Quotes by Clerics

We will consider every hand who will try to take our weapons, as an Israeli hand.
Hassan Nasrallah
These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers’ faults. Which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings in all kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall immediately find, from the whole thread and tenor of them, that the ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and taken up with the faults and blemishes, and oversights, and mistakes of other writers; and let the subject treated on be whatever it will, their imaginations are so entirely possessed and replete with the defects of other pens, that the very quintessence of what is bad does of necessity distil into their own, by which means the whole appears to be nothing else but an abstract of the criticisms themselves have made.
Jonathan Swift
No man that ever lived, not John Calvin himself, ever asserted either original sin, or justification by faith, in more strong, more clear and express terms, than Arminius has done.
John Wesley
We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. We shrivel when we are not able to interact. I mean that is part of the reason why solitary confinement is such a horrendous punishment. We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. (...) The concept of Ubuntu says: A person is a person through other persons.
Desmond Tutu
They here shall be redeemed from sin,Shall here put on their glorious dress,Fine linen, pure, and white, and cleanThe saints' inherent righteousness.Love, perfect love, expels all doubt,Love makes them to the end endure;Their names thou never wilt blot out;Their life is hid, their heart is pure.Their names thou wilt vouchsafe to ownBefore thy Father's majesty,Pronounce them good, and say, 'Well done,Enter, and ever reign with me!
Charles Wesley
A bride, before a "Good-night" could be said,Should vanish from her clothes into her bed,As souls from bodies steal, and are not spied.But now she's laid; what though she be?Yet there are more delays, for where is he?He comes and passeth through sphere after sphere;First her sheets, then her arms, then anywhere.Let not this day, then, but this night be thine;Thy day was but the eve to this, O Valentine.
John Donne
Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there;She gives the best light to his sphere;Or each is both, and all, and soThey unto one another nothing owe;And yet they do, but areSo just and rich in that coin which they pay,That neither would, nor needs forbear, nor stay;Neither desires to be spared nor to spare.They quickly pay their debt, and thenTake no acquittances, but pay again;They pay, they give, they lend, and so let fallNo such occasion to be liberal.More truth, more courage in these two do shine,Than all thy turtles have and sparrows, Valentine.
John Donne
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu
If you are neutral in times of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Desmond Tutu
We learn from history that we don't learn from history!
Desmond Tutu
We learn from history that we don't learn from history!
Desmond Tutu
Life has been dark but full of light; sad, but full of joy; disappointing, but full of hope; needy but full of plenty, sick but full of health.
Reverend Ada Slaton Bonds
I had a love affair with life, and as is the custom, I will lose, but will regain a greater love with my heavenly Father.
Reverend Ada Slaton Bonds
Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?
John Wesley
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
Jonathan Swift
That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy.
Jonathan Swift
True and false fears let us refrain, Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write threescore: this is the second of our reign.
John Donne
It is good for us to have trials and troubles at times, for they often remind us that we are on probation and ought not to hope in any worldly thing. It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradiction, to be misjudged by men even though we do well and mean well. These things help us to be humble and shield us from vainglory. When to all outward appearances men give us no credit, when they do not think well of us, then we are more inclined to seek God Who sees our hearts. Therefore, a man ought to root himself so firmly in God that he will not need the consolations of men.
Thomas à Kempis