Jerome

The whole truth is not taught in a single passage: we must always bear in mind the exact point of an illustration.

When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.

To defend his position he piles up text upon text, waves his sword like a blind-folded gladiator, rattles his noisy tongue, and ends with wounding no one but himself.

it is easier for us to make light of things which we know well than of things which take us unprepared.

الله الذي به تحيا كل الأشياء

it is extremely trying when one has once tasted pleasure to abstain from its enticements, so the reward of doing this is proportionately great.

Nisi quod in se habet mordacis aliquid veritatis.

If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.

Overcome as much as you can — nay even more than you can — the sensitiveness of your mind and check the copious flow of your tears. Else your deep affection for your nephew may be construed by unbelievers as indicating despair of God. You must regretim not as dead but as absent. You must seem to be looking for him rather than have lost him.

he who claims to believe in Christ must rejoice in all Christ's judgments.

I will only mention the Apostle Paul, whose words seem to me, as often as I hear them, to be not words, but peals of thunder. Read his epistles, and especially those addressed to the Romans, to the Galatians, and to the Ephesians, in all of which he stands in the thick of the battle, and you will see how skilful and how careful he is in the proofs which he draws from the Old Testament, and how warily he cloaks the object which he has in view. His words seem simplicity itself: the expressions of a guileless and unsophisticated person — one who has no skill either to plan a dilemma or to avoid it. Still, whichever way you look, they are thunderbolts.

Take Care not to have an itching tongue, nor tingling ears; neither attract others, nor listen to backbiters. [Letter to Nepotian]

Pardon me for having praised Origen's zeal for Scriptural learning in my youthful days before I fully knew his heresies; and I will grant you (Rufinus) forgiveness for having written an Apology for his works when your head was grey.

Innocence would be dead long ago if wickedness were always allied to power, and calumny could prevail in all that it seeks to accomplish.

"if things which are good in themselves as being the handiwork of a good Creator are called vanity, it is because they are compared with things which are better still. For example, compared with a lamp, a lantern is good for nothing; compared with a star, a lamp does not shine at all; the brightest star pales before the moon; put the moon beside the sun, and it no longer looks bright; compare the sun with Christ, and it is darkness. " I am that I am, " God says; [ Exodus 3: 14 ]"