Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

O’Rourke’s line is a sardonic twist on the proverb “cleanliness is next to godliness.” It suggests that when moral virtue, piety, or spiritual aspiration (“godliness”) is absent or implausible—whether in a person, a culture, or a political moment—people may elevate surface order and hygiene as a substitute for deeper ethical reform. The joke lands because it exposes a common displacement: focusing on what is controllable and visible (tidiness, propriety, rules) when the harder work of goodness seems out of reach. It can also be read as a critique of moral posturing—preferring the appearance of decency to decency itself.