It is ingrained in all living creatures, first of all, to preserve their own safety, to guard against what is harmful, to strive for what is advantageous.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the instinctual drive in all living beings to prioritize their safety and seek beneficial outcomes.
Saint Ambrose highlights the fundamental instincts that govern the behavior of all living creatures, suggesting that self-preservation and the pursuit of advantage are innate tendencies. This perspective offers insight into both animal behavior and human motivation, implying that the desire to protect oneself and improve oneβs situation is universal and essential for survival.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about animal behavior in biology classes.
A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to his parents, to give honor to his elders, to preserve his purity; he ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years.
Where a man's heart is, there is his treasure also.
The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church.
A kindness received should be returned with a freer hand.
Take away the contests of the martyrs, and you have taken away their crowns.
The best way to use the gold of the Redeemer is for the redemption of those in peril.
Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people.
All Americans believe that they are born fishermen. For a man to admit a distaste for fishing would be like denouncing mother-love or hating moonlight.
Inside him, twenty years dissolved and mixed into one complex, swirling whole. Everything that had accumulated over the years-- all he had seen, all the words he has spoken, all the values he had held-- all of it coalesced into one solid, thick pillar in his heart, the core of which was spinning like a potter's wheel. Wordlessly, Tengo observed the scene, as if watching the destruction and rebirth of a planet.
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
Total peace after death, becoming someone else, is the best hope I've got.
Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
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