Pious Quotes - 2
More Pious Quotes
Bernard always had a few prayers in the hall and some whiskey afterwards as he was rarther pious but Mr Salteena was not very adicted to prayers so he marched up to bed.
daisy ashford— Chapter 3 (The Young Visiters (1919))
We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand.
frederick douglass— Appendix
These are called the pious frauds of friendship.
Henry Fielding— Book VI, Ch. 6
He weren't no saint—but at jedgmentI'd run my chance with Jim.'Longside of some pious gentlemenThat wouldn't shook hands with him.He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing—And went for it thar and then;And Christ ain't a-going to be too hardOn a man that died for men.
john hay— Jim Bludso, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are much more accessible. They are men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and struggle with ordinary problems. What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God’s people.
henri nouwen— Bread For the Journey (1996)
"Prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence."
henri nouwen— The Wounded Healer
As in poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject matter should be furnished by the heart, and the understanding should be allowed only to shape and arrange the effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to answer the end designed. From the fullness of a heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copious fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, humble, and ardently affectionate feelings; while our understandings only shape the channel and teach the gushing streams of devotion where to flow, and when to stop.
edward payson— P. 464. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
If Christianity were true religious persecution would become a pious and charitable duty: if God designs to punish men for their opinions it would be an act of mercy to mankind to extinguish such opinions. By burning the bodies of those who diffuse them many souls would be saved that would otherwise be lost, and so there would be an economy of torment in the long run. It is therefore not surprising that enthusiasts should be intolerant.
william winwood reade— "Religion", p. 178
The Cross is not the terrible end of a pious happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer— p. 87This quote ends with an oft quoted aphorism: Jeder Ruf Christi fährt in den Tod.Variant translations:Every call of Christ leads into death.When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
When pious frauds and holy shifts Are dispensations and gifts.
— Canto III, line 1145.
The egoist … destroys the universal importance accorded to moral law by showing that life independent of it is possible. Secondly, and even more intolerably to the pious, he manages to do so with shameless enjoyment.
john carroll— p. 33 (Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974))
Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.
Anton Chekhov— Noxious Thoughts
Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.
thomas fuller— Life of Monica (1642).
To dwell on a heath without studying its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
thomas hardy— Bk. I, ch. 7.
No solemn sanctimonious face I pull, Nor think I'm pious when I'm only bilious; Nor study in my sanctum supercilious, To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull.
thomas hood— Ode to Rae Wilson; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.
David Hume— Essay 9 : Of The Parties of Great Britain
Now if you will stop here and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.
william law— Ch. II (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728))
No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside himself towards which his thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication, and hope . consequently, the only choice is between worshipping the true God or an idol. Every atheist is an idolater unless he is worshipping the true God in his impersonal aspect. The majority of the pious are idolaters.
Simone Weil— Last Notebook (1942) p. 308
He were n't no saint but at jedgment I'd run my chance with Jim. 'Longside of some pious gentlemen That wouldn't shook hands with him. He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing And went for it thar and then; And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard On a man that died for men.
john hay— John Hay, Jim Bludso.
The supreme need of the world today is for a true conception and a deeper knowledge of God. The Hindu mother tosses her baby to the crocodiles, the devout pilgrim mutilates his body, the pious monk retires to the wilderness, the martial Moslem massacres the unbelieving, the consecrated missionary lays down his life for his enemy all of these deeds are founded on varying conceptions of God.
— p.15 (Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920))
Art thou the bird whom Man loves best, The pious bird with the scarlet breast, Our little English Robin; The bird that comes about our doors When autumn winds are sobbing?
william wordsworth— William Wordsworth, The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly.
The pious farmer, who ne'er misses pray'rs, With patience suffers unexpected rain; He blesses Heav'n for what its bounty spares, And sees, resign'd, a crop of blighted grain. But, spite of sermons, farmers would blaspheme, If a star fell to set their thatch on flame.
lady mary wortley montagu— Poem (October, 1736).
In the whole of Indian literature, Tulsidas is supreme....The devotion in his poetry is of the same order as of philosophy . And from the beginning to the end, not a word or an idea, can be spotted which is not perfectly neat and pious.
— Grierson, in "A Garden of Deeds: Ramacharitmanas, a Message of Human Ethics", p. 35
During the occultation of the Wali al-'Asr (may God hasten his reappearance), the leadership of the Islamic world devolve upon the just and pious person, who is fully aware of the circumstances of his age, courageous, resourceful, and possessed of administrative ability.
— Article 5 [Office of Religious Leader] of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran
— Wali al-'Asr=Mahdi
— See Khomeini and Khamenei
It is an excellent sign, that after the cares and labors of the day, you can return to your pious exercises and meditations with undiminished attention.
— Hannah More, p. 406. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
The most pious of people is the one who fulfills his religious precepts, and the most devout of the people is the one who avoids illegitimate acts.
— Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p.519
He has the intelligence of 12 professors and is as pious as a child on the day of his first communion.
Joachim Meisner— About Pope Benedict XVI
We are oft to blame in this. 'Tis too much proved that with devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself.'
— William Shakespeare, in Hamlet 3.1.46-49
We are oft to blame in this, 'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself.
— Polonius, scene i
We have now, it Seems, a National Bible Society, to propagate the King James's Bible through all Nations. Would it not be better to apply the pious SubScriptions, to purify Christendom from the Corruptions of Christianity; than to propagate those corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America!
— John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (November 4, 1816). Published in The Quotable John Adams (Globe Pequot, 2008), p. 185ff.
