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| From my Commonplace |
While I spend almost all the day abroad among other and the residue at home among mine own; I leave to myself, I mean to my book, no time.
For when I am come home I must commune with my wife, chat with my children, and talk with my servants; all the which things I reckon and account among business, forasmuch as they must of necessity be done; and done must they needs be, unless a man will be a stranger in his own house. And in anywise a man must so fashion and order his conditions and so appoint and dispose himself that he be merry, jocund, and pleasant among them whom either nature hath provided or chance hath made or he himself hath chosen to be the fellows and companions of his life; so that with too much gentle behavior and familiarity he do not mar them and, by too much sufferance of his servants make them his masters.
Thomas More in the preface to Utopia
Don't you think Sir Thomas More sounds like he was a very nice man? I do. Even if he didn't like Martin Luther very much.
Totally brilliant man, not only a man of great Faith but courage too! Not a Martin Luther fan myself;)
ReplyDeleteBut I am. :-)
ReplyDeleteLove to see the quotes that fascinate others.
ReplyDeleteI love this quote! So true, you are still "on" when you come home from work until the moment you can pick up a book. I think had More been able to separate the philosophical from the personal, that he would have liked Martin Luther. Perhaps the ladies of AO do this better than most, don't you think? More was motivated by fear, fear of the disintegration of the church and of the "slippery slope" of one "heresy" leading to more heresy. He didn't have the lens of history with which to analyze the results of his own actions and the actions of the reformers. Per his history, repression of past heresy served to strengthen the church.
ReplyDeleteI just bought a few Christian Lacroix journals at Anthropologie's sale: Paris
ReplyDelete