Intemperance is a hydra with a hundred heads. She never stalks abroad unaccompanied with impurity, anger, and the most infamous profligacies.
It is a shame for a man to desire honor because of his noble progenitors, and not to deserve it by his own virtue.
Almsgiving above all else requires money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all.
Why do you beat the air and run in vain? Every occupation has a purpose, obviously. Tell me then, what is the purpose of all the activity of the world? Answer, I challenge you! It is vanity of vanity: all is vanity.
We should not bear it with bad grace if the answer to our prayer is long delayed. Rather, let us, because of this, show great patience and resignation. For He delays for this reason: that we may offer Him a fitting occasion of honoring us through His divine providence.
Fasting is a medicine.
To love Christ -means not to be a hireling, not to look upon a noble life as an enterprise or trade, but to be a true benefactor and to do everything only for the sake of love for God.
God measures out affliction to our need.
And all men are ready to pass judgement on the priest as if he was not a being clothed with flesh, or one who inherited a human nature.
Laughter has been implanted in our soul, that the soul may sometime be refreshed.
Musicke doth withdraw our mindes from earthly cogitations, lifteth up our spirits into heaven, maketh them light and celestial.
Things themselves do not remain, but their effects do. Therefore we should not be mean and calculating with what we have but give with a generous hand. Look at how much people give to players and dancers-why not give just as much to Christ?
The slave should be resigned to his lot, in obeying his master he is obeying God.
We are commanded to have only one enemy, the devil. With him never be reconciled! But with a brother, never be at enmity in thy heart.
If you would rise, shun luxury, for luxury lowers and degrades.
A man does not possess all the gifts, lest he think that grace is nature.
Let us always guard our tongue; not that it should always be silent, but that it should speak at the proper time.
No one can harm the man who does himself no wrong.
The rich man is not one who is in possession of much, but one who gives much.
Just as those who are deprived of light cannot walk straight, so also those who do not behold the ray of the Holy Scriptures must necessarily sin, since they walk in the deepest darkness.