This world and the world to come are two enemies. We cannot therefore be friends to both; but we must decide which we will forsake and which we will enjoy.
Follow the saints, because those who follow them will become saints.
We should let God be the One to praise us and not praise ourselves. For God detests those who commend themselves. Let others applaud our good deeds.
Charity unites us to God... There is nothing mean in charity, nothing arrogant. Charity knows no schism, does not rebel, does all things in concord. In charity all the elect of God have been made perfect.
Who can describe the bond of God's love? Who is able to explain the majesty of its beauty? The height to which love leads is indescribable. ... In love the master received us, Jesus Christ our Lord, in accordance with God's will gave his blood for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives.
Filthy talk makes us feel comfortable with filthy action. But the one who knows how to control the tongue is prepared to resist the attacks of lust
How blessed and amazing are God's gifts, dear friends! Life with immortality, splendor with righteous, truth with confidence, faith with assurance, self-control with holiness! And all these things are within our comprehension.
God hates those who praise themselves.
... faithfully and strenuously you should resist the heretics in defense of the only true and life-giving faith, which the Church has received - the apostles and imparted to her sons. For the Lord of all gave to His apostles the power of the Gospel, through whom also we have known the truth, that is, the doctrine of the Son of God: to whom also did the Lord declare: 'He who hears you, hears Me; and he who despises you, despises Me, and Him who sent Me' (Lk. 10:16).
Let us teach the young in the school of the fear of the Lord.
And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Let us cleave... to those who cultivate peace with godliness, and not to those who hypocritically profess to desire it. For the Scripture says in a certain place (Mk. 7:6), 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts is far from Me.'
If any one say that he has seen a just man in want of bread, I answer that it was in some place where there was no other just man.
Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted.
A companion is but another self; wherefore it is an argument that a man is wicked if he keep company with the wicked.
He who is chaste in flesh should not be proud, for he should know that he owes the gift of continence to another.
... if we say that the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the Son, we do not suggest any precedence in time or superiority in nature of the Father over the Son (cf. Jn. 14:28)? or superiority in any other respect save causation. And we mean by this, that the Son is begotten of the Father and not the Father of the Son, and that the Father naturally is the cause of the Son.
The real wants of nature are the measure of enjoyments, as the foot is the measure of the shoe. We can call only the want of what is necessary poverty.
