Clergy Quotes - Page 3

• Give the clergy your sympathy; don't give them anything else.

  Benjamin Jowett

  Giving

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• If all those magnificent cathedrals with their valuable lands in Boston, Philadelphia and New York were taxed as they should be, the taxes of women who hold property would be proportionately lightened....I cannot see any good reason why wealthy churches and a certain amount of property of the clergy should be exempt from taxation, while every poor widow in the land, struggling to feed, clothe, and educate a family of children, must be taxed on the narrow lot and humble home.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  New York, Children, Struggle

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• It is a very rare church indeed that encourages its members to think for themselves in religious matters, or even tolerates this, and in most of them the clergy are quite ready to lay down the law in other fields too.

  Anne Roe

  Religious, Thinking, Law

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• This was a very progressive group of clergy who foresaw the race riots that were going to take place when Dr. King started helping the local civil rights community push for open housing. They were sort of hoping against hope that we could educate kids in a way that could counter some of the racist messages they were imbibing at home. I don't know whether we did any good, but it changed my life in every single way.

  Sara Paretsky

  Kings, Home, Kids

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• I'm a man of some intelligence. I've had some education, passed the bar, practiced law. I've been a teacher and I deal with men of substance, statesman, business leaders, the clergy... So why do I spend my time arguing with Dizzy Dean?

  Branch Rickey

  Baseball, Teacher, Men

  24 Copy quote

• Once in a while you get people that maybe because of economic reasons, or have a social network, they get attracted. But it's a very tiny percent so that when we look at, you know, who are pastors and who are the head clergy of these congregations, they're overwhelmingly white, just a few African Americans, and those folks are usually called to what were formerly white congregations, or they started interracial church from the get-go.

  Michael Emerson

  White, People, African American

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet every body is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.

  John Selden

  Humility, Men, Thinking

  "The Table Talk of John Selden".

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• The Church is her true self only when she exists for humanity. As a fresh start, she should give away all her endowments to the poor and needy. The clergy should live solely on the freewill offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Offering, Self, Giving

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• The minister asks, 'What right have you to hope? It is sacrilegious to you.' But, whether the clergy like it or not, I shall always express my real opinion, and shall always be glad to say to those who mourn: 'There is in death, as I believe, nothing worse than sleep. Hope for as much better as you can.'

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Death, Real, Believe

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1902). “Interviews”

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• The church is only the church when it exists for others. To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Mean, Men, Offering

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1986). “Bonhoeffer for a New Generation”

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• According to your belief [Christian clergy], my kind of man — secular, prideful, agnostic and all the rest of it — is among the damned. I'm on my own. You've got your God.

  C. Wright Mills

  Christian, Men, Belief

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• Denial of our pattern of failure seems to be a kind of practical atheism or chosen ignorance among many believers and clergy.

  Richard Rohr

  Atheist, Ignorance, Atheism

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• Clergy had a vested interest in retaining the old, ways, which made few demands of them as teachers, as spiritual guides, or as moral examples or agents.

  Alister E. McGrath

  Spiritual, Teacher, Example

  Alister E. McGrath (2012). “Reformation Thought: An Introduction”, p.25, John Wiley & Sons

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• He promoted the education of the parish clergy and wrote: He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.

  Alfred the Great

  Life, Education, Men

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• There lies the weaknesss of positivists and professional atheists who are elated because they feel that they have not only successfully rid the world of gods but "bared the miracles." (That is, explained the miracles. - ed.) Oddly enough, we must be satisfied to acknowledge the "miracle" without there being any legitimate way for us to approach it . I am forced to add that just to keep you from thinking that -weakened by age-I have fallen prey to the clergy.

  Albert Einstein

  Atheist, Lying, Thinking

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• You mean 'Injustice Sunday II', ... is using religion to alienate people rather than to bring people together. It has more to do with politics than with theology. I'm disappointed that clergy would be leading such a divisive call.

  Tim McDonald

  Mean, Sunday, People

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• We need some clergy with some backbone, who don't mind making uncomfortable at times those who are very comfortable, and challenging them at the core of their faith, at least causing them to pause and to have dialogue and to be open for further discussion.

  Tim McDonald

  Challenges, Mind, Needs

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• ......the interesting thing was that the Roman Catholic monks and the Buddhist monks had no trouble understanding each other. Each of them was seeking the same experience and knew that the experience was incommunicable. The communication is only an effort to bring the hearer to the edge of the abyss; it is a signpost, not the thing itself. But the secular clergy reads the communication and gets stuck with the letter, and that's where you have the conflict.

  Joseph Campbell

  Buddhist, Communication, Interesting

  Joseph Campbell (2009). “Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation: Easyread Large Edition”, p.28, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• [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

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• I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Country, Men, Long

  Henry David Thoreau (2008). “Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.40, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• An ordinary man will work every day for a year at shoveling dirt to support his body, or a family of bodies; but he is an extraordinary man who will work a whole day in a year for the support of his soul. Even the priests, men of God, so called, for the most part confess that they work for the support of the body.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Years, Support

  Henry David Thoreau (1894). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: With Bibliographical Introductions and Full Indexes”

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