Quotes by Clerics

Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style.
Jonathan Swift
There was all the world and his wife.
Jonathan Swift
More than kisses letters mingle souls.
John Donne
Most sorts of diversion in men children and other animals are in imitation of fighting.
Jonathan Swift
Constantly choose rather to want less than to have more.
Thomas à Kempis
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Jonathan Swift
When men grow virtuous in their old age they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
Jonathan Swift
All kings and all their favourites All glory of honours beauties wits The sun itself which makes time as they pass Is elder by a year now than it was When thou and I first one another saw. All other things to their destruction draw Only our love hath no decay This no to-morrow hath nor yesterday Running it never runs from us away But truly keeps his first last everlasting day.
John Donne
Usually speaking the worst-bred person in company is a young traveller just returned from abroad.
Jonathan Swift
May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathan Swift
Let time that makes you homely make you sage.
Thomas Parnell
Very few men properly speaking live at present but are providing to live another time.
Jonathan Swift
And he gave it for his opinion that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.
Jonathan Swift
Faith mighty faith the promise sees And looks to that alone Laughs at impossibilities And cries it shall be done.
Charles Wesley
Oh how quickly the world's glory passes away.
Thomas à Kempis
The man who can own up to his error is greater than he who merely knows how to avoid making it.
Cardinal de Retz
No great thing comes to any man unless he has courage.
Cardinal James Gibbons
A charge to keep I have A God to glorify: A never-dying soul to save And fit it for the sky.
Charles Wesley
Be thine own palace or the world's thy jail.
John Donne
A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences.
Thomas à Kempis
What thou art that thou art.
Thomas à Kempis
Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of men whatever they say about you good or bad you are not because of it another man for as you are you are.
Thomas à Kempis
What some invent the rest enlarge.
Jonathan Swift
What is necessary is never a risk.
Cardinal de Retz
Brutes find out where their talents lie a bear will not attempt to fly.
Jonathan Swift
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Jonathan Swift
I'm not ok - you're not ok and that's ok.
Rev. William Sloane Coffin
We are a rather big-headed little species in a vast cosmos which can do without us very well.
Rev. George Carey
Reform must come from within not from without. You cannot legislate for virtue.
James Cardinal Gibbons
Reason is God's gift but so are the passions. Reason is as guilty as passion.
Cardinal Newman
The difference between the reason of man and the instinct of the beast is this that the beast does but know but the man knows that he knows.
John Donne
When I am reading a book whether wise or silly it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
Jonathan Swift
I know Sir John will go though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.
Jonathan Swift
We would not listen to those who were wont to say the voice of the people is the voice of God for the voice of the mob is near akin to madness.
Alcuin
Promise and pie-crust are made to be broken.
Jonathan Swift
Passion and prejudice govern the world only under the name of reason.
John Wesley
I always love to begin a journey on Sundays because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land or by water.
Jonathan Swift
I would rather stand against the cannons of the wicked than against the prayers of the righteous.
Thomas Lye
Keep us Lord so awake in the duties of our calling that we may sleep in thy peace and wake in thy glory.
John Donne
Faith is the fountain of prayer and prayer should be nothing else but faith exercised.
Thomas Manton
If we be empty and poor it is not because God's hand is straitened but ours is not opened.
Thomas Manton
Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended upon man.
Archbishop Francis J. Spellman
O Lord you know what is best for me. Let this or that be done as you please. Give what you will how much you will and when you will.
Thomas à Kempis
Bear up the hands that hang down by faith and prayer support the tottering knees. Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein and mercy will come down.
John Wesley
In Fellowship alone To God with Faith draw near Approach His Courts besiege His Throne With all the power of Prayer.
Charles Wesley
When we make self the end of prayer it is not worship but self-seeking.
Thomas Manton
To God your every Want In instant Prayer display Pray always Pray and never faint Pray without ceasing Pray.
Charles Wesley
Tis an old maxim in the schools That flattery's the food of fools - Yet now and then your men of wit Will condescend to take a bit.
Jonathan Swift
Possession they say is eleven points of the law.
Jonathan Swift
The voice of the people is the voice of God.
Alcuin
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.
Jonathan Swift
There is no man in this world without some manner of tribulation or anguish though he be king or pope.
Thomas à Kempis
It is much safer to obey than to rule.
Thomas à Kempis
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Jonathan Swift
I'm not ok - you're not ok and that's ok.
Rev. William Sloane Coffin
We are a rather big-headed little species in a vast cosmos which can do without us very well.
Rev. George Carey
Reform must come from within not from without. You cannot legislate for virtue.
James Cardinal Gibbons
Reason is God's gift but so are the passions. Reason is as guilty as passion.
Cardinal Newman
The difference between the reason of man and the instinct of the beast is this that the beast does but know but the man knows that he knows.
John Donne
When I am reading a book whether wise or silly it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.
Jonathan Swift