A florilegium is a bunch of flowers — a word-posy. Here are three blooms, each encountered today, presented without comment for you to sniff and enjoy:
- “Tota vita christiani boni, sanctum desiderium est. Quod autem desideras, nondum vides; sed desiderando capax efficeris, ut cum venerit quod videas, implearis” (Augustine, In Epistolam Ioannis ad Parthos, from 4.6) — which, being translated, is: “A good Christian’s whole life is holy desire. What you desire you don’t yet see. But by desiring it you are made such that when what you ought to want will have come, you can be filled by it.”
- “The exception in jurisprudence is analogous to the miracle in theology.” Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005; first published in German in 1922), p. 36.
- “Grace found that she could always dismiss a disturbing thought by wrapping it in a platitude.” Janet Frame, Towards Another Summer (Berkeley, California: Counterpoint Press, 2009), p. 101.
