Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.

Trouble brings experience, and experience brings wisdom.

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.

God never gave man a thing to do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.

Feast of Commemoration of Helena, Protector of the Faith, 330 The cross is laid on every Christian. It begins with the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death -- we give over our lives to death. Since this happens at the beginning of the Christian life, the cross can never be merely a tragic ending to an otherwise happy religious life. When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time -- death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at His call. That is why the rich young man was so loath to follow Jesus, for the cost of his following was the death of his will. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and His call are necessarily our death and our life.

In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

The grave is still the best shelter against the storms of destiny.

Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

Intelligence must follow faith, never precede it, and never destroy it.

Since ancient Time began, Ever on some great soul God laid an infinite burden-- The weight of all this world, the hopes of man, Conflict and pain, and fame immortal are his guerdon.

Plough deep while sluggards sleep.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

When a man brings his wife flowers for no reason, there's a reason.

The first duty of love is to listen.

Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof.

We are coming to understand health not as the absence of disease, but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment. -Aaron Antonovsky.

Love him who tells you your faults in private.