Reading Minster - Priests

Famous quotes containing the word priests:

“Wee image of my bonnie Betty,
I fatherly will kiss and daut thee,
As dear an’ near my heart I set thee
Wi’ as guid will,
As a’ the priests had seen me get thee
That’s out o’ hell.”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)

“It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that religious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)

“Standing navies, as well as standing armies, serve to keep alive the spirit of war even in the meek heart of peace. In its very embers and smoulderings, they nourish that fatal fire, and half-pay officers, as the priests of Mars, yet guard the temple, though no god be there.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)