Motivational Quotes

Churches

The root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian Church has suffered, has been because of the effort of men to earn, rather than receive their salvation; and the reason preaching is so commonly ineffective is, that it often calls on people to work for God rather than letting God work through them.

- Ruskin, John

Best Quotes about Churches

But a priest's life is not supposed to be well-rounded; it is supposed to be one-pointed -- a compass, not a weathercock.

Huxley, Aldous

A group touring Westminster Abbey in London heard the guide list the famous people buried within its walls. During a momentary silence a little old lady's voice blurted out loud and clear, Anybody been saved here lately?

It would be far better to be of no church than to be bitter of any.

Penn, William

Archbishop -- A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.

Mencken, H. L.

Once is orthodox, twice is puritanical.

Melbourne, Lord

A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Nash, L. L.

My own mind is my own church.

Paine, Thomas

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

Johnson, Samuel

Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.

Ratzinger, Cardinal Joseph

10.

Yes, I see the Church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

King Jr. Martin Luther

11.

The Church cannot be content to live in its stained-glass house and throw stones through the picture window of modern culture.

Brown, Robert Mcafee

12.

A Church which has lost its memory is in a sad state of senility.

Chadwick, Henry

13.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

Paine, Thomas

14.

We praise Him, we bless Him, we adore Him, we glorify Him, and we wonder who is that baritone across the aisle and that pretty woman on our right who smells of apple blossoms. Our bowels stir and our cod itches and we amend our prayers for the spiritual life with the hope that it will not be too spiritual.

Cheever, John

15.

The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.

Carlyle, Thomas

16.

What is wrong with priests and popes is that instead of being apostles and saints, they are nothing but empirics who say I know instead of I am learning, and pray for credulity and inertia as wise men pray for skepticism and activity.

Shaw, George Bernard

17.

One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.

Tozer, A. W.

18.

Be neither intimate nor distant with the clergy.

Proverb, Irish

19.

If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they'd realize that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.

O'Casey, Sean

20.

A glorious Church is like a magnificent feast; there is all the variety that may be, but every one chooses out a dish or two that he likes, and lets the rest alone: how glorious soever the Church is, every one chooses out of it his own religion, by which he governs himself, and lets the rest alone.

Selden, John

21.

The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

22.

And of all plagues with which mankind are cursed, ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst.

Defoe, Daniel

23.

The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

24.

It's about time we quit playing church in these services that start at eleven o clock sharp and end at twelve o clock dull.

Havner, Vance

25.

The priesthood is a marriage. People often start by falling in love, and they go on for years without realizing that love must change into some other love which is so unlike it that it can hardly be recognized as love at all.

Murdoch, Iris

26.

Many people are in a rut and a rut is nothing but a grave--with both ends kicked out.

Havner, Vance

27.

There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.

Fielding, Henry

28.

Here, the churches seemed to shrink away into eroding corners. They seem to have ceased to be essential parts of American life. They no longer give life. It is the huge buildings of commerce and trade which now align the people to attention. These in their massive manner of steel and stone say, Come unto me all ye who labor, and we will give you work.

O'Casey, Sean

29.

It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very man who works in God's name is often hardest put to find time for God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the last ones to lose Him there.

Havner, Vance

30.

The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.

Cowper, William

31.

Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man.

Moody, Dwight L.

32.

The difference between listening to a radio sermon and going to church...is almost like the difference between calling your girl on the phone and spending an evening with her.

Moody, Dwight L.

33.

Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

Gaulle, Charles De

34.

An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches with spire steeples which point as with a silent finger to the sky and stars.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

35.

Wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God.

Calvin, John

36.

I don't go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.

Wilder, Billy

37.

In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.

Weil, Simone

38.

She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.

Walker, Alice

39.

Those who marry God can become domesticated too -- it's just as hum-drum a marriage as all the others. The word Love means a formal touch of the lips as in the ceremony of the Mass, and Ave Marialike dearest is a phrase to open a letter. This marriage like the world's marriages was held together by habits and tastes shared in common between God and themselves -- it was God's taste to be worshipped and their taste to worship, but only at stated hours like a suburban embrace on a Saturday night.

Greene, Graham

40.

Ruskin, John

41.

A woman's asking for equality in the church would be comparable to a black person's demanding equality in the Ku Klux Klan.

Daly, Mary

42.

I have no objections to churches so long as they do not interfere with God's work.

Atkinson, Brooks

43.

He was of the faith chiefly in the sense that the church he currently did not attend was Catholic.

Amis, Kingsley

44.

Mass ought to be in Latin, unless you could do it in Greek or Chinese. In fact, any abracadabra that no bloody member of the public or half-educated ape of a clargimint could think he understood.

Pound, Ezra

45.

I believe with all my heart that the Church of Jesus Christ should be a Church of blurred edges.

Carey, George

46.

The church is so subnormal that if it ever got back to the New Testament normal it would seem to people to be abnormal.

Havner, Vance

47.

How can a bishop marry? How can he flirt? The most he can say is I will see you in the vestry after service.

Smith, Sydney

48.

People have described me as a management bishop but I say to my critics, Jesus was a management expert too.