Priests Quotes

“His faith wavered, but not his speech: it is the lot of every man who has to speak for the satisfaction of the crowd, that he must often speak in virtue of yesterday's faith, hoping it will come back to-morrow.”
― George Eliot, Romola

“Priests create a smoke screen around our anxiety, our despair, our terror and our demons. They paint mind-blowing pictures that make us jittery, unhappy and afraid. Priests are nothing but alarmists, pessimists and doom merchants. Calamity Jane personified. But at this stage, they’ve got us. We’ve been knocking off our neighbour’s wife or robbing post offices and we’re just about ready to turn our faces to the wall and abandon hope. We want someone with the power to grant us amnesty from our immorality, and to us the priests appear as Sir Galahad, Boadicea, Rambo or Joan of Arc. Stout fellows, all of them. “I have the fucking answer,” they cry, “Sign here, you plebs.”

And we do! 2.2 billion of us! Why? I’ll tell you why. Because we’ve been sold. We feel plagued by conscience and answerable to God only. And the only way we can get to God is through Her second in command ….. the priest.”
― Karl Wiggins, Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe

“For some reason, Area X was very hard on linguists, almost as hard as it was on priests.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Authority

“Roman blinked again and smacked Aspid’s nose with his hand. “What did I say about kisses? No kisses unless invited.”
Aspid’s tongue contracted. He pulled Roman into his mouth.
I sprinted.
“Yes, I love you, too,” Roman said from inside the forest of teeth. “I need to go now. Come on.”
The dragon opened his mouth and put Roman back into the mud.”
― Ilona Andrews, Magic Binds

“When I was a child, I always hated being used in my father's sermons, shrunk to a symbol to illustrate some larger lesson, flattened out to give other people comfort or instruction or even a laugh. It did some violence to my third dimension; it made it difficult for me to breathe. 'That's not me,' I would think, listening to some fable where a stick figure of myself moved automatically toward a punishing moral. 'That has nothing to do with me at all.' If I had a soul, I thought, it was that resistance, which would never let another human being have the last word on me.”
― Patricia Lockwood, Priestdaddy

“Ousep looked carefully at the priest. A fifty-year-old virgin, a fully grown man in a white gown who believed that he was an elf who connected God to man, this clown thought Unni was strange.”
― Manu Joseph, The Illicit Happiness of Other People

“Right. A wizard’s only a priest without a god and a damp handshake,” said Granny.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords And Ladies

“Christianity must be divine since it has lasted 1,700 years despite the fact that it is so full of villainy and nonsense."

[Voltaire] shows how almost all ancient peoples had similar myths, and hastily concludes that the myths are thereby proved to have been the inventions of priests: "the first divine was the first rogue who met the first fool.”
― Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

“The fourth thing about authenticity and to create loving relationships to yourself, to others and to life is to learn to love yourself. If you love and accept yourself that is the beginning of accepting all. Then all is good as it is, in that experience life takes on a new joy, a new gratefulness.If you reject yourself, you are rejecting existence. If you accept yourself, you have accepted existence. Then life is good, you feel grateful. Then whatsoever happens is good, because it happens out of the whole. But you have been conditioned for centuries not to love and accept yourself.
Nobody has ever told you that you are good as you are. Once you are incapable of loving yourself, you will never be able to love anybody. You can love others only if you are able to love yourself. A person who loves himself sooner or later starts overflowing with love.Love yourself because if you don't love yourself; nobody else will ever be able to love you. You cannot love a person, who hates himself. How can you love a person, who is condemning himself? He cannot love himself, how can you love him. He will not believe you. He cannot allow anybody to love him, because he knows that heis unworthy of love. And you know what you are: worthless. That is what you have been told by the parents, the priests and the politicians. Nobody has ever accepted you as you are. Nobody has given you the feeling that you are loved and respected, that you are needed and that this existence will miss you, that without you this existence will not be the same. Without you this existence will lose some joy, love, beauty, truth and poetry. Nobody has told you that you are love and respected by existence. Love and accept yourself,relax into your being, you are cherished by the whole. Once you start feeling this love and respect of the whole in you, you will start growing roots in your being. Only then you can love people, you can love the trees and the animals. Love is only possible when there is a deep love and acceptance of oneself, of the other and of the world. And then you will be surprised: life is always ready to shower you with gifts. Life is always ready to give abundantly, but we cannot receive it, because we don't feel that we are worthy of receiving it. Accept yourself, love yourself, you are God's creation. ”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, When the Drop becomes the Ocean

“Words frozen in religious texts, when not allowed to be interpreted in the current context, lead to irrationality with religious leaders having the exclusive authority of rationalizing it.”
― R. N. Prasher

“Come on, I want to take you around to the back, to see St. Anthony's Garden," he said.
Delicate bell clangs marked the half hour, and a mockingbird called through the still air as the group entered the garden. The green space was dominated by the tall white statue of a man with arms raised in welcome.
"St. Anthony is known as the protector of childless women and finder of lost things," explained Falkner. "This area has had many functions over the years. It was a place for gatherings, markets, meals---even a dueling ground. Père Antoine, one of the cathedral's popular pastors, used the space as a kitchen garden to feed his monks. He also worked with voodoo priestess Marie Laveau to assist the large slave population, especially women and children."
"A Roman Catholic priest collaborating with a voodoo priestess?" asked one of the tourists, mopping his brow with a handkerchief.
Falkner nodded. "They had more in common than you may think. They both had a desire to heal, sooth, and do good works. They were both very spiritual people. Marie Laveau blended voodoo with Catholicism, especially regarding the saints.”
― Mary Jane Clark, That Old Black Magic

“Take up the shield of faith and fight the battles of the Lord vigorously. You especially must stand as a wall against every height which raises itself against the knowledge of God. Unsheath the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and may those who hunger after justice receive bread from you. Having been called so that you might be diligent cultivators in the vineyard of the Lord, do this one thing, and labor in it together, so that every root of bitterness may be removed from your field, all seeds of vice destroyed, and a happy crop of virtues may take root and grow.”
― Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos: On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism

“To be a servant of the Saviour is the sacred service.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“But my mother wanted her children to be educated by nuns and priests all dressed in black, the way it had been done down through the generations with her people. Taught by people who had a firm grasp of how big and awful the world could be.”
― Edward P. Jones, All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories

“The Letherii well knew that resistance to tyranny was nurtured in schools of faith, espoused by old, bitter priests and priestesses, by elders whole would work through the foolish young – use them like weapons, flung away when broken, melodramatically mourned when destroyed.
Priests and priestesses whose version of faith justified the abuse of their own followers.”
― Steven Erikson, Reaper's Gale

“Some religious People claim to be Holy and Godly without sin yet no amount of self-justification will work before God because we have all sinned”
― Shaila Touchton

“Become a priest. You wouldn't be bad at it with all your scruples, your morality, your knowledge of people and of everything.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

“Why do scientists never debate philosophers? It’s because they know they would be destroyed in argument, when they have to actually clarify their ridiculous and embarrassing belief system. Mandarins, in their little priesthoods, hide behind jargon so that they know that no outsiders can laugh at their lack of clarity. They create an in-language so that only the insiders can know how absurd the belief system is, and they all have a vested interest in maintaining the fiction. That’s how the Mandarin system works. They don’t dare to be clear because then it would be clear that they are the emperor in his new clothes and know nothing at all.”
― Joe Dixon, The Mandarin Effect: The Crisis of Meaning

“Mnogo je mladih svećenika ovdje umrlo.”
― Mislav Gleich, Samostan Craven Hill

“Vjerovala ili ne, mnogi su se odlučili na samoubojstvo. Neki su skočili s tornjeva, neki su popili otrov. Naš način života nije za svakoga. A samostan Craven Hill... djeluje na ljude. On živi. Srce u njegovim zidovima kuca. Možda si to već osjetila. Samostan je poseban.”
― Mislav Gleich, Samostan Craven Hill

“Padre Huerta is so present when you ask him a question, you feel as if you've stepped inside of him to hear his response. He leans closer to me and takes my hand in his. I don't mind it. His hands are warm and soft, slightly fat. He doesn't squeeze, but just holds me steady. I'm being so careful not to look in the direction of the coffin on the other side of the room. When he touches me, I sense he knows that.”
― Laurie Perez, Torpor: Though the Heart Is Warm

“Humanity has been living under a dark and destructive self-condemnation. Humanity has been poisoned and condemned, so that nobody thinks himself a beautiful being, nobody thinks himself worthy enough. If
you condemn yourself, how can you grow and how can you worship existence? If you cannot worship existence within yourself, how can you worship existence within
others? You can become a part of the whole only if you have a respect for the divine that resides within you. In creating you, God has already shown that he loves you. By loving yourself, you will know that you are a medium for God. In choosing you to be a medium, he has already loved you and respected you.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart 

“The priests say that you are a sinner and that you will go to hell. And the priests make you very afraid of loving yourself, which cuts off the roots to your inner being, to your inner source of love. Your whole life will be wasted
in self-condemnation. That is why there is so much hate and lack of love in the world. 
The idea of learning to love yourself arose because of all the religions for centuries teaching you not to love, accept and respect yourself. The religions have created a
conditioning in the mind which condemns you. It is the priests and the state which has created this condemnation through continuous repetition to convince you that there are things in you that is not acceptable. You have to hide them, you have to repress them. They teach you that the unacceptable in you has to be controlled, condemned and
repressed.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart 

“Your natural being is not acceptable to the religions. Their conditioning has been going on for centuries and naturally you begin to develop a certain conscience, which is not the same thing as your consciousness. The conscience is social conditioning and the consciousness is our natural and ultimate nature. For the consciousness there is nothing in you. The religions have been teaching you that you are born in
sin and that our natural nature leads to more sin. They have taught you that you have to fight with yourself; you have to fight with your nature. Their basic teaching is
that your nature is evil and you have to reject it. Almost everything in you that is natural has to be rejected. Life has tube denied, love has to be denied, sex has to be denied and joy has to be denied. This is a very cunning strategy of the religions, so that
they could catch hold and control humanity. They have repressed your sexuality that is our basic life energy. It is the energy that basically keeps you alive. The word sex has been so condemned that even using the world makes
you feel like you are doing something wrong.
 ”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart 

“Love is as easy as drinking a glass of water. Love is a natural state of being, a natural state of consciousness. Love is your very being, but love has become almost
impossible, because the society and the religions do not allow it. The society and the religions condition you in such a way that love becomes impossible and hate becomes the only possible way. The society and the
religions have reduced humanity to a mere state of survival, to a low state of consciousness. ”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart 

“Society destroys the very roots of trust. Society does not allow you to trust yourself. It teaches you all other kinds of trust: trust in the parents, trust in the teachers, trust in
the church, trust in God, but the basic trust in yourself is destroyed. The man who trusts himself is dangerous to society, because a society depends on slavery. A man who trusts himself is an independent man. Freedom will
be his life. His love will have a truth to it. The society needs dependent people, who do not trust themselves. ”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart 

“And the Queen of Ruritania, James?’

‘Do not misunderstand me, sir. They could be secretly married — I should say re-married.’

‘Yes, certainly, re-married.’

‘By a trustworthy priest.’

‘You mean an untrustworthy priest?”
― Anthony Hope, Rupert of Hentzau

“FOLLOW YOUR HEART, FOLLOW YOUR BEING
How do we come in contact with our heart and begin to see the truth? We need to follow our heart, we need to follow our own nature. We need to have the courage to listen to our heart. To follow ournature means to  learn to trust yourself. Hidden deep within ourselves is the silent voice of truth. If you become silent, you will be guided from within from the silent voice. To follow our nature is the only possibility to attain freedom. When all lies and conditions from society is removed, you will discover your essential nature. Your nature is to become God. To follow your nature is to follow your consciousness, but you have been told by the parent, the teachers. the priests and the politicians to follow ideologies, philosophies and religions - and not to follow your own nature. When you know your own inner voice, you will be free. if you listen to your  heart, no one can manipulate and control you again.
To become available to your inner nature is mediation. It is to become aware that there is source within you, from where God speaks to you.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, God is Everywhere: You are Divine, Everything is Divine

“Kings are meant to rule, prophets are meant to speak, priests are meant to mediate. The essential quality of these three is to have the answers. But so much of the Old Testament is kings crying, priests failing, and prophets doubting. God is showing his people that there's a better prophet, priest, and king coming, one who weeps but with hope, one who stumbles but is on his way to the cross, one who doubts his calling but obeys his Father anyway.”
― Lore Ferguson Wilbert, Curious Faith

“The moment truth is organized it becomes a lie. Jesus and Buddha never created any organized religion. An organized religion becomes politics. It becomes a manipulation, control and exploitation by the priests. You don't have to be Christians or Buddhists, because your own potential is to be a buddha. Buddha taught you to become a buddha. The people who were with Buddha were not part of any organized religion. They were free and independent individuals. Buddha did not want to be anybody's guru, he simply wanted to be a friend, a fellow traveler on the spiritual path. He wanted to create as many individuals in the world with absolute freedom in their soul with no chains to Christianity or Buddhism and with no scriptures, no teachings, except for awareness. He taught spirituality, not religion. Spirituality is not a membership of any church or cult, but a quality that transforms your being and makes your inner potential blossom. Buddha was available to help his people to become buddhas. He wanted a world of buddhas, who were free from organized religions and cults, and who would find their own wings to fly in the sky. Truth brings freedom, freedom from religions, cults and scriptures. Truth brings a silence, a peace and a sense of eternity, and immortality and deathlessness. But it has nothing to do with organized religion and cults.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, Meditation: A Love Affair with the Whole - Thousand and One Flowers of Silence, Love, Joy, Truth, Freedom, Beauty and the Divine