Saint Augustine Quotes

It is indeed better … that men should be led to worship God by teaching, than that they should be driven to it by fear of punishment or pain; but it does not follow that because the former course produces the better men, therefore those who do not yield to it should be neglected. For many have found advantage … in being first compelled by fear or pain, so that they might afterwards be influenced by teaching…

In our family, at this point,[Sunday School] its not a choice for my kids. It's a duty for us as parents to give them faith as a foundation and hope that when they bemuse older teens and young adults they will choose the same thing for themselves.

The question isn't if someone will sign up for spiritual formation; it's just who and what our spirits will be formed by.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth

My dad was a Buddhist when I was young, so when I was begging to become a Catholic, he was saying no and imparting Buddhist precepts.

I love working with the youth. I am just as new to the gospel as lot of the kids, so I get just as much out of it as they do. Just being around them makes it one of the best callings.

Schooling deprived of religious insights is wretched education.

Guide the people by law, subdue them by punishment; they may shun crime, but will be void of shame. Guide them by example, subdue them by courtesy; they will learn shame, and come to be good.

We began to connect literacy and learning and the lively effects of biblical knowledge and preaching pretty early. That was a tremendous impact.

We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world....No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.

The discipline of the Old Testament may be summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the discipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die to it.

Instilling values of faith at an early age is important.

The fear of hell, the punishment of sin, how the modern parent revolts from such teaching. Yet I will assert that far from doing us children harm, it was a sure foundation to the world of our confidence, a master girder in our palace of delight.

A doctrine-teaching, character-building university, the Brigham Young University is dedicated to the building of character and faith, for character is higher than intellect . . . . We are men of God first, men of letters second, men of science third, and noted men fourth, men of rectitude rather than academic competence. . . . Our academic training must be as impeccable as our lives.

I went to Catholic school for 12 years and went to church every Sunday. I may not do that anymore but I think it gave me a good basis. I've also explored things on my own different philosophies and spiritual teachings and I use what works for me.

Our Catholic schools exist to help young people attain holiness in their lives, that is, to become saints.

Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain.

... religion (ought to be if it isn't) a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable credos. Religion must be life made true; and life is action, growth, development--begun now and ending never.

My daughter wants to throw a stone at a bad man. I stop her from throwing, shaking my head and giving her a little slap. My disapproval is complete. You think: 'That's right, she shouldn't throw a stone even at a villain.' Then I hand her a brick to throw.

I conceive the essential task of religion to be "to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind".

What wise God would consign a man to Hell for ignorance, instead of teaching him better in the afterlife?

If there is any verse that you would like left out of the Bible, that is the verse that ought to stick to you, like a blister, until you really attend to its teaching.

...I don't think my church's teachings were incorrect, just incomplete.

The world provides no cheerleaders on the pathway to godliness.

There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it difficult enough to live - this very difficulty being necessary.