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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 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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Do not measure your loss by itself if you do, it will seem intolerable but if you will take all human affairs into account you will find that some comfort is to be derived from them.
Saint Basil
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While we try to amass wealth, make piles of money, get hold of the land as our real property, overtop one another in riches, we have palpably cast off justice, and lost the common good. I should like to know how any man can be just, who is deliberately aiming to get out of someone else what he wants for himself.
Saint Basil
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As it is impossible to verbally describe the sweetness of honey to one who has never tasted honey, so the goodness of God cannot be clearly communicated by way of teaching if we ourselves are not able to penetrate into the goodness of the Lord by our own experience.
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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O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all you necessities. Call her to your assistance, for such is the divine Will that she should help in every kind of necessity.
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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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
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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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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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What is the mark of love for your neighbor? Not to seek what is for your own benefit, but what is for the benefit of the one loved, both in body and in soul.
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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We should not accept in silence the benefactions of God, but return thanks for them.
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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We should even go beyond doing what is required in order to avoid scandal.
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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He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline for the same time as adulterers.
Saint Basil
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He who confesses magic or sorcery shall do penance for the time of murder, and shall be treated in the same manner as he who convicts himself of this sin.
Saint Basil
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God who created us has granted us the faculty of speech that we might disclose the counsels of our hearts to one another and that, since we possess our human nature in common, each of us might share his thoughts with his neighbor, bringing them forth from the secret recesses of the heart as from a treasury.
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