Old Churches Quotes

• Old churches must not simply stand as monuments to the past but as spiritual grandparents that have invested in the future by passing on their life to others and releasing their offspring to form new congregations. Church planting needs to be given priority by old-line denominations.

  Eddie Gibbs

  Spiritual, Past, Passing On

  6 Copy quote

• The old church tower and garden wall Are black with autumn rain And dreary winds foreboding call The darkness down again

  Emily Bronte

  Wall, Rain, Autumn

  11 Copy quote

• As to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church steeple minds the rooks cawing about it.

  George Eliot

  Gossip, People, Mind

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.51, Wordsworth Editions

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• A landscape, torn by mists and clouds, in which I can see ruins of old churches, as well as of Greek temples - that is Brahms.

  Edvard Grieg

  Clouds, Greek, Church

  Edvard Grieg, Finn Benestad (2000). “Letters to colleagues and friends”, Peer Gynt Pr

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• Our wise old church...has discovered that if you will act as if you believed belief will be given to you; if you pray with doubt, but pray with sincerity, your doubt will be dispelled; if you will surrender yourself to the beauty of that liturgy the power of which over the human spirit has been proved by the experience of the ages, peace will descend upon you.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Wise, Doubt, Age

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• Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - old churches, country lanes, people saying 'Mustn't grumble,' and 'I'm terribly sorry but,' people apologizing to ME when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, tea and crumpets, summer showers and foggy winter evenings - every bit of it.

  Bill Bryson

  Summer, Country, Sorry

  "Notes from a Small Island". Book by Bill Bryson, 1995.

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• Jesus was not a whisperer. No one ever saw Him close to His neighbor's ear, looking stealthily around lest some one should overhear what He was going to say. He stood upright, looked men squarely and kindly in the eye, and spoke what He had to say right out, boldly, frankly, that the whole world might hear; and when He did speak privately to His disciples, He told them to shout it from the housetops. 'Truth fears nothing but concealment,' said an old Church Father, and Jesus spake only the truth.

  Samuel Logan Brengle

  Jesus, Father, Eye

  76 Copy quote

• My visual landscape as a child was the inside of a lot of these old churches. And the Baroque drama of the things was what I was first engaging with artwise. I'm much more attracted to the aesthetic of religious iconography than the actual religious side. The passion and the blood and the violence and the gaudy side of it I find really fascinating.

  Florence Welch

  Religious, Children, Drama

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• When you think about Boston, Harvard and M.I.T. are the brains of the city, and its soul might be Faneuil Hall or the State House or the Old Church. But I think the pulsing, pounding heart of Boston is Fenway Park.

  John Towner Williams

  Heart, Thinking, Boston

  9 Copy quote

• Take what the old-church
  found in Mithra's tomb,
  candle and script and bell,
  take what the new-church spat upon
  and broke and shattered.

  Hilda Doolittle

  Poetry, Church, Iconoclasm

  Hilda Doolittle (1998). “Trilogy”, New Directions Publishing

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• The BBC is a perfect example of uncontrolled growth, [occupying] old churches and manor houses, the old Langham Hotel where Sherlock Holmes once met Moriarty and where this correspondent once shared an office with an 8-foot bathtub.

  Morley Safer

  Feet, Perfect, Office

  13 Copy quote

• The haggard aspect of the little old man was wonderfully suited to the place; he might have groped among old churches and tombs and deserted houses and gathered all the spoils with his own hands. There was nothing in the whole collection but was in keeping with himself nothing that looked older or more worn than he.

  Charles Dickens

  Character, Men, Hands

  Charles Dickens (1841). “The Old Curiosity Shop”, p.40, B Times

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• The cold hoarfrost glistened on the tombstones, and sparkled like rows of gems, among the stone carvings of the old church. The snow lay hard and crisp upon the ground; and spread over the thickly-strewn mounds of earth, so white and smooth a cover, that it seemed as if corpses lay there, hidden only by their winding sheets.

  Charles Dickens

  Tombstone, White, Snow

  Charles Dickens (1838). “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”, p.375

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• For a house, somewhere near Los Angeles I found an old church. Very old, no longer used. So we moved the church to the land, and I took off the steeple, and I got my hands dirty.

  Douglas Sirk

  Dirty, Naughty, Hands

  16 Copy quote

• Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having many towers.

  Max Muller

  Opposites, House, Church

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