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Cure for ignorance
“Anyone who wants to be cured of ignorance must confess it.” III.11 Of cripples (p. 959)
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For the benefit of the inferior
“The authority to judge is not given for the sake of the judge, but for the sake of the person judged. A superior is never appointed for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the inferior, and a doctor for the sick, not for himself. All authority, like all art, has its end outside…
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No Superficial Repentance
“I know no superficial, halfway, and perfunctory repentance. It must affect me in every part before I will call it so, and must grip me by the vitals and afflict them as deeply and as completely as God sees into me.” Of Repentance (749)
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Man’s estate
“I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man’s estate.” III.2 “Of repentance” (p. 740)
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Surpass even miracles in obscurity
We have no need to go picking out miracles and remote difficulties; it seems to me that among the things we see ordinarily there are wonders so incomprehensible that they surpass even miracles in obscurity. II. 37 “Of the resemblance of children to fathers” (p. 619)
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Subtle Humility
“There is a certain type of subtle humility that is born of presumption, like this one: that we acknowledge our ignorance in many things, and are so courteous as to admit that there are in the works of nature certain qualities and conditions that are imperceptible to us and whose means and causes our capacity…
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Fit to command
“Moreover, Cyrus used to say that no man is fit to command who is not better than those he commands.” I.42 (p. 234)
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Thousands of mind that trample us underfoot
“It anyone gets intoxicated with his knowledge when he looks beneath him, let him turn his eyes upward toward past ages, and he will lower his horns, finding there so many thousands of minds that trample him underfoot. … No particular quality will make a man proud who balances it against the many weaknesses and…