It is salutary for us to learn to hold cheap such things, be they good or evil, as attach indifferently to good men and bad, and to covet those good things which belong only to good men, and flee those evils which belong only to evil men.

It is not the being seen of men that is wrong, but doing these things for the purpose of being seen of men. The problem with the hypocrite is his motivation. He does not want to be holy; he only wants to seem to be holy. He is more concerned with his reputation for righteousness than about actually becoming righteous. The approbation of men matters more to him than the approval of God.

The Devil often transforms himself into an angel to tempt men, some for their instruction, some for their ruin.

Only He who made man makes man happy.

It was not the visible sun, but its invisible Creator who consecrated this day for us, when the Virgin Mother, fertile of womb and integral in her virginity, brought him forth, made visible for us, by whom, when he was invisible, she too was created. A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?

By the fall a poison was handed to mankind through a woman [Eve], by the Redemption man was given salvation also through a woman [Mary].

Nothing so clearly distinguishes a spiritual man as his treatment of an erring brother.

Cursed is everyone who places his hope in changing the nature of man

Though there are very many nations all over the earth, ...there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, ...one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God ....To the City of Man belong the enemies of God, ...so inflamed with hatred against the City of God.

If a parricide is more wicked than anyone who commits homicide-because he kills not merely a man but a near relative-without doubt worse still is he who kills himself, because there is none nearer to a man than himself.

Don't go outside; get back to yourself, in the inner man lies the Truth.

The diversity of language alienates man from man

Men are always ready to nose around and find out about other's lives, but they feel lazy to know themselves and correct their own life.

Without God, man cannot, and without man, God will not.

The Gods occupy the loftiest regions, men the lowest, the demons the middle region...They have immortality of body, but passions of the mind in common with men.

A young man had become possessed by a devil. The thing within him burst into loud lamentation and departed from the man. At once the youth's eye fell out on his cheek, and the whole of the pupil which had been black became white.

While the best men are guided by love, most mean are still goaded by fear.

Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build on the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Thus a man supported by faith, hope, and charity, with an unshaken hold upon them does not need the scriptures. . . And many live by these three things in solitude without books.

Except he be willing, man cannot believe.

When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil.

Baptism does not profit a man outside unity with the Church ... For many heretics also possess this Sacrament but not the fruits of salvation ... The benefits which flow from Baptism are necessarily fruits which belong to the true Church alone. Children Baptized in other communions cease to be members of the Church when, after reaching the age of reason, they make formal profession of heresy, as, for example, by receiving communion in a non-Catholic Church.

Seek not abroad, for in the inner man dwells the truth.

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor.

There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn.