All Quotes

"Of all the church fathers, it is Augustine (354-430) who speaks most frequently of abortion and presents the most detailed discussions of the nature and status of the fetus. This is a fruit of his lifelong concern and theological wrestlings with the questions of the origin of the soul, and when and how the fetus received a soul. He discusses a variety of solutions: (1) the soul is pre-existent (2) the soul is created by god at the moment of conception; (3) like the body, the soul comes from the parents; (4) the soul is infused at a particular stage in the development of the fetus. As I have mentioned in an earlier chapter, he never found a satisfactory solution to this question. He frequently makes a distinction between the unformed and the formed fetus; the latter term refers to the fetus which has received a soul. We find one example of this distinction in the treatise ‘’De Nuptiis et Concupiscientia’’, when Augustine condemns sexual intercourse detached from reproduction: “At times this lust-filled cruelty or cruel lust goes far that it even procured drugs to cause sterility, and if they are not effective, it somehow extinguishes and destroys within the womb the fetus already conceived, desiring that its own offspring perish before it begins to live. Or, if it was living in the womb, it desires that it be killed before it is born. Naturally, this distinction presupposed that the fetus receives a soul at one particular stage in its development; the consequence of this idea, which he shares with Jerome, is that only the abortion of a formed fetus that has a soul can be classified as murder. This becomes clear in the ‘’Questiones in Heptateuchum’’ 2.80, where Augustine refers to the Septuagint version of Exodus 21:2 and following and argues that the abortion of an unformed fetus is not murder, since one cannot say whether it already has a soul at that stage. Although the abortion even of an unformed fetus is morally reprehensible, the punishment for this act is limited to a fine. On the question whether the embryo is to be define as a part of the mother’’s body, Augustine breaks with Stoic thinking and Roman law, which affirmed that this was not the case."

"I feel like I could... like I could... like I could... TAKE ON THE WORLD!!"

"The Diminuator will be my crowning success! With it I will be able to shrink the entire human race out of sight! BWAHAHAHAHA!!"

"Soon we'll all be speaking... Well, English I guess."

"Get me out of here! I feel like I'm pupating!"

"(After his Chron-O-John's first attempt) Cheap-Mail-Ordered Jewel! I'd knew I should've bought a real diamond."

"Step one. Find plans. Step two. Save world. Step three. Get out of my house! Let's get cracking."

"(Answering Bernard's question about whether it is too late to turn off the toxic waste machine) Of course! That's why I'll have to do it...yesterday! To the time machine!"

"He's long gone!"

"We may not live to see yesterday..."

"Bernard, float over here so I can punch you."

"When I, who conduct this inquiry, love something, then three things are found: I, what I love, and the love itself. … There are, therefore three things: the lover, the beloved and the love."

"The mind itself, its love [of itself] and its knowledge [of itself] are a kind of trinity."

"Not one of the philosophical ideas in Part I of the commentary is peculiarly Neoplatonic. The doctrine of the Threeness of things... is found in Aristotle and goes back to the early Pythagoreans or to Homer even; paragraph 8 is mathematical in content rather than philosophical... although there is an allusion in it to the Monad as the principle of finitudes, again a very early Pythagorean doctrine; and these two paragraphs are the source of [Heinrich] Sitter's suggestion of the authorship of Proclus. As a matter of fact, the philosophical notions in Part I have been borrowed for the most part directly from Plato, with two or three exceptions that are Aristotelian... Plato's Theaetetus, Parmenides, and the Laws, are specifically mentioned. The Timaeus forms the background of much of the thought. And the Platonism of a mathematician of the turn of the third century A. D. need not surprise us, if we but recall Aristotle's accusation that the Academy tended to turn philosophy into mathematics."

"§1. The aim of Book X of Euclid's treatise on the Elements is to investigate the commensurable and incommensurable, the rational and irrational continuous quantities. This science (or knowledge) had its origin in the sect (or school) of Pythagoras, but underwent an important development at the hands of the Athenian, Theaetetus, who had a natural aptitude for this as for other branches of mathematics most worthy of admiration."

"§2. Since this treatise (i. e. Book X of Euclid.) has the aforesaid aim and object, it will not be unprofitable for us to consolidate the good which it contains. Indeed the sect (or school) of Pythagoras was so affected by its reverence for these things that a saying became current in it, namely, that he who first disclosed the knowledge of surds or irrationals and spread it abroad among the common herd, perished by drowning: which is most probably a parable by which they sought to express their conviction that firstly, it is better to conceal (or veil) every surd, or irrational, or inconceivable in the universe, and, secondly, that the soul which by error or heedlessness discovers or reveals anything of this nature which is in it or in this world, wanders [thereafter] hither and thither on the sea of nonidentity (i. e. lacking all similarity of quality or accident), immersed in the stream of the coming-to-be and the passing-away, where there is no standard of measurement. This was the consideration which Pythagoreans and the Athenian Stranger held to be an incentive to particular care and concern for these things and to imply of necessity the grossest foolishness in him who imagined these things to be of no account."

"A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain't got nothin'."

"When you reach for the stars, you may not get one, but you won't get a handful of mud either."

"Fun without sell gets nowhere, but sell without fun tends to become obnoxious."

"Creative ideas flourish best in a shop which preserves some spirit of fun. Nobody is in business for fun, but that does not mean there cannot be fun in business."

"You have come to a place which doesn't tolerate anything but the best. You have come to a place where you can be heard. You have come to a place where you can grow."

"I have learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one."

"Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read."

"Friction makes sparks and sparks start creative conflagrations."

"I am often asked how I got into the business. I didn't. The business got into me."

"Augustine, Augustine, quid quaeris? Putasne brevi immettere vasculo mare totum?"

"Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. Et si tuam naturam mutabilem inveneris, trascende et teipsum."

"Nowhere in the Gospel do we read that the Lord said: "I am sending you a Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon." For He wanted to make Christians, not mathematicians."

"The superfluities of the rich are the necessaries of the poor. They who possess superfluities, possess the goods of others."

"Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum."

"An unjust law is no law at all."

"God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist."

"The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works."

"Ergo noli quaerere intelligere ut credas, sed crede ut intelligas."

"Spiritalis enim virtus Sacramenti ita est ut lux: et ab illuminandis pura excipitur, et si per immundos transeat, non inquinatur."

"If any one will piously and soberly consider the sermon which our Lord Jesus spoke on the mount, as we read it in the Gospel according to Matthew, I think that he will find in it, so far as regards the highest morals, a perfect standard of the Christian life: and this we do not rashly venture to promise, but gather it from the very words of the Lord Himself. For the sermon itself is brought to a close in such a way, that it is clear there are in it all the precepts which go to mould the life. … He has sufficiently indicated, as I think, that these sayings which He uttered on the mount so perfectly guide the life of those who may be willing to live according to them, that they may justly be compared to one building upon a rock."

"What, then, does He say? "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." We read in Scripture concerning the striving after temporal things, "All is vanity and presumption of spirit"; but presumption of spirit means audacity and pride: usually also the proud are said to have great spirits; and rightly, inasmuch as the wind also is called spirit. And hence it is written, "Fire, hail, snow, ice, spirit of tempest." But, indeed, who does not know that the proud are spoken of as puffed up, as if swelled out with wind? And hence also that expression of the apostle, "Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies". And the poor in spirit are rightly understood here, as meaning the humble and God-fearing, i.e. those who have not the spirit which puffs up. Nor ought blessedness to begin at any other point whatever, if indeed it is to attain unto the highest wisdom; "but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"; for, on the other hand also, "pride" is entitled "the beginning of all sin." Let the proud, therefore, seek after and love the kingdoms of the earth; but "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.""

"Patientia comes est sapientiae"

"If thou shouldst say, 'It is enough, I have reached perfection,' all is lost. For it is the function of perfection to make one know one's imperfection."

"Timeo Dominum transeuntem"

"Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider."

"If there is something more excellent than the truth, then that is God; if not, then truth itself is God."

"All those of you who rejoice in peace, now it is time to judge the truth.... Undoubtedly in days gone by there were holy men as Scripture tells, For God stated that he left behind seven thousand men in safety, And there are many priests and kings who are righteous under the law, There you find so many of the prophets, and many of the people too. Tell me which of the righteous of that time claimed an altar for himself? That wicked nation perpetrated a very large number of crimes, They sacrificed to idols and may prophets were put to death, Yet not a single one of the righteous withdrew from unity. The righteous endured the unrighteous while waiting for the winnower: They all mingled in one temple but were not mingled in their hearts; They said such things against them yet they had a single altar."

"Venite fratres, si vultis ut inseramini in vite; Dolor est cum vos videmus praecisos ita jacere. Numerate sacerdotes vel ab ipsa Petri sede; Et in ordine illo Patrum quis cui successit videte. Ipsa est petra, quam non vincunt superbae inferorum portae. (PL 43:30 )."

"Laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae, et homo circumferens mortalitatem suam, circumferens testimonium peccati sui et testimonium, quia superbis resistis; et tamen laudare te vult homo, aliqua portio creaturae tuae. Tu excitas, ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te."

"The weakness of little children's limbs is innocent, not their souls."

"I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake."

"Nondum amabam, et amare amabam...quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare."

"Et illa erant fercula, in quibus mihi esurienti te inferebatur sol et luna."

"Already I had learned from thee that because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false. Nor, again, is it necessarily true because rudely uttered, nor untrue because the language is brilliant. Wisdom and folly both are like meats that are wholesome and unwholesome, and courtly or simple words are like town-made or rustic vessels — both kinds of food may be served in either kind of dish."