Quotes by Clerics - Page 2

O how quickly passes away the glory of the earth.
Thomas à Kempis
0 true and heavenly grace, without which our own merits are nothing, and our natural gifts of no account! Neither arts nor riches, beauty nor strength, genius nor eloquence have any value in Your eyes, Lord, unless allied to grace. For the gifts of nature are common to good men and bad alike, but grace or love are Your especial gift to those whom You choose, and those who are sealed with this are counted worthy of life everlasting.
Thomas à Kempis
No Spring nor Summer beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnal face.
John Donne
take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool...
Jonathan Swift
I'm actually very humbled listening to His Holiness,' the Archbishop said, 'because I've frequently mentioned to people the fact of his serenity and his calm and joyfulness. We would probably have said 'in spite of' the adversity, but it seems like he's saying 'because of' the adversity that this has evolved for him.
Desmond Tutu
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
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
We will consider every hand who will try to take our weapons, as an Israeli hand.
Hassan Nasrallah
Man is immortal, his salvation is hereafter, The state has no immortality, its salvation is now or never
Cardinal Richelieu
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.
Jonathan Swift
Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.
Desmond Tutu
When we make self the end of prayer it is not worship but self-seeking.
Thomas Manton
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
Jonathan Swift
The will is the keystone in the arch of human achievement. It is the culmination of our complex mental faculties. It is the power that rules minds, men and nations.
Thomas Parker Boyd
Books, the children of the brain.
Jonathan Swift
Let all things be loved for the sake of Jesus, but Jesus for His own sake.
Thomas à Kempis
The Lord bestows his blessings there, where he finds the vessels empty.
Thomas à Kempis
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
Here commences a new dominion acquired with a title by divine right.   Ships are sent with the first opportunity; the natives driven out or destroyed; their princes tortured to discover their gold; a free license given to all acts of inhumanity and lust, the earth reeking with the blood of its inhabitants: and this execrable crew of butchers, employed in so pious an expedition, is a modern colony, sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous people!
Jonathan Swift
If you cast away one cross you will certainly find another and perhaps a heavier.
Thomas à Kempis
Every dog must have his day.
Jonathan Swift
Yet, Malice never was his Aim;He lash'd the Vice but spar'd the Name. No individual could resent,Where thousands equally were meant. His Satry points at no Defect, But what all Mortals may correct...Verses on the death of Dr Swift
Jonathan Swift
Any fool can criticize and many of them do.
Archbishop C. Garbett
When you set out to change the world, the job seems insurmountable, but each of us can do his or her small part to effect change. We change the world when we choose to create a world of forgiveness in our own hearts and minds.
Desmond Tutu
Love built on beauty soon as beauty dies.
John Donne
For when the wine is in the wit is out.
Thomas Becon
The man who can own up to his error is greater than he who merely knows how to avoid making it.
Cardinal de Retz
Love all love of other sights controls. And makes one little room an everywhere.
John Donne
Coffee makes us severe, and grave and philosophical.
Jonathan Swift
Forgiving is not forgetting. It is actually remembering - remembering and not using your right to hit back
Archbishop Desmont Tutu
My father always used to say, "Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument." Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right.
Desmond Tutu
May you live every day of your life.
Jonathan Swift
I am two fools, I know,For loving, and for saying so.
John Donne
Dignity high station or great riches are in some sort necessary to old men in order to keep the younger at a distance who are otherwise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age.
Jonathan Swift
Nothing, how little so ever it be, if it is suffered for God’s sake, can pass without merit in the sight of God.
Thomas à Kempis
When men grow virtuous in their old age they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.
Jonathan Swift
First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
Thomas Kempis
Out of the cacophony of random suffering and chaos that can mark human life, the life artist sees or creates a symphony of meaning and order. A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.
Desmond Tutu
Proper words in proper places make the true definition of a style.
Jonathan Swift
It happens very often that those whom men esteem highly are more seriously endangered by their own excessive confidence. Hence, for many it is better not to be too free from temptations, but often to be tried lest they become too secure, too filled with pride, or even too eager to fall back upon external comforts.
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
Go and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the devil's foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envy's stinging,And findWhat windServes to advance an honest mind.If thou be'st born to strange sights,Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,And swear,No whereLives a woman true and fair.
John Donne
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,But yet the body is his book.
John Donne
If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.
Jonathan Swift
There is in true grace an infinite circle: a man by thirsting receives, and receiving thirsts for more.
Thomas Shepard
Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended upon man.
Archbishop Francis J. Spellman
A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.
Thomas à Kempis
The cross, therefore, is always ready; it awaits you everywhere. No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. Turn where you will—above, below, without, or within—you will find a cross in everything, and everywhere you must have patience if you would have peace within and merit an eternal crown.
Thomas à Kempis
The highest does not stand without the lowest.
Thomas à Kempis
So often when people hear about the suffering in our world, they feel guilty, but rarely does guilt actually motivate action like empathy or compassion. Guilt paralyzes and causes us to deny and avoid what makes us feel guilty. The goal is to replace our guilt with generosity. We all have a natural desire to help and to care, and we simply need to allow ourselves to give from our love without self-reproach. We each must do what we can. This is all that God asks of us." - , God Has a Dream, p. 87-88
Desmond Tutu
No man is an Island intire of it self every man is a peece of the Continent a part of the maine if a Clod be washed away by the sea Europe is the lesse as well as if a Promontorie were as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankinde and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.
John Donne
Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
John Wesley
As prayer without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer [is] but a presumptuous bravado. He that promises to give, and bids us trust His promises, commands us to pray, and expects obedience to his commands. He will give, but not without our asking.
Thomas Lye
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift
And when he is out of sight quickly also he is out of mind.
Thomas à Kempis
For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh being of too tender a consistence to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it.
Jonathan Swift
Only our love hath no decay; This no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, Running it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.
John Donne
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
In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection against our enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is excellence of virtue; in the Cross is perfection of holiness. There is no salvation of soul, nor hope of eternal life, save in the Cross.
Thomas à Kempis
Know all and you will pardon all.
Thomas à Kempis