Explore Quotations, Proverbs & Sayings

«Turn pimp, flatterer, quack, lawyer, parson, be chaplain to an atheist, or stallion to an old woman, anything but a poet; for a poet is worse, more servile, timorous and fawning than any I have named.»

«Never spare the Parson's wine, nor Baker's Pudding.»

«HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.So skilled the parson was in homiletics That all his normal purges and emetics To medicine the spirit were compounded With a most just discrimination founded Upon a rigorous examination Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration. Then, having diagnosed each one's condition, His scriptural specifics this physician Administered --his pills so efficacious And pukes of disposition so vivacious That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em. But Slander's tongue --itself all coated --uttered Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered That in the case of patients having money The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey. --_Biography of Bishop Potter_»

«Death eats up all things, both the young lamb and old sheep; and I have heard our parson say, death values a prince no more than a clown; all?s fish that comes to his net; he throws at all, and sweeps stakes; he?s no mower that takes a nap at noon-day, but drives on, fair weather or foul, and cuts down the green grass as well as the ripe corn: he?s neither squeamish nor queesy-stomach?d, for he swallows without chewing, and crams down all things into his ungracious maw; and tho? you can see no belly he has, he has a confounded dropsy, and thirsts after men?s lives, which he guggles down like mother?s milk.»

«I do not like much to see a Whig in any dress; but I hate to see a Whig in a parson's gown.»

«There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark,/ And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!»

«The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.»