The superior man examines his heart, that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause for dissatisfaction with himself. That wherein the superior man cannot be equaled is simply this, his work which other men cannot see.

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with reason when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Luke 23:32-34 (NRSVUE)

Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him. (108)

Generals are usually a conservative force who can be relied on to oppose social change.

She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, ... or internal difficulties.

The elders of the Jews answered and said unto Jesus: What shall we see? Firstly, that thou wast born of fornication; secondly, that thy birth in Bethlehem was the cause of the slaying of children; thirdly, that thy father Joseph and thy mother Mary fled into Egypt because they had no confidence before the people. Acts of Pilate, or The Gospel of Nicodemus (ca. 150-255)

Mahomet established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ, by commanding his followers to lay down their own lives.

Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about.

The order and connection of the thought is identical to with the order and connection of the things.

It is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can give its full development to his nature. Able to give its full development to his own nature, he can do the same to the nature of other men. Able to give its full development to the nature of other men, he can give their full development to the natures of animals and things. Able to give their full development to the natures of creatures and things, he can assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth. Able to assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, he may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. 16:24-28 (KJV)

That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.

First, there must be an end to war and national rivalry and only then could one turn to the internal miseries that, after all, had external conflict as their chief cause.

Whatever you would make habitual, practice it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practice it, but accustom yourself to something else.

The man who esteems himself as he ought, and no more than he ought, seldom fails to obtain from other people all the esteem that he himself thinks due. He desires no more than is due to him, and he rests upon it with complete satisfaction.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

Death induces the sensual person to say: Let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we shall die – but this is sensuality's cowardly lust for life, that contemptible order of things where one lives in order to eat and drink instead of eating and drinking in order to live.

So that every Crime is a sinne; but not every sinne a Crime.

Inasmuch as love grows in you, in so much beauty grows; for love is itself the beauty of the soul.

For all knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impression of pleasure in itself.

There is more to a science fiction story than the science it contains.

Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 19:23-24 (KJV)

It is not your strength and your natural power that subjects all these people to you. Do not pretend then to rule them by force or to treat them with harshness. Satisfy their reasonable desires; alleviate their necessities; let your pleasure consist in being beneficent; advance them as much as you can, and you will act like the true king of desire.

The best books are those, which those who read them believe they themselves could have written.

Never any good came out of female domination. God created Adam master and lord of living creatures, but Eve spoiled it all.

Believe ye that I am able to do this? 9:28 (KJV) Said to two blind men.

Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.

Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

If self-knowledge does not lead to knowing oneself before God - well, then there is something to what purely human self-observation says, namely, this self-knowledge leads to a certain emptiness that produces dizziness. Only by being before God can one totally come to oneself in the transparency of soberness.

A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

The whole business of the kingly weaving is comprised in this and this alone: in never allowing the self-restrained characters to be separated from the courageous, but in weaving them together by common beliefs and honors and dishonors and opinions and interchanges of pledges, thus making of them a smooth and, as we say, well-woven fabric, and then entrusting to them in common forever the offices of the state.

God is the Immanent Cause of all things, never truly transcendent from them.

His Mohammed, as has been said, commands that ruling is to be done by the sword, and in his Koran the sword is the commonest and noblest work. Thus the Turk is, in truth, nothing but a murderer or highwayman, as his deeds show before men's eyes.

Venerate the martyrs, praise, love, proclaim, honor them. But worship the God of the martyrs.

Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day. 12:3-8 (KJV) Said to some Pharisees.

When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely.

For once touched by love, everyone becomes a poet.

The RIGHT OF NATURE, which Writers commonly call Jus Naturale, is the Liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own Judgement, and Reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.

Men are eager to tread underfoot what they have once too much feared.

Thomas Hobbes was the first sociobiologist, two hundred years before Darwin. Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, p. 453

Friend, wherefore art thou come? 26:50 (KJV) Said to Judas.

She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God.

If the genius is an artist, then he accomplishes his work as art, but neither he nor his work of art has a telos outside him.

Do not mistake yourself by believing that your being has something in it more exalted than that of others.

Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

He marveled at the strange blindness by which men, though they are so alert to what changes in themselves, impose on their friends an image chosen for them once and for all. He was being judged by what he had been. Just as dogs don't change character, men are dogs to one another.

I am a lover of liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party.