“And yet in your case [Antony], as your most familiar friends are always saying, you practice declamation to evaporate your wine, not to sharpen your wits.”—Cicero, Phillipic II.xvii
“By the most rival impulses, Conscript Fathers, in critical times the scale is turned most completely, not only in all the accidents of public affairs, but principally in war, and most of all in civil war, which as a rule is governed by opinion and rumor.”—Cicero, Phillipic V.x
“The seeds of knowledge, of virtue, and of piety are, as we have seen, naturally implanted in us; but the actual knowledge, virtue, and piety are not so given. These must be acquired by prayer, by education, and by action. He gave no bad definition who said that man was a " teachable animal." And indeed it is only by a proper education that he can become a man.”—John Amos Comenius, Didactica Magna VI.i
“Education is indeed necessary for all, and this is evident if we consider the different degrees of ability. No one doubts that those who are stupid need instruction, that they may shake off' their natural dullness. But in reality those who are clever need it far more, since an active mind, if not occupied with useful things, will busy itself with what is useless, curious, and pernicious; and, just as the more fertile a field is, the richer the crop of thorns and of thistles that it can produce, so an excellent intelligence becomes filled with fanciful notions, if it be not sown with the seeds of wisdom and of virtue ; and, just as a mill-stone grinds itself away with noise and grating, and often cracks and breaks, if wheat, the raw material of flour, be not supplied to it, so an active mind, if void of serious things, entangles itself utterly with vain, curious, and noxious thoughts, and becomes the cause of its own destruction.”—Didactica Magna VI.7
“The scholar should be trained to express everything that he sees in words, and should be taught the meaning of all the words that he uses. No one should be allowed to talk about anything that he does not understand, or to understand anything without at the same time being able to express his knowledge in words. For he who cannot express the thoughts of his mind resembles a statue, and he who chatters, without understanding what he says, resembles a parrot. But we wish to train up men, and to do so as quickly as possible, and this end can only be attained when instruction in language goes hand in hand with instruction in facts.”—Didactica Magna XIX.42
“Wherefore, Romans, with advice to the extent of my power, and with toil almost beyond my power, I will stand sentry and keep watch on your behalf.”—Cicero, Phillipic VI.vii
“But enough of disgrace. I will speak next of the danger. Though we should shrink from it less than from disgrace, yet it effects the minds of the majority of men more.”—Cicero, Phillipic VII.v
“The more sick and ill a church is, the more the transition [to a spiritual and Godly way of life] will speak to those who convert. And equally the more unspiritual the household in which we grew up, the more strongly will the moment of conversion be etched in our mind.”—Kuyper, Common Grace II
“For it is very
easy to be enthusiastic about missions, and to give money, and to hold prayer
meetings for a missionary endeavor in a pagan country—but this is nothing but
cowardice if we think that by doing this, we are finished, and if we do not
have the courage to act equally decisively and boldly in our own surroundings.
Only the one who dares to act in his own surroundings in a variety of areas of
life, for his Savior and the people of his Savior, is worth to reach out his
hand toward missions in those far-away countries.”—Kuyper, Common Grace II
