Basil of Caesarea quotes - page 3

If men are in a state in which they find it hard to be weaned from their own ways and choose rather to serve the pleasures of the flesh than to serve the Lord, and refuse to accept the Gospel life, there is no common ground between me and them. (Basil of Caesarea)
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.
Basil of Caesarea
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.
Basil of Caesarea
A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder. And any fine distinction as to its being completely formed or unformed is not admissible amongst us.
Basil of Caesarea
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.
Basil of Caesarea
We do not accost a physician as we do any mere nobody; nor a magistrate as we do a private individual. We try to get some advantage from the skill of the one and the position of the other. Walk in the sun, and your shadow will follow you, whether you will or not.
Basil of Caesarea
Liberated from the error of pagan tradition through the benevolence and loving kindness of the good God with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the operation of the Holy Spirit, I was reared from the very beginning by Christian parents. From them I learned even in babyhood the Holy Scriptures which led me to a knowledge of the truth.
Basil of Caesarea
Those who love their neighbor as themselves possess nothing more than their neighbor.
Basil of Caesarea
The very beginning of the soul's purgation is tranquility, in which the tongue is not given to discussing the affairs of men, nor the eyes to contemplating rosy cheeks or comely bodies, nor the ears to lowering the tone of the soul by listening to songs whose sole object is to amuse, or to words spoken by wits and buffoons-a practice which above all things tends to relax the tone of the soul.
Basil of Caesarea
What, then, shall we do? someone may ask. What else, indeed, than devote ourselves to the care of our souls, keeping all our leisure free from other things. Accordingly, we should not be slaves of the body, except so far as is strictly necessary; but our souls we should supply with all things that are best, through philosophy freeing them, as from a prison, from association with the passions of the body.
Basil of Caesarea
Let one hour, the same regularly each day, be set aside for food, so that out of the twenty-four hours of day and night, barely shall this one be expended on the body, the ascetic devoting the remainder to the activities of the mind. (Basil of Caesarea)
You must give heed unto virtue, O men, which swims forth even with a man who has suffered shipwreck, and, on his coming naked to land, will render him more honoured than the happy Phaeacians.
Basil of Caesarea
Some device has been concocted by the devil, suggesting innumerable spending opportunities to the wealthy, so that they pursue unnecessary and worthless things as if they were indispensable, and no amount is sufficient for the expenditures they contrive.
Basil of Caesarea
Where is Christ, the King? In heaven, to be sure. Thither it behooves you, soldier of Christ, to direct your course. Forget all earthly delights. A soldier does not build a house; he does not aspire to possession of lands; he does not concern himself with devious, coin-purveying trade. ... The soldier enjoys a sustenance provided by the king; he need not furnish his own, nor vex himself in this regard.
Basil of Caesarea
Nothing withstands the influence of wealth. Everything submits to its tyranny, everything cowers at its dominion.
Basil of Caesarea
Oh, God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of travail.
Basil of Caesarea
You begrudge your fellow human beings what you yourself enjoy; taking wicked counsel in your soul, you consider not how you might distribute to others according to their needs, but rather how, after having received so many good things, you might rob others.
Basil of Caesarea
There is nothing which a prudent man must shun more carefully than living with a view to popularity and giving serious thought to the things esteemed by the multitude, instead of making sound reason his guide of life, so that, even if he must gainsay all men and fall into disrepute and incur danger for the sake of what is honourable, he will in no wise choose to swerve from what has been recognized as right.
Basil of Caesarea
A musician would not willingly consent that his lyre should be out of tune, nor a leader of a chorus that his chorus should not sing in the strictest possible harmony; but shall each individual person be at variance with himself, and shall he exhibit a life not at all in agreement with his words?
Basil of Caesarea
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.
Basil of Caesarea
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. (Basil of Caesarea)
Every evil is a sickness of soul, but virtue offers the cause of its health.
Basil of Caesarea
Does not the gratitude of the dog put to shame any man who is ungrateful to his benefactors?
Basil of Caesarea
Good masters teach good doctrine, but that taught by evil masters is wholly evil.
Basil of Caesarea
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.
Basil of Caesarea