Laudator Temporis Acti

Augustine, Sermons 351.5 (Patrologia Latina, vol. 39, col. 1541; tr. Edmund Hill):

How many other sins there are, whether in talking about other people's affairs and business, which don't concern you; or in futile cackling and laughter, seeing that it is written, The fool raises his voice in laughter, while the wise man will scarcely laugh even silently (Sir 21:20). Or there's the greedy and unrestrained appetite for food, which is properly prepared out of the need to keep body and soul together, the proof of excess being the next day's indigestion. Or there are the wrong-headed maneuvers in commerce to buy things cheap and sell them dear. It would be tedious to list all the things that anyone can observe with more certainty and reprehend in himself, if he is not careless about looking into the mirror of the divine scriptures. Although none of them, taken singly, are felt to inflict a mortal wound, like murder and adultery and sins like that; still when they all pile up like a suppurating rash, the more they are, they can kill, or so disfigure our appearance, that they cut us off from the chaste embraces of that bridegroom who is the fairest in form among the sons of men (Ps 45:2), unless they are dried up by the medicine of daily repentance.

Quam multa sunt alia peccata, sive in loquendo de rebus et negotiis alienis, quae non ad te pertinent; sive in vanis cachinnationibus, cum scriptum sit: Stultus in risu exaltat vocem suam, sapiens autem vix tacite ridebit; sive in ipsis escis, quae ad necessitatem sustentandae huius vitae praeparantur, avidior atque immoderatior appetitus, saepe excessum modum postridiana cruditate contestans: sive in vendendis et emendis rebus caritatis et vilitatis vota perversa. Piget cuncta colligere, quae quisque in se ipso certius comprehendit atque reprehendit, si divinarum Scripturarum speculum non neglegenter attendat. Quae quamvis singula non lethali vulnere ferire sentiantur, sicuti homicidium et adulterium, vel cetera huiusmodi: tamen omnia simul congregata velut scabies, quo plura sunt necant, aut nostrum decus ita exterminant, ut ab illius sponsi speciosi forma prae filiis hominum castissimis amplexibus separent, nisi medicamento quotidianae paenitentiae desiccentur.