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“A religious philosophy, unless it is frankly to abandon nine-tenths of conduct to the powers of darkness, cannot admit the doctrine of a world of business and economic relations self-sufficient and divorced from ethics and religion.”
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“The contrast between nature and grace, between human appetites and interests and religion, is not absolute, but relative. It is a contrast of matter and the spirit informing it, of stages in a process, of preparation and fruition. Grace works on the unregenerate nature of man, not to destroy it, but to transform it. And what is true of the individual is true of society. An attempt is made to give it a new significance by relating it to the purpose of human life as known by revelation.”
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“...the spiritual life is the life of man's real self, the life of that interior self whose flame is so often allowed to be smothered under the ashes of anxiety and futile concern. The spiritual life is oriented toward God, rather than toward the immediate satisfaction of the material needs of life, but it is not, for all that, a life of unreality or a life of dreams. On the contrary, without a life of the spirit, our whole existence becomes unsubstantial and illusory. The life of the spirit, by integrating us in the real order established by God, puts us in the fullest possible contact with reality--not as we imagine it, but as it really is. It does so by making us aware of our own real selves, and placing them in the presence of God.”
― No Man Is an Island
― No Man Is an Island
“If the citizens themselves devote their life to matters of trade, the way will be opened to many vices. Since the foremost tendency of tradesmen is to make money, greed is awakened in the hearts of the citizens through the pursuit of trade. The result is that everything in the city will bcome venal; good faith will be destroyed and the way opened to all kinds of trickery; each one will work only for his own profit, despising the public good; the cultivation of virtue will fail since honor, virtue's reward, will be bestowed upon the rich. Thus, in such a city, civic life will necessarily be corrupted. (On Kingship II, 3)”
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“The saints do not contemplate in order to know, but to love. And they love not for the sake of loving but for the love of Him that they love. It is because they are in love with God that they aspire to that union with God which love desires, loving themselves only for his sake. Their aim is not to exult in their own intelligence or nature and so abide in themselves: it is to do the will of Another and contribute to the good of Goodness. They do not seek for their soul. They lose it, they have it no more. If in entering into the mystery of divine sonship, in becoming somewhat of God himself they gain a transcendent personality, an independence and a liberty which nothing in this world can touch it is by forgetting all this so that not they but their Beloved lives in them.”
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Political Philosophy and Ethics
— 6232 members
— last activity Jan 20, 2026 08:25AM
Study and discussion of the important questions of ethical and political philosophy from Confucius and Socrates to the present. Rules (see also the ...more
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