QUOTES |
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Almost all forms of popular science shine chiefly by shallow parallels. For instance, the whole business of Comparative Mythology is made up of shallow parallels; that is, of superficial resemblances which cover deep and fundamental divisions. I have legs, and a table has legs; if I am large and round, it is also possible for a table to be large and round. Therefore, I am the legendary counterpart, or possibly the mythical origin, of the Round Table. But if I modestly advance this claim, it may occur to some that the differences between a man and a table are fundamental; while the resemblances between the table-legs and merely human legs are superficial; they are in fact almost metaphorical. A man is alive and walks about; a table seldom does so, save under moral influence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And the abyss between the organic and the inorganic is too absolute to bridged by a figure of speech called a wooden leg. So we commonly find in current discussions a pretence of finding things roughly similar when they are radically different; as if a man were accused of splitting hairs because he obstinately distinguished between feathers and ferns.
--GK Chesterton, Chaucer. |
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Faith then is not a conclusion from premises, but the result of an act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty.
--Cardinal Newman, Letter to Mrs. Froude, June 27, 1848. |
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Christianity had entered the world to cure the world; and she cured it in the only way it could be cured. The mistake of nature-worship--- the mistake of being natural...a very natural mistake. The strange but certain fatality that attends upon this fallacy...the wisest men in the world (the Greeks) set out to be natural; and the most unnatural thing in the world was the very first thing they did... That people who worship health cannot remain healthy... Nature-worship inevitably produucing
things that are against nature... The whole world was coloured by dangerous and rapidly deteriorating passions; by natural passions Becoming unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elemental emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication... Pan was nothing but panic. Venus was nothing but venerial vice. This sort goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
--G.K. Chesterton. |
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Faith is that supernatural virtue by which, through the help of God and through the assistance of His grace, we believe what He has revealed to be true, not on account of the intrinsic truth perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, the Revealer, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
--Vatican Council I, Session 3, Chap. 3, (Apr. 24, 1870) |
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The formal motive and object of faith is First Truth as manifested in Holy Scripture and the doctrine of the Church. A person who does not commit to the doctrine of the Church, as to a divine and unerring rule proceeding from the First Truth as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, is without the virtue of faith; he assents to the truth of faith in some other manner.
--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2-2,5,3 (13th cent).
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My sin was all the more incurable because I thought I was not a sinner; and my iniquity was more execrable in that I would rather have You, God Almighty, vanquished in me to my destruction than myself vanquished by You for my salvation. --St. Augustine, Confessions, 5, 10 (5th cent.)
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The soul in contemplation will arrive at that most high and secret reward for sake of which it has so labored; and in which are such joys, such a full enjoyment of the highest and truest Good, such a breath of serenity and eternity, as are indescribable.
--St. Augustine, On the Greatness of the Soul, (4th cent.)
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No one who looks on God lives with that life with which we mortals live in the bodily senses; but unless he be in some sort dead to this life, whether as having wholly departed from the body, or as rapt away from the bodily senses, he is not uplifted to that vision.
--St. Augustine, De. Genesi ad. Litt. 12, 27. (5th cent).
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The mind by the force of contemplation is carried out of the flesh, while by the weight of its corruption it is still held in the flesh.
--Pope St. Gregory I, Morals, 10,13, (6th cent.)
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The acts of contemplation are four: to seek after God, to find Him, to feel His sacred touch in the soul, and to be united to Him and enjoy Him. --Archbishop Ullathorne, Humility and Patience (19th century)
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In so far as concerns the nature of man, there is in him nothing better than the mind and reason. But he who would live blessedly ought not to live according to them; for then he would live according to man, whereas he ought to live according to God, so that he may attain to blessedness. And to accomplish this, our mind must not be content with itself, but must be subjected to God. --St. Augustine, Retractions, I,I,2 (5th cent.)
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But men, who contain not, as it were ascend unto
marriage by a step of honesty: but they, who without doubt would
contain, if the purpose of that time had allowed this, in a certain
measure descended unto marriage by a step of piety. --St. Augustine: On the Good of Marriage
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A woman who intentionally destroys a fetus is guilty of murder. And we do not even talk about the fine distinction as to its being completely formed or unformed.
--Saint Basil the Great
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Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
--Ronald Reagan
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Water that does not flow and comes to a halt in holes becomes stagnant and filled with impurities. In the same way, the body that is worn down by prolonged idleness produces and fuels the fire of covetousness and illicit pleasure. -- St. Bernard
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Don't you see that Satan and his agents take possession of all inventions and all achievements of progress to convert them to evil? All the more reason to finally wake up and and get to work in order to reconquer the positions taken up by the enemy.
- St. Maximilian Kolbe
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Faith dies through lack of prayer. --Anon
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If we pray, we will believe; If we believe, we will love; If we love, we will serve.
--Mother Teresa
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If you pray, you are positive of saving your soul. If you do
not pray, you are just as positive of losing your soul.
-- St. Alphonsus Liguori
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In comparison with the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And without the love of Jesus, everything else is useless.
-- Pope John Paul II
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In prayer you will come to know the greatest joy and the way out of every situation that has no way out.
-- Our Lady of Medjugorje
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In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human successes, but on how well we have loved. -- Saint John of the Cross.
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It is such a folly to pass one's time fretting, instead of resting quietly on the heart of Jesus. -- St. Therese of Lisieux.
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