Clergy Quotes

• Let us pray for all good and faithful priests who dedicate themselves to their people with generosity and unknown sacrifices.

  Pope Francis

  Prayer, Sacrifice, People

  17 Copy quote

• The seminaries must face the fact that they are not turning out well-trained professional clergy. They must realize that preaching is creative work and that some element of creativity should be required as a condition for ordination.

  Andrew Greeley

  Creativity, Creative, Elements

  13 Copy quote

• Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

  Voltaire

  Atheist, Common Sense, Religion

  18 Copy quote

• The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and in-grafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Men, Rights

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.172, Cambridge University Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state'... is absolutely essential in a free society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Wall, Religion

  29 Copy quote

• The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Real, Teaching

  17 Copy quote

• Pray we for the Clergy; that they may rightly divide, that they may rightly walk; that while they teach others, themselves may learn.

  Lancelot Andrewes

  May, Praying, Teach

  Lancelot Andrewes (1957). “Private Prayers”, London : S.C.M. Press

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• A just government has no need for the clergy or the church.

  James Madison

  Government, Church, Needs

  8 Copy quote

• Clergy are men as well as other folks.

  Henry Fielding

  Men, Folks, Wells

  Henry Fielding, Arthur Murphy (1783). “The Works of Henry Fielding, Esq: With the Life of the Author. In Twelve Volumes. A New Edition. To which is Now First Added, The Fathers; Or, The Good-natured Man”, p.113

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.... During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Ignorance

  83 Copy quote

• I think the issue of clergy sexual abuse sparked people to look at their faith in a different way.

  William P. Leahy

  Thinking, Issues, People

  7 Copy quote

• The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.

  David Hume

  Army, Government, Patriotism

  Adam Ferguson, David Hume, David R. Raynor (1982). “Sister Peg: A Pamphlet Hitherto Unknown by David Hume”, p.19, Cambridge University Press

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

  Jonathan Swift

  Country, Common Sense, Religion

  'Thoughts on Religion' (1765)

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Secular Society

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have sworn upon the altar of god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Faith Religion

  Letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 Sept. 1800

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• You know you're in a bad movie when the Catholic clergy is being played by Jews.

  Cheech Marin

  Catholic, Being Played, Jew

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. December 22, 2008.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny.

  David Hume

  Peace, War, Philosophical

  Adam Ferguson, David Hume, David R. Raynor (1982). “Sister Peg: A Pamphlet Hitherto Unknown by David Hume”, p.19, Cambridge University Press

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Preachers dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Faith Religion, Daylight, Witch

  11 Copy quote

• Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy.

  Charles Kingsley

  Truth, Sake, Virtue

  Reviewing J. A. Froude's History of England, in 'Macmillan's Magazine' January 1864

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of private judgment is then denied.

  Charles Hodge

  Practice, People, Church

  Charles Hodge (1855). “What is Presbyterianism?: An Address Delivered Before the Presbyterian Historical Society at Their Anniversary Meeting in Philadelphia, on Tuesday Evening, May 1, 1855”, p.9

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• My dear child, you must believe in God despite what the clergy tells you.

  Benjamin Jowett

  Children, Believe, Dear God

  9 Copy quote

• When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God.

  Bertrand Russell

  England And America, Support, Lightning

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.92, Routledge

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• That level of expectation that I'm going to be conservative is really disappointing, but it is how many people think about clergy and the church

  Alan Green

  Thinking, People, Expectations

  "An Ecumenical Chatter: When Rev Robert Hood Met Fr Alan Green". Interview with Luke Turner, thequietus.com. June 6, 2016.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from [the clergy].

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Christianity, Religious Freedom

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.427

  8 Copy quote

  Show source