Top quotes by St. Jerome

Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life. Votes: 28

Even while living in the world, the heart of Mary was so filled with motherly tenderness and compassion for men that no-one ever suffered so much for their own pains, as Mary suffered for the pains of her children. Votes: 11

True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks. Votes: 10

A friend is long sought, hardly found, and with difficulty kept. Votes: 10

Haste is of the Devil. Votes: 9

Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses. Votes: 8

Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Votes: 8

A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts. Votes: 7

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting. Votes: 7

No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that you do not listen to it with pleasure. Votes: 7

Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield. Votes: 6

Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a be general natural law. Votes: 6

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best. Votes: 6

Keep doing some kind of work, that the devil may always find you employed. Votes: 6

The scars of others should teach us caution. Votes: 5

Begin now what you will be hereafter. Votes: 5

Make knowledge of the Scripture your love ... Live with them, meditate on them, make them the sole object of your knowledge and inquiries. Votes: 5

It is not being in Jerusalem, but living a good life there that is praiseworthy. Votes: 5

So valuable to heaven is the dignity of the human soul that every member of the human race has a guardian angel from the moment the person begins to be. Votes: 4

Do not let your deeds belie your words, lest when you speak in church someone may say to himself, "Why do you not practice what you preach? Votes: 4

What Saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it? Votes: 4

Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity. Votes: 3

My speech is too fast; my oration confused; love knows no order. Votes: 3

They talk like angels but they live like men. Votes: 2

No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the sender of it. Votes: 2

The Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism. Votes: 0

Virginity can be lost by a thought. Votes: 0

Love is not to be purchased, and affection has no price. Votes: 0

The truly miserable have a timbre in their voices strong enough to erase smiles from the faces and souls of the contented. Votes: 0

Others drink for sterility and commit murder on the human not yet sown. Some when they sense that they have conceived by sin, consider the poisons for abortion, and frequently die themselves along with it, and go to Hell guilty of three crimes: murdering themselves, committing adultery against Christ, and murder against their unborn child. Votes: 0

Do not marvel at the novelty of the thing, if a Virgin gives birth to God. Votes: 0

Early impressions are hard to eradicate from the mind. When once wool has been dyed purple, who can restore it to its previous whiteness? Votes: 0

Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. Votes: 0

Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied. Votes: 0

The friendship that can cease has never been real. Votes: 0

[O]pulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessors. Votes: 0

A false interpretation of Scripture causes that the gospel of the Lord becomes the gospel of man, or, which is worse, of the devil. Votes: 0

A man who is well grounded in the testimonies of the Scripture is the bulwark of the Church. Votes: 0

A vice in the heart is an idol on the altar. Votes: 0

Always be doing something worthwhile; then the devil will always find you busy. Votes: 0

Among us, what is not allowed to women is equally not allowed to men. Votes: 0

An ethic is not an ethic, and a value not a value without somesacrifice for it. Something given up, something not gained. Votes: 0

And as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins in Paradise: but after they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were immediately married. Votes: 0

Athletes as a rule are stronger than their backers; yet the weaker presses the stronger to put forth all his efforts. Votes: 0

Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business. Votes: 0

Endeavor to have always in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself against bad thoughts. Votes: 0

Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice. Votes: 0

Every day we are changing, every day we are dying, and yet we fancy ourselves eternal. Votes: 0

Everything must have in it a sharp seasoning of truth. Votes: 0

Failure is the inspiration of tomorrow's entrepreneurs. Votes: 0

For all riches come from iniquity, and unless one were to lose another could not gain. Hence the common adage seems to me to be very true: The rich man is unjust or the heir of an unjust one. Votes: 0

For it is good to cleave to God, and to put our hopes in the Lord, so that, when we have exchanged this poor life for the kingdom of heaven, we may cry aloud: 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? There is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' Assuredly, when we have found such wealth in heaven, we may well grieve to have sought after poor passing pleasures here on earth. Votes: 0

For the preservation of chastity, an empty and rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable. Votes: 0

He is rich enough who does not want bread. Votes: 0

Honest speech does not seek secret places. Votes: 0

I praise wedlock, I praise marital union, but only because they produce me virgins. Votes: 0

If a soul is not clothed with the teachings of the Church he cannot merit to have Jesus seated in him. Votes: 0

If Christ did not want to dismiss the Jews without food in the desert for fear that they would collapse on the way, it was to teach us that it is dangerous to try to get to heaven without the Bread of Heaven. Votes: 0

If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is bad to touch a woman always and in every case. Votes: 0

If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and forever in the next. Votes: 0

If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source. Votes: 0

If you call [the synagogue] a brothel, a den of vice, the devil's refuge, Satan's fortress, a place to deprave the soul, an abyss of every conceivable disaster or whatever else you will, you are still saying less than it deserves. Votes: 0

Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them. Votes: 0

It is easier to mend neglect than to quicken love. Votes: 0

It is hard for the human soul not to love something, and our mind must of necessity be drawn to some kind of affection. Votes: 0

It is idle to play the lyre for an ass. Votes: 0

It is no fault of Christianity that a hypocrite falls into sin. Votes: 0

It is our part to seek, His to grant what we ask; ours to make a beginning, His to bring it to completion; ours to offer what we can, His to finish what we cannot. Votes: 0

It is worse still to be ignorant of your ignorance. Votes: 0

Keep always busy so that the devil will find you always engaged. Votes: 0

Let us learn upon earth those things which can call us to heaven. Votes: 0

Love knows nothing of order. Votes: 0

Malice swallows the greatest part of its own venom. Votes: 0

Marriage fills the Earth, virginity Heaven. Votes: 0

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life Votes: 0

Matrimony is always a vice, all that can be done is to excuse it and sanctify it; therefore it was made a religious sacrament. Votes: 0

Music to me is a voice, my voice, it's my way of expressing what colours can I bring in, what emotions, what feel. What ideas can I bring out from these instruments that would make this song come alive. Votes: 0

Neither Britain, a land fertile in tyrants, nor the people of Ireland, knew Moses and the prophets. Votes: 0

No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow. Votes: 0

No created mind, no created heart, no human force is capable of knowing how much love the Heart of Mary had for the Lord. Votes: 0

Nothing gives us a greater idea of our soul, than that God has given us, at the moment of our birth, an angel to take care of it. Votes: 0

Nothing is hard for lovers, no labor is difficult for those who wish it. Votes: 0

Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved. Votes: 0

Playing keys is more than just knowing what notes to play. You have to know about the buttons too. Votes: 0

Preferring to store her money in the stomachs of the needy rather than hide it in a purse. Votes: 0

Quick enough, if good enough. Votes: 0

Seek to learn on earth those truths which will remain ever valid in Heaven Votes: 0

Shun, as you would the plague, a cleric who from being poor has become wealthy, or who, from being nobody has become a celebrity. Votes: 0

Small minds can never handle great themes. Votes: 0

Small minds cannot grasp great subjects. Votes: 0

Sometimes the character of the mistress is inferred from the dress of her maids. Votes: 0

Strictly speaking, one should not even rightly compare virginity to marriage because you cannot make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil. Votes: 0

Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world. Votes: 0

That clergyman soon becomes an object of contempt who being often asked out to dinner never refuses to go. Votes: 0

That rain is the best which falls steadily on the earth. A sudden and excessive downpour ruins the fields. Votes: 0

The best advice that I can give you is this: Church-traditions- especially when they do not run counter to the faith- are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down... The traditions which have been handed down should be regarded as apostolic laws. Votes: 0

The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by telling against ourselves. Votes: 0

The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it. Votes: 0

The eating of meat was unknown up to the big flood, but since the flood they have put the strings and stinking juices of animal meat into our mouths, just as they threw in front of the grumbling sensual people in the desert. Jesus Christ, who appeared when the time had been fulfilled, has again joined the end with the beginning, so that it is no longer allowed for us to eat animal meat. Votes: 0

The enemy of reflection is the breakneck pace - the thousand pictures. Votes: 0

The fact is that my native land is a prey to barbarism, that in it men's only God is their belly, that they live only for the present, and that the richer a man is the holier he is held to be. Votes: 0

The laws of Caesar are one thing, those of Christ, another. Papinianus judges one way, our Paul another. Votes: 0

The line, often adopted by strong men in controversy, of justifying the means by the end. Votes: 0

The most base of men can be civilized through suffering. Votes: 0

The Roman world is in collapse but we do not bend our neck. Votes: 0

The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom. Votes: 0

The tired ox treads with a firmer step. Votes: 0

There are things in life that are bigger than ourselves. Life is short, live it well. Votes: 0

They please the world most, who please Christ least. Votes: 0

Time would fail me were I to try to lay before you in order all the passages in the Holy Scriptures which relate to the efficacy of baptism or to explain the mysterious doctrine of that second birth which though it is our second is yet our first in Christ. Votes: 0

To ignore Scripture is to ignore Christ. Votes: 0

To perceive is to categorize, to conceptualize is to categorize, to learn is to form categories, to make decisions is to categorize. Votes: 0

To read without writing is to sleep. Votes: 0

To saints their very slumber is a prayer. Votes: 0

Vanity is truly the motive power that moves humanity, and it is flattery that greases the wheels. Votes: 0

We must love Christ and always seek Christ's embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy. Votes: 0

We need more music that is passionate and meaningful and honest. Votes: 0

What cannot be changed cannot be blamed. Votes: 0

What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way. Votes: 0

When I could not see the light with my blind eyes, I blamed not my eyes, but the sun. Votes: 0

When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us. Votes: 0

While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evildoing. Votes: 0

Who would have believed that the daughters of that mighty city would one day be wandering as servants and slaves on the shores of Egypt and Africa, or that Bethlehem would daily receive noble Romans, distinguished ladies, brought up in wealth and now reduced to beggary? I cannot help them all, but I grieve and weep with them, and am completely absorbed in the duties which charity imposes on me. I have put aside my commentary on Ezekiel and almost all study. For today we must translate the precepts of the Scriptures into deeds; instead of speaking saintly words, we must act them. Votes: 0

Whoever eats the Lamb outside this House is profane. Votes: 0

Whosoever you are who introduce new doctrines, I beseech you to spare the ears of Romans! Spare that faith which was commended by the voice of an Apostle. Why should you attempt to teach us, at the end of hundreds of years, that which we never heard before? Why bring forward what Peter and Paul did not will to make known? Until this day, the world was Christian without your doctrine. Thus, I hold as an old man onto that faith wherein I was regenerated as a boy. Votes: 0

Wine is the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young Votes: 0

Without doubt, the Lord grants all favors which are asked of Him in Mass, provided they be fitting for us. Votes: 0

Woman is the gate of the devil, the road to iniquity, the sting of the scorpion, in a word, a dangerous species. Votes: 0

Woman is the root of all evil. Votes: 0

Top quotes by St. Jerome

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