“I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher.”

Letter to his son, Webb Hayes (26 February 1875)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That …" by Rutherford B. Hayes?
Rutherford B. Hayes photo
Rutherford B. Hayes 70
American politician, 19th President of the United States (i… 1822–1893

Related quotes

“It does not say much about the credibility of the Prime Minister for him to be saying publicly that the Christian churches support the bill after these deliberate acts of deception.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

In response to Mataca's claim that Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had misled a delegation of church leaders as to the true contents of the government's Reconciliation and Unity Bill, which Mataca and Ganilau both oppose
Reaction to comments from Archbishop Petero Mataca, 23 June 2005

Sam Harris photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Loneliness does not worry me; life is difficult enough, putting up with yourself and with your own habits.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature
Wesley Clark photo

“Ultimately, your generation will have the decisive voice. You will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the struggle to come. You will choose whether we are known for revenge or compassion. You will choose whether we, too, will kill in the name of God, or whether in His Name, we can find a higher civilization and a better means of settling our differences.
And this is not a new choice, not for your generation — it is a choice that many others have faced throughout history. Only now, we can hope that with your help and engagement we can find a new answer.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

Seton Hall Address (2002)
Context: They killed in the name of God. But they are not the first. This began in pre-history; the tragedy is that it persists today.
Some would characterize the events of 9-11 as a clash of civilizations, and a conflict of religions. And to many it seems a simple and satisfying explanation.
But others would suggest, correctly in my view, that such an interpretation is both wrong-headed and dangerous. They recognize a civil war within Islam itself, as contending factions compete for power. They would argue that we must influence the struggle where we can, by supporting greater attention to the secular structures in the Islamic world, and by encouraging our own American Islamic community to speak out in support of America’s democratic values.
Ultimately, your generation will have the decisive voice. You will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the struggle to come. You will choose whether we are known for revenge or compassion. You will choose whether we, too, will kill in the name of God, or whether in His Name, we can find a higher civilization and a better means of settling our differences.
And this is not a new choice, not for your generation — it is a choice that many others have faced throughout history. Only now, we can hope that with your help and engagement we can find a new answer.

John Betjeman photo

“It was through looking at churches that I came to believe in the reason churches were built.”

John Betjeman (1906–1984) English poet, writer and broadcaster

The Best of Betjeman, John Guest, Penguin Modern Classics, 1985. Written in 1948. (Blisland)

“In modern industry, research
Has come to be a kind of Church
Where rubber-aproned acolytes
Perform their Scientific Rites
And firms spend funds they do not hafter
In hope of benefits Hereafter.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1980s, Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms, 1980, p. 96

Gerhard Schröder photo

“We will be forced to cut state benefits, support personal responsibility and demand higher personal contributions from each individual.”

Gerhard Schröder (1944) German politician (SPD)

Wir werden Leistungen des Staates kürzen, Eigenverantwortung fördern und mehr Eigenleistung von jedem Einzelnen abfordern müssen.
government policy statement, 14 March 2003, quoted on ksta.de http://www.ksta.de/politik/hintergrund--das-reformpaket---132agenda-2010--148,15187246,13237294.html

Jodi Picoult photo
Albert Jay Nock photo

“In general I wish we were in the habit of conveying our meanings in plain explicit terms rather than by indirection and by euphemism, as we so regularly do. My point is that habitual indirection in speech supports and stimulates a habit of indirection in thought; and this habit, if not pretty closely watched, runs off into intellectual dishonesty.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

Free Speech and Plain Language (1936)
Context: In general I wish we were in the habit of conveying our meanings in plain explicit terms rather than by indirection and by euphemism, as we so regularly do. My point is that habitual indirection in speech supports and stimulates a habit of indirection in thought; and this habit, if not pretty closely watched, runs off into intellectual dishonesty.
The English language is of course against us. Its vocabulary is so large, it is so rich in synonyms, it lends itself so easily and naturally to paraphrase, that one gets up a great facility with indirection almost without knowing it. Our common speech bristles with mere indirect intimations of what we are driving at; and as for euphemisms, they have so far corrupted our vernacular as to afflict us with a chronic, mawkish and self-conscious sentimentalism which violently resents the plain English name of the realities that these euphemisms intimate. This is bad; the upshot of our willingness to accept a reality, provided we do not hear it named, or provided we ourselves are not obliged to name it, leads us to accept many realities that we ought not to accept. It leads to many and serious moral misjudgments of both facts and persons; in other words, it leads straight into a profound intellectual dishonesty.

Related topics