Tertullian Quotes
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But all the other frenzies of passions-impious both toward the bodies and toward the sexes-beyond the laws of nature, we banish not only from the threshold, but from all shelter of the Church, because they are not sins, but monstrosities.
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Indeed it is better to postpone, lest either we complete too little by hurrying, or wander too long in completing it.
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Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die.
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If we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead originals, with which hawks, and mice, and spiders are so well acquainted, does it not merit praise instead of penalty Christians were punished for not worshiping Roman gods that we have rejected what we have come to see is error? We cannot surely be made out to injure those whom we are certain are nonentities. What does not exist is in its nonexistence secure from suffering.
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If the sky stands still, if the earth quakes, if there is famine, if there is pestilence, at once the cry is raised: Throw the Christians to the lions! So many to one?
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Custom without truth is error grown old.
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The flesh feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ that the soul may be fattened on God.
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The Lord's Prayer "is truly the summary of the whole gospel." "Since the Lord...after handling over the practice of prayer, said elsewhere, 'Ask and you will receive,' and since everyone has petitions which are peculiar to his circumstances, the regular and appropriate prayer (the Lord's Prayer) is said first, as the foundation of further desires.
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It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of those who oppose us.
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It is absolutely forbidden to repay evil with evil.
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The whole fruit is already present in the seed.
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Nothing that is God's is obtainable by money.
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The usual complaint is, 'I have no other way of earning a living.' The harsh reply can be, 'Do you have to live?'
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Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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The soul whose bosom lust did never touch Is God's fair bride; and maiden's souls are such.
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Patience ornaments the woman and proves the man.
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It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions.
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Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy.
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Nature soaks every evil with either fear or shame.
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Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame.
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The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three ... not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
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Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.
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Let the emperor make war on heaven; let him lead heaven captive in his triumph; let him put guards on heaven; let him impose taxes on heaven! He cannot. . . . He gets his sceptre where he first got his humanity; his power where he got the breath of life.
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Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travellers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.