CC Fall Semester Quote IDS
"Concerning your children, God commands you that a son should have the equivalent share of two daughters. If there are only daughters, more than two should share two-thirds of the inheritance, if one, she should have half."
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"Fight in God's cause against those who fight you, do not overstep the limits. God does not love those who overstep the limits. Kill them wherever you encounter them, and drive them out from where they drove you out, for persecution is more serious than killing."
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"He will forgive whoever He will and punish whoever He will: He has power over all things."
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"If He so willed, He could remove you altogether and replace you with new people: He has full power to do so."
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"If any of you die and leave widows, the widows should wait for four months and ten nights before remarrying."
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"If anyone kills a believer deliberately, the punishment for him is Hell."
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"Say, 'Whatever good things you give should be for parents, close relatives, orphans, the needy, and travellers. God is well aware of whatever good you do."
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"So [you believers], say, 'We believe in God and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we devote ourselves to Him'"
Al-Qur'an by Traditional Sources (630 AD)
"All of this deserves great punishment; and even more than punishment, such a sin should be made known to the Inquisition. Properly punished, this will be a good example to the faithful Christians of Jesus Christ in the world and in this kingdom."
Appeal Concerning the Priests by Felipe Guaman de Ayala (1615)
"These fathers and parish priests consort with their brothers and children or relatives, or some Spaniard, Mestizo, or Mulatto, or they have slave men or women or m any yanacona or chinacona [servant] Indians and cooks, whom they mistreat. With all of this, the mistreatment and pillaging of the poor Indians of this kingdom increases."
Appeal Concerning the Priests by Felipe Guaman de Ayala (1615)
"These fathers and parish priests in this kingdom all keep m ita [corvée labor] Indians busy: two Indians in the kitchen, another looking after the horses, another in the garden, another as janitor, another in the kitchen, others to bring firewood and fodder, others as shepherds, harvesters, messengers, field workers, and tenders of chickens, goats, sheep, cows, mares, and pigs. And in other things they insolently put the aforementioned hapless Indian men and women of this kingdom to work without pay. And for this reason they leave their homes."
Appeal Concerning the Priests by Felipe Guaman de Ayala (1615)
"These priests demand five pesos for the banns and candle and offering for a marriage, and four pesos for a baptism, without accepting that Your Majesty pays them a salary. [These collections] should be returned and [the act] punished."
Appeal Concerning the Priests by Felipe Guaman de Ayala (1615)
"... by associating in the commonwealth, as Roman citizens, all those who belonged to the Roman Empire; for this granted to all a privilege formerly enjoyed by a few. There was one exception to this equality: the Roman lower classes, possessing no land, lived at the public expense."
City of God by Saint Augustine (415 AD)
"But all bodies are subject above all to the will of god, and to him all wills also are subject, because the only power they have is the power that God allows them."
City of God by Saint Augustine (415 AD)
"That City, in which it has been promised that we shall reign, differs from this earthly city as widely as the sky from the earth, life eternal from temporal joy, substantial glory from empty praises, the society of angels from the society of men, the light of the Marker of the sun and moon from the light of the sun and moon."
City of God by Saint Augustine (415 AD)
"Thus our wills have only as much power as God has willed and foreknown; God, whose foreknowledge is infallible, has foreknown the strength of our wills and their achievements, and it is for that reason that their future strength is completely determined and their future achievements utterly assured."
City of God by Saint Augustine (415 AD)
"After all, it is possible I may be mistaken; and it is but a little copper and glass, perhaps, that I take for gold and diamonds."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"And as for the experiments that others have already made, even although these parties should be willing of themselves to communicate them to him (which is what those who esteem them secrets will never do), the experiments are, for the most part, accompanied with so many circumstances and superfluous elements, as to make it exceedingly difficult to disentangle the truth from its adjuncts"
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am"
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"But in this I have adopted the following order: first, I have essayed to find in general the principles, or first causes of all that is or can be in the world, without taking into consideration for this end anything but God himself who has created it, and without educing them from any other source than from certain germs of truths naturally existing in our minds. In the second place, I examined what were the first and most ordinary effects that could be deduced from these causes; and it appears to me that, in this way, I have found heavens, stars, an earth, and even on the earth water, air, fire, minerals, and some other things of this kind, which of all others are the most common and simple, and hence the easiest to know."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"But it plainly tells us that all our ideas or notions contain in them some truth; for otherwise it could not be that God, who is wholly perfect and veracious, should have placed them in us."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"But since I designed to employ my whole life in the search after so necessary a science, and since I had fallin in with a path which seems to me such, that if anyone follow it he must inevitably reach the end desired, unless he be hindered wither by the shortness of life or the want of experiments, I judged that there could be no more effectual provision against these two impediments than if I were faithfully to communicate to the public all the little I might myself have found, and incite men of superior genius to strive to proceed farther..."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"From my childhood, I have been familiar with letters; and as I was given to believe that by their help a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life might be acquired, I was ardently desirous of instruction. But as soon as I had finished the entire course of study, at the close of which it is customary to be admitted into the order of the learned, I completely changed my opinion. For I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance. And yet I was studying in one of the most celebrated schools in Europe, in which I thought there must be learned men, if such were anywhere to be found."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that "I," that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"Nor will this appear at all strange to those who are acquainted with the variety of movements performed by the different automata, or moving machines fabricated by human industry, and that with help of but few pieces compared with the great multitude of bones, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, and other parts that are found in the body of each animal. Such persons will look upon this body as a machine made by the hands of God, which is incomparably better arranged, and adequate to movements more admirable than is any machine of human invention."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"Of these one of the very first that occurred to me was, that there is seldom so much perfection in works composed of many separate parts, upon which different hands had been employed, as in those completed by a single master."
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such"
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (1639)
"But I say all this, as I have already made clear, merely for the sake of argument; and even then, with the limitation that only applies if everything is done for the benefit and good of the barbarians, and not merely for the profit of the Spaniards."
On the American Indians by Vitoria (~1540)
"It is this: these barbarians, though not totally mad, as explained before (1. 6, p. 250), are nevertheless so close to being mad, that they are unsuited to setting up or administering a commonwealth both legitimate and ordered in human and civil terms. Hence they have neither appropriate laws nor magistrates fitted to the task. Indeed, they are unsuited even to governing their own households (res familiaris); hence their lack of letters, of arts and crafts (not merely liberal, but even mechanical), of systematic agriculture, of manufacture, and of many other things useful, or rather indispensable, for human use.88 It might therefore be argued that for their own benefit the princes of Spain might take over their administration, and set up urban officers and governors on their behalf, or even give them new masters, so long as this could be proved to be in their interest."
On the American Indians by Vitoria (~1540)
"So in doubtful cases, I say, we must consult those whom the Church has appointed for the purpose: that is, the prelates, preachers, confessors, and jurists versed in divine and human law, since in the Church 'God hath set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him', some the feet and some the eyes, and so on."
On the American Indians by Vitoria (~1540)
"The conclusion of this whole dispute appears to be this: that if all these titles were inapplicable, that is to say if the barbarians gave no just cause for war and did not wish to have Spaniards as princes and so on, the whole Indian expedition and trade would cease, to the great loss of the Spaniards. And this in turn would mean a huge loss to the royal exchequer, which would be intolerable."
On the American Indians by Vitoria (~1540)
"And in truth justice is, it seems, something of this sort. However, it isn't concerned with someone's doing his own externally, but with what is inside him, with what is truly himself and his own. One who is just does not allow any part of himself to do the work of another part or allow the various classes within him to meddle with each other. He regulates well what is really his own and rules himself. He puts himself in order, is his own friend, and harmonizes the three parts of himself like three limiting notes in a musical scale - high, low, and middle. He binds together those parts and any others there may be in between, and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate and harmonious. Only then does he act. And when he does anything, whether acquiring wealth, taking care of his body, engaging in politics, or in private contracts - in all of these, he believes that the action is just and fine that preserves this inner harmony and helps achieve it, and calls it so, and regards as wisdom the knowledge that oversees such actions. And he believes that the action that destroys this harmony is unkist, and calls it so, and regards the belief that oversees it as ignorance"
Plato's Republic (380 BC)
"And isn't it, as we were saying, a mixture of music and poetry, on the one hand, and physical training, on the other, that makes the two parts harmonious, stretching and nurturing the rational part with fine words and learning, relaxing the other part through soothing stories and making it gentle by means of harmony and rhythm?"
Plato's Republic (380 BC)
"Justice is a mean between these two extremes."
Plato's Republic (380 BC)
"The position of the spirited part seems to be the opposite of what we thought before. Then we thought of it as something appetitive, but now we say that it is far from being that, for in the civil war in the soul it aligns itself far more with the rational part."
Plato's Republic (380 BC)
"Then a just man won't differ at all from a just city in respect to the form of justice; rather he'll be like the city."
Plato's Republic (380 BC)
"Therefore, since we aren't clever people, we should adopt the method of investigation that we'd use if, lacking keen eyesight, we were told to read small letters from a distance and then noticed that the same letters existed elsewhere in a larger size and on a larger surface. We'd consider it a godsend, I think, to be allowed to read the larger ones first and then to examine the smaller ones, to see whether they really are the same."
Plato's Republic (380 BC)
"Evidently, then, a city-state is not a sharing of a common location, and does not exist for the purpose of preventing mutual wrongdoing and exchanging goods."
Politics by Aristotle (340 BC)
"It was also said that a human being is by nature a political animal. That is why, even when they do not need one another's help, people no less desire to live together, although it is also true that the common benefit brings them together, to the extent that it contributes some part of living well to each."
Politics by Aristotle (340 BC)
"The end of the city-state is living well, then, but these other things are for the sake of the end. And a city-state is the community of families and villages in a complete and self-sufficient life, which we say is living happily and nobly."
Politics by Aristotle (340 BC)
"By the natural law human nature participates in the eternal law in proportion to the capacity of human nature. But man needs to be directed to his supernatural end in a higher way. Hence there is an additional law given by God through which man shares more perfectly in the eternal law."
Summa of Theology by St. Thomas Aquinas (~1270)
"Man possesses a natural aptitude for virtue but he needs a certain discipline to perfect that virtue. The man who can develop such discipline by himself is rare... Therefore laws are adopted to bring about peace and virtue among men."
Summa of Theology by St. Thomas Aquinas (~1270)
"Participation in the eternal law by rational creatures is called the natural law."
Summa of Theology by St. Thomas Aquinas (~1270)
"We have stated above that law is nothing else than a certain dictate of practical reason by a ruler who governs some perfect community."
Summa of Theology by St. Thomas Aquinas (~1270)
"For Principality easily becomes Tyranny. From Aristocracy the transition to Oligarchy is an easy one. Democracy is without difficulty converted into Anarchy."
The Discourses by Machiavelli (~1500)
"He will see Rome burnt, its Capitol demolished by its own citizens, ancient temples lying desolate, religious rites grown corrupt, adultery rampant throughout the city...In conclusion, then, let those to whom the heavens grant such opportunities reflect that two courses are open to them: either so to behave that in life they rest secure and in death become renowned, or so to behave that in life they are in continual straits, and in death leave behind an imperishable record of their infamy."
The Discourses by Machiavelli (~1500)
"I maintain then, that all forms of government mentioned above are far from satisfactory, the three good ones because their life is so short, the three bad ones because of their inherent malignity."
The Discourses by Machiavelli (~1500)
"In like manner Venice, having occupied a large part of Italy, most of it not by dint of arms, but of money and astute diplomacy, when its strength was put to the test, lost everything in a single battle."
The Discourses by Machiavelli (~1500)
"It should, however, be noted that they will never introduce order without incurring danger, because few men ever welcome new laws setting up a new order in the state unless necessity makes it clear to them that there is need for such laws"
The Discourses by Machiavelli (~1500)
"Since, however, all human affairs are ever in a state of flux and cannot stand still, either there will be improvement or decline, and necessity will lead you to do many things which reason does not recommend."
The Discourses by Machiavelli (~1500)
"With the result that the prince came to be hated, and, since he was hated, came to be afraid, and from fear soon passed to offensive action, which quickly brought about a tyranny."
The Discourses by Machiavelli (~1500)
"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile."
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head"
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!"
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire."
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"These last worked only one hour, and you have made then equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'"
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean."
The New Testament by Multiple Authors (~70 AD)
"And the Lord said to Moses, 'When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharoah all the wonders that I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus say the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. I said to you, 'Let my son go that he may worship me.' But you refused to let him go; now I will kill your firstborn son.'"
The Old Testament by Multiple Authors (~1200 BC)
"But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said."
The Old Testament by Multiple Authors (~1200 BC)
"I AM WHO I AM"
The Old Testament by Multiple Authors (~1200 BC)
"If an alien who resides with you wants to celebrate the passover to the Lord, all his males shall be circumcised; then he may draw near to celebrate it; he shall be regarded as a native of the land. But no uncircumsized person shall eat of it; there shall be one law for the native and for the alien who resides among you."
The Old Testament by Multiple Authors (~1200 BC)
"One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinfolk."
The Old Testament by Multiple Authors (~1200 BC)
"Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?"
The Old Testament by Multiple Authors (~1200 BC)
"After all, mere cruelty has not been enough to enable many other rulers to hang on to power even in time of peace, let alone during the turmoil of war. I think here we have to distinguish between cruelty well used and cruelty abused."
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
"For every change in government creates grievances that those who wish to bring about further change can exploit."
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
"For many authors have constructed imaginary republics and principalities that have never existed in practice and never could; for the gap between how people actually behave and how they ought to behave is so great that anyone who ignores everyday reality in order to live up to an ideal will soon discover he has been taught how to destroy himself, not how to preserve himself."
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
"I maintain it is much safer to be feared than loved, if you have to do without one of the two."
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
"I maintain that, in completely new kingdoms, the new ruler has more or less difficulty in keeping hold of power depending on whether he is more or less skillful [virtuoso]."
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
"If you consider Agathocles' bold achievements [azioni e virtù], you will not find much that can be attributed to lick; for, as I have said, he did not come to power because he had help from above, but because he worked his way up from below, climbing from rank to rank by undergoing infinite dangers and discomforts until in the end he obtained a monopoly of power, and then holding on to his position by bold and risky tactics."
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
"Thus the founders of new states have immense difficulties to overcome, and dangers beset their path, dangers they must overcome by skill and strength of purpose [virtù]"
The Prince by Machiavelli (1513)
"A Christian is a perfectly free lord or all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."
The Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther (1517)
"If faith does all things and is along sufficient unto righteousness, why then are good works commanded? We will take our ease and do no works and be content with faith." I answer: Not so, you wicked, not so. This would indeed be proper if we were wholly inner and perfectly spiritual beings. But such we shall be only at the last day, the day of the resurrection of the dead."
The Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther (1517)
"Individuals do not live for themselves alone in this mortal body to work for it alone, but they live also for all people on earth; rather, they live only for others and not for themselves. To this end they bring their bodies into subjection that they may the more sincerely and freely serve others"
The Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther (1517)
"No good work can rely upon the word of God or live in the soul, for faith alone and the word of God rule in the soul... This is that Christian liberty, our faith, which does not induce us to live in idleness or wickedness but makes the law and works unnecessary for any person's righteousness and salvation."
The Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther (1517)
"Not only are we the freest of rulers, we are also priests forever, which is far more excellent than being kinds, for as priests we are worthy to appear before God to pray for others and to teach one another divine things."
The Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther (1517)
"Therefore it is clear that, as the soul needs only the word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works."
The Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther (1517)
"We must, however, realize that these works reduce the body to subjection and purify it of its evil lusts, and our whole purpose is to be directed only toward the driving out of lusts."
The Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther (1517)
"Every child is born in the natural state; his parents make him a Jew, Christian, or Magian."
The Rescuer from Error by Al-Ghazali (1110 AD)
"I came to know with certainty that the mystics were the masters of states rather than statements, and that I had acquired what I could by way of knowledge."
The Rescuer from Error by Al-Ghazali (1110 AD)
"It became apparent to me that that was most distinctive about them and specific to them was what could not be attained through teaching but rather through "tasting," the "state," and a "transformation of attributes."
The Rescuer from Error by Al-Ghazali (1110 AD)
"The logical sciences are not in any way relevant to religion, either by way of negation or affirmation."
The Rescuer from Error by Al-Ghazali (1110 AD)
"The strongest sense is vision, which looks at a shadow and sees that it is stationary, and judges that there is no motion. But then as a result of experience and observation, after and hour, it is cognizant that the shadow is indeed moving. Moreover, it finds that it did not move suddenly, all at once, but rather incrementally atom by atom, in such a way that is was never actually stationary."
The Rescuer from Error by Al-Ghazali (1110 AD)
"You should know that, despite differences among the philosophers and notwithstanding the variety of philosophical creeds, they may be classified into three categories: materialists, naturalists, and theists."
The Rescuer from Error by Al-Ghazali (1110 AD)
"Man's ultimate happiness consists in the contemplation of truth for this operation is specific to man and is shared with no other animals."
The Summa Against the Gentiles by St. Thomas Aquinas (~1270)
"The soul is better than the body—which needs the soul to live and to possess these goods. Therefore a good of the soul, such as understanding and the like is better than a good of the body. Therefore the good of the body is not man's highest good."
The Summa Against the Gentiles by St. Thomas Aquinas (~1270)
"When someone uses his intellect to act, he always chooses an end that he thinks is good because the object of his intellect only moves him when it appears to be a good—and good is the object of the will."
The Summa Against the Gentiles by St. Thomas Aquinas (~1270)