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Who really said it

God, to me, it seems is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper

Written by R. Buckminster Fuller 1895–1983 · American architect, systems theorist, inventor and futurist
Verified In copyright

From Fuller’s long poem No More Secondhand God, which dates itself in its opening lines — ‘Late tonight (April 9, 1940)’ — and was published as the title piece of a 1963 collection ↗. Two things to know: it is verse, printed in short broken lines, and the circulating prose version moves a comma. Fuller’s page reads ‘for God, to me, it seems, / is a verb / not a noun, / proper or improper;’

Last verified 14 Oct 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“for God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper;” R. Buckminster Fuller, “No More Secondhand God” (written 9 April 1940), in No More Secondhand God and Other Writings (Southern Illinois University Press, 1963), 22. Verified by Quotle.info.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of R. Buckminster Fuller; Southern Illinois University Press). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of R. Buckminster Fuller — American architect, systems theorist, inventor and futurist. Theme: "God, to me, it seems is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

A poem that dates itself

Source
‘No More Secondhand God’, in No More Secondhand God and Other Writings
Written
9 April 1940 — the poem’s own opening line
First published
Southern Illinois University Press, 1963; read here in the Doubleday Anchor edition (1971), p. 22
Form
Lineated verse — the book’s jacket copy quotes Fuller calling these pieces ‘mental mouthfuls and ventilated prose’
Verdict
Verified — with the commas restored

Here is God's purpose— for God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper; is the articulation not the art, objective or subjective; is loving, not the abstraction "love" commanded or entreated; is knowledge dynamic, not legislative code, not proclamation law, not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic canon. Yes, God is a verb, the most active, connoting the vast harmonic reordering of the universe from unleashed chaos of energy. No More Secondhand God and Other Writings (1963), p. 22

The line breaks are Fuller’s. Note also that the famous four-word condensation — ‘God is a verb’ — is genuinely his too: it appears again a few lines later, as ‘Yes, God is a verb, the most active…’

No More Secondhand God and Other Writings — full scan

How we verified this

  • The passage is on p. 22 of No More Secondhand God and Other Writings, scanned in full at the Internet Archive ↗. The book’s copyright page reads ‘Copyright (c) 1963 by R. Buckminster Fuller’ and notes it ‘was originally published by Southern Illinois University Press, in 1963’.
  • The date comes from the poem and from Fuller himself, not from a secondary source. The poem opens ‘Late tonight / (April 9, 1940)’, and in the book’s preface Fuller writes: ‘The poem “No More Secondhand God” was written in 1940 as I sought to discipline my mind into the development of tools of communication which might render democracy more effective in the era of the increasing political dictatorships.’
  • Wikiquote also cites the line to No More Secondhand God (1963) ↗ and, like us, sets it as verse — though its transcription places the comma after ‘verb’ rather than after ‘seems’, where the printed page has it.
In copyright

The collection carries the notice ‘Copyright © 1963 by R. Buckminster Fuller’ and was first published in 1963 — long after 1930, so the text remains under United States copyright. These lines are reproduced as a short excerpt for identification, verification and criticism.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets lost in the retelling

The attribution is right. What the circulating version loses is the punctuation, the line breaks, and the fact that this is a poem about democracy.

‘is a verb, not a noun’ Repunctuated

The printed page reads ‘for God, to me, it seems, / is a verb / not a noun, / proper or improper;’ — comma after seems, none after verb. The popular prose form drops the first and adds the second, which quietly turns Fuller’s hesitant aside into a flat declaration.

A prose aphorism Context

It is verse. Fuller set it in short broken lines, and the jacket copy of his own book calls these pieces ‘prose-poem essays’ and quotes his description of them as ‘mental mouthfuls and ventilated prose’. Flattening it into a sentence is how it ends up read as theology rather than as poetry.

A statement about religion Context

Only in part. By Fuller’s own account in the preface, No More Secondhand God was written to propose ‘practical means for daily or hourly telephone voting by democracy’ in ‘the era of the increasing political dictatorships’ — an idea he later said evolved into his notion of two-way beamed television.

The words are Fuller’s, written on 9 April 1940 and printed on p. 22 of his 1963 collection ↗ — as five lines of verse, not one sentence.

Context

God as process, not thing

Fuller’s objection is grammatical before it is theological. A noun is a thing you can own, name and argue about; a verb is something that happens. So he lists what God is not — not ‘the abstraction “love” commanded or entreated’, not ‘legislative code’, not ‘proclamation law’, not ‘academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic canon’ — and what it is instead: ‘the articulation, not the art’, ‘loving’, ‘knowledge dynamic’.

God, to me, it seems, is a verb — not a noun.

The title is the argument

‘No more secondhand God’ is the point: Fuller is against receiving the universe on someone else’s authority. Earlier in the same poem he says the instruments do the talking — the two-hundred-inch telescope, the electron microscope, ‘the actual achievement of atomic energy, released and controllable’ — and that ‘only now, through the impersonal “word” of these scientific instruments, does God speak of them to our widening comprehension’. The telephone-voting proposal is the same instinct applied to politics: stop being told, and measure directly.

He kept returning to the grammar. In 1970 he published a whole book under the title I Seem to Be a Verb — the same argument, turned on himself.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Internet Archive — No More Secondhand God and Other Writings (full scan)archive.org

The primary source: the poem, the passage on p. 22, the copyright page, and Fuller’s preface dating it to 1940.
Internet Archive — No More Secondhand God (1963, SIU Press printing)archive.org

Catalogue record for the original 1963 Southern Illinois University Press edition.
Wikiquote — Buckminster Fulleren.wikiquote.org

Cites the line to No More Secondhand God (1963) and sets it as verse, with the comma placed after ‘verb’.
Wikipedia — Buckminster Fulleren.wikipedia.org

Life dates, the thirty-odd books, and the vocabulary he coined.
Internet Archive — Critical Path (1981), full textarchive.org

Fuller’s late book-length statement of the same programme, searchable in full.

The author

About R. Buckminster Fuller

R. Buckminster Fuller

1895–1983 · American architect, systems theorist, inventor and futurist

Richard Buckminster Fuller Jr. (1895–1983), who signed himself R. Buckminster Fuller, was an American architect, systems theorist, inventor and futurist, and the author of more than thirty books. He coined or popularised Spaceship Earth, Dymaxion, ephemeralization, synergetics and tensegrity. He wrote a good deal of his philosophy as verse, and in 1970 published a book titled I Seem to Be a Verb.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Fuller, R. Buckminster. “No More Secondhand God.” In No More Secondhand God and Other Writings, 22. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963. Quoted from the Doubleday Anchor edition (1971). Poem dated 9 April 1940 in its opening lines.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘God, to me, it seems is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper’?” Last verified 14 Oct 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/god-to-me-it-seems-is-a-verb-not-a-noun-proper-or-improper/

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