vices

"Ἐγένοντο δὲ καὶ ψευδοπροφῆται ἐν τῷ λαῷ ... ἡδονὴν ἡγούμενοι τὴν ἐν ἡμέρᾳ τρυφήν, σπίλοι καὶ μῶμοι ἐντρυφῶντες ἐν ταῖς ἀπάταις αὐτῶν συνευωχούμενοι ὑμῖν"

"ἔτι ὁ τῷ πεπεῖσθαι πράττων καὶ διώκων τὰ ἡδέα καὶ προαιρούμενος βελτίων ἂν δόξειεν τοῦ μὴ διὰ λογισμὸν ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ἀκρασίαν: εὐιατότερος γὰρ διὰ τὸ μεταπεισθῆναι ἄν."

"Has it ever occurred to you, Euthydemus, ... that though pleasure is the one and only goal to which incontinence is thought to lead men, she herself cannot bring them to it, whereas nothing produces pleasure so surely as self-control?”“How so?”"Incontinence will not let them endure hunger or thirst or desire or lack of sleep, which are the sole causes of pleasure in eating and drinking and sexual indulgence, and in resting and sleeping, after a time of waiting and resistance until the moment comes when these will give the greatest possible satisfaction; and thus she prevents them from experiencing any pleasure worthy to be mentioned in the most elementary and recurrent forms of enjoyment. But self-control alone causes them to endure the sufferings I have named, and therefore she alone causes them to experience any pleasure worth mentioning in such enjoyments."

"σοφίαν δὲ τὸ μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν οὐ δοκεῖ σοι ἀπείργουσα τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἡ ἀκρασία εἰς τοὐναντίον αὐτοὺς ἐμβάλλειν; ἢ οὐ δοκεῖ σοι προσέχειν τε τοῖς ὠφελοῦσι καὶ καταμανθάνειν αὐτὰ κωλύειν, ἀφέλκουσα ἐπὶ τὰ ἡδέα, καὶ πολλάκις αἰσθανομένους τῶν ἀγαθῶν τε καὶ τῶν κακῶν ἐκπλήξασα ποιεῖν τὸ χεῖρον ἀντὶ τοῦ βελτίονος αἱρεῖσθαι;"

"Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν, γραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι ὑποκριταί, ὅτι καθαρίζετε τὸ ἔξωθεν τοῦ ποτηρίου καὶ τῆς παροψίδος, ἔσωθεν δὲ γέμουσιν ἐξ ἁρπαγῆς καὶ ἀκρασίας."

"δουλείαν δὲ ποίαν κακίστην νομίζεις εἶναι; ἐγὼ μέν, ἔφη, τὴν παρὰ τοῖς κακίστοις δεσπόταις. τὴν κακίστην ἄρα δουλείαν οἱ ἀκρατεῖς δουλεύουσιν;"

"ὁ δ᾽ ἐλλείπων πρὸς ἃ οἱ πολλοὶ καὶ ἀντιτείνουσι καὶ δύνανται, οὗτος μαλακὸς καὶ τρυφῶν: καὶ γὰρ ἡ τρυφὴ μαλακία τίς ἐστιν"

"ἀκολασίας δ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ αἱρεῖσθαι τὰς ἀπολαύσεις τῶν ἡδονῶν τῶν βλαβερῶν καὶ αἰσχρῶν, καὶ τὸ ὑπολαμβάνειν εὐδαιμονεῖν μάλιστα τοὺς ἐν ταῖς τοιαύταις ἡδοναῖς ὄντας, καὶ τὸ φιλογέλοιον εἶναι καὶ τὸ φιλοσκώπτην καὶ φιλευτράπελον, καὶ τὸ ῥᾳδιουργὸν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς λόγοις καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις. ἀκολουθεῖ δὲ τῇ ἀκολασίᾳ ἀταξία, ἀναίδεια, ἀκοσμία, τρυφή, ῥᾳθυμία, ἀμέλεια, ὀλιγωρία, ἔκλυσις."

"εἴπερ γὰρ ἔστιν ἐφ᾽ ἑνὸς ἀκρασία, ἔστι καὶ ἐπὶ πόλεως."

"What has submitted will exhibit resistance."

"If “humility” means nothing more than the capacity to learn from criticism, then it has an undoubted value; but if “humility” means a willingness to submit to authority—to abandon or to modify what one is doing merely because it does not accord with the teachings of the Bible or the thoughts of Chairman Mao—then it is death to the spirit: the proper name for it, indeed, is “servility.”"

"The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support."

"I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

"Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."

"Ascetic ideals reveal so many bridges to independence that a philosopher is bound to rejoice and clap his hands when he hears the story of all those resolute men who one day said No to all servitude and went into some desert."

"Nunc fabularum cur sit inventum genus, Brevi decebo. Servitus obnoxia, Quia, quae volebat, non audebat dicere, Affectus proprios in fabellas transtulit. Aesopi illius semita feci viam."

"It is rare that individuals value their freedom more than the comfort that comes with servility."

"The same pride which makes a man treat haughtily his inferiors, makes him cringe servilely to those above him. It is the very nature of this vice, which is neither based on personal merit nor on virtue, but on riches, posts, influence, and useless knowledge, to render a man as supercilious to those who are below him as to over-value those who are above."

"Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves."

"Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books."

"The poor man’s son ... devotes himself for ever to the pursuit of wealth and greatness. To obtain the conveniencies which these afford, he submits in the first year, nay in the first month of his application, to more fatigue of body, and more uneasiness of mind, than he could have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them. ... He makes his court to all mankind; he serves those whom he hates, and is obsequious to those whom he despises. Through the whole of his life he pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquillity that is at all times in his power."

"Moses … denied to the members of the sacred commonwealth unrestricted liberty to use and partake of the other kinds of food. All the animals of land, sea or air whose flesh is the finest and fattest, thus titillating and exciting the malignant foe pleasure, he sternly forbade them to eat, knowing that they set a trap for the most slavish of the senses, the taste, and produce gluttony, an evil very dangerous both to soul and body."

"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."

"Oompa Loompas: How long could we allow this beast To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast On everything he wanted to? Great Scott! It simply wouldn't do!"

"GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia."

"Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. Dante puts his gluttons in the third circle of the Inferno – writhing 24/7 in a whirlpool mudbath of live intestines and excrement. Does that seem an overharsh judgment on a life spent ordering supersize cokes, buckets of fries and vats of gelato? Given the way we live now, the gluttony debate in Christian thought looks like a proto-Marxist prophecy against the overconsumption we have learned to call capitalism. Overconsumption that wrecks the planet and unbalances our relationships, nation to nation, class to class – and with one another. The greed-is-good philosophy of the Reagan/Thatcher era – 30 years of stuffing your face followed by economic collapse – is the macro model of what happens in our bodies. We are not designed for “all you can eat”... Food is fabulous. But too much eating of too much easy food too much of the time is partly responsible for our current level of degenerative disease – diabetes, heart conditions, fatty liver, hypertension, inflammation and, of course, the rise and rise of obesity. Yes, this is about the sort of food we eat, but it is also about the quantity of food we eat. Many of us are gluttons."

"The surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence."

"O for a Bowle of fatt Canary, Rich Palermo, sparkling Sherry, Some Nectar else, from Juno’s Daiery, O these draughts would make us merry. O for a wench (I deale in faces, And in other dayntier things); Tickled am I with her Embraces, Fine dancing in such Fairy Ringes.O for a plump fat leg of Mutton, Veale, Lambe, Capon, Pigge, and Conney, None is happy but a Glutton, None an Asse but who wants money.Wines (indeed) and Girles are good, But brave victuals feast the bloud, For wenches, wine, and Lusty cheere, Jove would leape down to surfet heere."

"A filled stomach expels refined thoughts."

"Oompa Loompas: What do you get when you guzzle down sweets? Eating as much as an elephant eats? What are you at getting terribly fat? What do you think will come of that? I don't like the look of it."

"For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things."

"Allas! the shorte throte, the tendre mouth, Maketh that, Est and West, and North and South, In erthe, in eir, in water men to-swinke To gete a glotoun deyntee mete and drinke! Of this matere, o Paul, wel canstow trete, ‘Mete un-to wombe, and wombe eek un-to mete, Shal god destroyen bothe,’ as Paulus seith."

"In some cases, the psychological need for more or the feeling of not enough that is so characteristic of the ego becomes transferred to the physical level and so turns into insatiable hunger. The sufferers of bulimia will often make themselves vomit so they can continue eating. Their mind is hungry, not their body. This eating disorder would become healed if the sufferers, instead of being identified with their mind, could get in touch with their body and so feel the true needs of the body rather than the pseudo needs of the egoic mind. p. 31 If you have a compulsive behavior pattern... this is what you can do: When you notice the compulsive need arising in you, stop and take three conscious breaths. This generates awareness. Then for a few minutes be aware of the compulsive urge itself as an energy field inside you. Consciously feel that need to ... or the desire to act out some form of compulsive behavior. Then take a few more conscious breaths... As awareness grows, addictive patterns will weaken and eventually dissolve. Remember, however, to catch any thoughts that justify the addictive behavior, sometimes with clever arguments, as they arise in you mind. Ask yourself, Who is talking here? And you will realize the addiction is talking. As long as you know that, as long as you are present as the observer of your mind, it is less likely to trick you into doing what it wants. p. 149"

"Tina, you fat lard, come get some dinner!"

"The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are."

"Now those who take a superficial and unreflecting view of things observe the outward appearance of anything they meet, e.g. of a man, and then trouble themselves no more about him. The view they have taken of the bulk of his body is enough to make them think that they know all about him. But the penetrating and scientific mind will not trust to the eyes alone the task of taking the measure of reality; it will not stop at appearances, nor count that which is not seen among unrealities. It inquires into the qualities of the man's soul."

"Everyone who flees from what is superficially good and follows what is reckoned hard and foolish finds happiness awaiting him. For Vice, veiling her actions in the beauties which properly belong to Virtue and are genuine, enslaves groveling people."

"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: ... The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away."

"The vicious lover is the follower of earthly Love who desires the body rather than the soul; his heart is set on what is mutable and must therefore be inconstant. And as soon as the body he loves begins to pass the first flower of its beauty, he "spreads his wings and flies away," giving the lie to all his pretty speeches and dishonoring his vows, whereas the lover whose heart is touched by moral beauties is constant all his life, for he has become one with what will never fade."

"Deep down, I’m really superficial. And don’t get me wrong. You’re cute but… you’re a nobody."

"The superficiality of the American is the result of his hustling. It needs leisure to think things out; it needs leisure to mature. People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility."

"You are surprised that I should be unhappy when I can dance and am so sure of myself in the superficial things of life. And I, my friend, am surprised that you are so disillusioned with life when you are at home with the very things in it that are the deepest and most beautiful, spirit, art, and thought! That is why we were drawn to one another."

"Among the superficial, if you are not one of them, one of them has to lead you by the hand."

"My grandparents found reasons for the existence of their family and the fulfillment of their duties in serious writings, and they interpreted their special sufferings with respect to a great and ennobling past. … There was a respect for real learning, because it had a felt connection with their lives. … I do not believe that my generation, my cousins who have been educated in the American way, all of whom are M.D.s or Ph.D.s, have any comparable learning. When they talk about heaven and earth, the relations between men and women, parents and children, the human condition, I hear nothing but clichés, superficialities, the material of satire."

"Man … thinks continually without knowing it. The thinking that rises to consciousness is only the smallest part of this—the most superficial and worst part."

"I was no longer superficial—I had stopped thinking."

"Generally, we are more concerned with handling and using things than with knowing them in their true nature. Thus we usually grasp in haste the very first few signals conveyed to us by a perception. Then, through deeply ingrained habit, those signals evoke a standard response by way of judgements such as good-bad, pleasant-unpleasant, useful-harmful, right-wrong. ... A world perceived in this superficial way will consist of shapeless little lumps of experiences marked by a few subjectively selected signs or symbols. The symbols chosen are determined mainly by the individual’s self-interest; sometimes they are even misapplied. The shadow-like world that results includes not only the outer environment and other persons, but also a good part of one’s own bodily and mental processes. These, too, become subjected to the same superficial manner of conceptualization."

"It is certainly not a matter of indifference whether I learn something without effort or finally arrive at it myself through my system of thought. In the latter case everything has roots, in the former it is merely superficial."

"The learning of the gentleman enters through his ears, fastens to his heart, spreads through his four limbs, and manifests itself in his actions. ... The learning of the petty person enters through his ears and passes out his mouth. From mouth to ears is only four inches—how could it be enough to improve a whole body much larger than that?"

"It is certainly better not to have studied a subject at all than to have studied it superficially. For when the unaided healthy common sense seeks to form an opinion of something it does not go so far wrong as semi-erudition does."