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Churches: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations
Oh! St. Patrick was a gentleman Who came of decent people; He built a church in, Dublin town, And on it put a steeple. HENRY BENNETT St. Patrick Was a Gentleman. An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.— COLERIDGE — The Friend.
"What is a church?" Let Truth and reason speak, They would reply, "The faithful, pure and meek, From Christian folds, the one selected race, Of all professions, and in every place."— CRABBE — The Borough. Letter II. L. 1.
What is a church? Our honest sexton tells, 'Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells.— CRABBE — The Borough. Letter II. L. 11.
Whenever God erects a house of prayer The devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation.— DEFOE — True Born Englishman. Pt. I. L. 1.
God never had a church but there, men say, The devil a chapel hath raised by some wiles, I doubted of this saw, till on a day I westward spied great Edinburgh's Saint Giles.— DRUMMOND — Posthumous Poems.
A Proverb. It is common for those that are farthest from God, to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church.— MATHEW HENRY — Commentaries.
Jeremiah VII. And she (the Roman Catholic Church) may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.— MACAULAY — Review of Ranke's History
of the Popes. No silver saints, by dying misers giv'n, Here brib'd the rage of ill-requited heav'n: But such plain roofs as Piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise.— POPE — Eloisa to Abelard. L. 137.
Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his Name.— POPE — Moral Essays. Ep. III. L. 285.
Spires whose "silent finger points to heaven."— WORDSWORTH — The Excursion. Bk. VI. Quoted from Coleridge-
The Friend. An itch of disputing will prove the scab of churches. C.— SIR HENRY WOTTON — A Panegyric to
King Charles.
Pour soutenir tes droits, que le ciel autorise, Abîme tout plutôt ; c'est l'esprit de l'Église. To support those of your rights authorized by Heaven, destroy everything rather than yield; that is the spirit of the Church.— BOILEAU — Lutrin. Chant I. 185.
Die Kirch' allein, meine lieben Frauen, Kann ungerechtes Gut verdauen. The church alone beyond all question Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.— GOETHE — Faust. I. 9. 35.