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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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Saint Basil
Bishop
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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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Drunkenness, the ruin of reason, the destruction of strength, premature old age, momentary death.
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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Good masters teach good doctrine, but that taught by evil masters is wholly evil.
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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It is impious to say that evil has its origin from God, because naught contrary is produced by the contrary. Life does not generate death, nor is darkness the beginning of light, nor is disease the maker of health, but in the changes of conditions there are transitions from one condition to the contrary.
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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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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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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Reprimand and rebuke should be accepted as healing remedies for vice and as conducive to good health. From this it is clear that those who pretend to be tolerant because they wish to flatter---those who thus fail to correct sinners---actually cause them to suffer supreme loss and plot the destruction of that life which is their true life.
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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He who sows courtesy reaps friendship.
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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Lust hath these three companions: the first, blindness of understanding the second, hardness of heart the third, want of grace.
Saint Basil
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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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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.
Saint Basil
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The sun penetrates crystal and makes it more dazzling. In the same way, the sanctifying Spirit indwells in souls and makes them more radiant. They become like so many powerhouses beaming grace and love around them.
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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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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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