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Mean Quotes

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Mean Quotes

“Being tolerant does not mean acquiescing to the intolerable; it does not mean covering up disrespect; it does not mean coddling the aggressor or disguising aggression. Tolerance is the virtue that teaches us to live with the different. It teaches us to learn from and respect the different.”

Mean Doe Different Teach Virtue Society Tolerance Aggression Covering Disrespect Aggressors

Author:Paulo Freire

“If we keep the path of virtue undefiled through devout and true knowledge, and do not deviate to either side, we will experience the advent of God revealed to us because of our dispassion. For 'I will sing a psalm and in a pure path I will understand when Thou wilt come to me' (cf. Ps. 101:1-2). The psalm stands for virtuous conduct; understanding indicates the spiritual knowledge, gained through virtue, by means of which we perceive God's advent, when we wait for the Lord vigilant in the virtues.”

“When like the patriarchs we learn to dig wells of virtue and spiritual knowledge within ourselves by means of ascetic practice and contemplation, we will find within us Christ the spring of life (cf. Gen. 26:15-18). Wisdom commands us to drink from this spring, saying, 'Drink water from your own pitchers and from the spring of your own wells' (Prov. 5:15). If we do this we shall find that the treasures of wisdom truly are within us.”

Ifs Wells Mean Christian Spiritual Christ Water Practice Virtue Drink Spring Treasure Command Contemplation Orthodox Pitcher Cfs Drink Water Spiritual Knowledge

Author:Maximus the Confessor

“He who devoutly strives to attain wisdom and is on his guard against the invisible powers, should pray that both natural discrimination - whose light is but limited - and the illuminating grace of the Spirit abide in him. The first by means of practice trains the flesh in virtue, the second illuminates the intellect so that it chooses above all else companionship with wisdom; and through wisdom it destroys the strongholds of evil and pulls down 'all the self-esteem that exalts itself against the knowledge of God' (II Cor. 10:5).”

“Just as the teaching of the Law and the prophets, being harbingers of the coming advent of the Logos in the flesh, guide our souls to Christ (cf. Gal. 3:24), so the glorified incarnate Logos of God is Himself a harbinger of His spiritual advent, leading our souls forward by His own teachings to receive His divine and manifest advent. He does this ceaselessly, by means of the virtues converting those found worthy from the flesh to the spirit. And He will do it at the end of the age, making manifest what has hitherto been hidden from men.”

Men Mean Doe Soul Ends Age Christian Spiritual Law Spirit Found Christ Virtue Teaching Divine Worthy Guides Flesh Prophet Orthodox Manifest Advent Converting Cfs Logos Gals Harbinger

Author:Maximus the Confessor

“Discard the protective rags of that vice which you called a virtue: humility. Learn to value yourself, which means: to FIGHT for your happiness, and when you learn that pride is the sum of all virtues, you will learn to live like a man.”

Men Mean Values Fighting Virtue Humility Pride Self Love Vices Protective Rags Value Yourself

Author:John Galt

“We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism.”

Source: Essays: Literary, Moral and Philosophical

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”

Source: The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation

“We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue, a time to pull up weeds or to plant good seeds. Which is better is clear, for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative. A person is great not by the ferocity of his hatred of evil, but by the intensity of his love for God. Asceticism and mortification are not the ends of a Christian life; they are only the means. The end is charity. Penance merely makes an opening in our ego in which the Light of God can pour. As we deflate ourselves, God fills us. And it is God’s arrival that is the important event.”

“Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.”

Ifs Knows Humans Mean Doe Pain Justice Virtue Mankind Human Nature Honor Gains Appearance Esteem Acknowledge Hypocrisy Hypocrite Ornaments

Book:The spectator

Source: The spectator

“Virtue is not a chemical product...it is a historic product, like language and literature; and this means that if we cease to care about it, cease to cultivate it, cease to transmit its funded values, a large part of it will become meaningless, like a dead language to which we have lost the key.”

Ifs Mean Care Values Literature Lost Language Virtue Products Keys Morality Cease Chemicals Meaningless Historic Transmit

Author:Lewis Mumford

“In matters of government, justice means force as well as virtue.”

Wells Mean Matter Government Force Justice Virtue

Author:Napoleon Bonaparte

“It is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and it is the way of the mean man to seek notoriety, while he daily goes more and more to ruin.”

Men Way Mean Virtue Superiors Ruins Superior Man Notoriety Concealment Mean Man

Book:The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning & the Doctrine of the Mean

Source: The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning & the Doctrine of the Mean

“Some virtues, when they become fashions, also become exaggerated. Just because nobody likes a judgmental attitude does not mean that there isn't a sort of spoiled, self-righteous hypocrisy when one man obsessively commands other men not to judge without knowing the circumstances without himself, too, knowing their circumstances behind their judgments.”

Men Mean Doe Self Behinds Attitude Knowing Virtue Fashion Judging Circumstances Judgment Likes Command Hypocrisy One Man Righteous Spoiled Exaggerated Judgmental Mental Attitude Self Righteous

Author:Criss Jami

“I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue.”

People Feels Mean Sometimes Done Action Wish Natural Moral Principles Virtue Trouble Havens Prove Shame Like Me Wicked Frank Virtuous Remorse Particles Humbug Owning It

Author:Louisa May Alcott

“Moral virtue is ... a mean between two vices, that of excess and that of defect, and ... it is no small task to hit the mean in each case, as it is not, for example, any chance comer, but only the geometer, who can find the center of a given circle.”

Mean Two Given Chance Moral Cases Virtue Example Morality Tasks Vices Circles Excess Defects Moral Virtues

Book:The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

“There are, then, three states of mind ... two vices--that of excess, and that of defect; and one virtue--the mean; and all these are in a certain sense opposed to one another; for the extremes are not only opposed to the mean, but also to one another; and the mean is opposed to the extremes.”

Mind Mean Two States Certain Three Virtue Vices Extremes State Of Mind Excess Defects

Book:The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

Source: The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle

“Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.”

Mean Attention Virtue Spring Roots Instruments Excellence Compelled Manuals

Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion

“Riches are but a means, or instrument; and the virtue of an instrument lies in its use.”

Mean Use Lying Wealth Virtue Rich Instruments Riches

Book:Moral and religious aphorisms collected from the manuscript papers of the reverend and learned Doctor Whichcote; and published in 1703, by Dr. Jeffery. Now re-published, with very large additions, ... by Samuel Salter, ... To which are added, Eight letter

Source: Moral and religious aphorisms collected from the manuscript papers of the reverend and learned Doctor Whichcote; and published in 1703, by Dr. Jeffery. Now re-published, with very large additions, ... by Samuel Salter, ... To which are added, Eight letter