Have We not made the earth as a cradle and the mountains as pegs? And We created you in pairs, and We appointed your sleep for a rest; and We appointed night for a garment, and We appointed day for a livelihood. And We have built above you seven strong ones, and We appointed a blazing lamp and have sent down out of the rain-clouds water cascading that We may bring forth thereby grain and plants, and gardens luxuriant.
—The Holy Quran Sacred Scripture of Islam
God made man merely to hear some praise of what he’d done on those Five Days.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
when god decided to invent everything he took one reath bigger than a circustent and everything began.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
On certain mornings, as we turn a corner,
an exquisite dew falls on our heart
and then vanishes.
But the freshness lingers, and this, always,
is what the heart needs.
The earth must have risen in just such a light
the morning the world was born.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibility of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The finiteness, the dependency, and the insufficiency of man.
—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American Christian Theologian
The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause; a motion, without a mover; a circle, without a centre; a time, without an eternity; a second, without a first: these are things so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must be a beast in understanding who can believe in them. The thing formed, says that nothing formed it; and that which is made, is, while that which made it is not! This folly is infinite.
—Jeremy Taylor
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Creation is a drug I can’t do without.
—Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959) American Film Producer, Director
Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn’t something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly—a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Consciousness is the glory of creation.
—James Broughton (1913–99) American Poet, Filmmaker
Imagine spending four billion years stocking the oceans with seafood, filling the ground with fossil fuels, and drilling the bees in honey production—only to produce a race of bed-wetters!
—Barbara Ehrenreich (1941–2022) American Social Critic, Essayist
God’s first creature, which was light.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Imagine the Creator as a stand up comedian – and at once the world becomes explicable.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.
—Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–95) Anglo-Irish Children’s Hymn Writer, Poet
I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
The innermost meaning of sacrifice is the annihilation of the finite just because it is finite. In order to demonstrate that this is the only purpose, the most noble and beautiful must be chosen; above all, man, the fulfillment of the earth. Human sacrifices are the most natural sacrifices. Man, however, is more than the fulfillment of the earth; he is reasonable, and reason is free and nothing but an eternal self-determination toward the infinite. Thus man can sacrifice only himself, and that is what he does in the omnipresent sanctissimum of which the masses are not aware. All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods. The meaning of divine creation is primarily revealed in the enthusiasm of annihilation. Only in the throes of death is the spark of eternal life ignited.
—Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German Man of Letters, Critic
This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
—Isaac Newton (1643–1727) English Physicist, Mathematician, Astronomer, Theologian
Exchange is creation.
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–80) American Poet, Writer
A life lived of choice is a life of conscious action. A life lived of chance is a life of unconscious creation.
—Neale Donald Walsch (b.1943) American Spiritual Writer
O Children of Men! Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Such is My counsel to you, O concourse of light! Heed ye this counsel that ye may obtain the fruit of holiness from the tree of wondrous glory.
—Baha’u’llah (1817–92) Founder of the Islamic Baha’i Movement
Any creator owes a debt to past creation.
—Lukas Foss (1922–2009) German-American Composer, Pianist, Conductor
Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
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