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• Cleanliness is next to godliness
  Cleanliness is next to godliness

  Cleanliness is a great virtue.
• cleanliness is next to godliness
  cleanliness is next to godliness

  Being clean is a sign of spiritual purity or goodness, as in Don't forget to wash your ears—cleanliness is next to godliness. This phrase was first recorded in a sermon by John Wesley in 1778, but the idea is ancient, found in Babylonian and Hebrew religious tracts. It is still invoked, often as an admonition to wash or clean up.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

Cultural  

1. Cleanliness is a great virtue.

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cleanliness is next to godliness Idioms  

1. Being clean is a sign of spiritual purity or goodness, as in Don't forget to wash your ears—cleanliness is next to godliness. This phrase was first recorded in a sermon by John Wesley in 1778, but the idea is ancient, found in Babylonian and Hebrew religious tracts. It is still invoked, often as an admonition to wash or clean up.

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Example Sentences

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Cleanliness is next to godliness cleanliness is next to godliness

An old saying, but a very true one, "Cleanliness is next to godliness;" and this brings us to a luxury which, though long known in France, has only been lately introduced here.

From Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects by Earl of Caithness John Sutherland Sinclair

Cleanliness is next to godliness is our modern saying; it is certainly the outward visible token of purity, which Nausicaa is going to bring into her domestic surroundings.

From Homer's Odyssey A Commentary by Denton Jaques Snider

Cleanliness is next to godliness, and he devoted himself heroically to dirt; it was not at all his natural tendency, and the more disagreeable he found it the more strenuous was he in its pursuit.

From A Girl Among the Anarchists by Isabel Meredith

Cleanliness is next to godliness, and it is just as true of the outside of the house as of the inside.

From The Road and the Roadside by Burton Willis Potter

"Cleanliness is next to godliness," is almost an axiom.

From The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes by Helen Campbell

If cleanliness is next to godliness, it would seem to have last place in the domain of patriotism.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 6, 2017

My rural homesteading family has printed up t-shirts with big, bold letters stating "Dirt Pride," to push back against many of our obsessively clean friends and relatives who believe cleanliness is next to godliness.

From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2016

If cleanliness is next to godliness, then the New York City subway has long been in need of a few prayers.

From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2011

Domestic Scientist Alice Foote MacDougall says: "Remember that cleanliness is next to godliness and invest everything that you use in connection with coffee with a god-like cleanliness."

From Time Magazine Archive

If cleanliness is next to godliness, then whenever we had company my mother became a goddess.

From "Krik? Krak!" by Edwidge Danticat