Church Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another.

No church property is taxed and so the infidel and the atheist and the man without religion are taxed to make up the deficit.

I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church's energies to a new evangelization... No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples.

Pope John Paul II

About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.

Albert Einstein

Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest and least liable to exception.

George Washington

In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title "What I Believe," in which I did in fact make a sincere statement of my beliefs. In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine... Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force. The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference.

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream.
Waits at the window.

Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's Church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant.

If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let the church-bells ring louder, the church-organ swell its peal and drown the hideous sound. The sugar they raised was excellent: nobody tasted blood in it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity.

Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.

The tavern will compare favorably with the church. The church is the place where prayers and sermons are delivered, but the tavernis where they are to take effect, and if the former are good, the latter cannot be bad.

Henry David Thoreau

If the Church is not now as bad as the Soviet Government, that is due to the influence of those who attacked the Church

Bertrand Russell

For the Philosopher is right who says that nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy; and he goes on to opine that one is twin fellow to the other; and draws from this the conclusion that all extremes of feeling are allied to madness; and so bids us take refuge in the true Church (in his view the Anabaptists), which is the only harbor, port, anchorage, etc., he said, for those tossed on this sea.

I do not speak for my church on public matters; and the church does not speak for me.

John F. Kennedy

The time has come for the Church to take up the joyful call to mercy once more. It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instils in us the courage to look to the future with hope.

The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all.

Pope John Paul II

If my church attempted to influence me in a way which was improper or which affected adversely my responsibilities as a public servant sworn to uphold the Constitution, then I would reply to them that this was an improper action on their part. It was one to which I could not subscribe.

John F. Kennedy

I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can't be made to do it in any possible way.

When I was a young boy, my father taught me that to be a good Catholic, I had to confess at church if I ever had impure thoughts about a girl. That very evening, I had to rush to confess my sin. And the next night, and the next. After a week, I decided religion wasn't for me.

She had once been a Catholic, but discovering that priests were infinitely more attentive when she was in process of losing or regaining faith in Mother Church, she maintained an enchantingly wavering attitude.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.

Thomas Jefferson

In England, and in all Roman Catholic countries, the lottery of the church is in reality much more advantageous than is necessary.

No man complains of his neighbor for ill management of his affairs, for an error in sowing his land, or marrying his daughter, for consuming his substance in taverns... in all these he has liberty; but if he does not frequent the church, or then conform in ceremonies, there is an immediate uproar.

Thomas Jefferson