"For boredom with learning is the beginning of a withdrawal from God, and how can a man love God when he does not seek that for which the soul hungers?" (262).

"Let us then take heart from these proofs and examples, and bear our wrongs the more cheerfully the more we know they are undeserved. Let us not doubt that if they add nothing to our merit, at least they contribute to the expiation of our sins. And since everything is managed by divine ordinance, each one of the faithful, when it comes to the test, must take comfort at least from the knowledge that God’s supreme goodness allows nothing to be done outside his plan, and whatever is started wrongly, he himself brings it to the best conclusion. Hence in all things it is right to say to him, ‘Thy will be done.’ . . . [T]hose who are angered by some personal injury, though well know it has been laid on them by divine dispensation, leave the path of righteousness and follow their own will rather than God’s; they rebel in their secret hearts against the meaning of the words, ‘Thy will be done,’ and set their own will above the will of God" (105-6).

"this came upon us justly, as well as to our advantage . . . And if you would allow consideration of our advantage to be an element in divine justice, you would be able to call what God did to us then an act not of justice, but of grace. . . . see how with the dragnets of his mercy the Lord has fished us up from the depths of this dangerous sea, and from the abyss of what a Charybdis he has saved our shipwrecked selves, although we were unwilling, so that each of us may justly break out in that cry: ‘The Lord takes thought for me.’ Think and think again of the great perils in which we were and from which the Lord rescued us; tell always with the deepest gratitude how much the Lord has done for our souls. . . . Consider the magnanimous design of God’s mercy for us, the compassion with which the Lord directed his judgment toward our chastisement, the wisdom whereby he made use of evil itself and mercifully set aside our impiety, so that by a wholly justified wound in a single part of my body he might heal two souls. Compare our danger and manner of deliverance, compare the sickness and the medicine. Examine the cause, our deserts, and marvel at the effect, his pity. . . . And so it was wholly just and merciful, although by means of the supreme treachery of your uncle, for me to be reduced in that part of my body which was the seat of lust and sole reason for those desires, so that I could increase in many ways; in order that this member should justly be punished for all its wrongdoing in us, expiate in suffering the sins committed for its amusement, and cut me off from the slough of filth in which I had been wholly immersed in mind as in body. Only thus could I become more fit to approach the holy altars, now that no contagion of carnal impurity would ever again call me from them. . . . So when divine grace cleansed rather than deprived me of those vile members which from their practice of utmost indecency are called ‘the parts of shame’ and have no proper name of their own, what else did it do but remove a foul imperfection in order to preserve perfect purity. . . . Had you not previously joined me in wedlock , you might easily have clung to the world when I withdrew from it, either at the suggestion of your relatives or in enjoyment of carnal delights. See then, how greatly concerned the Lord was for us" (146-149).

"It was he who truly loved you, not I. My love, which brought us both to sin, should be called lust, not love. I took my fill of my wretched pleasures in you, and this was the sum total of my love. . . . [H]e suffered truly for your salvation. . . . Weep for the injustice of the great cruelty inflicted on him, not for the just and righteous payment demanded of me, or rather, as I said, the supreme grace granted us both" (153).

“Historians have not to point out everywhere the hand of providence, but to find out all the natural causes of things. Enough will always remain that cannot be explained” Lord Action (Allitt 38).

"Freedom is not the permission to do what we like; freedom is the power to do what we ought."

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"Catholicism – regarded in its special character and as contrasted with non-Catholic Christianity – is…an affirmation of all values whatsoever they may be, in heaven or on earth. All non-Catholic bodies originate, not in unconditional affirmation, but in denial and negation, in subtraction and in subjective selection. The history of Catholicism is the history of a bold, consistent, comprehensive affirmation of the whole full reality of revelation…It is the absolute, unconditional, and comprehensive affirmation of the whole life of man, of the totality of his life-relations and life-sources…. Catholicism is the positive religion par excellence…in the full sense essentially thesis. All non-Catholic creeds are essentially anti-thesis, conflict, contradiction, and negation…. The special characteristic of Protestantism is isolation, abrupt separation and schism, not only in the sphere of Church government, but in that of religion generally. Protestantism separates reason from faith, justification from sanctification, religion from morality, nature from supernature, and so it introduces a cleavage into the domain of God’s loving and gracious activity…. Such is Catholicism: an affirmation of values along the whole line, a most comprehensive and noblest accessibility to all good, a union of nature with grace, of art with religion, of knowledge with faith, “so that God may be all in all.” Let others be “ever hunting for a fabulous primitive simplicity; we repose in Catholic fullness” (Spirit of Catholicism).

"Don’t stay away from church because there are so many hypocrites. There’s always room for one more."

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion...Our constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."

"It must be so . . . Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
‘Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
‘Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!" (Cato, V.i.1).

"See in what peace a Christian can die."

“A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.”

(from the Meditations)

“be the same man always, when in great pain, at the loss of a child, or during a long illness” (I.8).

“only rarely and when unavoidable [may one] say or write to someone, ‘I am too busy,’ and not in this way, on the plea of pressing business, to continually excuse ourselves from performing the duties we owe to those who live with us” (I.12).

“Strength of character, self-control, and sobriety, both in abstention and in enjoyment, belong to the man who has a perfect and invincible spirit” (I.16).

“Remember how long you have delayed, how often the gods have appointed the day of your redemption and you have let it pass. How, if ever, you must realize . . . that a time limit has now been set for you and that if you do not use it to come out into the light, it will be lost, and you will be lost, and there will be no further opportunity” (II.13).

“perform every action as if it was the last of your life” (II.5).

“You see how few are the things a man must overcome to enable him to live a smoothly flowing and godly life” (II.13).

“It is possible to depart from life at this moment. Have this thought in mind whenever you act, speak, or think” (II.11).

“If . . . [the gods] do not exist or do not concern themselves with human affairs, then what is life to me in a universe void of gods or of Providence? But they do exist and do care for humanity” (II.11).

“The longest-lived or the shortest-lived sheds the same thing at death, for it is the present moment only of which he will be deprived, if indeed only the present moment is his, and no man can discard what he does not have. . . . all things as they come round again have always been the same from eternity, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things for a hundred years, or for two hundred years, or for an infinite time. . . . Hence to examine human life for forty years is the same as to examine it for ten thousand years, for what more will you see? . . . . a man of forty, if he has any intelligence, has seen all the past and all the future, because they are of the same kind as the present” (II.14, VII.49. XI.1).

“Life is but a struggle and the visit to a strange land” (II.17).

“What then can help us on our way? One thing only: philosophy” (II.17).

“Hippocrates cured many diseases and then died of disease himself. The Chaldeans foretold many deaths and then their own death overtook them. Alexander, Pompey, and Julius Caesar many times utterly destroyed whole cities, cut down many myriads of infantry and then came to the day of their own death. . . . You embarked, you sailed, you came to harbor. Disembark now; if to another life, nothing is void of gods even there; if to insensibility, you will cease to endure pleasures and pains, cease to serve a bodily vessel as much the worse as its servant is superior to it” (III.3).

“If you perform the task before you and follow the right rule of reason steadfastly, vigorously, with kindness; if you allow no distraction but preserve the spirit within you in its pure state as if you had to surrender it at any moment; if you concentrate on this, expecting nothing and shirking nothing, content to do any natural action which is at hand, heroically truthful in every word you utter, you will lead the good life. There is no one who could prevent you” (III.12).

“Live not as if you had ten thousand years before you. Necessity is upon you. While you live, while you may, become good” (IV.17).

“The man who thrills at the thought of later fame fails to realize that every one of those who remember him will very shortly die, as well as himself” (IV.19).

“most of our words and actions are unnecessary and whoever eliminates these will have more leisure and be less disturbed” (IV.24).

“One man practices philosophy though he has no tunic, another, though he has no book. Yet another man is half naked: ‘I have no bread,’ says he, ‘but I stay on the path of Reason.’ I have the nurture provided by learning, but I do not stay on the path” (IV.30).

“You will soon be dead, but you are not yet simple, nor undisturbed, nor free of the suspicion that harm may come to you from the outside, nor gracious to all, nor convinced that the only wisdom lies in righteous action” (IV.37).

“You are a little soul carrying a corpse” (IV.41).

“Altogether, human affairs must be regarded as ephemeral, and of little worth: yesterday sperm, tomorrow a mummy or ashes” (IV.35).

“Something of this sort could happen to any man, but not every man can endure it without grieving. . . . What has happened can then in no way prevent you from becoming just, great-hearted, chaste, wise, steadfast, truthful, self-respecting, and free, or prevent you from possessing those other qualities in the presence of which man’s nature finds its own fulfillment” (IV.49).

“When in the early morning, you are reluctant to get up, have this thought in mind: ‘I rise to do a man’s work. Am I still resentful as I go to the task for which I was born and for the sake of which I was brought into the world? Was I made to warm myself under the blankets?’ ‘But this is more pleasant.’ Were you born for pleasure, to feel things, and not to do them?” (IV.37).

“One man, when he has done a good deed, is ready also to put down in his accounts the gratitude due to him. Another is not prepared to do this, but privately he thinks that something is owed to him, and he is aware of what he has done. A third man does not, in a sense, even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced its grapes and seeks nothing beyond having once borne its proper fruit. Like the horse who has raced, the dog who has followed the scent, the bee who has made honey, this man who has done good does not know it, but turns to the next task, as the vine turns to produce grapes again in due season. One should therefore be among those who do good, in a sense, unconsciously” (V.6).

“Do not give up in disgust and impatience if you do not succeed in acting from right principles in every particular, but return to your principles after taking a fall, and be glad that most of your actions are more worthy of a man” (V.9).

“Wherever it is possible to live, it is possible to live the good life; it is possible to live in a palace; therefore it must be possible to live the good life in a palace” (V.16).

“How useful, when roasted meats and other foods are before you, to see them in your mind as here the dead body of a fish, there the dead body of a bird or a pig. Or again, to think of Falernian wine as the juice of a cluster of grapes, of a purple robe as sheep’s wool dyed with the blood of a shellfish, and of sexual intercourse as internal rubbing accompanied by a spasmodic ejection of mucus. What useful perceptual images these are! They go to the heart of things and pierce right through them, so that you can see things for what they are. You must do this throughout life; when things appear too enticing, strip them naked, destroy the myth which makes them proud. . . . [I]t is when you think your preoccupations most worthwhile that you are most enthralled” (VI.13).

“If someone can show me and prove to me that I am wrong in what I am thinking or doing, I shall gladly change it, for I seek the truth, which has never injured anyone” (VI.21).

“When you want to rejoice, think of the good qualities of your associates” (VI.48).

“How many with whom I entered the world have already gone” (VI.56).

“Nothing is new. Everything is familiar and last but a little while” (VII.1).

“It is ridiculous not to escape from one’s own vices, which it is possible to do, but to flee from the vices of others, which is impossible” (VII.71).

“Dig down within yourself, where the source of goodness is ever ready to gush forth, if you always dig deeply” (VII.59).

“You know from experience in how many directions you have wandered, and that you did not find the good life anywhere, not in reasoning, not in wealth, not in reputation, not in pleasures—nowhere. Where then is the good life to be found? In doing what the nature of man requires. And how is one to do this? By holding fast to doctrines that direct one’s desires and actions. What doctrines? Those concerning good and evil: that nothing is good for a man which does not make him just, temperate, brave, and free; nothing evil which does not make him the opposite of these” (VIII.1).

“If you ever saw a severed hand or foot, or a severed head lying somewhere apart from the rest of the body—that is what a man makes himself like, when he refuses to accept his lot and sets himself apart, or performs an antisocial act” (VIII.34).

“Build your life deed by deed, and be satisfied if each deed, as far as possible, fulfils its own end. And no one can prevent you from doing so” (VIII.32).

“All wickedness together does not harm the universe, nor does individual wickedness harm anyone else; it is harmful only to the wicked man, to whom it is given to rid himself of it as soon as he himself wishes” (VIII.55).

“how great a weariness there is in living with those who are out of tune with you” (IX.3).

“One man prays that he may sleep with a certain woman. You pray that you may not desire to sleep with her. Another prays to be rid of someone. You pray that you may not want to be rid of him. A third man prays that he may not lose his child. You pray that you may not be afraid of losing it. Fashion your prayers altogether thus, and observe what happens” (IX.40).

“Do not discuss in general terms what is a good man. Be one” (IX.16).

“He who flees from his master is a runaway slave. The law is our master and he who transgresses it is then a runaway too” (IX.25).

“Do not expect Plato’s ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement” (IX.29).

“Consider each one of your actions and ask yourself whether death is to be feared because it deprives us of this” (IX.29).

“He who carries you out to burial will almost at once be the object of another’s lament” (IX.34).

“Consider what they are when eating, sleeping, fornicating, relieving themselves and so on. Then see what they are like when, haughty and violent in their seats of power, they rule over and chastise men. Yet how many needs they were just now enslaved to and for what reasons! And soon they will have such need again!” (X.19).

“The man who does not have one single and constant aim in life cannot, throughout his life, remain the same man” (XI.21).

“I have often marveled that every man loves himself above all others, yet that he attaches less importance to his own idea of himself than to what his neighbors think about him” (XII.4).

"The nearer the Church, the further from God."

"What [philosophers] oppose is the idea of the religious that their religion is contrary to philosophy. They endeavor to eradicate this idea, trying to make the religious understand that the message of their religion is [a] parabolic [representation of philosophy]" (Burgel 834-35).

“Worry is the misuse of imagination."

“It is better to sit with a wise man in prison that with a fool in paradise.”

“He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes” (Chinese proverb).

“People show their character by what they laugh at” (German proverb).

“Words should be weighed, not counted” (Yiddish proverb)

“Don’t let grass grow on the path of friendship” (Native American proverb).

“Who cannot find God in the heart of a child will never know him within cathedral walls.”

And Jesus said unto them, "And who do you say that I am?"
And they replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed."
And Jesus replied, "Huh?"

"Life isn't about keeping score.
It's not about how many friends you have
Or how accepted you are.
Not about if you have plans this weekend or if you're alone.
It isn't about who you're dating, who you used to date, how many people
you've dated, or if you haven't been with anyone at all.
It isn't about who you have kissed,
It's not about sex.
It isn't about who your family is or how much money they have
Or what kind of car you drive.
Or where you are sent to school.
It's not about how beautiful or ugly you are.
Or what clothes you wear, what shoes you have on, or what kind of music you listen to.
It's not about if your hair is blonde, red, black, or brown
Or if your skin is too light or too dark.
Not about what grades you get, how smart you are, how smart everybody else
thinks you are, or how smart standardized tests say you are.
It's not about what clubs you're in or how good you are at "your" sport.
It's not about representing your whole being on a piece of paper and
seeing who will "accept the written you."
LIFE JUST ISN'T.
But, life is about who you love and who you hurt.
It's about who you make happy or unhappy purposefully.
It's about keeping or betraying trust.
It's about friendship, used as a sanctity or a weapon.
It's about what you say and mean, maybe hurtful, maybe heartening.
About starting rumors and contributing to petty gossip.
It's about what judgments you pass and why. And who your judgments are spread to.
It's about who you've ignored with full control and intention.
It's about jealousy, fear, ignorance, and revenge.
It's about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow, and spreading it.
But most of all, it's about using your life to touch or poison other
people's hearts in such a way that could have never occurred alone.
Only you choose the way those hearts are affected, and those choices are
what life's all about."

"I have more easily found men who have preserved their innocence than men who have known repentance" (in Abelard 132-33).

"As the right order requires us to believe the deep things of Christian faith before we undertake to discuss them by reason; so to my mind it appears a neglect if, after we are established in the faith, we do not seek to understand what we believe."

"Whoever sits in solitude and is at peace is rescued from three wars, that is, wars of hearing, speech and sight; he shall have only one thing to fight against, the heart" (in Abelard 196).

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God, the Father almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen."

"Seek truth in all things. God reveals himself through the created world."

"Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God."

"As often as I spoke, I repented; as often as I kept silent, I did not repent."

"So the good has been well explained as that at which all things aim."

"Man is by nature a political animal."

"it is the same fault to demand demonstration from a historian as to be content with probabilities from a mathematician" (Nichomean Ethics 1.3).

"Tragedy is thus a representation of an action that is worth serious attention, complete in itself and of some amplitude. . . by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions."

"The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect" (in Sproul)

What good does your philosophy do you? It enables me to do freely what other men do only because of fear of the law.

"the head downward
the legs upward
he tumbles into the bottomless
from whence he came
he has no more honor in his body
he bites no more bite of any short meal
he answers no greeting
and is not proud when being adored
the head downward
the legs upward
he tumbles into the bottomless
from whence he came
like a dish covered with hair
like a four-legged sucking chair
like a deaf echnotrunk
half full half empty
the head downward
the legs upward
he tumbles into the bottomless
from whence he came." (Dadist poem: "Fur Theo Van Doesburg" in Schaeffer Vol 5 p.199)

"Truth sits upon the lips of dying men."

"The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion."

We worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For the person of the Father is one; of the Son, another; of the Holy Spirit, another. But the divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the majesty equal. Such as is the Father, such also is the Son, and such the Holy Spirit.

The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is infinite, the Son is infinite, the Holy Spirit is infinite. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal Beings, but one eternal Being. So also there are not three uncreated Beings, nor three infinite Beings, but one uncreated and one infinite Being.

In like manner, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. And yet there are not three omnipotent Beings, but one omnipotent Being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God only. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. And yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord only.

For as we are compelled by Christian truth to confess each person distinctively to be both God and Lord, we are prohibited by the Catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords. The Father is made by none, nor created, nor begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is not created by the Father and the Son, nor begotten, but proceeds. Therefore, there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

And in this Trinity there is nothing prior or posterior, nothing greater or less, but all three persons are coeternal and coequal to themselves. So that through all, as was said above, both unity in trinity and trinity in unity is to be adored. Whoever would be saved, let him thus think concerning the Trinity.

“Late have I loved thee, O beauty ever ancient and ever new” (Augustine Confessions 10:27).

“How miserable was I then, and how didst Thou deal with me, to make me feel my misery of that day, when I was preparing to receite a panegyric of the Emperor, wherein I was to utter many a lie, and lying, was to be applauded by those who knew I lied” (Augustine in Muggeridge Confessions 60).

 “Entrust the past to God’s mercy, the present to his love, and the future to his providence” (Augustine, Confessions).

“I could not find myself; how much less, then, could I find God” (Augustine, Confessions).

“In the city of Rome, Peter located his bishop’s chair, in which he would sit as head, caput, of all the apostles, so that through this one chair the unity of them all might be preserved” (Augustine De Schismedonastistarum ad Parmenianium).

Watch, O Lord,
with those who wake,
or watch, or weep tonight,
and give Your angels and saints
charge over those who sleep.
Tend Your sick ones, O Lord Christ.
Rest Your weary ones.
Bless Your dying ones.
Soothe Your suffering ones.
Pity Your afflicted ones.
Shield Your joyous ones,
and all for Your love's sake. Amen.

"A man makes no good use of these things unless he can also abstain from them. Many find it easier to abstain and not to use at all than to be moderate so as to use well. But no one can use wisely unless he can also restrain himself from using" (On the Good of Marriage in Abelard 242).

“Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.”

“[T]emperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object; justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it. . . . [T]emperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God; fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man; prudence is love making a right distinction between what helps it towards God and what might hinder it” (On the Morals of the Catholic Church 15).

“For not in vain is it said, "Give not that which is holy to dogs." Do not be angry. I too barked and was a dog; and then, as was right, instead of the food of teaching, I got the rod of correction” (On the Morals of the Catholic Church 18).

“Thou subjectest women to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not to gratify passion, but for the propagation of offspring, and for domestic society. Thou givest to men authority over their wives, not to mock the weaker sex, but in the laws of unfeigned love. Thou dost subordinate children to their parents in a kind of free bondage, and dost set parents over their children in a godly rule. … Without violation of the connections of nature and of choice, thou bringest within the bond of mutual love every relationship of kindred, and every alliance of affinity. Thou teachest servants to cleave to their masters from delight in their task rather than from the necessity of their position. Thou renderest masters forbearing to their servants, from a regard to God their common Master, and more disposed to advise than to compel. Thou unitest citizen to citizen, nation to nation, yea, man to man, from the recollection of their first parents, not only in society but in fraternity. Thou teachest kings to seek the good of their peoples; thou counsellest peoples to be subject to their kings” (On the Morals of the Catholic Church 63).

"God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us" (in CCC 1847).

"May your creed be for you as a mirror. Look at yourself in it, to see if you believe everything you say you believe. And rejoice in your faith each day" (in CCC 1064).

"To live well is nothing other than to love God with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul and with all one’s efforts; from this it comes about that love is kept whole and uncorrupted (through temperance). No misfortune can disturb it (and this is fortitude). It obeys only [God] (and this is justice), and is careful in discerning things, so as not to be surprised by deceit or trickery (and this is prudence)" (in CCC 1809).

That works add nothing to merit, for virtue can be had without demonstrating it: "virtue may be in natural habit though not in works . . . the virtue of continue ought always to exist in natural habit but it is shown in practice only in appropriate times and seasons . . . And so just as the merit of endurance is not greater in the case of Peter who suffered martyrdom than in John who did not, so John who never married wins no greater merit for continence than Abraham who fathered children, for the celibacy of the one and the marriage of the other both fought for Christ in accordance with the difference of their times. Yet John was continent in practice as well, Abraham only as a habit. At the time after the days of the Patriarchs, when the Law declared a man to be accursed if he did not perpetuate his race in Israel, a man who could have continence did not reveal himself, but even so, he had it. Afterwards ‘the term was completed’ when it could be said, ‘Let the man accept it who can;’ and if he can, put it into practice, but if he does not wish to do so, he must not claim it untruthfully" (On the Good of Marriage in Abelard 173-74).

Faith is "reason with assent" (Carnell 69).

"Love, and do what you will"

"What do you have that you did not receive?"

"We makes ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot."

"With love for mankind and hatred of sins" (Love the sinner, but hate the sin).

Luke 13:24: "Force them to come in" (theological justification for use of violence against heretics and schismatics)

"All our good merits are wrought through grace, so that God, in crowning our merits, is crowning nothing but His gifts" (in Whitcomb Answer 26).

"A whole Christ for my salvation, a whole Bible for my staff, a whole Church for my fellowship, and a whole world for my parish."

"I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them: ‘Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.’"

"That is the Catholic view: a view that can demonstrate a just God in so many and great punishments and torments of little children" (in Kung 85).

-------City of God-------------

"Christ . . . gradually withdraws His own people from a world that is corrupted by these vices, and is falling into ruins, to make of them an eternal city" (II.18).

"[T]he dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater license in wickedness; while those who are put under them in service are not hurt except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is a slave, is free; but the bad man, even if he reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices" (IV.3).

"[I]f these gods, false and man, were unknown or contemned, and He alone was known and worshipped with sincere faith and virtue, they would both have a better kingdom here, whatever be its extent, and whether they might have one here or not, would afterwards receive an eternal kingdom" (IV.28).

"[W]hatsoever a man suffers contrary to his own will, he ought not to attribute to the will of men, or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to His will who gives power to wills" (V.10).

"[W]e are by no means compelled either, retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He is prescient of future things, which is impious. . . . [I]t is not in vain that laws are enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations are had recourse to; for these also He foreknew, and they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they would be of. Prayers, also, are of great avail to procure those things which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered them; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not therefore sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Nay, it cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins when he does this, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who if he wills not, sins not. But if he shall not will to sin, even this did God foreknow" (V.10).

"For there is no true virtue except that which is directed towards that end in which is the highest and ultimate good of man" (V.12).

Cato: "‘I do not think that it was by arms that our ancestors made the republic great from being small. Had that been the case, the republic of our day would have been by far more flourishing than that of their times, for the number of our allies and citizens is far greater; and besides, we possess a far greater abundance of armor and of horses than they did. But it was other things than those which made them great, and we have none of them: industry at home, just government without, a mind free in deliberation, addicted neither to crime nor to lust. Instead of these, we have luxury and avarice, poverty in the state, opulence among citizens; we laud riches, we follow laziness; there is no difference made between the good and the bad; all the rewards of virtue are got possession of by intrigue. And no wonder, when every individual consults only for his own good, when ye are the slaves of pleasure at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favor, no wonder that an onslaught is made upon the unprotected republic’" (in Sallust Cato c.52 in Augustine V.12).

"our whole life is nothing but a race towards death, in which no one is allowed to stand still for a little space, or to go somewhat more slowly, but all are driven forwards with an impartial movement, and with equal rapidity" (XIII.10).

"by [Adam and Eve] so great a sin was committed, that by it the human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted also to their posterity, liable to sin and subject to death. And the kingdom of death so reigned over men, that the deserved penalty of sin would have hurled all headlong even into the second death, of which there is no end, had not the undeserved grace of God saved some therefrom" (XIV.1).

"Wherefore the man who lives according to God, and not according to man, ought to be a lover of good, and therefore a hater of evil. And since no one is evil by nature, but whosoever is evil is evil by vice, he who lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a perfect hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because of is vice, nor love the vice because of the man, but hate the vice and love the man" (XIV.6).

"[W]e are rather worse men than better if we have none of these emotions [pity, sadness, agony, indignation, etc.] at all. For the apostle vituperated and abominated some who, as he said, were ‘without natural affection’ . . . For to be quite free from pain while we are in this place of misery is only purchased . . . at the price of blunted sensibilities both of mind and body" (XIV.9).

"By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him" (XIV.13).

* "[T]wo cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, ‘Thou art my glory, and the lifter of mine head’" (XIV.28).

"The good use the world that they may enjoy God: the wicked, on the contrary, that they may enjoy the world would fain to use God—those of them, at least, who have attained to the belief that He is and takes an interest in human affairs" (XV.7).

"God made some vessels of wrath to dishonor and other vessels of mercy to honor; in punishment rendering to the former what is due [from Adam’s sin], in grace giving to the later what is not due: in order tha by the very comparison of itself with the vessels of wrath, the heavenly city, which sojourns on earth, may learn not to put confidence in the liberty of its own will, but may hope to call on the name of the Lord God" (XV.21).

"When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man; and so with every created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evil, when inordinately" (XV.22).

"But even the infants, not personally in their own life, but according to the common origin of the human race, have all broken God’s covenant in that one in whom all have sinned. . . . [E]ven the infants are, according to true belief, born in sin, not actual but original, so that we confess they have need of grace for the remission of sins . . . Whoever is not born again, that soul shall perish from his people, because he hath broken my covenant, since he also has sinned in Adam with all others" (XVI.27).

"God makes a good use even of the wicked, and all things work together for good to them that love Him. . . . And thus the devil, the prince of the impious city, when he stirs up his own vessels against the city of God that sojourns in this world, is permitted to do her no harm. For without doubt the divine providence procures for her both consolation through prosperity, that she may not be broken by adversity, and trial through adversity, that she may not be corrupted by prosperity; and thus each is tempered by the other. . . . Thus in this world, in these evil days, not only from the time of the bodily presence of Christ and His apostles, but even from that of Abel, whom first his wicked brother slew because he was righteous, and thenceforth even to the end of the world, the Church has gone forward on pilgrimage amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God" (XVIII.51).

* "For what flood of eloquence can suffice to detail the miseries of this life? . . . For when, where, how, in this life can these primary objects of nature be possessed so that they may not be assailed by unforeseen accident? . . . The amputation or decay of the members of the body puts an end to its integrity, deformity blights its beauty, weakness its health, lassitude its vigor, sleepiness or sluggishness its activity—and which of these is it that may not assail the wise man? . . . What shall I say of the fundamental blessings of the soul, sense, and intellect . . . what kind of sense is it that remains when a man becomes deaf and blind? where are reason and intellect when disease makes a man delirious? . . . And who is quite sure that no such thing can happen to the wise man in this life? . . . In fine, virtue itself . . . what is its occupation save to wage perpetual war with vices—not those that are outside of us, but within . . . Far be it from us, then, to fancy that while we are still engaged in this intestine war, we have already found the happiness which we seek to reach by victory. . . . [The Stoics’] wise man, or at least the man whom they fancifully depict as such, is always happy, even though he become blind, deaf, dumb, mutilated, racked with pains, or suffer any conceivable calamity such as may compel him to make away with himself; and they are not ashamed to call the life which is beset with these evils happy. O happy life, which seeks the aid of death to end it! . . . [W]ho can enumerate all the great grievances with which human society abounds in the misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them? . . . On all hands we experience these slights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted evils; while on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because we do not know the heart of our friend, and though we did know it to-day, we should be as ignorant of what it might be tomorrow. . . . What shall I say of these judgments which men pronounce on men, and which are necessary I communities, whatever outward peace they enjoy? Melancholy and lamentable judgments they are, since the judges are men who cannot discern the consciences of those at their bar, and are therefore compelled to put innocent witnesses to the torture . . . But though we therefore acquit the judge of malice, we must none the less condemn human life as miserable. . . . [M]an is separated from man by the difference of languages [and] . . . social and civil wars . . . Let every one, then, who thinks with pain on all these great evils, so horrible, so ruthless, acknowledge that this is misery. And if anyone either endures or thinks of them without mental pain, this is a more miserable plight still, for he thinks himself happy because he has lost human feeling. . . . Is not the unfeigned confidence and mutual love of true and good friends our one solace in human society, filled as it is with misunderstandings and calamities? And yet the more friends we have, and the more widely they are scattered, the more numerous are our fears that some portion of the vast masses of the disasters of life may light upon them [and] their friendship may be changed into perfidy, malice, and injustice. . . . [H]ow shall we contrive to feel no bitterness in the death of those whose life has been sweet to us? . . . [y]et we would prefer to hear that such men were dead rather than to hear or perceive that they had fallen from the faith, or from virtue—in other words that they were spiritually dead. Of this vast material for misery the earth is full" (XIX.4-8).

"And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so it is with our happiness, and this ‘with patience;’ for we are encompassed with evils, which we ought patiently to endure, until we come to the ineffable enjoyment of unmixed good; for there shall be no longer anything to endure. Salvation, such as it shall be in the world to come, shall itself be our final happiness" (XIX.4).

"For they who care for the rest rule—the husband the wife, the parents their children, the masters their servants; and they who are cared for obey—the women their husbands, the children their parents, the servants their masters. But in the family of the just man who lives by faith and is yet a pilgrim journeying on to the celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love of power, but from a sense of the duty they owe to others—not because they are proud of authority, but because they love mercy. . . . Moreover, when men are subjected to one another in a peaceful order, the lowly position does as much good to the servant as the proud position does to the master. . . . [M]asters ought to feel their position of authority a greater burden than servants their service" (XIX.14-16).

"The families which do not live by faith seek their peace in the earthly advantages of this life; while the families which live by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and use as pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth as do not fascinate and divert them from God, but rather aid them to endure with greater ease, and to keep down the number of those burdens of the corruptible body which weigh upon the soul. Thus the things necessary for this mortal life are used by both kinds of men and families alike, but each has its own peculiar and widely different aim in using them" (XIX.17).

* "This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages" (XIX.17).

"As to these three modes of life, the contemplative, the active, and the composite, although, so long as a man’s faith is preserved, he may choose any of them without detriment to his eternal interests, yet he must never overlook the claims of truth and duty. No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in the active life as to neglect the contemplation of God. The charm of leisure must not be indolent vacancy of mind, but the investigation or discovery of truth, that thus every man may make solid advancements without grudging that others do the same. And, in active life, it is not the honors or power of this life we should covet, since all things under the sun are vanity, but we should aim at using our position and influence, if these have been honorably attained, for the welfare of those that are under us" (XIX.19).

"But the actual possession of the happiness of this life, without the hope of what is beyond, is but a false happiness and profound misery" (XIX.20).

"In this present time we learn to bear with equanimity the ills to which even good men are subject, and to hold cheap the blessings which even the wicked enjoy. And consequently, even in those conditions of life in which the justice of God is not apparent, His teaching is salutary. For we do not know by what judgment of God this good man is poor and that bad man rich; why he who, in our opinion, ought to suffer acutely for his abandoned life enjoys himself, while sorrow pursues him whose praiseworthy life leads us to suppose he should be happy. . . . Although, therefore, we do not know by what judgments these things are done by God, with whom is the highest virtue, the highest wisdom, the highest justice, no infirmity, no rashness, no unrighteousness, yet is salutary for us to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good things which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only to evil men" (XX.2).

"Hence the whole mass of the human race is condemned; for he who at first gave entrance to sin has been punished with all his posterity who were in him as in a root so that no one is exempt from this just and due punishment [eternity in hell], unless delivered by mercy and undeserved grace; and the human race is so apportioned that in some is displayed the efficacy of merciful grace, in the rest the efficacy of just retribution. . . . [M]any more are left under punishment than are delivered from it, in order that it may thus be shown what was due to all. And had it been inflicted on all, no one could justly have found fault with the justice of Him who taketh vengeance; whereas, in the deliverance of so many from that just award, there is cause to render the most cordial thanks to the gratuitous bounty of Him who delivers" (XXI.12).

"the eternal fire will be proportioned to the deserts of the wicked, so that to some it will be more, and to others less painful" (XXI.16).

Goldsmith: "We begin life in tears, and every day tells us why" (in COG 785).

"All [non-purgatorial] punishments, whether temporal or eternal, inflicted as they are on every one by divine providence, are sent either on account of past sins, or of sins presently allowed in the life, or to exercise and reveal a man’s graces. . . . For even if any one suffers some hurt through another’s wickedness or mistake, the man indeed sins whose ignorance or injustice does the harm; but God, why by his just though hidden judgment permits it to be done, sins not" (XXI.13).

"[God] deem[ed] it to be more befitting His power and goodness to bring good out of evil than to prevent the evil from coming into existence" (XXII.1).

* "But if they do not believe that these miracles were wrought by Christ’s apostles to gain credence to their preaching of His resurrection and ascension, this one grand miracle suffices for us, that the whole world has believed without any miracles" (XXII.5).

"What else was meant by His word through the prophet, ‘I will be your God, and ye shall be my people,’ than, I shall be their satisfaction, I shall be all that men honorably desire—life, and health, and nourishment, and plenty, and glory, and honor, and peace, and all good things? This, too, is the right interpretation of the saying of the apostle, ‘That God may be all in all’" (XXII.30).

"Neither are we to suppose that because sin shall have no power to delight [those in heaven], free will must be withdrawn. It will on the contrary, be all the more free, because set free from delight in sinning to take unfailing delight in not sinning. For the first freedom of will which man received when he was created upright consisted in an ability not to sin, but also in an ability to sin; whereas this last freedom of the will shall be superior, inasmuch as it shall not be able to sin. . . . the former being adapted to the acquiring of merit, the latter to the enjoying of the reward" (XXII.30).

-----------Confessions------------

"You command continence? Grant what you command, and command what you will" (Confessions 202).

* "Our heart is restless until it rests in you" (Confessions).

"Give me chastity—but not yet!" (Confessions).

"So it was your doing that those who have never been drunkards have been free of this vice" (Confessions 205).

"it is by your gift that the command is kept" (Confessions 205, 206).

"I also attribute to your grace whatever evil acts I have not done. . . . everything has been forgiven, both the evil things I did of my own accord and those which I did not do because of your guidance. No one who considers his frailty would dare to attribute to his own strength his chastity and innocence, so that he has less cause to love you—as if he had less need of your mercy by which you forgive the sins of those converted to you" (Confessions 32).

He rebukes Christians who "claim good qualities as their own when you have bestowed them, or because they do not recognize them to be your gifts and think they have earned them by their merits" (Confessions 217).

"If anyone lists his true merits to you, what is he enumerating before you but your gifts?" (Augustine Confessions 177).

"You yourself are all my good qualities" (Augustine Confessions 182).

"release us from the chains we have made for ourselves" (Augustine Confessions 47).

"I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself" (Augustine Confessions 29).

"No one is doing right if he is acting against his will, even when what he is doing is good" (Augustine Confessions 14).

"me, a deserter of you" (Augustine Confessions 37).

"the nub of the problem was to reject my own will and to desire yours" (Confessions 155).

"all the evils I had committed against you, against myself, and against others—sins both numerous and serious, in addition to the chain of original sin by which ‘in Adam we die’" (Confessions 82).

"I was utterly certain that none other than myself was willing or not willing. . . . there lay the cause of my sin" (Augustine Confessions 114).

"In wrestling with the Problem of Evil, Augustine writes, "I inquired what wickedness is; and I did not find a substance but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance, you O God, towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life" (Confessions 125).

"there are certain elements which are thought evil. If I were to regard them in isolation, I would indeed wish for something better, but now even when they are taken alone, my duty is to praise you for them" (Confessions 126).

* "You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I fell but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace that is yours."

--------On the Free choice of the Will-----------

"How is it that these two propositions are not contradictory and inconsistent: (1) God has foreknowledge of everything in the future; and (2) We sin by the will, not by necessity? For, you say, if God foreknows that someone is going to sin, then it is necessary that he sin. But if it is necessary, the will has no choice about whether to sin; there is an inescapable and fixed necessity. And so you fear that this argument forces us into one of two positions: either we draw the heretical conclusion that God does not foreknow everything in the future; or, if we cannot accept this conclusion, we must admit that sin happens by necessity and not by will" (Free Choice 74).

"Unless I am mistaken, you do not force someone to sin just because you foreknow that he is going to sin. Nor does your foreknowledge force him to sin, even if he is undoubtedly going to sin—since otherwise it would not be genuine foreknowledge. So if your foreknowledge is consistent with his freedom in sinning, so that you foreknow what somebody else is going to do by his own will, then God forces no one to sin, even though he foresees those who are going to sin by their own will.

Why then can’t our just God punish those things that his foreknowledge does not force to happen? Just as your memory does not force the past to have happened, God’s foreknowledge does not force the future to happen. And just as you remember some things that you have done but did not do everything that you remember, God foreknows everything that he causes but does not cause everything that he foreknows. . . . Therefore, you must understand that God justly punishes the sins that he foreknows but does not cause" (Free Choice 78).

"God who gave them the power to will, did not force them to sin; and there are angels who never have sinned and never will sin. . . . So be sure that such a creature exists in the higher places and in the splendor of the heavens, since if the Creator manifested his goodness in creating something that he foresaw would sin, he certainly manifested his goodness in creating something that he foreknew would not sin. . . . They did not persevere in their good will because they received this activity; rather, they received this activity because God, who gave it to them, foresaw that they would persevere" (Free Choice 80-81, 94).

"don't let the fact that sinful souls are condemned lead you to say in your heart that it would be better if they did not exist. . . . But God in his bounty did not shrink from creating even that creature whom he foreknew would not merely sin, but would persist in willing to sin. For a runaway horse is better than a stone that stays in the right place only because it has no movement or perception of its own; and in the same way, a creature that sins by free will is more excellent than one that does not sin only because it has no free will. I would praise wine as a good thing of its kind, but condemn a person who got drunk on that wine. And yet I would prefer that person, condemned and drunk, to the wine that I praised, on which he got drunk. . . . Therefore any soul is better than any material object. . . . Why, then, should we not praise God with unspeakable praise, simply because when he made those souls who would persevere in the laws of justice, he made others who he foresaw would sin, even some who would persevere in sin? For even such souls are better than souls that cannot sin [animals] because they lack reason and the free choice of the will. And these souls are in turn better than the brilliance of any material object, however splendid . . . all things that exist deserve praise simply in virtue of the fact that they exist, for they are good simply in virtue of the fact that they exist" (Free Choice 79, 81-82, 85)

"if ignorance of the truth and difficulty in doing right are the natural state of human beings [natural only in the sense that we were born this way, not that God created humanity this way], from which we must rise to the happiness of wisdom and rest, no one is rightly condemned for this natural beginning. But if someone refuses to go on from there, or falls back from the progress that he has made, he pays a just and well-deserved penalty" (Free Choice 115).

"Who knows what reward God has prepared for them in the hidden depths of his judgments? For while it is true that they never acted rightly, they suffered without sinning. It is not without reason that the Church celebrates as martyrs the children who were killed when Herod sought the life of the Lord Jesus Christ" (Free Choice 117).

"But as it is, [humans] are not good, and it is not in their power to be good, either because they do not see how they ought to be, or because they lack the power to be what they see they ought to be. . . . all sinful souls have been afflicted with these two punishments: ignorance and difficulty. . . . "If it was Adam and Eve who sinned, what we poor wretches do? How do we deserve to be born in the blindness of ignorance and the torture of difficulty?". . . Perhaps their complaint would be justified if there were no Victor over error and inordinate desire. . . . You are not blamed for your unwilling ignorance, but because you fail to ask about what you do not know. You are not blamed because you do not bind up your wounds, but because you spurn the one who wants to heal you. These are your own sins. . . . if anyone was willing to turn back to God so that he might overcome the penalty that had been imposed for turning away from God, it was right for God not to hinder him, but indeed to help him. Thus the Creator showed how easily the first man could have retained the nature he was created with, since his offspring could overcome the nature they were born with. . . . although it was born into ignorance and difficulty, no necessity forces it to remain there" (Free Choice 106-109).

Marcus Aurelius

“be the same man always, when in great pain, at the loss of a child, or during a long illness” (I.8).

“only rarely and when unavoidable [may one] say or write to someone, ‘I am too busy,’ and not in this way, on the plea of pressing business, to continually excuse ourselves from performing the duties we owe to those who live with us” (I.12).

“Strength of character, self-control, and sobriety, both in abstention and in enjoyment, belong to the man who has a perfect and invincible spirit” (I.16).

“Remember how long you have delayed, how often the gods have appointed the day of your redemption and you have let it pass. How, if ever, you must realize . . . that a time limit has now been set for you and that if you do not use it to come out into the light, it will be lost, and you will be lost, and there will be no further opportunity” (II.13).

“perform every action as if it was the last of your life” (II.5).

“You see how few are the things a man must overcome to enable him to live a smoothly flowing and godly life” (II.13).

“It is possible to depart from life at this moment. Have this thought in mind whenever you act, speak, or think” (II.11).

“If . . . [the gods] do not exist or do not concern themselves with human affairs, then what is life to me in a universe void of gods or of Providence? But they do exist and do care for humanity” (II.11).

“The longest-lived or the shortest-lived sheds the same thing at death, for it is the present moment only of which he will be deprived, if indeed only the present moment is his, and no man can discard what he does not have. . . . all things as they come round again have always been the same from eternity, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things for a hundred years, or for two hundred years, or for an infinite time. . . . Hence to examine human life for forty years is the same as to examine it for ten thousand years, for what more will you see? . . . . a man of forty, if he has any intelligence, has seen all the past anf all the future, because they are of the same kind as the present” (II.14, VII.49. XI.1).

“Life is but a struggle and the visit to a strange land” (II.17).

“What then can help us on our way? One thing only: philosophy” (II.17).

“Hippocrates cured many diseases and then died of disease himself. The Chaldeans foretold many deaths and then their own death overtook them. Alexander, Pompey, and Julius Caesar many times utterly destroyed whole cities, cut down many myriads of infantry and then came to the day of their own death. . . . You embarked, you sailed, you came to harbor. Disembark now; if to another life, nothing is void of gods even there; if to insensibility, you will cease to endure pleasures and pains, cease to serve a bodily vessel as much the worse as its servant is superior to it” (III.3).

“If you perform the task before you and follow the right rule of reason steadfastly, vigorously, with kindness; if you allow no distraction but preserve the spirit within you in its pure state as if you had to surrender it at any moment; if you concentrate on this, expecting nothing and shirking nothing, content to do any natural action which is at hand, heroically truthful in every word you utter, you will lead the good life. There is no one who could prevent you” (III.12).

“Live not as if you had ten thousand years before you. Necessity is upon you. While you live, while you may, become good” (IV.17).

“The man who thrills at the thought of later fame fails to realize that every one of those who remember him will very shortly die, as well as himself” (IV.19).

“most of our words and actions are unnecessary and whoever eliminates these will have more leisure and be less disturbed” (IV.24).

“One man practices philosophy though he has no tunic, another, though he has no book. Yet another man is half naked: ‘I have no bread,’ says he, ‘but I stay on the path of Reason.’ I have the nurture provided by learning, but I do not stay on the path” (IV.30).

“You will soon be dead, but you are not yet simple, nor undisturbed, nor free of the suspicion that harm may come to you from the outside, nor gracious to all, nor convinced that the only wisdom lies in righteous action” (IV.37).

“You are a little soul carrying a corpse” (IV.41).

“Altogether, human affairs must be regarded as ephemeral, and of little worth: yesterday sperm, tomorrow a mummy or ashes” (IV.35).

“Something of this sort could happen to any man, but not every man can endure it without grieving. . . . What has happened can then in no way prevent you from becoming just, great-hearted, chaste, wise, steadfast, truthful, self-respecting, and free, or prevent you from possessing those other qualities in the presence of which man’s nature finds its own fulfillment” (IV.49).

“When in the early morning, you are reluctant to get up, have this thought in mind: ‘I rise to do a man’s work. Am I still resentful as I go to the task for which I was born and for the sake of which I was brought into the world? Was I made to warm myself under the blankets?’ ‘But this is more pleasant.’ Were you born for pleasure, to feel things, and not to do them?” (IV.37).

“One man, when he has done a good deed, is ready also to put down in his accounts the gratitude due to him. Another is not prepared to do this, but privately he thinks that something is owed to him, and he is aware of what he has done. A third man does not, in a sense, even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced its grapes and seeks nothing beyond having once borne its proper fruit. Like the horse who has raced, the dog who has followed the scent, the bee who has made honey, this man who has done good does not know it, but turns to the next task, as the vine turns to produce grapes again in due season. One should therefore be among those who do good, in a sense, unconsciously” (V.6).

“Do not give up in disgust and impatience if you do not succeed in acting from right principles in every particular, but return to your principles after taking a fall, and be glad that most of your actions are more worthy of a man” (V.9).

“Wherever it is possible to live, it is possible to live the good life; it is possible to live in a palace; therefore it must be possible to live the good life in a palace” (V.16).

“How useful, when roasted meats and other foods are before you, to see them in your mind as here the dead body of a fish, there the dead body of a bird or a pig. Or again, to think of Falernian wine as the juice of a cluster of grapes, of a purple robe as sheep’s wool dyed with the blood of a shellfish, and of sexual intercourse as internal rubbing accompanied by a spasmodic ejection of mucus. What useful perceptual images these are! They go to the heart of things and pierce right through them, so that you can see things for what they are. You must do this throughout life; when things appear too enticing, strip them naked, destroy the myth which makes them proud. . . . [I]t is when you think your preoccupations most worthwhile that you are most enthralled” (VI.13).

“If someone can show me and prove to me that I am wrong in what I am thinking or doing, I shall gladly change it, for I seek the truth, which has never injured anyone” (VI.21).

“When you want to rejoice, think of the good qualities of your associates” (VI.48).

“How many with whom I entered the world have already gone” (VI.56).

“Nothing is new. Everything is familiar and last but a little while” (VII.1).

“It is ridiculous not to escape from one’s own vices, which it is possible to do, but to flee from the vices of others, which is impossible” (VII.71).

“Dig down within yourself, where the source of goodness is ever ready to gush forth, if you always dig deeply” (VII.59).

“You know from experience in how many directions you have wandered, and that you did not find the good life anywhere, not in reasoning, not in wealth, not in reputation, not in pleasures—nowhere. Where then is the good life to be found? In doing what the nature of man requires. And how is one to do this? By holding fast to doctrines that direct one’s desires and actions. What doctrines? Those concerning good and evil: that nothing is good for a man which does not make him just, temperate, brave, and free; nothing evil which does not make him the opposite of these” (VIII.1).

“If you ever saw a severed hand or foot, or a severed head lying somewhere apart from the rest of the body—that is what a man makes himself like, when he refuses to accept his lot and sets himself apart, or performs an antisocial act” (VIII.34).

“Build your life deed by deed, and be satisfied if each deed, as far as possible, fulfils its own end. And no one can prevent you from doing so” (VIII.32).

“All wickedness together does not harm the universe, nor does individual wickedness harm anyone else; it is harmful only to the wicked man, to whom it is given to rid himself of it as soon as he himself wishes” (VIII.55).

“how great a weariness there is in living with those who are out of tune with you” (IX.3).

“One man prays that he may sleep with a certain woman. You pray that you may not desire to sleep with her. Another prays to be rid of someone. You pray that you may not want to be rid of him. A third man prays that he may not lose his child. You pray that you may not be afraid of losing it. Fashion your prayers altogether thus, and observe what happens” (IX.40).

“Do not discuss in general terms what is a good man. Be one” (IX.16).

“He who flees from his master is a runaway slave. The law is our master and he who transgresses it is then a runaway too” (IX.25).

“Do not expect Plato’s ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement” (IX.29).

“Consider each one of your actions and ask yourself whether death is to be feared because it deprives us of this” (IX.29).

“He who carries you out to burial will almost at once be the object of another’s lament” (IX.34).

“Consider what they are when eating, sleeping, fornicating, relieving themselves and so on. Then see what they are like when, haughty and violent in their seats of power, they rule over and chastise men. Yet how many needs they were just now enslaved to and for what reasons! And soon they will have such need again!” (X.19).

“The man who does not have one single and constant aim in life cannot, throughout his life, remain the same man” (XI.21).

“I have often marveled that every man loves himself above all others, yet that he attaches less importance to his own idea of himself than to what his neighbors think about him” (XII.4).

Jane Austen

"...it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded [as Jane is to Bingley]. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him . . . there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better shew more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on” (Pride and Prejudice 68).

"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar before-hand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unalike afterwards to have their share of vexation, and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life” (Pride and Prejudice 69-70).

"She grew absolutely ashamed of herself- Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. 'How despicably I have acted...I, who have prided myself on my discernment...who have often disdained the generous candor of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blamable distrust...Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.- Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginnings of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Til this moment, I never knew myself” (Pride and Prejudice 236-7).

"Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father...had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind, had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence, had vanished forever; all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasure which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or for their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of amusement are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given” (Pride and Prejudice 262).

"Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behavior as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavored to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now, the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents, which rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife” (Pride and Prejudice 262).

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"She began now to comprehend that he [Darcy] was exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was a union that must be to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved, and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance” (Pride and Prejudice 325).

"Unfortunately an only son, (and for many years an only child) I was spoilt by my parents, who though good themselves, (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable,) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for no one beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared to my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You shewed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased” (Pride and Prejudice 377-8).

"I have given him [Darcy] my consent...I now give it to you if you are resolved on having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the misery of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about” (Pride and Prejudice 385).

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation [of my falling in love with you]. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun” (Pride and Prejudice 388).

"I wish I’d been more consistent. Any iconoclast who brandishes a debunker’s sword should be publicly required to demonstrate that sword on his own cherished beliefs" (lecture, Os Guiness).