Celibacy Quotes

• The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church. a duty and a proof of the priest's inner maturity; it is the expression of his personal dignity.

  Pope John Paul II

  Maturity, Expression, Servant Of God

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• Celibacy is not just a matter of not having sex. It is a way of admiring a person for their humanity, maybe even for their beauty.

  Timothy Radcliffe

  Beauty, Sex, Humanity

  "Weekly Meditations for Healthy Sex (Nov. 30-Dec. 6)" by Alexandra Katehakis, M.F.T., www.huffingtonpost.com. November 30, 2012.

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• I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.

  Isaac Newton

  Aggravation, Accomplishment, Lifelong

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• I think when you embrace celibacy other elements of the relationship have to come forth. There isn't an opportunity for you to be blinded by your sexual desires there is an opportunity to see things more clearly.

  Edwina Findley

  Opportunity, Thinking, Desire

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• Celibacy is a great help, inasmuch as it enables one to lead a life of full surrender to God.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  God, Helping, Surrender

  Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas Gandhi, Homer A. Jack (2005). “The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi”, p.67, Courier Corporation

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• The practice of celibacy alone was opening me up to a deeper sense of the way the mind-body connection works. I saw over and over that my mind and body could be filled with desire and that no matter how intense the craving was it would always pass. I didn't have to satisfy every desire that arose in my mind. I began to understand impermanence through direct experience rather than just intellectual theory.

  Noah Levine

  Practice, Mind, Intellectual

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• That's why real awareness always leads you beyond sex, and celibacy happens on its own accord. Because to be in sex you have either to be identified with the male or identified with the female. A real celibate is one who has gone beyond, who is neither.

  Rajneesh

  Sex, Real, Males

  Osho, Rajneesh (Bhagwan Shree), Yoga Rabiya (Ma.), Ananda Vandana (Ma.), Prem Pankaja (Ma.) (1978). “The Discipline of Transcendence: Discourses on the Forty-two Sutras of Buddha”

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• Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

  Samuel Johnson

  Marriage, Wedding, Pain

  Rasselas ch. 26 (1759)

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• A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity.

  Jeremy Taylor

  Heart, Apples, Sweetness

  Jeremy Taylor (1834). “The Beauties of J. Taylor: Selected from His Works with an Essay on His Life and Writings”, p.38

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• A man develops a subtle power as a result of the strict observance of celibacy for twelve years. Then he can understand and grasp very subtle things which otherwise elude his intellect. Through that understanding the aspirant can have direct vision of God. That pure understanding alone enables him to realize Truth.

  Ramakrishna

  Inspirational, Men, Years

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• What happens with your sex energy depends on how you use it. What it can become does not depend on it alone, but on your understanding and on how you live your life. Have you not observed that it becomes brahmacharya, the state of celibacy when it is transformed? bramhacharya is not hostile to passion; brahmacharya is the purification, the transcendence, the sublimation of passion. In the same way, the energy that manifests itself in violence becomes peace, serenity and tranquility. It is only a question of transformation.

  Rajneesh

  Sex, Passion, Serenity

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• Celibacy goes deeper than the flesh.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Flesh, Deeper

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “This Side of Paradise”, p.126, Xist Publishing

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• To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Victory, Fasting, Purpose

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.36, Random House

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• Celibacy is the worst form of self-abuse.

  Peter De Vries

  Self, Abuse, Form

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• I'd also gone through an entire year of celibacy based on my feeling that lust was the direct cause of birth which was the direct cause of suffering and death.

  Jack Kerouac

  Years, Suffering And Death, Feelings

  Jack Kerouac (1986). “The Dharma Bums”, p.29, Penguin

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• As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent

  Socrates

  Marriage, Wedding, Men

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• I tend to agree that celibacy for a time is worth considering, for sex is dirty if all it means is winning a man, conquering a woman, beating someone out of something, abusing each other's dignity in order to prove that I am a man, I am a woman.

  Toni Cade Bambara

  Sex, Dirty, Mean

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• Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Doe, Matter, Accepted

  "Celibacy and the Priesthood: An Interview with the Future Pope Benedict XVI". Interview with Peter Seewald, www.catholicculture.org.

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• The ideal state for a philosopher, indeed, is celibacy tempered by polygamy.

  H. L. Mencken

  Philosopher, States, Polygamy

  H. L. Mencken (2003). “Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche”, p.35, See Sharp Press

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• It is impossible to believe that the same God who permitted His own son to die a bachelor regards celibacy as an actual sin.

  H. L. Mencken

  God, Believe, Son

  H. L. Mencken (2012). “In Defense of Women”, p.47, Courier Corporation

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• Is there any sex-distinction in the Atman (Self)? Out with the differentiation between man and woman—all is Atman! Give up the identification with the body, and stand up!

  Swami Vivekananda

  Sex, Giving Up, Men

  Swami Vivekananda (1963). “Complete Works”

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• How deep a wound to morals and social purity has that accursed article of the celibacy of the clergy been! Even the best and most enlightened men in Romanist countries attach a notion of impurity to the marriage of a clergyman. And can such a feeling be without its effect on the estimation of the wedded life in general? Impossible! and the morals of both sexes in Spain, Italy, France, and. prove it abundantly.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Country, Sex, Men

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)”, p.3377, Delphi Classics

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• Asceticism and celibacy can conceal many incapacities.

  Mason Cooley

  Asceticism, Incapacity

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• To suppose such a thing possible as a society, in which men, who are able and willing to work, cannot support their families, and ought, with a great part of the women, to be compelled to lead a life of celibacy, for fear of having children to be starved; to suppose such a thing possible is monstrous.

  William Cobbett

  Children, Men, Support

  William Cobbett, John Morgan Cobbett, Anne Cobbett, James Paul Cobbett (1835). “Selections from Cobbett's Political Works: Being a Complete Abridgement of the 100 Volumes which Comprise the Writings of "Porcupine" and the "Weekly Political Register." With Notes, Historical and Explanatory”, p.400

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• A world filled with temptations needs priests who are totally dedicated to their mission. Accordingly, they are asked in a very special way to open themselves fully to serving others as Christ did by embracing the gift of celibacy.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Temptation, Special, Needs

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