Great Throughts Treasury

"The monks have no sadness. They wage war on the devil as though they were performing a dance."

"Slander is worse than cannibalism. "

"Nothing is more fallacious than wealth. It is a hostile comrade, a domestic enemy. "

"A comprehended god is no god. "

"As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man."

"Hell is paved with priests' skulls. "

"The highest point of philosophy is to be both wise and simple; this is the angelic life. "

"Men have the power of thinking that they may avoid sin. "

"Charity is the scope of all God's commands."

"Intemperance is a hydra with a hundred heads. She never stalks abroad unaccompanied with impurity, anger, and the most infamous profligacies."

"Humility is the root, mother, nurse, foundation, and bond of all virtue."

"It is a shame for a man to desire honor because of his noble progenitors, and not to deserve it by his own virtue."

"That is true plenty, not to have, but not to want riches."

"Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as bright bodies emit rays to a distance, and flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven, for it would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends."

"The Jews were God's chosen people."