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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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Saint Basil
Bishop
Catholic Deacon
Catholic Priest
Philosopher
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Theologian
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Caesarea Mazaca
Saint Basil the Great
Basilius Magnus
Love
Extraordinary
Animals
Created
Compensated
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Deficiency
Parents
Offspring
Parent
Superiority
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Irrational
Reason
Senses

More quotes by Saint Basil

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Indulging in unrestrained and immoderate laughter is a sign of intemperance, of a want of control over one's emotions, and of failure to repress the soul's frivolity by a stern use of reason.
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First and foremost, the monk should own nothing in this world, but he should have as his possessions solitude of the body, modesty of bearing, a modulated tone of voice, and a well-ordered manner of speech. He should be without anxiety as to his food and drink, and should eat in silence.
Saint Basil
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Do not despise the fish because they are absolutely unable to speak or to reason, but fear lest you may be even more unreasonable than they by resisting the command of the Creator. Listen to the fish, who through their actions all but utter this word: 'We set out on this long journey for the perpetuation of our species.
Saint Basil
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The hairsplitting difference between formed and unformed makes no difference to us. Whoever deliberately commits abortion is subject to the penalty for homicide.
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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I reckon silence more profitable than speech, for? in the words of the Preacher, 'The words of wise men are heard in quiet' (Eccles. 9:17).
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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Resolve to treat the things in your possession as belonging to others.
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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Just as we would have no need of the farmer's labor and toil if we were living amid the delights of paradise, so also we would not require the medical art for relief if we were immune to disease, as was the case, by God's gift, at the time of Creation before the Fall.
Saint Basil
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He who plants kindness gathers love.
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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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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The human being is an animal who has received the vocation to become God.
Saint Basil
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Strive to attain to the greater virtues, but do not neglect the lesser ones. Do not make light of a fall even if it be the most venial of faults rather, be quick to repair it by repentance, although many others may commit a large number of faults, slight and grievous, and remain unrepentant.
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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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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When someone steals a person's clothes, we call him a thief. Should we not also give the same name to the one who could clothe the naked but does not?
Saint Basil
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Good masters teach good doctrine, but that taught by evil masters is wholly evil.
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