Basil of Caesarea Quotes

Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand. The multitude looks but upon thy actions; thy conscience looks into them: the multitude may chance to excuse thee, if not acquit thee; thy conscience will accuse thee, if not condemn thee.

Sleep is often the only occasion in which man cannot silence his conscience; we forget what we knew in our dream.

Whatever you condemn, you have done yourself.

We should live as if we were in public view, and think, too, as if someone could peer into the inmost recesses of our hearts-which someone can!

About what we neither know nor feel precisely while awake-whether we have a good or a bad conscience toward a certain person-our dreams instruct us fully and unambiguously.

Guilt is what separates humans from animals.

And I guess you judge how well you're doing by how well you sleep at night... and what your dreams are like.

If a person had accused him of meanness, he could have defended himself. But with a dog - you did something cheap to it when you were sure no one was looking, and it was as though you had done it in front of a mirror.

There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.

We all have one, in one form or another. To me, this dragon is both the wild nature of ourselves and our conscience in his embodiment of the Old Code ethical behavior and morality. At the same time, he's our unconscious, the place from which our dreams arise. I just spoke my lines to the dragon within me.

There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.

Guilt is glorious when it's well earned.

If you wear clothing, and put out trash you are using up resources that others also need BUT I can pay attention and I can do better. That I know for sure about me, my soul needs to try or I can't lay my head down on my pillow at night and even hope to sleep.

Why will no man confess his faults? Because he continues to indulge in them; a man cannot tell his dream till he wakes.

The proper office of religion is to regulate the heart of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order, andobedience; and as its operation is silent, and only enforces the motives of morality and justice, it is in danger of being overlooked, and confounded with these other motives.

Much though he recites the sacred texts, but acts not accordingly, that heedless man is like a cowherd who only counts the cows of others - he does not partake of the blessings of the holy life.

I'm trying to think of what I'm ashamed of. But, damn, I don't really have any shame.

I do nothing I regret, man, because I try to do nothing abominable. As long as there is not an abomination, there is nothing to regret, you understand?

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

If any speak ill of thee, fly home to thy own conscience and examine thy heart. If thou art guilty, it is a just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction.

Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain, in respect to ourselves, to our fellowmen, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.

The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future time to alter our course of action.

Men scanning the surface count the wicked happy; they see not the frightful dreams that crowd a bad man's pillow.

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.

Have you ever noticed that good people sleep better, but bad people seem to have more fun when they're awake?