St. Jerome Quotes

Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.

Among us, what is not allowed to women is equally not allowed to men.

Woman is the root of all evil.

When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.

For the preservation of chastity, an empty and rumbling stomach and fevered lungs are indispensable.

The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it.

And as regards Adam and Eve we must maintain that before the fall they were virgins in Paradise: but after they sinned, and were cast out of Paradise, they were immediately married.

The friendship that can cease has never been real.

Let us learn upon earth those things which can call us to heaven.

They talk like angels but they live like men.

Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.

Wine is the first weapon that devils use in attacking the young

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one's faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one's life

Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.

Haste is of the Devil.

The line, often adopted by strong men in controversy, of justifying the means by the end.

Keep always busy so that the devil will find you always engaged.

If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is bad to touch a woman always and in every case.

Marriage fills the Earth, virginity Heaven.

To saints their very slumber is a prayer.

A false interpretation of Scripture causes that the gospel of the Lord becomes the gospel of man, or, which is worse, of the devil.

We must love Christ and always seek Christ's embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy.

Nothing is hard for lovers, no labor is difficult for those who wish it.

A man who is well grounded in the testimonies of the Scripture is the bulwark of the Church.

Honest speech does not seek secret places.

Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.

What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way.

They please the world most, who please Christ least.

Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved.

Strictly speaking, one should not even rightly compare virginity to marriage because you cannot make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil.

Endeavor to have always in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself against bad thoughts.

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom.

When I could not see the light with my blind eyes, I blamed not my eyes, but the sun.

If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and forever in the next.

That rain is the best which falls steadily on the earth. A sudden and excessive downpour ruins the fields.

For it is good to cleave to God, and to put our hopes in the Lord, so that, when we have exchanged this poor life for the kingdom of heaven, we may cry aloud: 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? There is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' Assuredly, when we have found such wealth in heaven, we may well grieve to have sought after poor passing pleasures here on earth.

Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.

I praise wedlock, I praise marital union, but only because they produce me virgins.

Matrimony is always a vice, all that can be done is to excuse it and sanctify it; therefore it was made a religious sacrament.

If Christ did not want to dismiss the Jews without food in the desert for fear that they would collapse on the way, it was to teach us that it is dangerous to try to get to heaven without the Bread of Heaven.

The best advice that I can give you is this. Church-traditions — especially when they do not run counter to the faith — are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down; and the use of one church is not to be annulled because it is contrary to that of another.

Do not marvel at the novelty of the thing, if a Virgin gives birth to God.

Small minds cannot grasp great subjects.

The Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism.

To ignore Scripture is to ignore Christ.

A fat stomach never breeds fine thoughts.