Great Throughts Treasury

"An ounce of peace is worth more than a pound of victory."

"For legitimate reason the people can change the government to an aristocracy or a democracy or visa versa."

"God has implanted a natural tendency to the monarchial form of government not only in the hearts of men but in practically all things."

"Charity is that with which no man is lost, and without which no man is saved."

"In the commonwealth, all men are born naturally free and equal."

"What is easier, sweeter, more pleasant, than to love goodness, beauty, and love, the fullness of which you are, O Lord, my God?"

"Men must be governed by someone, lest they be willing to perish. It is impossible for men to live together without someone to care for the common good. Society must have power to protect and preserve itself."

"In the last day, when the general examination takes place...Love will be the whole syllabus."

"It is not difficult for one seal to make many impressions exactly alike, but to vary shapes almost infinitely, which is what God has done in creation, this is in truth a divine work."

"Just as it is licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order or above all, tries to de­stroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the exe­cution of his will. It is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or to depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior."

"Secular or Civil authority is instituted by men; it is in the people unless they bestow it on a Prince. This Power is immediately in the Multitude, as in the subject of it; for this Power is in the Divine Law, but the Divine Law hath given this power to no particular man. If the Positive Law be taken away, there is left no Reason amongst the Multitude (who are Equal) one rather than another should bear the Rule over the Rest. Power is given to the multitude to one man, or to more, by the same Law of Nature; for the Commonwealth cannot exercise this Power, therefore it is bound to bestow it upon some One man or some Few. It depends upon the Consent of the multitude to ordain over themselves a King or other Magistrates, and if there be a lawful cause, the multitude may change the Kingdom into an Aristocracy or Democracy."

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."

"Monarchy theoretically and in the abstract, monarchy in the hands of God who combines in Himself all the qualifications of an ideal ruler, is indeed a perfect system of government; in the hands of imperfect man, however, it is exposed to many defects and abuses. A government tempered, therefore, by all three basic forms (i.e., monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy), a mixed government, is, on account of the corruption of human nature more useful than simple monarchy."

"Political rule is so natural and necessary to the human race that it cannot be withdrawn without destroying nature itself; for the nature of man is such that he is a social animal."