“There must be must be a first mover existing above all – and this we call God.”

He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you could live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.

Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.

Our aspect of neighborly love is that we must not merely will our neighbors good, but actually work to bring it about.

A mans heart is right when he wills that god wills.

The things that we love tell us what we are.

Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.

The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.

Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.

I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. I would hope to act with compassion without thinking of personal gain.

Wonder is the desire of knowledge.

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

To pretend angels do not exist because they are invisible is to believe we never sleep because we don’t see ourselves sleeping.

We set forth our petitions before god, not in order to make known to him our needs and desires, but rather so that we ourselves may realize that in the things it is necessary to turn to god for help.

Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

Grant me, O Lord my God, a mind to know you, a heart to seek you, wisdom to find you, conduct pleasing to you, faithful perseverance in waiting for you, and a hope of finally embracing you. Amen

Rarely affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish.

The dimmed outlines of phenomenal things all merge into one another unless we put on the focusing-glass of theory, and screw it up sometimes to one pitch of definition and sometimes to another, so as to see down into different depths through the great millstone of the world.

Taken altogether, Washington as a city is most unsatisfactory, and falls more grievously short of the thing attempted than any other of the great undertakings of which I have seen anything in the United States.

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.

But when you’re deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it’s amazing.

Hip-hop lasted and survived all these years that you have to give it credit. Even though it’s not up to people’s expectations anymore, its still here, and that’s says a lot.

Nature is none other than God in things. Animals and plants are living effects of Nature; whence all of God is in all things. Think thus, of the sun in the crocus, in the narcissus, in the heliotrope, in the rooster, in the lion.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

What you receive from others is a testimony to their virtue; but all that you do for others is the sign and clear indication of your own.