“No words used in the Gospels can legitimately be twisted to mean unending punishment, and indeed, such an expression is self-contradictory. The main motive of punishment surely is to reform the sufferer; in school, to make a better scholar; in the State, to make a better citizen. If the punishment goes on forever when does the sufferer benefit by the punishment or use the lesson he has learned so painfully? If Hell were endless it would be valueless.”

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.286

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "No words used in the Gospels can legitimately be twisted to mean unending punishment, and indeed, such an expression is…" by Leslie Weatherhead?

Leslie Weatherhead81

English theologian 1893–1976

Related quotes

“When an evil masochist dies, does he go to hell, or would heaven be a better punishment?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires; so it is that punishment tames man, but does not make him "better."”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 2, Section 15
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

“This legible lesson, this ritual recording, must be repeated as often as possible; the punishments must be a school rather than a festival; an ever-open book rather than a ceremony. The duration that makes the punishment effective for the guilty is also useful for the spectators. They must be able to consult at each moment the permanent lexicon of crime and punishment. A secret punishment is a punishment half wasted. Children should be allowed to come to the places where the penalty is being carried out; there they will attend their classes in civics. And grown men will periodically relearn the laws. Let us conceive of places of punishment as a Garden of the Laws that families would visit on Sundays.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), Chapter Three, The Gentle Way in Punishment

“It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make a mistake in punishing.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1011
Sunni Hadith

“Marijuana is […] self-punishing. It makes you acutely sensitive and in this world, what worse punishment could there be?”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

Rolling Stone (November 1989), as cited in The Yale Book of Quotations https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0300107986, ed. Fred Shapiro, Yale University Press (2006), p. 567