Idolatry Quotes

• God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing that He will not put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place.

  John Ruskin

  Heart, Great Men, Gods Will

  John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1865). “Precious Thoughts”, p.101

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you love anything better than God you are idolaters: if there is anything you would not give up for God it is your idol: if there is anything that you seek with greater fervor than you seek the glory of God, that is your idol, and conversion means a turning from every idol.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Giving Up, Mean, Idols

  16 Copy quote

• Not only the adoration of images is idolatry, but also trust in one's own righteousness, works and merits, and putting confidence in riches and power. As the latter is the commonest, so it also is the most noxious.

  Martin Luther

  Riches, Merit, Latter

  Martin Luther (1959). “What Luther says: an anthology”

  101 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idolatry the exists in a man's heart always wants to lead him away from his Savior and back to self-reliance no matter how pitiful that self-reliance is or how many times it has betrayed him.

  Matt Chandler

  Heart, Men, Self

  26 Copy quote

• We make a god out of whatever we find most joy in. So find your joy in God and be done with all idolatry.

  John Piper

  Joy, Done

  21 Copy quote

• The opposite of Christianity is not atheism, but idolatry.

  Peter Kreeft

  Opposites, Atheism, Christianity

  66 Copy quote

• Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that is meant to be worshipped.

  Saint Augustine

  Used, Ought, Meant To Be

  20 Copy quote

• For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself?

  John Calvin

  Worship, Giver, Ifs

  John Calvin “Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion”, Westminster John Knox Press

  98 Copy quote

  Show source

• When something becomes so important to you that it drives your behavior and commands your emotions, you are worshipping it.

  J. D. Greear

  Important, Emotion, Behavior

  J.D. Greear (2011). “Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary”, p.27, B&H Publishing Group

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Wisdom, Heart, Mean

  11 Copy quote

• Idolatry happens when we take good things and make them ultimate things

  Timothy Keller

  Good Things, Happens, Ultimate

  7 Copy quote

• The Human heart is an idol factory.

  John Calvin

  Heart, Idols, Factories

  18 Copy quote

• If we esteem them too highly, good works can become the greatest idolatry.

  Martin Luther

  Christian, Good Work, Esteem

  21 Copy quote

• He who offers God a second place offers Him no place.

  John Ruskin

  Offers, Second Place

  John Ruskin (1867). “Precious Thoughts: Moral and Religious. Gathered from the Works of John Ruskin, A. M.”, p.76

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Respect, Idols

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb”, p.228, Princeton University Press

  138 Copy quote

  Show source

• The heart of all idolatry in the Bible is the de-godding of God.

  D. A. Carson

  Heart

  18 Copy quote

• We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.

  Pope Francis

  Real, Men, Cfs

  "The Joy of the Gospel: Evangelii Gaudium". Book by Pope Francis, w2.vatican.va. November 26, 2013.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The opposite of theism is not atheism, it’s idolatry

  Peter Kreeft

  Opposites, Atheism, Theism

  30 Copy quote

• When people say, "I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself," they mean that they have failed an idol, whose approval is more important than God's.

  Timothy Keller

  Mean, Idols, People

  Timothy Keller (2009). “Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters”, p.83, Penguin

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you uproot the idol and fail to plant the love of Christ in its place, the idol will grow back.

  Tullian Tchividjian

  Idols, Failing, Christ

  "Counterfeit Gods: When the Empty Promises of Love, Money and Power Let You Down". Book by Timothy Keller, 2010.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is time to cease to argue about God , and instead to unite in the unmasking of contemporary forms of idolatry.

  Erich Fromm

  Unmasking, Arguing, Form

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Psychoanalysis and Religion”, p.111, Open Road Media

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• If gratitude is not rooted in the beauty of God before the gift, it is probably disguised idolatry. May God grant us a heart to delight in him for who he is so that all our gratitude for his gifts will be the echo of our joy in the excellency of the Giver!

  John Piper

  Gratitude, Heart, Echoes

  John Piper (2009). “A Godward Life: Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life”, p.214, Multnomah

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth.

  Pope Francis

  Journey, Labyrinth, Path

  5 Copy quote

• Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a begging.

  Martin Luther

  Truth, Begging You, Hypocrisy

  Martin Luther (1848). “The table talk or familiar discourse of Martin Luther, tr. by W. Hazlitt”, p.25

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god.

  William Shakespeare

  God, Idols, Mad

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Edward Capell, Alexander Pope, George Steevens (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare”, p.291

  14 Copy quote

  Show source