The special and salutary benefit of the study of history is to behold evidence of every sort of behavior set forth as on a splendid memorial; from it you may select for yourself and for your country what to emulate, from it what to avoid; whether basely begun or basely concluded.
Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through the same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law
Fortune scourges and rends us: we must endure it. It is not cruelty but a contest, and the oftener we submit to it the braver shall we be. The most robust part of the body is that which is most frequently put to active use. We must offer ourselves to Fortune so that we may be inured against her through her own agency; gradually she will make us her peers, and constant exposure to peril will beget contempt for danger. So sailors’ bodies are hardened by enduring the sea, and farmers have calloused hands, and soldiers’ biceps are powerful for hurling missiles, and runners have nimble legs; the member each exercises is the most robust. By suffering misfortune the mind grows able to belittle suffering.
In my own case, as I deliberated about serving my Lord God which I had long been disposed to do, the self which willed to serve was identical with the self which was unwilling. It was I. I was neither wholly willing nor wholly unwilling. So I was in conflict with myself and was dissociated from myself. The dissociation came about against my will. Yet this was not a manifestation of the nature of an alien mind but the punishment suffered in my own mind. And so it was “not I” that brought this about “but sin which dwelt in me,” sin resulting from the punishment of a more freely chosen sin, because I was a son of Adam.
There are two gates of Sleep: the one is said
to be of horn, through it an easy exit
is given to the true Shades; the other is made
of polished ivory, perfect, glittering
but through that way the spirits send false dreams
into the world above. And here Anchises,
when he is done with words, accompanies
the Sibyl and his son together; and
he sends them through the gates of ivory.
It is not my intention to counter the champions of the Romans by exaggerating the heroism of my own countrymen: I shall state the facts accurately and impartially. At the same time the language in which I record the events will reflect my own feelings and emotions; for I must permit myself to bewail my country's tragedy. …[F]or our misfortunes we have only ourselves to blame. How then could I master my feelings?
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of your well-being of your fatted animals,
I will not look upon.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
…as the sun completes its journey year after year
a ring on the finger grows thinner beneath the wear,
the fall of water-drops hollows out a stone, the curved
iron plow of a farmer shrinks imperceptibly in the fields,
and we see that people’s feet today are wearing down
the stone surfaces of the street.
There are seven characteristics of an uncultured man, and seven of a wise man. A wise man does not speak before one who is greater than he in wisdom; he does not interrupt another man’s speech; he is not hasty to answer; his answers are on the subject of the discussion, and his replies are to the point of the inquiry; he deals with first things first and last things last; he acknowledges what he does not know; and he affirms the truth. The opposite of these are the characteristics of the uncultured man.
She scorned and spurned the gods of heaven; and in place of true religion she professed some fantastic blasphemous creed of a God whom she named the One and Only God. But she used her deluded and ridiculous observances chiefly to diddle her wretched husband; for she spent the morning in boozing, and leased out her body in perpetual prostitution.
