...though every thinking being longs for God, the First Cause, it is powerless... to grasp Him. Tired with the yearning it chafes at the bit and, careless of the cost, it tries a second tack. Either it looks at things visible and makes of these a god - a gross mistake, for what visible thing is more sublime, more godlike, than its observer... - or else it discovers God through the beauty and order of things seen, using sight as a guide to what transcends sight without losing God through the grandeur of what it sees.
Gregory of NazianzusWe are not made for ourselves alone, we are made for the good of all our fellow creatures.
Gregory of NazianzusI cannot think on the one without quickly being encircled by the splendor of the three; nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the one.
Gregory of NazianzusThe Godhead is, to speak concisely, undivided there is one mingling of Light, as it were of three suns joined to each other.
Gregory of NazianzusIt is difficult to practice obedience; but it is even more difficult to practice leadership.
Gregory of NazianzusNo one has yet discovered or ever shall discover what God is in His nature and essence... we shall, in time to come, 'know as we are known' (I Cor 13:12). But for the present what reaches us is a scant emanation, as it were a small beam from a great light - which means that any one who 'knew' God or whose 'knowledge' of Him has been attested to in the Bible, has a manifestly more brilliant knowledge than others not equally illuminated. This superiority was reckoned knowledge in the full sense, not because it really was so, but by the contrast of relative strengths.
Gregory of Nazianzus