Clergy Quotes - Page 4

• I have much to learn of the Indian, nothing of the missionary.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Native American, Missionary, Christianity

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.186

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Only men of moral and mental force, of a patriotic regard for the relationship of the two races, can be of real service as ministers in the South. Less theology and more of human brotherhood, less declamation and more common sense and love for truth, must be the qualifications of the new ministry that shall yet save the race from the evils of false teaching.

  Fannie Barrier Williams

  Real, Teaching, Patriotic

  16 Copy quote

• It is clearly absurd that it should be possible for a woman to qualify as a saint with direct access to the Almighty, while she may not qualify as a curate.

  Mary Stocks, Baroness Stocks

  Religion, Saint, May

  4 Copy quote

• It is indeed time for the clergyman and the psychotherapist to join forces.

  Carl Jung

  Clergymen, Force, Psychotherapists

  Modern Man in Search of a Soul Ch. 1

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many militants of the secular cause look astonishingly like clergy. Worse: like caricatures of clergy.

  Michel Onfray

  Looks, Causes, Secular

  Michel Onfray, Jeremy Leggatt (2007). “Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam”, p.215, Arcade Publishing

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life--always growing and increasing--is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests.

  Thomas Huxley

  Running, Class, White

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Henrietta A. Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and reflections”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• so long as you believe that man is essentially evil in nature, and a more vicious doctrine was never promulgated, it follows that he is often going to need to have his ears slapped back, and who should do this but the clergy?

  Anne Roe

  Believe, Men, Long

  8 Copy quote

• the most grievous wrong of that day ... was to be found in the establishment of the celibacy of the clergy. ... This hideous doctrine of a celibate priesthood was maintained only by a constant struggle against the better and truer instincts of the heart.

  Lillie Devereux Blake

  Struggle, Heart, Religion

  Lillie Devereux Blake (1883). “Woman's Place To-day: Four Lectures, in Reply to the Lenten Lectures on "Woman" by the Rev. Morgan Dix ...”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The law hath so many contradictions and varyings from itself, that the law may not improperly be called a law-breaker. It is become too changeable a thing to be defined: it is made little less a Mystery than the Gospel. The clergy and the lawyers, like the Freemasons, may be supposed to take an oath not to tell the secret.

  Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet

  Law, Secret, May

  4 Copy quote

• The old priest Peter Gilligan
  Was weary night and day;
  For half his flock were in their beds,
  Or under green sods lay.

  William Butler Yeats

  Night, Bed, Half

  William Butler Yeats (2015). “When You Are Old: Early Poems, Plays, and Fairy Tales”, p.137, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• [On women as priests:] It has always seemed very odd to me that this particular sphere of activity should remain a male closed shop, seeing that, to judge from church attendance, women are the more religious sex - while our criminal statistics make quite clear that they are the least wicked.

  Mary Stocks, Baroness Stocks

  Religious, Sex, Judging

  4 Copy quote

• The clergy is in the same business as actors, just a different department.

  John Hurt

  Different, Actors, Department

  "John Hurt: the naked actor". Interview with Harriet Lane, www.theguardian.com. March 20, 2007.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Matrimony is the only game of chance the clergy favor.

  Emily Murphy

  Games, Favors, Chance

  16 Copy quote

• Who is telling us about the false self today? Who is even equipped tell us? Many clergy have not figured this out for themselves, since even ministry can be a career decision or an attraction to "religion" more than the result of an encounter with God or themselves. Formal religious status can maintain the false self rather effectively, especially if there are a lot of social payoffs like special respect, titles, salaries, a good self image, or nice costumes. It is no accident that the religious "Pharisees" became the symbolic bad guys in the Jesus story.

  Richard Rohr

  Religious, Jesus, Nice

  Richard Rohr (2013). “Immortal Diamond: The search for our true self”, p.35, SPCK

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies. When they fail to come off its clergy simply say that they will be realized later on. Thus, if we have another boom, they will argue that the collapse of capitalism is only postponed. The fact that the greatest booms ever heard of followed Marx's formal prophecy of the downfall of capitalism is already forgotten, just as millions have long since forgotten the early Christian prophecy that the end of the world was at hand. The first Christians accepted postponements as docilely as the Communists of today.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Hands, Long

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.277, Knopf

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• All live by seeming.
  The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
  Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming;
  The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
  Will eke with it his service.--All admit it,
  All practise it; and he who is content
  With showing what he is, shall have small credit
  In church, or camp, or state.--So wags the world.

  Walter Scott

  Gay, Land, Hypocrisy

  sir Walter Scott (bart [novels, collected]) (1862). “The Waverley novels. 25 vols.”, p.260

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• While politicians, clergy, creators of advertisements, and other worthies assert stoutly that the family is the foundation of society, the nuclear family, as an institution, is currently in grave trouble.

  Jane Jacobs

  Foundation, Nuclear Families, Trouble

  Jane Jacobs (2007). “Dark Age Ahead”, p.29, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The first life insurance societies where formed in England in the years between 1692 and 1720. In America, life insurance became available to the clergy through the Presbyterian Ministers Fund, founded in 1759 (still in existence), and the Episcopal Corporation, founded ten years later (subsequently merged).

  Andrew Tobias

  Years, America, Corporations

  "The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know". Book by Andrew Tobias, 1982.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The problem is that, regardless of what our theologies tell us about the purpose of the clergy, the actual effect of the clergy profession is to make the body of Christ lame. This happens not because clergy intend it (they usually intend the opposite) but because the objective nature of the profession inevitably turns the laity into passive receivers.

  Christian Smith

  Opposites, Purpose, Lame

  6 Copy quote

• Throughout this protracted and disgraceful assault on American womanhood, the clergy baptized each new insult and act of injustice in the name of the Christian religion, and uniformly asked God's blessing on proceedings that would have put to shame an assembly of Hottentots.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Christian, Blessing, Names

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ida Husted Harper (1889). “History of woman suffrage”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is time the clergy are told that thinking men, after a close examination of that doctrine, pronounce it to be subversive of true moral development and, therefore, positively noxious.

  George Eliot

  Men, Thinking, Atheism

  4 Copy quote

• Whenever the clergy were at the elbow of the civil arm, no matter whether they were Catholic or Protestant, persecution was the result.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Catholic, Atheism, Elbows

  7 Copy quote

• The clergy complain of the enormous spread of bold books, from the infidel tract to the latest handling of the miracle question.

  Harriet Martineau

  Book, Miracle, Atheism

  Harriet Martineau (1837). “Society in America”, p.233

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Two hundred years ago the forces of freedom challenged this idea. The children of the new enlightenment rose up to defy the tyranny of arrogant clergy and the censorship of pious bureaucrats. They boldly proclaimed that the state must be free from religious coercion and that religion must be free from state control. All individuals have the right to pursue the dictates of their own conscience. All citizens even have the right not to be religious at all.

  Sherwin Wine

  Religious, Children, Years

  6 Copy quote

• It was in this year, 1828, that the standard of "the Christian Party in Politics" was openly unfurled... This was an evident attempt, through the influence of the clergy over the female mind - until this hour lamentably neglected in the United States - to effect a union of Church and State.

  Frances Wright

  Christian, Party, Years

  4 Copy quote