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The wicked exist in this world either to be converted or that through them the good may exercise patience.
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Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?
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The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
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By faithfulness we are collected and wound up into unity within ourselves, whereas we had been scattered abroad in multiplicity.
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My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.
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We enjoy some gratification when our good friends die; for though their death leaves us in sorrow, we have the consolatory assurance that they are beyond the ills by which in this life even the best of people are broken down or corrupted.
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Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.
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If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times.
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Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved!
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It is said that there is no salvation outside the Church. Who denies this? And therefore whatever things of the Church are had outside the Church do not avail unto salvation.
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No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.
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O eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity! You are my God; to you I sigh by day and by night. And when I first knew you, you raised me up so that I could see that there was something to see and that I still lacked the ability to see it. And you beat back the weakness of my sight, blazing upon me with your rays, and I trembled in love and in dread.
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This world's a bubble.
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What I needed most was to love and to be loved, eager to be caught. Happily I wrapped those painful bonds around me; and sure enough, I would be lashed with the red-hot pokers or jealousy, by suspicions and fear, by burst of anger and quarrels.
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God is best known in not knowing him.
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Custom is second nature.
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God bids you not to commit lechery, that is, not to have sex with any woman except your wife. You ask of her that she should not have sex with anyone except you -- yet you are not willing to observe the same restraint in return.
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Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.
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If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
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Patience is the companion of wisdom.
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Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.
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Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
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Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio. What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobodyasksme; but if Iamasked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.
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The fellow who eggs you on to avenge yourself will rob you of what you were going to say - as we forgive our debtors . When you have forfeited that, all your sins will be held against you; absolutely nothing is forgiven.