Better to illuminate than merely to shine; to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
Practical sciences proceed by building up; theoretical science by resolving into components.
Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.
He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.
Beauty adds to goodness a relation to the cognitive faculty: so that "good" means that which simply pleases the appetite; while the "beautiful" is something pleasant to apprehend.
Love is a binding force, by which another is joined to me and cherished by myself.
He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.
To love is to will the good of the other.
Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
Distinctions drawn by the mind are not necessarily equivalent to distinctions in reality.
Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.
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.
Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.
Moral science is better occupied when treating of friendship than of justice.
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.
Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.
The things that we love tell us what we are.
Love works in a circle, for the beloved moves the lover by stamping a likeness, and the lover then goes out to hold the beloved inreality. Who first was the beginning now becomes the end of motion.
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
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.
Man has free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain.
Beware of the person of one book.
Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.
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.
Don't ask who said it? Ask what they said.
Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult.
It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes.
Without doubt one is allowed to resist against the unjust aggressor to one's life, one's goods or one's physical integrity; sometimes, even 'til the aggressor's death... In fact, this act is aimed at preserving one's life or one's goods and to make the aggressor powerless. Thus, it is a good act, which is the right of the victim.
The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.
To convert somebody go and take them by the hand and guide them.
If you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.
Give, expecting nothing there of.
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.
In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign... Secondly, a just cause... Thirdly... a rightful intention.
Rarely affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish.
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.
Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance.
You change people by delight, by pleasure.
Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need.
How is it they live in such harmony the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know.
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.
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.
The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.
Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but regulates them.
A scrap of knowledge about sublime things is worth more than any amount about trivialities.
There is nothing in your mind which wasn't experienced before hand.
Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.
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.
One aspect of neighbourly love is that we must not merely will our neighbours good, but actually work to bring it about.
Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless.
We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.
Art is right reason in the doing of work.
The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.
Charity is love; not all love is charity.
It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation.
It is a sin directly against one's neighbour, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them.
Mistakes are made on two counts: an argument is either based on error or incorrectly developed.
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.
All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.
