The belly hates a long sermon. [ Proverb ]
A good example is the best sermon. [ Proverb ]
A verse may find him whom a sermon flies
And turn delight into a sacrifice. [ George Herbert ]
A burlesque word is often a mighty sermon. [ Boileau ]
He that will not be saved needs no sermon. [ Proverb ]
Prayer purifies: it is a self-preached sermon. [ Richter ]
The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers.
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw.
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer. [ Longfellow ]
It is a silly goose that comes to a fox's sermon. [ Proverb ]
A grave, wherever found, preaches a short and pithy sermon to the soul. [ Hawthorne ]
The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached upon that subject. [ Saville ]
The proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly exploded. [ W. G. Simms ]
There is one preacher who does preach with effect, and gradually persuade all persons; his name is Destiny, Divine Providence, and his sermon the inflexible course of things. [ Carlyle ]
The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say: but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work. [ Voltaire ]