Basile de Césarée citations (35 citations)

In circa A.D. 375. Included in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (NPNF), edited by P. Schaff and Henry Wace (Edinburg: T. Clark, 1897), 2nd Series, Vol. 8. Quoted in Matthew Scully, [//books.google.it/books?id=SYY7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT28 Dominion] (2002).

“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.”

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Basil of Caesarea

Source: Social Justice, I Will Tear Down My Barns, p. 62

“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.”

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Basil of Caesarea

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 429

“You should not surrender to these men once for all the rudders of your mind, as if of a ship, and follow them whithersoever they lead; rather, accepting from them only that which is useful, you should know that which ought to be overlooked. What, therefore, these things are, and how we shall distinguish between them, is the lesson which I shall teach you.”

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Basil of Caesarea

"these men" refers to teachers and "the famous men of the ancients," p. 381
On Greek Literature

“I consider it absurd that we should permit our senses to sate themselves without hindrance with their own material food, but that we should exclude the mind alone from its own particular activity.”

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Basil of Caesarea

Source: Letters, p. 91

“When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.”

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Basil of Caesarea

vol. 1, p. 15
Letters

“Such too was Moses, who rose up in great wrath to oppose those who sinned against God, but endured with meekness of spirit all slanders against himself.”

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Basil of Caesarea

vol. 1, p. 17
Letters

“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?”

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Basil of Caesarea

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 401

“To be a dandy and get the name of being one ought, I maintain, to be considered by persons so inclined just as disgraceful as to keep company with harlots or to seduce other men’s wives. For what difference should it make, at least to a man of sense, whether he is clothed in a costly robe or wears a cheap workman’s cloak, so long as what he has on gives adequate protection against the cold of winter and the heat of summer? And in all other matters likewise, one ought not to be furnished out more elaborately than need requires, nor to be more solicitous for the body than is good for the soul. For it is no less a reproach to a man, who is truly worthy of that appellation, to be a dandy and a pamperer of the body than to be ignoble in his attitude towards any other vice. For to take all manner of pains that his body may be as beautiful as possible is not the mark of a man who either knows himself or understands that wise precept: “That which is seen is not the man, but there is need of a certain higher wisdom which will enable each of us, whoever he is, to recognize himself.””

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Basil of Caesarea

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 417

“Money is the devil's dung.”

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Basil of Caesarea

Quoted in Pope Francis, To representatives of the Confederation of Italian Cooperatives http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/february/documents/papa-francesco_20150228_confcooperative.html, 28 February 2015

“Who are the greedy? Those who are not satisfied with what suffices for their own needs. Who are the robbers? Those who take for themselves what rightfully belongs to everyone. And you, are you not greedy? Are you not a robber? The things you received in trust as a stewardship, have you not appropriated them for yourself? Is not the person who strips another of clothing called a thief? And those who do not clothe the naked when they have the power to do so, should they not be called the same? The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not.”

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Basil of Caesarea

Source: Social Justice, I Will Tear Down My Barns, p. 70

“Those who love their neighbor as themselves possess nothing more than their neighbor.”

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Basil of Caesarea

Source: Social Justice, To the Rich (c. 368), p. 43

“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.”

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Basil of Caesarea

vol. 1, p. 13
Letters