What is tradition? It is that which has been understood by everyone, everywhere and at all times … that which you have received, and not that which you have thought up … So then, our job is not to lead religion where we wish it to go, but to follow it where it leads, and not to give that which is our own to our heirs, but to guard that which has been given to us.
–Saint Vincent of Lerina (Fifth Century)
If someone wants to be protected from tricks and remain healthy in the faith, he must confine his faith first to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and secondly to the Tradition of the Church. But someone may ask, is not the canon of Scripture sufficient for everything, and why should we add thereto the authority of Tradition? This is because not everyone understands the Scriptures in the same way, but one explains them this way and another that way, so that it is possible to get there from as many thoughts as there are heads. Therefore it is necessary to be guided by the understanding of the Church.
— Saint Vincent of Lerina (Fifth Century)
Let your understanding strengthen your patience. In serenity look forward to the joy that follows sadness.
–Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072)
Occupy your minds with good thoughts, or the enemy will fill them with bad ones. Unoccupied, they cannot be.
–Saint Thomas More (1478-1535)
Just as painters in working from models constantly gaze at their exemplar and thus strive to transfer the expression of the original to their own artistry, so too he who is anxious to make himself perfect in all kinds of virtue must gaze upon the lives of the saints and must make their excellence his own by imitation.
–Saint Basil the Great (330-379)
Be always displeased with what you are if you wish to be what you are not. Keep on adding, keep on walking, keep on progressing: do not delay on the road, do not go back, do not deviate.
–Saint Augustine (354-430)
