Lactantius Quotes

Devils so work that things which are not, appear to men as if they were real.

Therefore God is one, if that which admits of so great power can be nothing else: and yet those who deem that there are many gods, say that they have divided their functions among themselves; but we will discuss all these matters at their proper places.

The whole point of justice consists precisely in our providing for others through humanity what we provide for our own family through affection.

But some one will say that this supreme Being, who made all things, and those also who conferred on men particular benefits, are entitled to their respective worship.

Let those who are famished come that they may lay aside perpetual hunger and be filled with heavenly food.

Memory tempers prosperity, mitigates adversity, controls youth, and delights old age.

It is possible that Mount Olympus may have supplied the poets with the hint for saying that Jupiter obtained the kingdom of heaven, because Olympus is the common name both of the mountain and of heaven.

For they, the philosophers, were considered teachers of right living, which is far more excellent, since to speak well belongs only to a few, but to live well belongs to all.

For if God is a title of the highest power, He must be incorruptible, perfect, incapable of suffering, and subject to no other being; therefore they are not gods whom necessity compels to obey the one greatest God.

There is no one, who possesses intelligence and uses reflection, who does not understand that it is one Being who both created all things and governs them with the same energy by which He created them.

When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus.

Therefore, if the gods are immortal and eternal, what need is there of the other sex, when they themselves do not require succession, since they are always about to exist?

Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be.

The poets, therefore, however much they adorned the gods in their poems, and amplified their exploits with the highest praises, yet very frequently confess that all things are held together and governed by one spirit or mind.

Modesty in human beings is praised because it is not a matter of nature, but of will.

Let us come to the philosophers, whose authority is of greater weight, and their judgment more to be relied on, because they are believed to have paid attention, not to matters of fiction, but to the investigation of the truth.

Can anyone be so foolish as to believe that there are men whose feet are higher than their heads, or places where things may be hanging downwards, trees growing backwards, or rain falling upwards? Where is the marvel of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon if we are to allow of a hanging world at the Antipodes?