Quote collection
753 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. Even if some unknown landmass is there, and not just ocean, there was only one pair of original ancestors, and it is inconceivable that such distant regions should have been peopled by Adam's descendants."
"For what am I to myself without You, but a guide to my own downfall?"
"Why is it that we remember with difficulty and without difficulty forget? Learn with difficulty and without difficulty remain ignorant?"
"Who can control this when its appetite is aroused? No one! In the very movement of this appetite, then, it has no "mode" that responds to the decisions of the will ... Yet what he wishes he cannot accomplish ... In the very movement of the appetite, it has no mode corresponding to the decision of the will."
"Peace is not sought in order to provoke war, but war is waged in order to attain peace."
"His knowledge is not like ours, which has three tenses; present, past, and future. God's knowledge has no change or variation."
"What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor."
"For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next."
"Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo (Give me chastity and continence, but not just yet)!"
"Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls."
"Let necessity, and not your will, slay the enemy who fights against you."
"So while he made you without you, he doesn't justify you without you."
"We enjoy some gratification when our good friends die; for though their death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they are beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of people are broken down or corrupted."
"The Law is not in fault, but our evil and wicked nature; even as a heap of lime is still and quiet until water is poured on it, but then it begins to smoke and burn, not from the fault of the water, but from the nature of the lime, which will not endure it."
"I had a clear idea about what time is till I was asked to explain it and ceased to understand it altogether as soon as I began explaining it."
"Punishment, that is the justice for the unjust."
"Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self; the heavenly by the love of God."
"Human law cannot punish or forbid all evil, since while doing away with evils it would do away with many good things, which would hinder the advance of the common good."
"Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee."
"Only He who made man makes man happy."