Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
  • Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
    • G. K. Chesterton, "Orthodoxy" (1908), Chapter VII : The Eternal Revolution; this is sometimes paraphrased "The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly".
  • Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of the character, though few can decypher even fragments of their meaning.
  • ...virginity is better than marriage, however good.... Celibacy is...an imitation of the angels. Therefore, virginity is as much more honorable than marriage, as the angel is higher than man. But why do I say angel? Christ, Himself, is the glory of virginity
    • St. John Chrysostom, Homily 19 on First Corinthians, NPNF, s. 1, v. 12, pp. 248–262.
  • We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.
  • If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
  • When one that holds communion with the skies
    Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
    And once more mingles with us meaner things,
    'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.

D

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  • And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven periods of time pass over him,’ this is the interpretation, O king: It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.
  • Daniel 4:23-25
  • For he will give his angels a command concerning you, To guard you in all your ways.
  • It was the beginning of a day in June; the deep blue sky unsullied by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. The streets were, as yet, nearly free from passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels, on the sleeping town.
  • President Barack Obama loves to quote the lyrical closing lines of Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, calling on "the better angels of our nature" to overcome partisan hatreds and political divisions. Obama cited those words in his own inaugural proclamation and rested his hand on Lincoln's Bible when he took the oath of office. He has come back to those angels again and again ever since. … He used the phrase to eulogize Ted Kennedy, to chide a would-be Quran burner in Florida, and to say goodbye to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Obama, it seems, sees better angels just about everywhere. Even as he traveled in India this week he talked about his efforts to live up to the example of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and, yes, Abraham Lincoln.
    But in light of today's real-world politics, Obama should think a little harder about the context in which Lincoln summoned those better angels on March 4, 1861. Led by South Carolina (now home to Sen. Jim DeMint, seven of 33 states had already seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy at that point. … If, in the end, Lincoln did manage to hold the Union together, it was not because of the better angels of human nature, but because he finally found the killer angels among his generals who could, and did, and at enormous cost, crush the secessionists.
  • Lincoln had an ally then of a kind that Obama could use now. Lincoln's old rival from Illinois, Stephen Douglas, whose party had been split by the fire-eaters and whom Lincoln defeated at the polls, became a wise and vital friend. In the months between the inauguration and Douglas's early death in June 1861, the "little giant," as he was known, spent many long hours talking to Lincoln about how best to preserve the Union — and compromise wasn't part of the picture. … "You do not know the dishonest purposes of those men as I do," he told Lincoln.
    What both of those great politicians understood by then was that there may be better angels in the nature of some people, but there are others who are willing to weaken, even destroy a nation to serve their own self-righteous self-interest, and they will do it in the name of the Constitution. If Obama hasn't learned that yet, perhaps it's time he did.
  • What is the question now placed before society with the glib assurance which to me is most astonishing? That question is this: Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence those new fangled theories.
  • In merest prudence men should teach
    * * * * * *
    That science ranks as monstrous things
    Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings—
    E'en Angel's wings! — are fictions.
  • Let old Timotheus yield the prize
    Or both divide the crown;
    He rais'd a mortal to the skies
    She drew an angel down.

E

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When God has sent his angel to me, then I know of a surety. … When God sends his angel to the soul it becomes the one who knows for sure. ~ Meister Eckhart
The soul at its highest is formed like God, but an angel gives a closer idea of Him. That is all an angel is: an idea of God. ~ Meister Eckhart
Knowledge comes through likeness. And so because the soul may know everything, it is never at rest until it comes to the original idea, in which all things are one. And there it comes to rest in God. ~ Meister Eckhart
  • When God has sent his angel to me, then I know of a surety. … When God sends his angel to the soul it becomes the one who knows for sure. Not for nothing did God give the keys into St. Peter's keeping, for Peter stands for knowledge, and knowledge is the key that unlocks the door, presses forward and breaks in, to discover God as he is.
    • Meister Eckhart, in Sermon 9, as translated in The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (1999) by Hughes Oliphant Old, Chapter 9 : The German Mystics, p. 448.
  • The authorities teach that next to the first emanation, which is the Son coming out of the Father, the angels are most like God. And it may well be true, for the soul at its highest is formed like God, but an angel gives a closer idea of Him. That is all an angel is: an idea of God. For this reason the angel was sent to the soul, so that the soul might be re-formed by it, to be the divine idea by which it was first conceived. Knowledge comes through likeness. And so because the soul may know everything, it is never at rest until it comes to the original idea, in which all things are one. And there it comes to rest in God.
    • Meister Eckhart, in Sermon 9, as translated in The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church (1999) by Hughes Oliphant Old, Chapter 9 : The German Mystics, p. 449.
  • The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.
  • In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's.
  • And these are the names of the holy angels who watch. Uriel, one of the holy angels, who is 3 over the world and over Tartarus. Raphael, one of the holy angels, who is over the spirits of men. Raguel, one of the holy angels who takes vengeance on the world of the luminaries. Michael, one of the holy angels, to wit, he that is set over the best part of mankind and over chaos. Saraqael, one of the holy angels, who is set over the spirits, who sin in the spirit. Gabriel, one of the holy angels, who is over Paradise and the serpents and the Cherubim. Remiel, one of the holy angels, whom God set over those who rise.

F

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How wonderful it must be to speak the language of the angels, with no words for hate and a million words for love! ~ Viktor Frankl
Angels are all around us, all the time, in the very air we breathe. ~ Eileen Elias Freeman
  • “Perhaps you could tell me how many angels may stand on the point of a pin?”…
    De Salcedo snorted. “I’ll tell you. Philosophically speaking, you may put as many angels on a pinhead as you want to. Actually speaking, you may put only as many as there is room for. Enough of that. I'm interested in facts, not fancies.”
  • Angels shine from without because their spirits are lit from within by the light of God.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman, in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994), p. 4, ISBN 0446671215
  • Angels can fly lightly because they take God seriously.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman, in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994), p. 5.
  • Angels can fly because they carry no burdens.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman, in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • 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, in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • Pay attention to your dreams — God's angels often speak directly to our hearts when we are asleep.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • Life is a tapestry: We are the warp; angels, the weft; God, the weaver. Only the Weaver sees the whole design.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • Angels fly at light speed, because they are servants of the Light.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • If angels rarely appear, it's because we all too often mistake the medium for the Message.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • Insight is better than eyesight when it comes to seeing an angel.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • Angels are all around us, all the time, in the very air we breathe.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • When babies look beyond you and giggle, maybe they're seeing angels.
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • How wonderful it must be to speak the language of the angels, with no words for hate and a million words for love!
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).
  • God not only sends special angels into our lives, but sometimes He even sends them back again if we forget to take notes the first time!
    • Eileen Elias Freeman in The Angels' Little Instruction Book : Learning from God's Heavenly Messengers (1994).

G

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When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years." At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown. ~ Genesis 6:1-4
  • When men began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took for their wives as many of them as they chose. Then the Lord said: "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is but flesh. His days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years." At that time the Nephilim appeared on earth (as well as later), after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of man, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.
  • Genesis 6:1-4
  • Non Angli, sed Angeli.
    Not Angles, but Angels.

H

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Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace… ~ Leigh Hunt
  • From the east to the west sped the angels of the Dawn, from sea to sea, from mountain-top to mountain-top, scattering light with both their hands.
  • Unbless'd thy hand! — if in this low disguise
    Wander, perhaps, some inmate of the skies.
    • Homer, Odyssey, Book XVII, line 570. Pope's translation.
  • Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
    Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
    And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
    Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
    An Angel writing in a book of gold…
    • Leigh Hunt, in "Abou Ben Adhem" (or "Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel"), in The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt (1846).

I

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J

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  • "If 'it is good for a man not to touch a woman', then it is bad for him to touch one, for bad, and bad only, is the opposite of good. But, if though bad, it is made venial, then it is allowed to prevent something which would be worse than bad. ... Notice the Apostle's carefulness. He does not say: 'It is good not to have a wife', but, 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman'. ... I am not expounding the law as to husbands and wives, but discussing the general question of sexual intercourse – how in comparison with chastity and virginity, the life of angels, 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman'.
    • Jerome (c. 347 – 420), commenting on Paul's letter to the Corinthians, "NPNF2-06. Jerome: The Principal Works of St. Jerome". CCEL. Retrieved 7 November 2016 – via Google Books.
  • At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.
    • Jesus, Matthew 22:30 (NIV).

K

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  • On that very night the angel of Jehovah went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the As·syr′i·ans. When people rose up early in the morning, they saw all the dead bodies.

L

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If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13. ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
But all God's angels come to us disguised:
[...]
All radiant with the glory and the calm
Of having looked upon the front of God. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  • But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
  • For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
  • Through the dim and lonely forest
    Comes a low sweet sound,
    Like the whispering of angels
    To the greenwood round,
    Bearing through the hours of midnight,
    On their viewless wings,
    Music in its measure telling
    High and holy things.
  • If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals 13.
    • Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook B (1768-1771), B 44. This quote comes from Wikiquote's Lichtenberg Aphorisms section which was begun primarily with translations by R. J. Hollingdale, augmented by other sources, including Selected Writings of Georg C. Lichtenberg (1893) edited by Adolf Wilbrandt.
  • The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone 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.
  • If I have freedom in my love,
    And in my soul am free,
    Angels alone that soar above
    Enjoy such liberty.

M

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If men were angels, no government would be necessary. ~ James Madison
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent revelrie
You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here. ~ Sarah McLachlan
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. ~ John Milton
  • For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
  • Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? 54 How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?”
  • If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
  • 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.
  • ...indeed, if there were any modesty left in mankind, the histories of the Bible might abundantly assure men of the existence of angels and spirits... I look upon it as a special piece of Providence that . . . fresh examples of apparitions may awaken our benumbed and lethargic minds into an assurance that there are other intelligent beings besides those that are clothed in heavy earth or clay . . . for this evidence, showing that there are bad spirits, will necessarily open a door to the belief that there are good ones, and lastly, that there is a God.
    • Henry More, quoted by H.P. Blavatsky, in Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, (1877)
  • For God will deign
    To visit oft the dwellings of just men
    Delighted, and with frequent intercourse
    Thither will send his winged messengers
    On errants of supernal grace.
  • How sweetly did they float upon the wings
    Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,
    At every fall smoothing the raven down
    Of darkness till it smiled!
  • The helmed Cherubim,
    And sworded Seraphim,
    Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd.
  • Death makes angels of us all
    & gives us wings
    where we had shoulders
    smooth as raven's
    claws
  • Now the two angels arrived at Sod′om by evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sod′om. When Lot caught sight of them, then he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the earth.
  • Then too when angel voices sung
    The mercy of their God, and strung
    Their harps to hail, with welcome sweet,
    That moment watched for by all eyes.
  • Narrated Abu Talha:
    The Prophet said, "Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or there are pictures".

N

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  • A certain scripture mentions that humans are superior to angels. Why? Because there are people who know of evil but do not become evil. It's different from angels, who know only of good since birth. Humans have evil, but can live as good, so they are superior to angels, who know only good.

O

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  • We must not suppose that it is the result of chance that a particular duty is assigned to a particular angel; the work of curing and healing, for instance, to Raphael; the supervising of wars to Gabriel; the task of attending to the prayers and supplications of mortals to Michael. We must believe that they have obtained their duties for no other reason except their own individual merits and that they entered upon them as a reward for the zeal and virtue they displayed before the construction of this world; after which event this or that kind of duty was assigned to each member of the order of archangels, while others were counted worthy of being enrolled in the order of angels and to act under this or that archangel, or under this or that leader or chief of his order. All this, as we have said was arranged not by chance or at random, but by the most appropriate and righteous judgment of God, being settled in accordance with merit, God himself deciding and approving. p. 85, Chapter VIII, Angels.
    • Origen, On First Principles based on G. W. Butterworth’s 1936 English translation, Christian Classics, Notre Dame, (1980) [Full text]
  • No angelic office, therefore, exists except as a reward of merit, nor do authorities wield their authority except as a result of their progress, nor do those who are called thrones, that is, authorities for judging and ruling, administer their functions except as a reward of merit, nor do the dominions exercise dominion but by merit; for this supreme and most excellent order of rational creatures in the heavenly places is thus arranged in a glorious variety of offices. p. 89
    • Origen, On First Principles based on G. W. Butterworth’s 1936 English translation, Christian Classics, Notre Dame, (1980)

P

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Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ~ Paul of Tarsus
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. ~ Alexander Pope
  • Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Q

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Surely those who believe not in the Hereafter name the angels with female names. And they have no knowledge of it. They follow but conjecture, and surely conjecture avails naught against Truth. ~ Quran
  • They swear their strongest oaths by Allah, that if a (special) sign came to them, by it they would believe. Say: "Certainly (all) signs are in the power of Allah: but what will make you (Muslims) realise that (even) if (special) signs came, they will not believe"? We (too) shall turn to (confusion) their hearts and their eyes, even as they refused to believe in this in the first instance: We shall leave them in their trespasses, to wander in distraction. Even if We did send unto them angels, and the dead did speak unto them, and We gathered together all things before their very eyes, they are not the ones to believe, unless it is in Allah's plan. But most of them ignore (the truth). Likewise did We make for every Messenger an enemy,- evil ones among men and jinns, inspiring each other with flowery discourses by way of deception. If thy Lord had so planned, they would not have done it: so leave them and their inventions alone. To such (deceit) let the hearts of those incline, who have no faith in the hereafter: let them delight in it, and let them earn from it what they may.
    • Quran, chapter 6: 109-113
  • Or did We create the angels females, while they witnessed? Now surely it is of their own lie that they say: Allah has begotten. And truly they are liars.
    • Quran, chapter 37: 150-152
  • And how many angels are in the heavens, whose intercession avails naught except after Allah gives permission to whom He pleases and chooses. Surely those who believe not in the Hereafter name the angels with female names. And they have no knowledge of it. They follow but conjecture, and surely conjecture avails naught against Truth.

R

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  • A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
    Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.
  • Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
    Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
    With angels blest; but even from angelhood
    I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
    When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
    I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
    Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
    Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.
    • Rumi, "I Died as a Mineral", as translated in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 125.

S

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Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. ~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
  • All angel now, and little less than all,
    While still a pilgrim in this world of ours.
    • Walter Scott, Lord of the Isles, referring to Harriet, Duchess of Buccleugh
  • I charge thee, fling away ambition: by that sin fell the angels.
  • How oft do they their silver bowers leave
    To come to succour us that succour want!
    • Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book II, Canto VIII, Stanza 2.
  • 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!
    Nor, though they fade from us, do they depart—
    It is the childly heart
    We walk as heretofore,
    Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore.

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Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision … Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it. ~ Teresa of Ávila
  • I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful — his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it.
  • I have no angels left
    Now, Sweet, to pray to:
    Where you have made your shrine
    They are away to.
    They have struck Heaven's tent,
    And gone to cover you:
    Whereso you keep your state
    Heaven is pitched over you.

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Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels. ~ Richard Wilbur
Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel? ~ Gregory Widen, The Prophecy
  • Could we forbear dispute, and practise love,
    We should agree as angels do above.
  • Gabriel: I'm an angel. I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why.
  • Thomas Daggett: Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?
  • Whenever an angel says "Be not afraid!" you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.
    • Elie Wiesel, as quoted in Spirituality and Liberation : Overcoming the Great Fallacy (1988) by Robert McAfee Brown, p. 136
  • For all we know
    Of what the Blessèd do above
    Is, that they sing, and that they love.
    . . .
    What know we of the Blest above
    But that they sing, and that they love?

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  • An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
    Legions of angels can't confine me there.

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See also

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Wikipedia
Wikipedia
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Wiktionary
Wiktionary
Look up angel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Commons
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