Church Quotes: Inspiring Words for the Faithful

"The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament"

Igor Stravinsky, Composer

"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile"

Billy Sunday, Clergyman

"I have a friend who lives in the South Side of Chicago. I helped out at a church charity there where they try to give a bit of cohesion to a desperate area. Everyone was very welcoming"

Sara Paretsky, Author

"There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being"

James Joyce, Novelist

"The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting"

Mary Douglas, Scientist

"It would be far better to be of no church than to be bitter of any"

William Penn, Leader

"If you will stay with the majority of the Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church, you will never be led astray"

Joseph Smith, Jr., Clergyman

"I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it"

Joseph Smith, Jr., Clergyman

"With reference to other religions, the Church sees a great difference between them and herself. The other religions are expressions of the human soul seeking God, with some beautiful spiritual insights, but also not without errors. Christianity is rather God seeking humanity"

Francis Arinze, Clergyman

"The real act of marriage takes place in the heart, not in the ballroom or church or synagogue. It's a choice you make - not just on your wedding day, but over and over again - and that choice is reflected in the way you treat your husband or wife"

Barbara de Angelis, Writer

"The Legislature of Lower Canada, consisting chiefly of Roman Catholics, could hardly be expected to support a church which they were taught to consider heretical, and in Upper Canada the scanty means at the disposal of the Government, precluded all hope"

John Strachan, Clergyman

"For the spiritual sense of the Word treats everywhere of the spiritual world, that is, of the state of the church in the heavens, as well as in the earth; hence the Word is spiritual and Divine"

Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist

"In order to the existence of such a ministry in the Church, there is requisite an authority received from God, and consequently power and knowledge imparted from God for the exercise of such ministry; and where a man possesses these, although the bis"

John Wycliffe, Theologian

"It was not just the Church that resisted the heliocentrism of Copernicus"

Tycho Brahe, Scientist

"The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion"

Fred Allen, Comedian

"Hollywood is run by people who sit up in their executive office, who are not connected to Mississippi, Alabama, Chicago, South Carolina. They know nothing about that, they don't go to church, and they make their decisions about what they think is right"

Steve Harvey, Actor

"It is not classified as a pagan religion. The so-called New Age activities and this are not called religions and therefore don't come under the prohibition of mingling church and state that we have in this country"

Dixie Lee Ray, Politician

"And they turned around and leased it to The Assembly Of God Churches - their headquarters are in Springfield, Missouri. They leased it to them for the first year. Then, after the first year, they will donate it to the church"

Mel Tillis, Musician

"It is one of the ironies of the ministry that the very man who works in God's name is often hardest put to find time for God. The parents of Jesus lost Him at church, and they were not the last ones to lose Him there"

Vance Havner

"Among the best traitors Ireland has ever had, Mother Church ranks at the very top, a massive obstacle in the path to equality and freedom. She has been a force for conservatism... to ward off threats to her own security and influence"

Bernadette Devlin, Politician

"A church of dialogue in the contemporary world... a church, taking on the mission of Jesus, which is in the world not to judge humanity, but to love it and to save it"

Claudio Hummes

"I think in church you're raised like God is God and you are here"

Charles King, Politician

"I was never interested in singing in the church choir or in school. I was more interested in becoming a musician"

Cassandra Wilson, Musician

"The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half"

Andrew Greeley, Clergyman

"The Church as a divine society possess an internal principle of life which is capable of assimilating the most diverse materials and imprinting her own image upon them"

Christopher Dawson, Writer

"It is better to go skiing and think of God, than go to church and think of sport"

Fridtjof Nansen, Explorer

"Baseball is like church. Many attend few understand"

Leo Durocher, Athlete

"Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances"

Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

"A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there"

H. L. Mencken, Writer

"I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching"

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher

"Many come to bring their clothes to church rather than themselves"

Thomas Fuller, Clergyman

"A church debt is the devil's salary"

Henry Ward Beecher, Clergyman

"The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture"

Elbert Hubbard, Writer

"Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better"

Winston Churchill, Statesman

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit"

Kahlil Gibran, Poet

"The separation of church and state is a source of strength, but the conscience of our nation does not call for separation between men of state and faith in the Supreme Being"

Lyndon B. Johnson, President

"Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife"

Lyndon B. Johnson, President

"The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always"

Willa Cather, Author

"Hearing Mass is the ceremony I most favor during my travels. Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back"

Charles de Gaulle, Leader

"Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back"

Charles de Gaulle, Leader

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