“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.”
To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520), translated by Charles M. Jacobs, reported in rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther’s Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207 (1966).
Context: I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.
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Martin Luther 214
seminal figure in Protestant Reformation 1483–1546Related quotes
“I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.”
Aeneis, Book VI, lines 192–195.
The Works of Virgil (1697)
“The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.”
Facilis descensus Averno<!--Averni?-->:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
Variant translation:
: It is easy to go down into Hell;
Night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide;
But to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air—
There's the rub, the task.
Compare:
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.
John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II, line 432
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book VI, Lines 126–129 (as translated by John Dryden)
“Vishnu is to be perceived in His nature through the holy scriptures and only through them.”
Beginner’s Guide to Sri MadhvAchArya’s Life and Philosophy
“Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of hell.”
IX. 312–313 (tr. Alexander Pope).
A. H. Chase and W. G. Perry, Jr.'s translation:
: Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
Source: The Iliad
Dr. Hyde explaining a quote by Rabe'a al-Adiwiyah, p. 174
Looking for Alaska (2005)
As quoted in a eulogy for Darrow by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1938)
"Questions and Answers for the Governor" https://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/governorlocke/kids/questions.htm