Confessions and Spiritual Friendship

Transitioning into a new semester means shifting books around, sorting papers, and rediscovering previously finished work that one has otherwise forgotten. In two books I found lists of memorable quotes I had "scribed," and some are definitely worth sharing:

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Excerpts from Confessions by St. Augustine

"But we enjoyed playing games and were punished for them by men who played games themselves. However, grown-up games are known as 'business,' and even though boys' games are much the same, they are punished for them by their elders...my games delayed my progress in studying subjects which would enable me to play a less creditable game later in life."

"We learn better in a free spirit of curiosity than under fear and compulsion."

"For your [God's] goodness is almighty; you take good care of each of us as if you had no others in your care, and you look after all as you look after each."

"You [God] follow close behind the fugitive and recall us to yourself in ways we cannot understand."

"Make your dwelling in Him [God], my soul. Entrust to Him whatever you have, for all that you have is from him."

"I did not know that if my mind was to share the truth, it must be illuminated by another light, because the mind itself is not the essence of truth."

"If a man is to please you [God], surely it is not enough that he should know facts like these? Even if he knows them all, he is not happy unless he knows you; but the man who knows you is happy, even if he knows none of these things."

"A statement is not necessarily true because it is wrapped in fine language or false because it is awkwardly expressed."

"You [God] are there to free us from the misery of error which leads us astray, to set us on your own path and to comfort us by saying, 'Run on, for I shall hold you up. I shall lead you and carry you on to the end.'"

Excerpts from Spiritual Friendship by Aelred of Rievaulx

"It is thus impossible to prefer a friend to morality; as soon as morality is damaged, friendship vanishes."

"Effort in great things is itself great."

"Scarcely any happiness whatever can exist among mankind without friendship, and a man is to be compared to a beast if he has no one to rejoice with him in adversity, no one to whom to unburden his mind if any annoyance crosses his path or with whom to share some unusually sublime or illuminating inspiration. 'Woe to him that is alone, for when he falls, he has none to lift him up.' He is entirely alone who is without a friend."

"Since, therefore, among the good, friendship always precedes and advantage follows, surely it is not so much the benefit obtained through a friend that delights as the friend's love in itself."

"And so we ought not, like children, change friends by reason of some vagrant whim. For since there is no one more detestable than the man who injures friendship, and nothing torments the mind more than desertion or insult at the hands of a friend, a friend ought to be chosen with the utmost care and tested with extreme caution." (spoken like a true infj in my opinion!)

"A truly loyal friend sees nothing in his friend but his heart."

"Indeed, a man owes truth to his friend, without which the name of friendship has no value." (I think "name" has the sense of "character" here.)