Isidore of Seville

"Law will be honorable, just, possible, according to nature, according to the custom of the country, adapted to the place and time, necessary, useful, clear also, lest it contain anything in its obscurity that tends to fraud, drawn up for no one’s private advantage, but for the common good of all citizens."

"[The abbot] will exhibit himself as one to be imitated in all examples of works; nor shall anyone be allowed to command anything that he has not done himself."

"Through idleness, lusts and harmful thoughts grow, but through the exercise of labor, vices are likewise diminished."

"If [the monks] wish to devote themselves to reading so that they do not work, they are contumacious to reading itself, because they do not do what they read there."

"Monks who are working should meditate or sing so that they may be consoled in their labor by the delight of the words and songs of God. For if secular workers do not cease to sing lewd songs among their labors, and thus entangle their mouths in songs and fables, so that they do not withdraw their hands from work, how much more should the servants of Christ, who must work with their hands in such a way that they always have the praise of God in their mouths, and serve with their tongues in psalms and hymns!"

"A detected vice is quickly cured, but the hidden vice, the more it is concealed, the more deeply it creeps, for truly he who neglects to make it known does not wish to be cured at all."

"Offenses are either grave or light. A person guilty of a lighter offense is one who has chosen to be idle; who has come late to duty, to a meeting, or to the table; who has laughed in the choir or engaged in idle tales... who has used a book carelessly... Therefore, these and similar offenses must be corrected with a three-day excommunication."

"For brothers who pass from this life, before they are buried, a sacrifice should be offered to the Lord for the remission of their sins."

"Theological necessity was among the main reasons which led St. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, to incorporate this theory [of the later development of insects out of carrion, following the initial creation], supported by St. Basil and St. Augustine, into his great encyclopedic work [Etymologiae] which gave materials for thought on God and Nature to so many generations. He familiarized the theological world still further with the doctrine of secondary creation, giving such examples of it as that "bees are generated from decomposed veal, beetles from horseflesh, grasshoppers from mules, scorpions from crabs," and, in order to give still stronger force to the idea of such transformations, he dwells on the biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar, which appears to have taken strong hold upon medieval thought in science, and he declares that other human beings had been changed into animals, especially into swine, wolves, and owls."