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I heard many discourses which were good for the soul, but I could not discover in the case of any one of the teachers that his life was worthy of his words.

Saint Basil

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Saint Basil
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Caesarea Mazaca
Saint Basil the Great
Basilius Magnus
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More quotes by Saint Basil

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The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed.
Saint Basil
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It is not he who begins well who is perfect. It is he who ends well who is approved in God's sight.
Saint Basil
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The bread you store up belongs to the hungry the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked the gold you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.
Saint Basil
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Drunkenness, the ruin of reason, the destruction of strength, premature old age, momentary death.
Saint Basil
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As the pilot of a vessel is tried in the storm as the wrestler is tried in the ring, the soldier in the battle, and the hero in adversity: so is the Christian tried in temptation.
Saint Basil
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Among irrational animals the love of the offspring and of the parents for each other is extraordinary because God, who created them, compensated for the deficiency of reason by the superiority of their senses.
Saint Basil
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We should not think that we achieve success in preaching through our own devices, but we should rely entirely on God.
Saint Basil
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What is the benefit of fasting in our body while filling our souls with innumerable evils? He who does not play at dice, but spends his leisure otherwise, what nonsense does he not utter? What absurdities does he not listen to? Leisure without the fear of God is, for those who do not know how to use time, the teacher of wickedness.
Saint Basil
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In truth, to know oneself seems to be the hardest of all things. Not only our eye, which observes external objects, does not use the sense of sight upon itself, but even our mind, which contemplates intently another's sin, is slow in the recognition of its own defects.
Saint Basil
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Men whose sense of taste is destroyed by sickness, sometimes think honey sour. A diseased eye does not see many things which do exist, and notes many things which do not exist. The same thing frequently takes place with regard to the force of words, when the critic is inferior to the writer.
Saint Basil
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Any one who chooses will set up for a literary critic, though he cannot tell us where he went to school, or how much time was spent in his education, and knows nothing about letters at all.
Saint Basil
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All who call the Holy Ghost a creature we pity, on the ground that, by this utterance, they are falling into the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against Him.
Saint Basil
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You can see that a city is prosperous by the wealth of goods for sale in the market. Land too we call prosperous if it bears rich fruit. And so also the soul may be counted prosperous if it is full of good works of every kind.
Saint Basil
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Every evil is a sickness of soul, but virtue offers the cause of its health.
Saint Basil
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Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.
Saint Basil
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What is there astonishing in the death of a mortal? But we are grieved at his dying before his time. Are we sure that this was not his time? We do not know how to pick and choose what is good for our souls, or how to fix the limits of the life of man.
Saint Basil
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In the very nature of every human being has been sown the seed of the ability to love. You and I ought to welcome this seed, cultivate it carefully, nourish it attentively and foster its growth by going to the school of God's commandments with help of His grace.
Saint Basil
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Do not, as is usually the case, thrust the care of the common weal upon your neighbor then, as each one in his own thoughts makes light of the matter, all find to their surprise that they have drawn upon themselves by their neglect a personal misfortune.
Saint Basil
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The steam of meat darkens the light of the spirit...One hardly can have virtue when one enjoys meat meals and feasts.
Saint Basil
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If every man took only what was sufficient for his needs, leaving the rest to those in want, there would be no rich and no poor.
Saint Basil