Then, in the next place, we must know that every being which is endowed with reason, and transgresses its statutes and limitations, is undoubtedly involved in sin by swerving from rectitude and justice.
OrigenRead
What each man honours before all else, what before all things he admires and loves, this for him is God.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that what a person values most deeply is akin to their understanding of God.
Origen's quote encapsulates the idea that a person's ultimate admiration or love defines their spiritual beliefs and priorities. It highlights that the qualities or entities we most honor reveal our true values and can be viewed as our personal interpretations of divinity or purpose in life.
In practice
In a discussion about personal values during a philosophy seminar.
Then, in the next place, we must know that every being which is endowed with reason, and transgresses its statutes and limitations, is undoubtedly involved in sin by swerving from rectitude and justice.
What good does it do me if Christ was born in Bethlehem once if he is not born again in my heart through faith?
To every man his little cross. Till he dies. And is forgotten.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
If we remain grotesquely unequal, we shall lose all sense of fraternity: and fraternity, for all its fatuity as a political objective, turns out to be the necessary condition of politics itself.
At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.
Thief!- how did you crawl into, crawl down alone into the death I wanted so badly and for so long.
Now, at times this issue has tended to degenerate into an 'either-or' type of debate. Either we protect our people from terror or we protect our most cherished principles. But that is a false choice. It asks too little of us and assumes too little about America.
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