Clergy Quotes - Page 6

• Whenever the clergy succeeded in conquering political power in any country, the result has been disastrous to the interests of religion and inimical to the progress of humanity.

  James Connolly

  Country, Political, Humanity

  James Connolly, Peter Berresford-Ellis (1988). “James Connolly: Selected Writings”, p.59, Pluto Press

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• I doubt if we nuns are really as self-sacrificing as we must seem to be to you who live in the world. We don't give everything for nothing, you know. The mystery plays fair.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Sacrifice, Play, Self

  Elizabeth Goudge (1944). “Green Dolphin Street”

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• The Catholic clergy seldom bother to make their arguments plausible; it is plain that they have little respect for human intelligence, and indeed little belief in its existence.

  H. L. Mencken

  Catholic, Littles, Superstitions

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• I am quite sure that very few of the so-called Reds in Spain were really Communists. We were badly deceived, for, had I known the real state of affairs, I would never have allowed our aircraft to bombard and destroy a starving population and at the same time re-establish the Spanish clergy in all their horrible privileges. (10th February 1945)

  Adolf Hitler

  Real, Spain, Population

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• There is in the clergy of all Christian denominations a time-serving, cringing, subservient morality, as wide from the spirit of the gospel as it is from the intrepid assertion and vindication of truth.

  John Quincy Adams

  Christian, Atheism, Spirit

  John Quincy Adams (1951). “Diary, 1794-1845: American Diplomacy and Political, Social, and Intellectual Life from Washington to Polk”

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• The bullet that has hit us Muslims today left the gun centuries ago when we let the clergy decide that knowledge and education were not important.

  Nadeem Aslam

  Gun, Important, Bullets

  Nadeem Aslam (2008). “The Wasted Vigil”, p.289, Faber & Faber

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• To a philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues.

  Edward Gibbon

  Eye, Vices, Virtue

  Edward Gibbon, M. Guizot (François) (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.421

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• The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and gradually united against him two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit of St. Sophia against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding or even marking the character of any individual.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, Character, Past

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.502

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• Among the clergy we find our most violent enemies, those most opposed to any change in woman's position.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Enemy, Atheism, Violent

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

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• A felon could plead "benefit of clergy" and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the "neck verse", which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51.

  William Hazlitt

  Book, Reading, Benefits

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• Never was there a more injurous mistake than to say it was thebusiness only of the clergy to care for souls.

  George MacDonald

  Mistake, Soul, Care

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• Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic. The first moment of the public safety is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy and calumny.

  Edward Gibbon

  Gratitude, War, People

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.552, Modern Library

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• There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, 'I disagree.' We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect - President.

  Natalie Merchant

  Media, Expression, America

  "What is Patriotism?". www.thenation.com. July 15, 1991.

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• Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christian the question takes more specific form: What is the relation between the authority of ones own experience and that claimed for the scriptures, the ritual and the clergy?

  Elaine Pagels

  Christian, Religious, Issues

  Elaine Pagels (2004). “The Gnostic Gospels”, p.199, Random House

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• The clergy [in the 14th century] on the whole were probably no more lecherous or greedy or untrustworthy than other men, but because they were supposed to be better or nearer to God than other men, their failings attracted more attention.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Men, Attention, Untrustworthy

  Barbara Tuchman (2017). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.64, Penguin UK

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• The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.

  George Washington

  Should Have, America, Religion

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• The barbarians, who possessed no books, no secular knowledge, no education, except in the schools of the clergy, and who had scarcely acquired the rudiments of religious instruction, turned with childlike attachment to men whose minds were stored with the knowledge of Scripture, of Cicero, of St. Augustine; and in the scanty world of their ideas, the Church was felt to be something infinitely vaster, stronger, holier than their newly founded States.

  Lord Acton

  Religious, Book, School

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.29, VM eBooks

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• Whenever the average intellect of the clergy declines in the balance with the average intellect of the people the churches will be shut up and a new order of things [will] begin.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Average, Order

  "Emerson: The Mind on Fire". Book by Robert D. Richardson (p. 77), March 6, 1995.

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• Those who are used to a clergy take very lightly those who do not have a formal divinity degree: like Paul and Peter and James and John.

  Dallin H. Oaks

  Religion, Degrees, Divinity

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• One of the primary questions in a state-church arrangement is, 'which controls which?' . . . In Norway, for example, the liberal labor government has regularly angered Church officials by making controversial ministerial appointments against the wishes of the clergy. . . . These and other actions have strained the church-state relationship almost to the breaking point. As a result, some of the bishops have advocated disestablishment.

  Dan Barker

  Government, Point Break, Wish

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• The law for religious freedom... [has]put down the aristocracy of the clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Law, Mind

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.426, Penguin

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• We are always making God our accomplice, that so we may legalize our own iniquities. Every successful massacre is consecrated by a Te Deum, and the clergy have never been wanting in benedictions for any victorious enormity.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  God, Successful, Hypocrisy

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• ... your spiritual teachers caution you against enquiry--tell you not to read certain books; not to listen to certain people; to beware of profane learning; to submit your reason, and to receive their doctrines for truths. Such advice renders them suspicious counsellors.

  Frances Wright

  Spiritual, Teacher, Book

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.45

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• The clergy are at present divided into three sections: an immense body who are ignorant; a small proportion who know and are silent; and a minute minority who know and speak according to their knowledge.

  Thomas Huxley

  Ignorant, Three, Minorities

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• Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.

  James Madison

  Government, Atheism, Liberty

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

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