Churches Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

25 Churches Quotes
[1-25] 
“The nearer the church, the further from God.”
Bishop Lancelot Andrews (Andrewes) Quotes
Source: Sermon on the Nativity Before James I
“Where Christ erecteth his church, the divell in the same church-yarde will have his chappell.”
Richard Bancroft Quotes
Source: Anti-Puritan Sermon
“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 Quotes
Source: St. Patrick Was a Gentleman
“And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”
Bible Quotes
Source: Matthew (ch. VII, v. 25)
“To support those of your rights authorized by Heaven, destroy everything rather than yield; that is the spirit of the Church. [Fr., Pour soutenir tes droits, que le ciel autorise, Abime tout plutot; c'est l'esprit de l'Eglise.]”
Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux Quotes
Source: Lutrin (chant I, 185)
“Where God hath a temple, the devil will have a chapel.”
Robert Burton Quotes
Source: Anatomy of Melancholy (pt. III, sec. IV, memb. 1, subsec. 1)
“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.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Quotes
Source: 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."”
George Crabbe Quotes
Source: The Borough (letter II, l. 1)
“"What is a church?"--Our honest sexton tells, 'Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells.”
George Crabbe Quotes
Source: 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.”
Daniel Defoe Quotes
Source: The 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.”
William Drummond (1) Quotes
Source: Posthumous Poems--A Proverb
“The church alone beyond all question Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion. [Ger., Die Kirch' allein, meine lieben Frauen, Kann ungerechtes Gut verdauen.]”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes
Source: Faust (I, 9, 35)
“It is common for those that are farthest from God, to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church.”
Matthew (Mathew) Henry Quotes
Source: Commentaries (Jeremiah, VII)
“No sooner is a Temple built to God but the Devill builds a Chappell hard by. [No sooner is a Temple built to God but the Devil builds a chapel hard by.]”
George Herbert Quotes
Source: Jacula Prudentum
“When once thy foot enters the church, be bare. God is more there than thou: for thou art there Only by his permission. Then beware, That leads from earth to heaven.”
George Herbert Quotes
Source: The Temple--The Church Porch
“Well has the name of Pontifex been given Unto the Church's head, as the chief builder And architect of the invisible bridge That leads from earth to heaven.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
Source: Golden Legend (V)
“In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey, which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes
Source: Warren Hastings
“A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes
Source: Warren Hastings
“As like a church and an ale-house, God and the devell, they manie times dwell neere to ether.”
Thomas Nash (Nashe) Quotes
Source: Works (III, Have with you to Saffron Walden)
“There can be no church in which the demon will not have his chapel.”
Gabriel Paleotti Quotes
Source: Compitum (vol. II, p. 297), according to K.H. Digby
“It is not about the pasture of the sheep, but about their wool. [Lat., Non est de pastu ovium quaestio, sed de lana.]”
Gabriel Paleotti Quotes
Source: Compitum (vol. II, p. 297), according to K.H. Digby
“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.”
Alexander Pope Quotes
Source: Eloisa to Abelard (l. 137)
“Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his Name.”
Alexander Pope Quotes
Source: Moral Essays (ep. III, l. 285)
“To Kerke the narre, from God more farre.”
Alexander Pope Quotes
Source: Moral Essays (ep. III, l. 285)
“I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.”
Robert Louis Stevenson Quotes
Source: Inland Voyage