Sayings of Billy Sunday (1862–1935)

  1. If man ever appears as a consummate ass, it's when he denies the existence of God.
  2. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.
  3. The average church has so much machinery and so little oil of the Holy Spirit that it squeaks like a threshing machine when you start it up in the fall after it has been out in the field all year.
  4. I don't believe your own bastard theory of evolution either; I believe it's pure jackass nonsense.
  5. When ten thousand times ten thousand times ten thousand years have passed, eternity will have just begun.
  6. More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.
  7. Hell is the highest reward that the devil can offer you for being a servant of his.
  8. Hypocrites in the church? Yes, and in the lodge, and at home. Don't hunt through the church for a hypocrite. Go home and look in the glass. Hypocrites? Yes. See that you make the number one less.
  9. If you have no joy in your religion, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere.
  10. Some persons think they have to look like a hedgehog to be pious.
  11. The world is horribly disordered and out of joint; it must come under omnipotent surgery before we can expect health.
  12. Try praising your wife even if it does frighten her at first.
  13. More men fail through lack of purpose than through lack of talent.
  14. You can preach sociology or psychology or any other kind of ology, but if you leave Jesus Christ out of it, you hit the toboggan slide to hell.
  15. Some preachers don't believe in revivals; neither does the devil.
  16. They tell me a revival is only temporary; so is a bath, but it does you good.
  17. One reason sin flourishes is that it is treated like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake.
  18. Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole; yielding is opening the door and inviting him in.
  19. The world is wrong side up. It needs to be turned upside down in order to be right side up.
  20. I want to be a giant for God.
  21. If you want to drive the devil out of the world, hit him with a cradle instead of a crutch.
  22. Don't get chesty over success.
  23. You've got to sign your own Declaration of Independence before you can celebrate your Fourth of July victory.
  24. It is not necessary to be in a big place to do big things.
  25. Faith is the beginning of something of which you can't see the end but in which you believe.
  26. Let's quit fiddling with religion and do something to bring the world to Christ.
  27. I want to preach the gospel so plainly that men can come from the factories and not have to bring a dictionary.
  28. The man who votes for the saloon is pulling on the same rope with the devil, whether he knows it or not.
  29. There are some so-called Christian homes today with books on the shelves of the library that have no more business there than a rattler crawling about on the floor, or poison within the child's reach.
  30. If nine-tenths of you were as weak physically as your are spiritually, you couldn't walk.
  31. I am an old-fashioned preacher of the old-time religion, that has warmed this cold world's heart for two thousand years.
  32. Come and accept my Christ.
  33. A lot of people think a man needs a new grandfather, sanitation, and a new shirt, when what he needs is a new heart.
  34. I know there's a devil for two reasons; first, the Bible declares it; and second I have done business with him.
  35. Some preachers need the cushions of their chairs upholstered oftener than they need their shoes half-soled.
  36. There are a good many things worse than living and dying an old maid, and one of them is marrying the wrong man.
  37. If the womanhood of America had been no better than its manhood, the devil would have had the country fenced in long ago.
  38. If a doctor didn't know any more about Materia Mediea than the average church member knows about the Bible, he'd be arrested for malpractice.
  39. Don't look as if your religion hurt you.
  40. There wouldn't be so many non-church goers if there were not so many non-going churches.
  41. I never preach a sermon until I have soaked it in prayer.
  42. One spark of fire can do more to prove the power of powder than a whole library written on the subject.
  43. The man who is right with God will not be wrong with anything that is good.
  44. When a man, after starting to be a Christian, looks back, it is only a quesion of time until he goes back.
  45. I'd rather undertake to save ten drunkards than one old financial Shylock -- it would be easier.
  46. The higher you climb the plainer you are seen.
  47. Too much of the work of the Church today is like a squirrel in a cage -- lots of activity, but no progress.
  48. If you fall into sin and you're a sheep you'll get out; if you're a hog you'll stay there, just like a sheep and a hog when they fall into the mud..
  49. I tell you a lot of people are going to be fooled on the Day of Judgement.
  50. Don't let God hang a "For Rent" sign on the mansion that has been prepared for you in heaven.
  51. It's Jesus Christ or nothing.