Quote #138: on the duty of a Christian soldier

For it was a mark of a Christian solider to combine the greatest fortitude with the greatest attention to military discipline, and to add to nobility of mind immovable fidelity towards his prince.  But, if anything dishonorable was required of him, as, for instance, to break the law of God, or to turn his sword against innocent disciples of christ, then, indeed, he refused to execute the orders, yet in such wise that he would rather retire from the army and die for his religion than oppose the public authority by means of sedition and tumult.

- Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Diuturnum (On Civil Government) (1881), chapter 20.

[Cross-posted at my own blog Ordered Liberty.]

Quote #135: on virtue, happiness and the foundation of good government

"All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue. Confucius, Zo-roaster, Socrates, Mahomet, not to mention authorities really sacred, have agreed in this. 

If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?" 

- John Adams (1735-1826), Thoughts on Government  (April 1776).

Quote #130: on the link between faith and works

"In one thing we agree that he who feareth God, and worketh righteousness shall be accepted of him and his Faith cannot be wrong whose life is in the right."

- Abigail Adams (1744-1818), American founder, Letter to Catherine Adams, April 15, 1818, quoted in The Founders on Religion:  A Book of Quotations, edited by James H. Hutson (Princeton:  2005), pg. 90.

Quote #128: on the need for religion in society

"The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest. And here is the need of religion and its power, to bring in the principle of benevolence and love to men."

- John Randolph of Roanoke (1733-1833), Congressman and leader of the National Republicans Party.

Quote #124: on justice

"The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give every man his due. The study of law consists of two branches, law public and law private. The former relates to the welfare of the Roman State; the latter to the advantage of the individual citizen. Of private law then we may say that it is of threefold origin, being collected from the precepts of nature, from those of the law of nations, or from those of the civil law of Rome."

- Justinian (483-565), emperor of Rome, in his Institutes of Roman Law.

Quote #123: on virtue

"The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer and philosopher.

Quote CIV

"A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."

-Sir Francis Bacon

Quote #83: on schadenfreude

"Do not rejoice at the fall of your enemy;
do not gloat when he is brought down,
or the Lord will be displeased at the sight,
and will cease to be angry with him."
- Proverbs 24.17-18 (Revised English Bible translation).

Quote #80: on beauty

"Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked." - St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D.).

Quote #78: most people have their price

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder." - George Washington (1732-1799), American founding father and first president of the United States.