Inspirational Quotes by Origen

“This also is a part of the Church's teaching, that the world was made and took its beginning at a certain time, and is to be destroyed on account of its wickedness.”

“We must believe what is good and true about the prophets, that they were sages, that they did understand what proceeded from their mouths, and that they bore prudence on their lips.”

“Then, in the next place, we must know that every being which is endowed with reason, and transgresses its statutes and limitations, is undoubtedly involved in sin by swerving from rectitude and justice.”

“We are obliged, therefore, to say that whoever speaks that which is foreign to religion is using many words, while he who speaks the words of truth, even should he go over the whole field and omit nothing, is always speaking the one word.”

“Reason, therefore, demonstrates that external events do not depend on us, but that it is our own business to use them in this way or the opposite, having received reason as a judge and an investigator of the manner in which we ought to meet those events that come from without. 6.”

“The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.”

“Having refuted, then, as well as we could, every notion which might suggest that we were to think of God as in any degree corporeal, we go on to say that, according to strict truth, God is incomprehensible, and incapable of being measured.”

“For whatever be the knowledge which we are able to obtain of God, either by perception or reflection, we must of necessity believe that He is by many degrees far better than what we perceive Him to be.”

“But God, who is the beginning of all things, is not to be regarded as a composite being, lest perchance there should be found to exist elements prior to the beginning itself, out of which everything is composed, whatever that be which is called composite.”

“But Paul, in his preaching of the Gospel, is a debtor to deliver the word not to Barbarians only, but also to Greeks, and not only to the unwise, who would easily agree with him, but also to the wise.”

“Denn da die Vernunft ihren Ursprung "dem Worte" verdankt, "das bei Gott ist", so darf man dem vernunftbegabten Wesen die Verwandtschaft mit Gott nicht ganz und gar absprechen. Folglich darf man auch die schlechten Christen und schlechten Juden, die in Wahrheit keine Christen und keine Juden sind, nicht in höherem Grade als die übrigen schlechten Menschen mit "Regenwürmern" vergleichen, die sich "in einem kotigen Winkel" herumwälzen. Wenn das Wesen der Vernunft einen solchen Vergleich anzunehmen nicht gestattet, so werden wir gewiss die zur Tugend angelegte menschliche Natur, auch wenn sie aus Unwissenheit sündigen sollte, nicht entehren und sie nicht mit solchen Tieren auf gleiche Stufe stellen.”

“Conscience is the chamber of justice.”

“12. So then, he that is left without chastisement is so left by the Divine judgment, and God is long-suffering towards some sinners, not without reason, but because it will be good for them, having regard to the immortality of the soul and eternal life, that they be not too soon assisted in the attainment of salvation, but be slowly brought thereto after they have had experience of much evil. For as physicians, though they might quickly cure a man, will adopt the opposite of remedial measures whenever they suspect lurking mischief, because by so doing they mean to make the cure more permanent, and think it better to keep the patient for a long time in feverishness and sickness, so that he may make a sounder recovery, than that he should soon seem to pick up strength, but suffer a relapse, and the too hasty cure prove to be only temporary: so God also, knowing the secrets of the heart and having foreknowledge of the future, in His long-suffering perhaps lets things take their course, and by means of outward circumstances draws forth the secret evil, in order to cleanse him, who through neglect, has harboured the seeds of sin; so that a man having vomited them when they have come to the surface, even if he be far gone in wickedness, may afterwards find strength when he has been cleansed from his wickness and been renewed. For God governs the souls of men, not, if I may so speak, according to the scale of an earthly life of fifty years, but by the measure of eternity; for He has made the intellectual nature incorruptible and akin to Himself; and the rational soul is not debarred of healing, as if this present life were all.”

“Although Christ was God, He took flesh; and having been made man, He remained what He was, God.”

“This opinion, however, is held by most, that the devil was an angel, and that, having become an apostate, he induced as many of the angels as possible to fall away with himself, and these up to the present time are called his angels.”

“The physical voice we use in prayer need not be great nor startling; even should we not lift up any great cry or shout, God will yet hear us.”