Frases de Jerónimo

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“The privileges of a few do not make common law.”
Privilegia paucorum non faciunt legem.

“We are always ready to imitate what is evil; and faults are quickly copied where virtues appear inattainable.”
Proclivis est enim malorum aemulatio, et quorum virtutes assequi nequeas, cito imitaris vitia.

“Every day we are changing, every day we are dying, and yet we fancy ourselves eternal.”
Quotidie morimur, quotidie commutamur, et tamen aternos nos esse credimus.

“They fill their houses through the plunder and losses of others, so that the saying of the philosophers may be fulfilled, 'Every rich man is unjust or the heir of an unjust one.' (Omnis dives aut iniquis aut iniqui haeres.)”

“Just as divorce according to the Saviour's word was not permitted from the beginning, but on account of the hardness of our heart was a concession of Moses to the human race, so too the eating of flesh was unknown until the deluge. But after the deluge, like the quails given in the desert to the murmuring people, the poison of flesh-meat was offered to our teeth. … At the beginning of the human race we neither ate flesh, nor gave bills of divorce, nor suffered circumcision for a sign. Thus we reached the deluge. But after the deluge, together with the giving of the law which no one could fulfil, flesh was given for food, and divorce was allowed to hard-hearted men, and the knife of circumcision was applied, as though the hand of God had fashioned us with something superfluous. But once Christ has come in the end of time, and Omega passed into Alpha and turned the end into the beginning, we are no longer allowed divorce, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh.”

“That clergyman soon becomes an object of contempt who being often asked out to dinner never refuses to go.”
Facile contemnitur clericus, qui saepe vocatus ad prandium, ire non recusat.

“And had I taken the line -so often adopted by strong men in controversy- of justifying the means by the result.”
Et sicut viri fortes in controversiis solent facere, culpam praemio redimerem.

“Everything must have in it a sharp seasoning of truth.”
Nisi quod in se habet mordacis aliquid veritatis.

“If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.”
Si rivus tenuiter fluit, non est alvei culpa, sed fontis.

“Even brute beasts and wandering birds do not fall into the same traps or nets twice.”
Bruta quoque animalia et vagae aves, in easdem pedicas retiaque non incidunt.

“Xenocrates the philosopher writes that at Athens out of all the laws of Triptolemus only three precepts remain in the temple of Ceres: respect to parents, reverence for the gods, and abstinence from flesh. Orpheus in his song utterly denounces the eating of flesh. I might speak of the frugality of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Antisthenes to our confusion: but it would be tedious, and would require a work to itself. At all events this is the Antisthenes who, after teaching rhetoric with renown, on hearing Socrates, is related to have said to his disciples, «Go, and seek a master, for I have now found one.» He immediately, sold what he had, divided the proceeds among the people, and kept nothing for himself but a small cloak. … His most famous follower was the great Diogenes, who was mightier than King Alexander in that he conquered human nature.”

“The scars of others should teach us caution.”
Alius vulnus, nostra sit cautio.

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

“Grandes materias ingenia parva non sufferunt.”

“Plenus venter facile de ieiuniis disputat.”

“Alius vulnus, nostra sit cautio.”

“Asino quippe lyra superflue canit.”

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.”

“To sin is human, to lay snares is diabolical.”

“It is not the sheep only who abide in the Church.”

“Undoubted faith towards God it is hard indeed to find.”