Hopeless Romantics

"An Angel with a radient face
Above a cradle bent to look,
Seemed his own image there to trace,
As in the waters of a brook." Henry Wadsworth Longsfellow, "The Angel and the Child"

"As they drew close to the glittering, pleated, roaring weir, Carter had the sudden distinct feeling that he should look behind him. And there was the heron, sailing out of the woods toward them, against the wind, held, indeed, motionless within the wind, standing in midair with his six-foot wingspread - an angel." John Updike, "The Afterlife"

"I heard an Angel singing,
When the day was springing,
'Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release'." William Blake

"All night, all day, angels watchin' over me, my Lord. All night, all day, angels watchin' over me." African American spiritial.

"Angels are consectrated and devoted to the service of the Father and Creator, whose wont is to employ them as ministers and helpers, to have charge and care of mortal men." Moses Maimonides

"We must be linked up with the Holy Angels: we must form with them one strong family." Pope Pius XII

"And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains feel off from his hands." Acts 12:7

"The garments of the angels correspond to their intelligence. The garments of some glitter as with flame and those of others are resplendent as with light: others are of various colors, and some white and opaque." Emanuel Swedenborg

Numerous are the angels in heaven. The Koran

"People are wonderful. There is good in everyone. It may be hard to see at times. It may be clouded over by meanness or selfishness. But, within everyone there is an angel waiting to be released." Robert H. Schuller, 'Life's not Fair, but God is Good'

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write,
And ever since it grew more clean and white, . . .
Slow to world-greetings . . . quick with its "Oh, list,"
When the angels speak.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Sonnet XXXVIII"

"Perhaps there are no artistic represenatations that appeal to a greater number of people, of all possible types, than do those of angels." Clara Erskine Waters

I would see beside me, on my left hand, an angel in bodily form - a type of vision which I am not in the habit of seeing, except very rarely.... St. Teresa of Avila

"They buried him, but all through the night of mourning, in the lighted windows, his books arranged three by three kept watch like angels with outspread wings and seemed, for him who was no more, the symbol of his resurrection." Marcel Proust, 'The Captive'

"Here are the angels of the earth . . . chastity enables them to act all things as if they had no body at all, as though heaven were already theirs, as though they had already attained immortality." St. Jonh Chrysostom.

Every raindrop that falls is accompanied by an Angel, for even a raindrop is a manifestation of being. Mohammed

"Angels, spirits, demons and the like mayfature in dreams either as symbols of blessing or warning or as symbols of parts of yourself which could lead you to greater fulfillment or, if neglected and scorned, could severly damage your chances of happiness." Eric Ackroyd, 'A Dictionary of Dream Symbols'

"I've never had to fight an angel, but I suggest you take off your coat and put up your dukes." David Niven to Cary Grant in 'The Bishop's Wife'

"You are loosened from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels, that fly around the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O that I were free!" Frederick Douglass

"To think a soul so near divine,
With a form, so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
Has gladdened once our humble sphere."
Anne Brontë, 'A Reminiscence'

"Angels not only carry messages from God to man. They also influence human action in other way, and they act directly on the physical environment that is the stage on which human action takes place." Mortimer J. Alder, 'Angels and Us'

"I throw myself down in my Chamber, and I call in, and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a couch, for the whinning of a door." John Donne

"Angels, when the sun is hottest
May be seen the sand among,
Stooping--plucking--sighing--flying--
Parched the flowers they bear along."
Emily Dickinson

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to seperate us from the love of God." Romans 8:38

"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and brith
With something of angelic light."
William Wordsworth, 'She Was a Phantom of Delight'

"The existence of angels is part of faith." Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, 'The Essence of Islam'

"Go, Heavely Guest, Ethereal Messenger;
Sent from whose sovran goodness I adore!
Gentle to me and affable hath been
They condecension, and shall be honoured ever
With grateful memory. Thou to Mankind
Be good and friendlystill, and oft return!"
John Milton, 'Paradise Lost'

"I didn't see any wing on his shoulder, you understand? But I [will] tell you something . . . there must be something, a bigger power who asked him to do the job. And to find yourself on Schindler's list, you find yourself on the list of life." Leopold Page, Holocost survivor

"Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate--
The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of hell;
Science the feud can only aggrevate--"
Herman Melville

"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands." Revelation 5:11

"An angel, robed in spotless white,
Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night,
Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone,
Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.
Paul Laurence Dunbar

When you see a band of fifty, you are lost in amazement.
They seem clothed with golden plates,
constantly moving, like so many suns.
Pere Lamy

"You mean that guardian angel bit? Oh is that so? . . . Well, I want to ask you something, Mr. Angel. If you're what you say you are, why do you look like James Mason?"
Lucille Ball to James Mason in Forever Darling

"In their midst, tied to a branch with red ribbon, swaying with the grosbeaks in the cold north wind, Mrs. Olmstead's Christmas angel looked out over the sonw-covered year."
John Buchholz, Mrs. Olmstead's Angels

"The word 'angel' comes from the Greek word 'anglos,' whcih is itself the translation of the Hebrew word 'malakh,' meaning messanger.' Somehow, though, naming angels through a job description seems inadequate, even unworth of them."
David Connolly, In Search of Angels

"Then as an angel, face and wings
Of air, not as pure as it, yet pure doth wear
So thy love may be my love's sphere.
Just such disparity.
As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love and men's will ever be.
John Donne, Air and Angels

"[Angels] no doubt clearly discern all our words and actions, if not all our thoughts too; for it is hard to think these walls of flesh and blood can intercept the view of an angelic being."
John Wesley

"Now cracks a noble heart.
Good-night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!"
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

"Oh Welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hovering angels girt with golden wings."
John Milton

"Seraphs are generally accepted to be the highest order of God's Angelic Servants. It is they who ceaselessly chant in Hebrew the Trisagion--Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh--'Holy, Holy, Holy is the lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His Glory' while they circle the Throne."
Malcolm Godwin, Angels: An Endangered Species

"The soul, being like an angel, is much better off when it is not associated with or imprisoned in a body. That is a much more appopriate state of being for it to enjoy."
Mortimer J. Alder, Angels and Us

"[Angels]: Purely spiritual beings with intelligence and free will, whose name indicates their mission as ministers of GOd and ministering spirits to men."
Catholic Almanac

". . . What she saw was . . . none other than Cupid, the fair god fiarly lying asleep. . . . On the shoulders of the flying god whings sparkled dewy-white with gllistening sheen, and theough they were at rest the soft delicate down at their edges quivered and rippled in incessant play."
Lucius Appuleius, The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses)

"An angel of Paradise, no less, is always beside me, wrapped in everlasting ectasy on his Lord. So I am ever under the gaze of an angel who protects and prays for me."
Pope John XXIII

1997
"In scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying 'Fear not.' The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say 'There, there.'"
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"Angels are great strangers in this time. It is necessary to speak much more about them as ministers of providence in the government of the world and of men."
Pope John Paul I

"Every single day God creates a new host of angels who, having sung His praises, vanish from the scene."
Talmudic saying

"One tries to cure the signs of growth, to exorcise them, as if they were devils, when really they might be angels of annunciation."
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

"Angel of God, my guardian dear
To whom God's love commits me here;
Ever this day be at my side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide."
Catholic prayer

"[Angels are] incorporeal and happy souls . . . not mixtures of rational and irrational natures as ourselves are, but having the irrational nature cut out, wholly intelligent throughout."
Philo

"Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man. And every one had four faces and everyone had four wings."
Ezekiah 1:5-6

". . . there's a song that one sings called 'Shalom Aleichem/Welcome to Peace' . . . a song of welcome to the angels--which come in to help you keep the Sabbath, to protect you for this holy twenty-four hours during which you pull yourself out of the world and you come in to the 'divine presence.' "
Joan Borysenko

"Men can heal the lustful. Angels can heal the malicious. Only God can heal the proud."
St. John Climacus

"Sometimes, (the Revelation) comes to me like the ringing of a little bell, and that is when it is most difficult for me. Tgen it breaks off, and only then do I know that the angel has transmitted to me. Other times, the angels shows himself to me in human form: he speaks to me and I memorize what he says."
Muhammad

"To be, content his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire."
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

"Gabriel blew, and a clean thin sound of perfect pitch and cystalline delicacy filled all the universe to the farthest start. As it sounded, there was a tiny moment of stasis as thin as the line separating past from future, and then the fabric of th worlds collapsed upon itself . . . The Last Trump had sounded."
Isaac Asimov, The Last Trump

"O, come, angel band,
Come and around me stand,
O, bear me away on your snow white wings,
To my immortal home."
Traditional, Angel Band

"In freely choosing to serve as the agents of divine purpose, angels are the living expression of the prayer 'Thy will be done.' "
David Connolly, In Search of Angels

"The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn and expire
With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp-strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sandaphon

"Allah has described them as standing, in prostration, arranged in rows, glorifying God and occupying their appointed places . . . Angels do not move an inch from the places appointed for them by God Almighty."
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, The Essence of Islam

"The feather, whence the pen was shaped
That traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an angel's wing."
William Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets

"Once upon a time--oh, many, many years ago as time is calculated by men--but which was only Yesterday in the Celestial calender of Heaven--there was, in Paradise, a most miserable, thoroughly unhappy, and utterly dejected cherub who was known throughout Heaven as The Littlest Angel."
Charles Tazewell, The Littlest Angel

"They are everywhere--good angels-- only we do not recognize them as such. But the tragedy is that there are sometimes bad angels--they are evil peple who pull us down to vice. The world is a battlefield of angels."
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Guide to Contentment

"The Angel that presided o'er my birth
Said, "Little creature, formed of joy and mirth,
Go love without the help of anything on earth."
William Blake, "The Angel that Presided"

"While all angels are beings of sublime goodness, guardian angels serve especially as protectors and caretakers of individuals here on earth. You may not recognize or acknowledge your guardian angel, but he or she watches, guides, and defends you at all times."
Angels in Our Midst

"In quibbles angel and archangel join,
And God the Father turns a school-divine."
Alexander Pope

" . . . human intellectual knowledge is ordered by God through the mediation of angels."
St. Thomas Aquinas

"[An angel] is a member of that family of wondrous beings who, ere the worlds were made, millions of ages back, have stood around the throne of God . . . and served him with a keen ecstatic love."
John Henry Newman

"For when they all rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven."
Mark 12:25.

"Whenever a child dies, an angel comes down from heaven, takes the child in its arms, and spreading out its large white wings, visits all the places that have been particularly dear to the child. From the best-loved place the angel gathers a handful of flowers, flying up again to heaven with them. There they bloom more beautifully than on earth. But that flower which is most loved receives a voice, so that it can join the song of the chorus of bliss."
Hans Christian Andersen

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty in form!, moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

"The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary."
Robert Burns, Highland Mary

"A man doesn't have to be an angel in order to be a saint."
Albert Schweitzer

"Lullaby and goddnight,
Thy mother's delight, Fair angels above
Will guard thee in love;
They will keep thee from harm,
Thou shalt wake in my arms;
They will keep thee from harm,
Thou shalt wake in my arms."
Johannes Brahms, Lullaby

"A man does not alwas choose what his guardian angel intends."
St. Thomas Aquinas

March 20, 1997 "And when we cried until the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt."
Numbers 20:16

"I intended to die in a tavern; let the wine be placed near my dying mouth, so that when the choirs of angels come, they may say, 'God be merciful to this drinker!' "
Walter Map

"All [the angels], as they circle in their orders, look Aloft; and downward, with such sway prevail, That all with mutual impluse tend to God."
Dante Alighieri

"As beings of light, the angels are also beings of color, and they may reach us through different colors that spark something in our unconscious." Terry Lynn Taylor and Mary Beth Crain, Angel Wisdom

"Oh I believe there are angels amoung us
Sent down to us from somewhere above
They come to you and me in our darkest hours
To show us how to live to teach us how to give
To guide us in the light of love."
Becky Hobbs, Angels Among Us

"Angels represent God's personal care for each one of us."
Andrew Greeley

"Go with me like good angels to my end, And as the long divorce of steel falls on me,
Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
And lift my soul to heaven."
William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

". . . the heavens above well-nigh break apart as the angels . . . beg forgiveness for those on earth."
The Koran

"I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannont rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right. I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, ten angels swearing that I was right would make no differenece. I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as a President, but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy."
Gerald R. Ford, pardoning former president Richard M. Nixon

"Angels transcened every religion, every philosophy, every creed. In fact, angels have no religion as we know it -- their existence precedes every religious system that has ever exisited on earth." Eileen Elias Freeman

"Writ in the climate of heaven,
in the language spoken by angels."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Children of the Lord's Supper

"Well, you look about like the kind of angel I'd get. Sort of a fallen angel, aren't you? What happened to your wings?"
Jimmy Stewart to Henry Travers in It's a Wonderful Life

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels."
Thomas Carlyle

"Very often, [in near-death experiences] the person encounters a divine or angelic being. This may be described as Christ, and angel, even God. Typically [they] don't report these beings as having the wings we see in the paintings, but rather as luminescent beings that seem to emanate love and saintliness."
Raymond Moody





Disclaimer: None of these quotes belong to me - I've collected them from a variety of sources and I'm only borrowing them to share with you.