Priest

"As the caterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys."

"The Priest is the common father, as it were, of all the world; it is proper therefore that he should care for all, even as God, Whom he serves."

"“I know you priests believe six impossible things every day before breakfast,” I said. “Some of you, anyway. I think most of you are parasites who live off the gullible, the ignorant and the desperate. I don’t think any of you who get ahead believe what you preach. You sure never practice it.”"

"He lectures about renunciation, but he himself is being steadily promoted; he teaches all that about despising worldly titles and rank, but he himself is making a career."

"The celebrated phrase, so much the worse for the facts, would satisfy only the high priests of Marxism, for Marxism also has its high priests, and these priests, like all others, daily deny the principles they claim to defend. Bolshevism is a living proof of this."

"The relation of the true artist and the true human being to his ideals is absolutely religious. The man for whom this inner divine service is the end and occupation of all his life is a priest, and this is how everyone can and should become a priest."

"The ecclesiastical authorities, for all practical purposes, acted as servants of the State in the confrontation with Jesus. In one version, the chief priest protests: "Caesar is our king, we have no other king but Caesar." In the dispute over jurisdiction between Pilate and Herod, they warn: "If you release him, you will not be Caesars friend." The ecclesiastics were, practically speaking, surrogates of the State. That is an all-too-familiar situation for chief priests to be found in."

"As formerly priests had manufactured heretics, so physicians, as the new guardians of social conduct and morality, began to manufacture madmen."

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

"Among the learned there is a frenzy to differentiate between religion and magic, and whole shelves of books have been written upon the theme. The magician, it is explained, is one who professes to control the powers he deals with; the priest attempts only to propitiated them. The magician pretends to be able to work evil as well as good; the priest works only good. The magician deals with all sorts of shapes, some supernatural and others not; the priest deals only with gods and their attendant angles. The magician claims a control over material substances; the priest confines himself to spiritual matters."

"Why against priests the genral heat so strong, But that they shew us all we do is wrong? Wit well apply‘d does weightier wisdom right, And gives us knowledge, while it gives delight, Thus on the stage, we with applause behold, What would have paind us from the pulpit told."

"As I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition"; and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give Him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power."