Ambrose Quotes

Ambrose's collection reads like a thoughtful meditation on mortality, peace and how we adjust.

21 quotes

1. Accordingly, death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked.

2. It is not death therefore that is burdensome, but the fear of death.

3. It did not please God to save his people through dialectic.

4. When I am at Rome, I fast on a Saturday; when I am at Milan, I do not. Follow the custom of the church where you are.

5. Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; Si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.

6. In some causes silence is dangerous; so if any know of conspiracies against their country or king, or any that might greatly prejudice their neighbor, they ought to discover it.

7. The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church.

8. We do not innovate anything ... How is it that novelties are introduced which were never even thought of by our predecessors?

9. It is Peter himself that He says, 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.' Where Peter is, there is the Church. And where the Church, no death is there, but life eternal.

10. As a servant desireth the approval of his master, and a son the approval of his father, so should we desire the approval of God and our own conscience.

11. There is no time of life past learning something.

12. The devil tempts that he may ruin; God tests that he may crown.

13. If every time the blood is poured out it is poured out for the remission of sins, I ought to receive it always, that my sins may always be forgiven me.

14. The body should be bedecked naturally and without affectation, with simplicity, with neglect rather than nicety, not with costly and dazzling apparel, but with ordinary clothes, so that nothing be lacking to honesty and necessity, yet nothing be added to increase its beauty.

15. And let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together; for "we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine saying."

16. Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God.

17. Dice have their laws, which the courts of justice cannot undo.

18. The rich man who gives to the poor does not bestow alms but pays a debt.

19. When I am at Rome I fast as the Romans do; when I am at Milan I do not fast. So likewise you, whatever church you come to, observe the custom of the place, if you would neither give offence to others, nor take offence from them.

20. Neither angel, nor archangel, nor yet even the Lord Himself (who alone can say "I am with you"), can, when we have sinned, release us, unless we bring repentance with us.

21. Law is twofold -- natural and written. The natural law is in the heart, the written law on tables. All men are under the natural law.