Take away the contests of the martyrs, and you have taken away their crowns.
Interpretation
This quote implies that the struggles and sacrifices of individuals give meaning to their achievements and honor.
Saint Ambrose emphasizes the importance of the trials and challenges faced by martyrs in defining their legacy and significance. Without these contests or struggles, their ultimate sacrifices would lack value, and the honor they receive as martyrs would diminish. This highlights a broader philosophical theme: achievements are often intertwined with the hardships faced, giving depth and meaning to the recognition received.
In practice
In a speech honoring veterans, one might invoke this quote to illustrate the significance of their sacrifices.
A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to his parents, to give honor to his elders, to preserve his purity; he ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years.
Where a man's heart is, there is his treasure also.
The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church.
A kindness received should be returned with a freer hand.
It is ingrained in all living creatures, first of all, to preserve their own safety, to guard against what is harmful, to strive for what is advantageous.
The best way to use the gold of the Redeemer is for the redemption of those in peril.
Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat an enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds; it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.
There is no sense and no sanity in objecting to the desecration of the flag while tolerating and justifying and encouraging as a daily business the desecration of the country for which it stands.
If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.
Africa for the Africans... at home and abroad!
No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.
An event may be small and insignificant in its origin , and yet, when drawn close to oneβs eye, it may open in its center an infinite and radiant perspective because a higher order of being is trying to express itself in it and irradiates it violently.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.