providence quotes

It is not for me,Your Honour, to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence.

- F(rederick) E(dwin) Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead
In reply to a judge's testy inquiry 'What do you suppose I am on theBenchfor, Mr Smith?'. Quoted in 2ndEarlof Birkenhead F. E.: The Life of F. E. Smith, First Earl of Birkenhead (1959), ch.9.

Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

-William Cowper
  Olney Hymns,'Light Shining out of Darkness'.

I have always felt that whatever Divine Providence permitted to occur I was not too proud to report.

- Charles Anderson Dana
  The Art of Newspaper Making,'The Modern  American Newspaper'.

If it was ever intended that I should go across salt water, doyou suppose Providence would have cast my lot inan island?

- CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
  Miss Pross.  A  Tale of  Two Cities, bk.1, ch.4.

Ich gehe mit traumwandlerischer Sicherheit denWeg, den mich dieVorsehung gehen heiÞt. I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.

- Adolf Hitler
  Speech in Munich,14 Mar, in Max Domarus (ed) Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen1932^1945 (1962), p.606.

   If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil.

-John Milton
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.162^5.

And chiefly thou O spirit, that does prefer Before all temples th'upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great argument I mayassert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 580

-John Milton
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.16^25.

Some natural tears theydropped, but wiped themsoon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

-John Milton
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.12, l.645^9.

God of our Fathers, what is man! That thou towards him with hand so various, Or might I say contrarious, Temperst thy providence through his short course, Not evenly, as thou rul'st The angelic orders and inferior creatures mute, Irrational and brute.

-John Milton
Samson  Agonistes, l.667^73.

There are many scapegoats for our blunders, but the most popular one is Providence.

- Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens Twain
c.1897  Quoted in Albert Bigelow Paine (ed) MarkTwain's Notebook (1935).

To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for the blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, one must make the best of the case, for the purposes of Providence.

-John Hoyer Updike
  Polk. Buchanan Dying, act 2.