Such and so many are the notions, then, which we have about Wisdom and the wise. Now of these characteristics that of knowing all things must belong to him who has in the highest degree universal knowledge; for he knows in a sense all the instances that fall under the universal. And these things, the most universal, are on the whole the hardest for men to know; for they are farthest from the senses.
Within me I had a dearth of that inner food which is thyself, my God—although that dearth caused me no hunger. And I remained without any appetite for incorruptible food—not because I was already filled with it, but because the emptier I became the more I loathed it. Because of this my soul was unhealthy; and, full of sores, it exuded itself forth, itching to be scratched by scraping on the things of the senses.
When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.
Purification of the soul ... consists in scorning the pleasures that arise through the senses, in not feasting the eyes on the silly exhibitions of jugglers or on the sight of bodies which gives the spur to sensual pleasure, in not permitting licentious songs to enter through the ears and drench your souls.
In dependence on the sensuality element there arises sensual perception; in dependence on sensual perception there arises sensual intention; in dependence on sensual intention there arises sensual desire; in dependence on sensual desire there arises sensual passion; in dependence on sensual passion there arises a sensual quest. Engaged in a sensual quest, the uninstructed worldling conducts himself wrongly in three ways—with body, speech, and mind.
It is because we are predominantly purposeful beings that we are perpetually correcting our immediate sensations. But men are free not to be utilitarianly purposeful. They can sometimes be artists, for example. In which case they may like to accept the immediate sensation uncorrected, because it happens to be beautiful.
People are plagued by their senses if they act without restraint to attain their desires. ... If one is dragged along as the victim of his natural five senses, his adversities wax like the moon in the bright fortnight.
A chariot, king, is a person's body:Who is skilled rides happily, if they are trained.
Senses out of control suffice to bring one to grief, as untrained and disobedient horses bring a driver to grief on the road. A fool who, guided by his senses, sees profit arising from the unprofitable and the unprofitable from profit mistakes misery for happiness.
When the mind maintains awareness, yet does not mingle with the senses, nor the senses with sense impressions, then self-awareness blossoms.
Certain good qualities are like the senses; those who lack them can neither appreciate nor understand them.
The gentleman knows that whatever is imperfect and unrefined does not deserve praise. ... He makes his eyes not want to see what is not right, makes his ears not want to hear what is not right, makes his mouth not want to speak what is not right, and makes his heart not want to deliberate over what is not right. ... For this reason, power and profit cannot sway him, the masses cannot shift him, and nothing in the world can shake him.
I am almost frightened out of my seven senses.
Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.
He had used the word in its Pickwickian sense … he had merely considered him a humbug in a Pickwickian point of view.
Him of the western dome, whose weighty senseFlows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
They received the use of the five operations of the Lord and in the sixth place he imparted them understanding, and in the seventh speech, an interpreter of the cogitations thereof.
Be sober, and to doubt prepense,These are the sinews of good sense.
If Poverty is the Mother of Crimes, want of Sense is the Father.
Whate'er in her Horizon doth appear,She is one Orb of Sense, all Eye, all aiery Ear.
What thin partitions sense from thought divide.
Good sense which only is the gift of Heaven,And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
'Tis use alone that sanctifies expenseAnd splendor borrows all her rays from sense.
Fool, 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam:Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.
Oft has good nature been the fool's defence,And honest meaning gilded want of sense.
Huzzaed out of my seven senses.
Sense is our helmet, wit is but the plume;Yet, wit apart, it is a diamond still.