Priest Quotes

Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.

We should love others truly, for their own sakes rather than our own.

Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.

Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult.

If a man deliberately abstains from wine to such an extent that he does serious harm to his nature, he will not be free from blame.

You change people by delight, by pleasure.

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.

One aspect of neighbourly love is that we must not merely will our neighbours good, but actually work to bring it about.

All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.

It is a sin directly against one's neighbour, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them.

Reasoning is compared to understanding as movement is to rest, or acquisition to possession.... Since movement always proceeds from something immovable, and ends in something at rest, hence it is that human reasoning, in the order of inquiry and discovery, proceeds from certain things absolutely understood--namely, the first principles; and, again, in the order of judgment, returns by analysis to first principles, in the light of which it examines what it has found. Now it is clear that rest and movement are not to be referred to different powers, but to one and the same.

Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.

The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.

I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. I would hope to act with compassion without thinking of personal gain.

The greatness of the human being consists in this:that it is capable of the universe.

All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.

Rarely affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish.

A scrap of knowledge about sublime things is worth more than any amount about trivialities.

The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.

Good and evil are essential differences of the act of the will. For good and evil pertain essentially to the will; just as truth and falsehood pertain to the reason, the act of which is distinguished essentially by the difference of truth and falsehood (according as we say that an opinion is true or false.) Consequently, good and evil volition are acts differing in species.

Love must precede hatred, and nothing is hated save through being contrary to a suitable thing which is loved. And hence it is that every hatred is caused by love.

If there were some solitary or feral man, the passions of the soul would be sufficient for him; by them he would be conformed to things in order that he might have knowledge of them. But because man is naturally political and social, there is need for one man to make his conceptions known to others, which is done with speech. So significant speech was needed if men were to live together. Which is why those of different tongues do not easily live together.

It must be understood that prime matter, and form as well, is neither generated nor corrupted, because every generation is from something to something. Now that from which generation proceeds is matter, and that to which it proceeds is form. So that, if matter or form were generated, there would be a matter for matter and a form for form, endlessly. Whence, there is generation only of the composite, properly speaking.

It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need

When fear is excessive it can make many a man despair.

He who is dying of hunger must be fed rather than taught.

Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists on playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.

The last end of every maker, as such, is himself, for what we make we use for our own sake; and if at any time a man make a thing for the sake of something else, it is referred to his own good, whether his use, his pleasure, or his virtue.

Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance.

Man has free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain.

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.

He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.

Beware the man of a single book.

Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.

For loving draws us more to things than knowing does, since good is found by going to the thing, whereas the true is found when the thing comes to us.

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

For creation is not a change, but that dependence of the created existence on the principle from which it is instituted, and thus is of the genus of relation; whence nothing prohibits itbeing in the created as in the subject. Creation is thus said to be a kind of change, according to the way of understanding, insofar as our intellect accepts one and the same thing as notexisting before and afterwards existing.

Fear is such a powerful emotion for humans that when we allow it to take us over, it drives compassion right out of our hearts.

Give, expecting nothing there of.

The happy man in this life needs friends.

There is nothing in your mind which wasn't experienced before hand.

Law is nothing other than a certain ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by the person who has the care of the community.

It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation.

Charity is the form, mover, mother and root of all the virtues.

Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace.

Pain itself can be pleasurable accidentally in so far as it is accompanied by wonder, as in stage-plays; or in so far as it recalls a beloved object to one's memory, and makes one feel one's love for the thing, whose absence gives us pain. Consequently, since love is pleasant, both pain and whatever else results from love, in so far as they remind us of our love, are pleasant.

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.

For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends.

The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.

If you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.

Without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its origin; we know not its end. And the presumption, if not the degradation, rests with those who place upon the throne of the universe a magnified image of themselves, and make its doings a mere colossal imitation of their own. Wonder was the motive that led people to philosophy ... wonder is a kind of desire in knowledge. It is the cause of delight because it carries with it the hope of discovery.

No man truly has joy unless he lives in love.

An act of love always tends towards two things; to the good that one wills, and to the person for whom one wills it.

Of all the pursuits open to men, the search for wisdom is most perfect, more sublime, more profitable, and more full of joy.

Arrive at knowledge over small streamlets, and do not plunge immediately into the ocean, since progress must go from the easier to the more difficult.

Moral science is better occupied when treating of friendship than of justice.

The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.

There is no leisure about politics.

Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.

The things that we love tell us what we are.