Quotes

What People Have Said about the Bible

“If he [the biblical critic] tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour; not how many years he has spent on that Gospel….Read the dialogues [in John]: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at its pictures: Jesus (if I may use the word) doodling with his finger in the dust; the unforgettable “and it was night” (John 13:30). I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this.”

- C.S. Lewis, professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Cambridge University

“A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put.

No other book has been so chopped, knived, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles lettres of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the Bible? with such venom and skepticism? with such thoroughness and erudition? upon every chapter, line, and tenet?

The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions, and studied by millions.”

- Bernard Ramm

“If every Bible in any considerable city were destroyed, the Book could be restored in all its essential parts from the quotations on the shelves of the city public library. There are works, covering almost all the great literary writers, devoted especially to showing how much the Bible has influenced them.”

- Cleland B. McAfee

“Behold the works of our philosophers; with all their pompous diction, how mean and contemptible they are by comparison with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man?”

- Jean Jaques Rousseau, French philosopher

“England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England.”

- Victor Hugo

“I have found in the Bible words for my inmost thought, songs for my joy, utterance for my hidden griefs and pleadings for my shame and feebleness.”

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and literary critic

“Pile them, if you will, on the left side of your study table; but place your own Holy Bible on the right side—all by itself, all alone—and with a wide gap between them. For…there is a gulf between it and the so-called sacred books of the East which severs the one from the other utterly, hopelessly, and forever…a veritable gulf which cannot be bridged over by any science of religious thought.”

-Professor M. Montiero, former Boden professor of Sanskrit, commenting on the Bible after spending forty-two years studying Eastern books

“The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands; it lays hold of me.”

- Martin Luther

“When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.”

- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), 28th President of the United States

“A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”

-Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th President of the United States

The English Bible—a book which if everything else in our language should perish, would
alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.

- Thomas B. Macaulay, 1800-1859, from his essays

“Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book.”


- Northrop Frye, world renowned literary critic, from his now classic Anatomy of Criticism

“I soon realized that a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is going on in what he reads: The most conscientous student will be continually misconstruing the implications, even the meaning.”

- Northrop Frye, twenty-five years later

“The Bible is Gods chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.”

- Henry Ward Beecher

“If we abide by the principles taught by the Bible, our country will go on prospering.”

- Daniel Webster

“The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.”

- Flavel

“The study of Gods Word, for the purpose of discovering God's will, is the secret discipline that has formed the greatest characters.”

- J. W. Alexander

“I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated through this book....All things desirable to men are contained in the Bible.”

- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States

“We may compare the Bible to the Old Testament Tabernacle in the wilderness with its three courts. The outer court is the letter of the Scriptures; the inner court, or holy place, is the truth of the Scriptures; the holiest place of all is the person of Jesus Christ; and only when we pass the inmost veil do we come to Him.”

- A. T. Pierson

“It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom.”

- Horace Greeley (1811-1872), publisher and journalist

“Indeed, it is an indisputable fact that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book [the Bible].”

- Ronald Reagan (1911- ), 40th President of the United States

“There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any other profane history.”

- Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Scientist/Inventor

“It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

- George Washington (1732-1799), first President of the United States

“So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.”

- John Quincy Adams

“The Bible is the sheet-anchor of our liberties.”

- U. S. Grant

“The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed.”

- Patrick Henry

“That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests.”

- Andrew Jackson

“In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.”

- Robert E. Lee

“If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”

- Daniel Webster

“All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more the Truths contained in the Sacred Scriptures.”

- Sir William Herschel(1738-1822), English astronomer, who made numerous discoveries about the laws of the heavens

“That Book accounts for the supremacy of England.”

- Queen Victoria (1819-1901), British monarch for 64 years, the longest reign in British history

“I have known ninety-five of the worlds great men in my time, and of these, eighty-seven were followers of the Bible. The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors.”

- William Gladstone (1809-1898), British statesman, serving as Prime Minister four times

“The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it.

- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), Emperor of the French

“I accordingly decided to turn my mind to the Holy Scriptures and to see what they were like. And behold, I see something within them that was neither revealed to the proud nor made plain to children, that was lowly on ones entrance but lofty on further advance, and that was veiled over in mysteries. None such as I was at that time could enter into it, nor could I bend my neck for its passageways. When I first turned to that Scripture, I did not feel towards it as I am speaking now, but it seemed to me unworthy of comparison with the nobility of Ciceros writings. My swelling pride turned away from its humble style, and my sharp gaze did not penetrate into its inner meaning. But in truth it was of its nature that its meaning would increase together with your little ones, whereas I disdained to be a little child and, puffed up with pride, I considered myself to be a great fellow.”

- Augustine on his introduction to Sacred Scripture

“Therefore, since we were to weak to find the truth by pure reason and for that cause we needed the authority of the Holy Writ, I now began to believe that in no wise would you have given so such surpassing authority throughout the whole world to that Scripture, unless you wished that both through it you believed in and through it you be sought. Now that I had heard many things in those writings explained in a probable manner, I referred the absurdity that used there to cause me difficulty to the depths of their mysteries. To me, that authority seemed all the more venerable and worthy of inviolable faith, because they were easy for everyone to read and yet safeguarded the dignity of their hidden truth within a deeper meaning, by words completely clear and by a lowly style of speech making itself accessible to all men; and drawing the attention of those who are not light of heart. Thus it can receive all men into its generous bosom, and by narrow passages lead on to you a small nurnber of them, although these are more numerous than if it did not stand out with such lofty authority and if had not attracted throngs into the bosom of its holy humility.”

- Augustine on the nature of the Bible

“So it was with the most intense desire that I seized upon the sacred writings of your Spirit and especially the Apostle Paul. Those difficult passages where at times he seemed to me to contradict himself, and where the text of his discourse seemed to be at variance with the testimonies of the law and the prophets melted away. I saw those pure writings as having one single aspect, and I learned to exult with joy. I made a beginning, and whatever truths I had read in those other works I here found to be uttered along with the praise of your grace, so that whosoever sees may not glory, as if he had not received not merely what he sees but also his very ability to see.

All this those writings of the Platonists do not have. Their pages do not have this face of piety, the tears of confession, your sacrifice, a troubled spirit, a contrite and a humbled heart, the salvation of your people, the city that is like a bride, the pledge of the spirit, the cup of our redemption. In those books no one sings: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God? For he is my God and my savior, my protector. I shall be moved no more.'In them no man hears him calling to us: 'Come unto me, all you that labor.' They scorn to learn of him because he is meek and humble of heart. 'For you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to little ones.'”

- Augustine comparing the works of men with the Scriptures