Biblical Quotes

Connected to God

I will establish my covenant between me and you [Abraham] and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

—Genesis 17:7 (see Genesis 17:19)

Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”

—Exodus 19:5–6

For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

—Deuteronomy 4:7–8

The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
    and he makes his covenant known to them.

—Psalm 25:14

O come, let us worship and bow down,
    let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
    and we are the people of his pasture,
    and the sheep of his hand.

—Psalm 95:6–7

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

—Jeremiah 31:33–34

See, I am going to gather them from all the lands to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation; I will bring them back to this place, and I will settle them in safety. They shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me.

—Jeremiah 32:37–40

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

—John 15:4

I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

—John 17:20–21

Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test!

—2 Corinthians 13:5

In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

—Ephesians 1:13–14

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

—Ephesians 3:14–17

Connected to creation

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

—Genesis 9:16

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

—Romans 8:22–23

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

—Romans 8:28

With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

—Ephesians 1:8b–9

Connected to believers

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. … All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

—Acts 2:42, 44

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

—1 Peter 2:4–5

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

—Romans 12:4–5 (see also 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Ephesians 4:4–6)

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

—1 Corinthians 1:2

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

—1 Corinthians 10:16–17

It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

—Philippians 1:7

Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

—Colossians 3:14

We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

—1 John 1:3

But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

—1 Peter 4:13

Secular Quotes

Everything that is in the heavens, on earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.

—Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century Benedictine Abbess

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet

When we try to pick out any­thing by itself, we find it hitched to every­thing else in the Uni­verse.

—John Muir, Scottish-American naturalist

I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly—or ever—gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe.

—Brian Greene, American physicist

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

—Albert Einstein, Swiss physicist

We are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature.

—Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century philosopher

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.

—Herman Melville, American author

We are members one of another; so that you cannot injure or help your neighbor without injuring or helping yourself.

—George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright

All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We do not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

—Chief Seattle

We are not individuals at all; we are all connected. We are individuals the way each blossom on an apple tree is an individual.

—Dale Pendell, American author

What I’ve discovered is that intimate connection and communication with my creator will always get me through because I know my support, my help, is just a prayer away.

—Iyanla Vanzant, American author

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.

—Saint Augustine

I seek the Will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also.

—George Muller, English clergyman

The spiritual path is not a solo endeavor. In fact, the very notion of a self who is trying to free her/himself is a delusion. We are in it together and the company of spiritual friends helps us realize our interconnectedness.

—Tara Brach, American psychologist

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.

—Frederick Buechner, American theologian

Relationship is the substance of our connections: things like family or blood relatives, as well as covenant relationship like marriage or adoption. Even beyond that, relationship can also be defined by association (church family, workplace, neighborhoods, students, etc.), or just the frequency in which we connect with people (if I see someone often, then I might say I have a relationship with them).

—Dan Lentz, American author

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection—or compassionate action.

—Daniel Goleman, American author

Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain.

—Sharon Salzberg, American author

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

—Martin Luther King, Jr, American minister

In the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of aggression in the failure of connection.

—Carol Gilligan, American psychologist

Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.

—Martha Beck, American author

On the unconscious level, touch seems to impart a subliminal sense of caring and connection.

—Leonard Mlodinow, American physicist

Real connection and intimacy is like a meal, not a sugar fix.

—Kristin Armstrong, American athlete

We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.

—Erich Fromm, American psychologist, 20th century

Civilization grew in the beginning from the minute that we had communication—particularly communication by sea that enabled people to get inspiration and ideas from each other and to exchange basic raw materials.

—Thor Heyerdahl, 20th century Norwegian adventurer and author

Superstition is the irrational belief that an object or behavior has the power to influence an outcome, when there’s no logical connection between them. Most of us aren’t superstitious—but most of us are a ‘littlestitious.’

—Gretchen Rubin, American author

Means of Connecting

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.

—Rachel Naomi Remen, American author and teacher

Writing is a spiritual practice in that people that have no spiritual path can undertake it and, as they write, they begin to wake up to a larger connection. After a while, people tend to find that there is some muse that they are connecting to.

—Julia Cameron, American author

It takes a perverse determination to drain that instinctive curiosity away and make history seem just remote, dead and disconnected from our contemporary reality. Conversely, it just takes skillful storytelling to recharge that connection to make the past come alive in our present.

—Simon Schama, British historian

One way to look at meditation is as a kind of intra-psychic technology that’s been developed over thousands of years by traditions that know a lot about the mind/body connection.

—Jon Kabat-Zinn, American educator

Drawing is a way of coming upon the connection between things, just like metaphor in poetry reconnects what has become separated.

—John Berger, English artist

I basically started performing for my mother, going, ‘Love me!’ What drives you to perform is the need for that primal connection. When I was little, my mother was funny with me, and I started to be charming and funny for her, and I learned that by being entertaining, you make a connection with another person.

—Robin Williams, American comedian

Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection.

—Yakov Smirnoff, Russian comedian

We need all sorts of nourishment. And music satisfies and nourishes the hunger within ourselves for connection and harmony.

—Cat Stevens, British musician

Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self.

—Ted Hughes, English poet

I’m a big reader. My kids love reading, and I think it’s important, not just for development but for bonding. You start reading to kids before they can even understand what you’re saying to them, so I look at it as a fundamental tool for connection.

—Ziggy Marley, Jamaican musician

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

—J. Cole, American musician

A good friend is a connection to life – a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.

—Lois Wyse, American author

I love Twitter! At first I made fun of it, because it is very narcissistic, and there’s already so much narcissism flowing in this industry, I was like, ‘Really, one more?’ So I was against it at first. But I really love the idea of the direct connection—there’s no middle man muddling it up.

—Kelly Clarkson, American musician

Many believe effective networking is done face-to-face, building a rapport with someone by looking at them in the eye, leading to a solid connection and foundational trust. … Once social media was introduced, it enabled a new way for people, particularly the younger generation, to connect with one another, based on common interests, goals and even values.

—Raymond Arroyo, American author

Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn’t feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive. … Live-tweeting your bikini wax is not vulnerability. Nor is posting a blow-by-blow of your divorce. That’s an attempt to hot-wire connection. But you can’t cheat real connection. It’s built up slowly. It’s about trust and time.

—Brene Brown, American author

The connectivity of the cloud and the prevalence of tablets and smartphones have eroded the traditional online/offline divide. Within a short time we will most probably stop thinking of it as ‘online.’ We will simply be connected, all the time, everywhere, and the online world will be notable only by its absence when that connection breaks.

—David Amerland, American author