Cleanliness is next to godliness

Origin: The English wording was made famous by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, whose sermon "On Dress" says that "cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness" — in quotation marks, as a saying already known. A related idea appears in Francis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning (1605), which says that cleanness of body was always thought to come from reverence toward God.