"Celibacy is a spiritual kind of marriage," according to St. Optatus.

Celibacy is the cardinal principle and the curse of Shakerism; it is slowly but surely bringing the sect to an end.

So "celibacy is the highest state!"

" The present work, if it teach anything at all, teaches that Celibacy is a crime, and the Mother of crime, just as a venomous plant is a producer of poison.

And why not? Ecclesiastical celibacy is an invention of men, a detail of discipline agreed upon at the councils; but the flesh and its exigencies are anterior by many centuries; they date from Paradise.

Celibacy became a fundamental law of monachism.

"Celibacy is the life of the angels," remarks St. Ambrose.

Celibacy is the danger of my experiment, not the object of it.