"The essence of original sin is the split into individuality.

The essence of redemption is the

mending of the shattered image of God, the union of the human race through the One who stands in for all
and in whom all are one [...] Union is redemption."
- Pope Benedict, XVI

Truth withers when freedom dies, however righteous the authority that kills it; and free
individualism uninformed by moral value rots at its core.
- Frank Meyer

Now absence of control, which some of the young men, for want of education, think to be
freedom, establishes the sway of a set of masters, harsher than the teachers and attendants of childhood, in
the form of the desires, which are now, as it were, unchained. [...] But you have often heard that to follow
God and to obey reason are the same thing, and so I ask you to believe that in persons of good sense the
passing from childhood to manhood is not a casting off of control, but a recasting of the controlling agent,
since instead of some hired person or slave purchased with money they now take as the divine guide of
their life reason, whose followers alone may deservedly be considered free. For they alone, having
learned to wish for what they ought, live as they wish; but in untrained and irrational impulses and actions
there is something ignoble, and changing one's mind many times involves but little freedom of will.
- Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures, I

"But in the family of the just man who lives by faith and is as yet a pilgrim journeying on to the
celestial city, even those who rule serve those whom they seem to command; for they rule not from a love
of power, but from a sense of duty they owe to others - not because they are proud of authority, but
because they love mercy."
- St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei XIX.14

No sadness of any kind was [in Paradise], nor any foolish joy; true gladness ceaselessly flowed
from the presence of God, who was loved out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith
unfeigned.
- St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei XIV.26

For to the just all the evils imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment of crime, but
the test of virtue. Therefore the good man, although he is slave, is free, but the bad man, even if he reigns,
is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices; of
which vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, For of whom any man is overcome, to the same he
is also the bondslave.
- St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei IV.3

Learning that Metellus Nepos was on his way back to Rome prepared to sue for the tribuneship,
he stopped without a word, and after waiting a little while ordered his company to turn back. His friends
were amazed at this, whereupon he said: Do ye not know that even of himself Metellus is to be feared by
reason of his infatuation? [...] It is no time, then, for a leisurely sojourn in the country, but we must
overpower the man, or die honourably in a struggle for our liberties.
- Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger
 At [a great] school you are not engaged so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental
efforts under criticism. . . . A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire
so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spend on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost
knowledge at least protects you from many illusions. But you go to a great school not so much for
knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of
assuming at a moments notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another
persons thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or
dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out
what is possible in a given time, for taste, discrimination, for mental courage and mental soberness. And
above all you go to a great school for self-knowledge.
- William Cory, Reflections of an Eaton Master

Today, after my brief experience, I think it is true to say that more than half of all mankind, at
some time in their lives, become animals, without shame. And the priests? O God, I tremble when I think
that not a few, even among these, betray their sacred calling.
- Angelo Roncalli, Journal of a Soul

As regards my studies, I will apply myself to them with love and enthusiasm to the best of my
powers, taking care to give due attention to all subjects without any distinction, never proferring the
excuse that I do not like any of them.
My sole object in studying will be to work for the greater glory of God, the honour of the
Church, the salvation of souls, and not for my own honour, not in order to be cleverer than all the others.
- Angelo Roncali, Journal of a Soul

I must find a way of becoming like the saints, that is of being able to pass from study or other
occupations to prayer with the greatest ease and without being burdened by distractions as I am.
- Angelo Roncali, Journal of a Soul

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better
God only knows.
- Socrates, The Apology

If I say that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning
which you hear me, examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth
living - that you are still less likely to believe.
- Socrates, The Apology

I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other
good of man, public as well as private.
- Socrates, The Apology

A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought
only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or
of a bad.
- Socrates, The Apology

Order is the first need of the soul. It is not possible to love what one ought to love, unless we
recognize some principles of order by which to govern ourselves.
Order is the first need of the commonwealth. It is not possible for us to live in peace with one
another, unless we recognize some principle of order by which to do justice.
- Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, pg. 6

Is not the love you have for your dear spouse, children, and close friends the most divine experience
you know? [...] Whatever one prays in worship on Sunday gets its truthfulness from what Christians
actually do in their daily lives to help the poor. If one doesn't come to the aid of the poor, one does not
love God. No one has ever seen God, St. John writes in his first Letter, but if we love one another,
God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us (1 Jn 4:12). - Michael Novak, Agreeing with Pope
Francis

The solution which the Pope proposes, most fundamentally, is that each and every Catholic, in a genuine
and personal act, turn once again to Christ and, unfailingly each day, ask Christ to be with us as a
friend. At the opening of the Exhortation, the Pope even suggests the words one might use: Lord, I have
let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew
my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming
embrace (n. 3).
- Michael Pakaluk commenting on Pope Francis Gaudium Evangelii
(http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/how-to-read-the-joy-of-the-gospel)

If, according to some speculations, you could prove the world many thousand years older than the
Mosaic chronology, or if you could get rid of Adam and Eve, and the apple and serpent, still, what is to be
put up in their stead? or how is the difficulty removed? Things must have had a beginning, and what
matters it when or how? - Lord Byron, Diaries

Whatever in Lucretius is poetry is not philosophical; whatever is philosophical is not poetry - and in the
very pride of confident hope I looked forward to The Recluse as the first and only true philosophical poem
in existence.
-Coleridge to WW

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?

To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life;
Total extinction of th enlightened soul!
-Thompson, Seasons: Summer

Thy god-like crime was being kind

And by thy precepts to make less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen man with his own mind.
Byron, Prometheus, III

For the first step toward discipline is a very earnest desire for her;
then, care for discipline is love of her;
love means the keeping of her laws;
To observe her laws is the basis for incorruptibility;
and incorruptibility makes one close to God;
thus the desire for Wisdom leads up to a kingdom.
-Wisdom, 6:

Hours for their own sake hailed, / And more desired, more precious, for thy song! / In silence listning,
like a devout child, / My soul lay passive, by thy various strain / Driven as in surges now, beneath the
stars, / With momentary stars of my own birth, / Fair constellated foam still daring off
Into the darkness!
- 96-106, To Williams Wordsworth, Coleridge

To generalize is to be an idiot. - William Blake

Doesnt he know that after say hello youre supposed to move along to the next subject? - Justin Neil

Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help
them. Do nothing that will sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of
redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander, and malice of every
kind. In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God has
forgiven you in Christ. - Ephesians 4:29-32

The old Observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some Philosophers have
not maintained for Truth. Gullivers Travels, III.VI

Realization [Oct 14/13] : Why do we go back to relationships that we know are failed and we know cant
possibly survive well right now? Because we want that emotional titillation - we want that knowledge that
were alive and that we can feel passion - and then we put ourselves in circumstances which give us that.
But we lose the moral obligation to look to the object rather than its effect - we look at ourselves and our
emotions rather than the person. I cant go to Angelas party tonight because it would be for myself - and
even then not really for myself, but just to tickle my emotional brain. Theres no love there. Theres no
help. To stimulate yourself for the effects rather than to love is a poverty of heart - and I think that that
has led to a stony heart, and an inability to feel - at least, it hasnt helped me survive when I cant feel.
Perhaps Romanticisms failure is that it cant achieve any stability, it cant love another person. Well, if
thats not a general absolute statement which isnt true and is being asserted by an under-read undergrad, I
dont know what is. Get some stinkin humility, my little self, my small soul - and thank God youre
loved by such a good God. And find Him - not anyone else.
The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo, the
more he can remember the more divine his life becomes. - Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish
philosopher. The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard: A Selection, no. 429, entry for 1842, ed. and trans. by
Alexander Dru (1938).

Realization [Oct 14/13] - And this is my lifes work: to realize that when we look at the subjective side
of experience, that were only viewing the physical and material results of spiritual events - not anything
more. When we look at how beauty effects and affects us, then im just seeing the shadow image of a
spiritual encounter. Hence, maturation and growth requires movement outside of the self (cf. 1911 paper
on education, English Literature and the College Freshman - A Reply) so that those spiritual events can
occur, otherwise we only can spiritually view ourselves - which screws up the whole system.

Postremus loquaris, primus taceas. - Mallius Theodorus de metris, p. 95, Heusinger. Attributed to Mar-
cius the vates : see on n. 216.
Quamvis monentium, duonum negumate.
216. Fest., p. 165, as part of a carmen by Marcius, a vates of indistinct personality, to whom were
attributed various prophecies current as early as the Hannibalic war. Corssen gave monentium for
moventium : ' However well they may advise, refuse them.' The genitive (if right) must be
explained by supposing the sentence incomplete. duonum : cp. n. 75. negumate = negate.
There were many collections of such vaticina- tiones, partly very old, bearing the names, some
of Faunus, Carmentis, and others of Publicius and Marcius. We know that they were chiefly or
alto gether in Saturnian or Satumian-like rhythm. The specimens in Liv. v. 16 and xxv. 12 show
evident traces of such rhythm, but are too much modern ized to have any linguistic interest.

To a Young Man on Leaving School

Trust not the world it will betray thee oft; -
Let not thy hearts young faith and promise rest
Where truth on every fickle wind is tossed,
And the false flatterer is the first caressed.

Use goodness well it will return the use, -

And doubly is he blest who rightly tells
On his advantage he has still the gift
And giver, and contentment where he dwells.

Take life as thou wouldst take it from a friend

To keep and celebrate, his prize to be;
Value, guard and cherish to the end,
And when thou meetest He will honor thee.

Let fawning falsity never shame thy brow,

Shun it as venemous, t will be a paint
That must be trimmed each morn and sign thee fool,
Who hadst been else an honord man or saint.
Be generous in word, and true in every thought,
Twill be the mould to fashion all thy deed;
Who lives forgetting is in turn forgot,
And prunes the arrow that shall make him bleed.

Days will be found thee, when thoult trace this hour

With fondness and regret and the moment now
Shall be a gem in memory, for the power
Of it will halo round thy manhoods brow.

Thou leavst the public hall but to be thrust

On lifes publicity neath the power and glare
Of thine observers that with lightening flash
Will show thyself what thou and mortals are.

Let it be seen thou art a son of God -

This honor boast in meek sincerity;
A citizen of Heaven on earths short road,
Thy conduct Christly and thy conscience free.

Tis good to learn and early sorrows will

Be like a weeping on the new-mown grass -
The morn of youth that bears the storms of ill,
Is made the sweetest for an eve of bliss.

Command was none, where equal love was paid, / Or rather both commanded, both obeyd. - Dryden
translation of Ovids Metamorphoses, Baucis and Philemon
nec refert, dominos illic famulosne requiras: / tota domus duo sunt, idem parentque iubentque. -
8.623-4

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), "The Education of an Englishman," Atlantic Monthly 138 (1926)
192-198 (at 197):
We had no interest in foreign languages. It was Latin and Greek that we had to know. They were
not foreign languages; they were just Latin and Greek; nothing of importance in the way of ideas
could be presented in any other way. Thus we read the New Testament in Greek. At school
except in chapel, which did not count I never heard of any one reading it in English. It would
suggest an uncultivated religious state of mind. We were very religious, but with that moderation
natural to people who take their religion in Greek.

Kathleen Freeman (1897-1959), The Greek Way, an Anthology. Translations from Verse and Prose
(London, MacDonald [1947]), pp. vi-vii:
Greek is not nearly as difficult as people maintain (the alphabet, which frightens beginners, can
be learnt in a week); and its literature is a veritable Aladdin's Cave. Greek is much more
entertaining than bridge or cross-word puzzles (one can do the harder cross-word puzzles much
more easily if one has a knowledge of Greek); and you will never find anyone who has pursued
Greek to the reading stage who would part with that knowledge for any other whatsoever. I am
thinking of a university teacher I know who did Greek first, and then mathematics, at Glasgow,
and who is never tired of saying that if he had to choose, it would be the mathematics that he
would sacrifice, not the Greek.

But then, of course, he did his Greek with Gilbert Murray. My advice includes this corollary: if
you take up Greek, and if you seek help at the outset, be very careful in your choice of a tutor. Let
this be the guiding principle: if he or she makes the subject seem hard or dull, he or she is a bad
teacher. Scholarship and Hardship are not sisters, or if they are, they they need not always live
together. It is better to study alone, with a good text-book, than to put oneself into the hands of a
worshipper of grammar. Grammar can be interesting, but it is a means to an end. Conversely,
enthusiasm and inaccuracy are not necessarily yoke-fellows either, though it suits the uninspired
to maintain this. With good help, one can learn to read easy Greek in a year or less. Mastery of
Greek is the work of a lifetime or longer; but there is enjoyment all the way.

The most sublime act is to set another before you. -MH&H (209), Blake

I think its possible to write something, for me to write something, that even God might like. Its possible
for me to hit a note, to get in a mood, to write something that is worthy even of Gods attention. Not as a
soul seeking salvation, but just as entertainment for God. This may be blasphemous to say, but I believe
it. I dont think God is there and were here, and there are no connections. I think there are connections,
and I think art is certainly one.
- J. F. Powers

Pope Francis: When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it loses sight of the human or
even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself. The deceived thought can be depicted as
Ulysses encountering the song of the Siren, or as Tannhuser in an orgy surrounded by satyrs and
bacchantes, or as Parsifal, in the second act of Wagners opera, in the palace of Klingsor. The thinking of
the church must recover genius and better understand how human beings understand themselves today, in
order to develop and deepen the churchs teaching.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux: The man who is wise will see his life more like a reservoir than a canal. The
canal pours out as it receives. The reservoir retains the water until it is filled, then discharges the overflow
without loss to itself today there are many in the Church who act like canals; the reservoirs are far too
rare. So urgent is the love of those through whom the streams of heavenly teaching flow to us that they
wish to pour it forth before they have been filled. They are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to
teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern other while they know not how to
govern themselves.

This is assuredly a serious blasphemy against God, the Father of all good. Life is good. Your eternal
destiny is a good above all other goods. Consider all the means that God has prepared for you, from all
eternity, in order that you save your soul! And your parents, also did nothing but follow Gods plan... And
you, being so full of pride, say such things! Do you not make use of all these gifts of God? How dare you
not even thank Him? Ita ut sint inexcusabiles! says St. Paul (Rom. 1:20), talking about those who do not
want to say thank you to the good God and who, all the same, use His gifts, starting with their morning
coffee through to the night. They breathe the good Gods air, drink His milk, His wine, His water, they eat
His bread, smoke His cigarettes, etc.
- Rules for Discerning the Spirits in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola by Rev. Fr.
Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, CP. CR. V.

"The difference between humans and animals is that animals fully say yes to their being. We usually don't
- which is why I had to write this book." Richard Rhor
What does it mean to say yes to our being? Can it be that only humans have this choice? Only
humans have this confusion, this lack of integrity/unity?

Iota Subscript - Robert Frost

Seek not in me the big I capital,

Nor yet the little dotted in me seek.
If I have in me any I at all,
'Tis the iota subscript of the Greek.

So small am I as an attention beggar.

The letter you will find me subscript to
Is neither alpha, eta, nor omega,
But upsilon which is the Greek for you.