Agostino Gemelli
Agostino Gemelli OFM (18 January 1878 – 15 July 1959) was an Italian Capuchin friar, physician and psychologist, who was also the founder and first rector of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart) of Milan.
Quotes
[edit]- Our soldier sings often and willingly. During the long hours of waiting, which are so long and so frequent in life during this war, he sings. For him, it is a need. It is the way he expresses his feelings. And even prohibitions are not particularly effective against this need… As thoughts flow through him, bringing back memories of love, sorrow and joy, he spontaneously expresses his inner feelings through song, and if one soldier sings a verse, others echo him; that is how choruses are improvised. This happens above all during work and during marches, to break the monotony and to restore strength through the rhythm and cheerfulness of a musical verse.
- I canti del nostro soldato, documenti per la psicologia militare, in Il nostro Soldato, Milano, 1917, pp. 191-213; quoted in Giuseppe Fumagalli, Chi l'ha detto?, Hoepli, 1921, p. 634.
- [The university must be] a hub of scientific activity, a true laboratory in which teachers and students work together to explore new truths and to re-examine issues that have already been discussed. In this way, students are nurtured to develop a critical spirit and, more importantly, given the special purpose of our University, a spirit of research.
- from a note dated 1919, quoted in Emanuela Gazzotti, Un traguardo e una partenza, Tertium Millennium, April 2000, www.vatican.va.
- If the arms merchants of extremely wealthy nations have sided with the Bolsheviks, as have the politicians of the various popular fronts who, obeying Moscow's orders, are defending themselves and their ideology, then here is Italian fascism, led by its Duce, breaking with diplomatic hypocrisy and calling on old Europe to consider where the mistakes of its diplomats will lead it.
- from Vita e Pensiero, January 1938.
- Felice Momigliano, a Jew, a secondary school teacher, a great philosopher and a great socialist, has committed suicide. Spineless journalists have written maudlin obituaries. Someone mentioned that he was the Rector of the Mazzinian University. Others pointed out that he was a belated positivist.
But if, along with Positivism, Socialism, Free Thought, and Momigliano, all the Jews who continue the work of the Jews who crucified Our Lord were to die, wouldn't the world be a better place? It would be an even greater liberation if, before they died, they repented and asked for the water of Baptism.
- from Vita e Pensiero, August 1924.
