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Daily Inspiration Quote by Sydney Smith

"As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen"

About this Quote

A cleric calling clergymen a third sex is the kind of self-undermining joke that smuggles critique in under the cover of charm. Sydney Smith, an Anglican clergyman with a journalist's ear for hypocrisy, leans on a faux-French aphorism to make the barb feel like worldly wisdom rather than personal grievance. "As the French say" is doing heavy lifting: it flatters the reader with cosmopolitan knowingness while letting Smith dodge direct accusation. If the jab lands too hard, blame the French.

The line works because it treats "clergyman" not as a job but as a social category with its own rules of behavior, desire, and power. Smith is poking at the clerical ideal of being above the body - celibacy, restraint, moral surveillance - and pointing out that this supposed neutrality is its own identity, as constructed as masculinity or femininity. The subtext is less "priests are unmanly" than "priests claim exemption from ordinary human motives, yet still move through society with privileges that shape them". By labeling that exemption a "sex", he exposes it as something embodied, performative, and politically useful.

Context matters: early 19th-century Britain was thick with anti-clerical satire, religious reform debates, and suspicion of institutional piety. Smith writes from inside the system, so the joke doubles as self-protection and reformist pressure. It's a wink that says: we know the clergy aren't angels; let's stop pretending their authority comes from being less human.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
Source
Later attribution: Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith (Sydney Smith, 1880) modern compilationID: Ki49AAAAYAAJ
Text match: 95.00%   Provider: Google Books
Evidence:
Being Selections from His Writings and Passages of His Letters and Table-talk Sydney Smith Evert Augustus Duyckinck. 434 PRAISE . THREE SEXES . DON'T you know , as the French say , there are three sexes - men , women , and clergymen ...
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Smith, Sydney. (2026, February 11). As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-the-french-say-there-are-three-sexes-men-10406/

Chicago Style
Smith, Sydney. "As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen." FixQuotes. February 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-the-french-say-there-are-three-sexes-men-10406/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen." FixQuotes, 11 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/as-the-french-say-there-are-three-sexes-men-10406/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2026.

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Three sexes: men, women, and clergymen - Sydney Smith
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About the Author

Sydney Smith

Sydney Smith (June 3, 1771 - February 22, 1845) was a Clergyman from England.

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