“There is no such thing as preaching patience into people, unless the sermon is so long that they have to practise it while they hear.”

“Good Christian People, I have not come here to preach a sermon; I have come here to die.”

“I don't like to hear cut and dried sermons. No—when I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”

“The first sermon that Christ preached, indeed, the first word of his sermon was 'Repent.”

“Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish.”

“Everyone else had the look of tired patience people always got when listening to a sermon, no matter what the century.”

“We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.”

“Preaching has become a byword for long and dull conversation of any kind; and whoever wishes to imply, in any piece of writing, the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, calls it a sermon.”

“You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.”

“The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached on that subject.”