HOMER ON THE METHODS OF GOD
From Coriolanus.
IN surprising and startling actions, where the supernatural and the assistance of the Divinity may be required, Homer does not introduce the Supreme Being as taking away the freedom of the will, but merely as influencing it. The Divine Power is not represented as causing the resolution, but only thoughts and ideas which naturally lead to the resolution. In this way the act cannot be called altogether involuntary, since God is the moving cause to the voluntary, and thus gives confidence and good hope. For we must either banish entirely the Supreme Being from all casuality and influence over our actions, or what other way is there in which he can assist and co-operate with men? for it is impossible to suppose that he fashions our corporeal organs, or directs the motions of our hands and feet, to accomplish what he intends; but it is by suggesting certain motives, and predisposing the mind, that he excites the active powers of the will, or restrains them.
De Lib. Educ., cap. ii.
UNLESS the foundations of a family be properly prepared and laid, those who are sprung from it must necessarily be unfortunate.
De Lib. Educ., cap. ii.
THERE is no one, however high-spirited he may be, that does not quail when he thinks of the evil deeds of his parents.
De Lib. Educ., cap. iv.
NATURE without learning is like a blind man; learning without nature is like the maimed; practice without both these is incomplete. As in agriculture a good soil is first sought for, then a skillful husbandman, and then good seed; in the same way nature corresponds to the soil; the teacher to the husbandman; precepts and instruction to the seed.
De Lib. Educ., cap. v.
IN my opinion mothers ought to bring up and nurse their own children; for they bring them up with greater affection and with greater anxiety, as loving them from the heart, and, so to speak, every inch of them. But the love of a nurse is spurious and counterfeit, as loving them only for hire.
De Lib. Educ., cap. vii.
TEACHERS ought to be sought who are of blameless lives, not liable to be found fault with, and distinguished for learning; for the source and root of a virtuous and honorable life is to be found in good training. And as husbandmen underprop plants, so good teachers, by their precepts and training, support the young, that their morals may spring up in a right and proper way.
De Lib. Educ., cap. xiii.
IN this place we may very properly insert the saying of the groom, who maintained that there was nothing which served to fatten a horse so much as the eye of its master.
De Garrulitate, cap. i.
THE TALKATIVE listen to no one, for they are ever speaking. And the first evil that attends those who know not how to be silent is, that they hear nothing.
De Exilio, cap. v.
MAN is a plant, not fixed in the earth, nor immovable, but heavenly, whose head, rising as it were from a root upwards, is turned towards heaven
