Gregory of Nyssa > Quotes

“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“Concepts create idols; only wonder understands anything.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“The three most ancient opinions concerning God are Anarchia, Polyarchia, and Monarchia. The first two are the sport of the children of Hellas, and may they continue to be so. For Anarchy is a thing without order; and the Rule of Many is factious, and thus anarchical, and thus disorderly. For both these tend to the same thing, namely disorder; and this to dissolution, for disorder is the first step to dissolution. But Monarchy is what we hold in honor.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we ... are made to join in the angels' song, offering the worship of their praise.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything.”
― Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses

“Truly barren is a secular education. It is always in labor, but never gives birth.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“Since with all my soul I behold the face of my beloved, therefore all the beauty of his form is seen in me.”
― Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs

“For truly barren is profane education, which is always in labor but never gives birth. For what fruit worthy of such pangs does philosophy show for being so long in labor? Do not all who are full of wind and never come to term miscarry before they come to the light of the knowledge of God, although they could as well become men if they were not altogether hidden in the womb of barren wisdom?”
― Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses

“Mine is to chew on the appropriate texts and make them delectable.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“Anger is a perversion of courage, as lust is a perversion of love.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“SOCIAL ANIMAL ALWAYS COME ACROSS SEVERAL COMPLICATIONS”
― Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Saint Macrina

“Just as at sea those who are carried away from the direction of the harbor bring themselves back on course by a clear sign, on seeing a tall beacon light or some mountain peak coming into view, so Scripture may guide those adrift on the sea of the life back into the harbor of the divine will.”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“Just as many questions might be started for debate among people sitting up at night as to the kind of thing that sunshine is, and then the simple appearing of it in all its beauty would render any verbal description superfluous, so every calculation that tries to arrive conjecturally at the future state will be reduced to nothingness by the object of our hopes, when it comes upon us.”
― Gregory of Nyssa, Collection of Writings

“So when did these last two originate? They transcend “whenness,” but if I must give a naive answer—when the Father did. When was that? There has not been a “when” when the Father has not been in existence. This, then, is true of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Put another question and I will answer it. Since when has the Son been begotten? Since as long as the Father has not been begotten.”
― Gregory of Nyssa, On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius

“I got me slave-girls and slaves.' For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? What price did you put on rationality? How many obols did you reckon the equivalent of the likeness of God? How many staters did you get for selling that being shaped by God? God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness. If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or, rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable. God would not therefore reduce the human race to slavery, since he himself, when we had been enslaved to sin, spontaneously recalled us to freedom. But if God does not enslave what is free, who is he that sets his own power above God's?”
― Gregory of Nyssa

“Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are.”
― Gregory of Nyssa