For God is my witness that our country is a sort of secondary divinity, and our first and greatest parent.

Hierocles, On How We Ought to Conduct Ourselves Towards Our Country

There will be a day when the clear light of divine truth shines on our people once again, unifying us in its perfection and beauty. We must all do whatever we can to work towards that day, and to embody that truth in our own lives to the best of our ability.

"For that element in us which is divine and intellectual and one - or, if you so wish to term it, intelligible - is aroused, then, clearly in prayer, and when aroused, strives primarily towards what is like to itself, and joins itself to essential perfection."

Iamblichus, On the Mysteries 1.15

All inhabitants of city or country should in the first place be firmly persuaded of the existence of divinities as result of their observation of the heavens and the world, and the orderly arrangement of the beings contained therein. These are not the productions of chance or of men. We should reverence and honor them as causes of every reasonable good. ...

Should anyone feel the presence of an evil spirit, tempting him to injustice, he should go into a temple, remain at the altar, or into sacred groves, flying from injustice as from an impious and harmful mistress, supplicating the divinities to cooperate with him in turning it away from himself. He should also seek the company of men known for their virtue, in order to hear them discourse about a blessed life and the punishment of bad men, that he may be deterred from bad deeds, dreading none but the avenging divinities.

Citizens should honor all the Gods according to the particular country's legal rites, which should be considered as the most beautiful of all. Citizens should, besides obeying the laws, show their respect for the rulers by rising before them and obeying their instructions. Men who are intelligent and wish to be saved should, after the Gods, divinities and heroes, most honor parents, laws and rulers.

The Preface to the Laws of Zaleucus the Locrian

We shall then find that customs are corrupted in two ways: through ourselves, or through foreigners. This occurs through ourselves, indeed, due to our flying from pain, whereby we fail to endure labor, or through the pursuit of pleasure, whereby we reject the good. For labors procure good, but pleasures evil. Hence through pleasure, becoming incontinent and remiss, men are rendered effeminate in their souls, and more prodigal in their expenses. Customs and manners are corrupted through foreigners when their numbers swamp the natives, and boast of the success of their mercantile employments, or when those who dwell in the suburbs, becoming lovers of pleasures and luxury, spread their manners to the simple neighbors. Therefore the legislators, officers and mass of the people should diligently take notice whether the customs of the city are being carefully preserved, and that throughout the whole people. Moreover, they should observe whether the genuine and indigenous multitude, of which the polity consists, remains pure and unmingled with any other nation, and whether the magnitude of possessions remains in the same state, and does not become excessive. For the possession of superfluities is accompanied by the desire of still more of the superfluous. In such ways the customs should be preserved.

Hippodamus the Thurian, On a Republic

One who is just does not allow any part of himself to do the work of another part or allow the various classes within him to meddle with each other. He regulates well what is really his own and rules himself. He puts himself in order, is his own friend, and harmonizes the three parts of himself like three limiting notes in a musical scale - high, low, and middle. He binds together those parts and any others there may be in between, and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate and harmonious. Only then does he act. And when he does anything, whether acquiring wealth, taking care of his body, engaging in politics, or in private contracts - in all of these, he believes that the action is just and fine that preserves this inner harmony and helps achieve it, and calls it so, and regards as wisdom the knowledge that oversees such actions. And he believes that the action that destroys this harmony is unjust, and calls it so, and regards the belief that oversees it as ignorance.

Plato, Republic 443d-e

PAGAN FUTURES conference, full playlist with live music from Wolcensmen and talks from Borja Vilallonga and Tom Rowsell: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcroOUap-NynE3ARVQ1KZvfCRllnN2F27

Jupiter, found in a lararium at Boscoreale, the site of a Roman villa near Pompeii.

If you're the academic type, I encourage you to consider pursuing philosophy (or other relevant disciplines) academically. As paganism grows, there will come a time when we will need intellectually elite defenders of paganism representing us in academic institutions.

How to overcome bad habits and characteristics

1. Sincerely wish that you will be happy, fulfill your highest purpose, and live in tranquility. Sincerely wish to be beautiful before God. Commit to obtain the purity that lies within you and that comes from divinity.

2. Imitate great men, such as Socrates, or any others you know. Remember how they behaved in difficult situations.

3. When anything happens - a temptation or a problematic situation or anything else - call on the aid and support of God. (By the way, it is perfectly correct to use singular God within the context of polytheism. Of course you can call upon a specific God too.)

4. Tell your thoughts and feelings to wait a moment, so that you can see what they’re all about. Tell them you don’t want to be swept away by their speed and momentum. When they ask you to start imagining all sorts of things that might happen, say no and instead think of something beautiful and noble.

5. Offer a sacrifice and prayer. To whatever extent you committed a wrong, gave into temptation, etc., acknowledge that in your sacrifice and prayer.

6. Consciously note every day that goes by since you were last defeated by your problem. “The last time I lost my temper was yesterday.” “The last time I was overcome by lust was three days ago.” Enjoy your victory each time.

7. If you defeat your problem for thirty days in a row, offer a sacrifice to God.

Source: Epictetus, Discourses 2.18

The Titanic mode of life is the irrational mode, by which rational life is torn asunder.

It is better to acknowledge its existence everywhere, since in any case at its source there are Gods, the Titans; then also on the plane of rational life, this apparent self-determination, which seems to aim at belonging to itself alone and neither to the superior nor to the inferior, is wrought in us by the Titans; through it we tear asunder the Dionysus in ourselves, breaking up the natural continuity of our being and our partnership, so to speak, with the superior and the inferior. While in this condition, we are Titans; but when we recover that lost unity, we become Dionysus and we attain what can be truly called completeness.

Damascius, Commentary on Plato's Phaedo 1.9

"Let everyone dearly love his lawful wife and beget children by her. But let none shed the seed due his children into any other person, and let him not disgrace that which is honorable by both nature and law. For nature produced the seed for the sake of producing children, and not for the sake of lust.

A wife should be chaste and refuse impious connection with other men, for otherwise she will subject herself to the vengeance of the daimons, whose office it is to expel those to whom they are hostile from their house, and to produce hatred."

Preface to the Laws of Charondas the Catanean

Indeed, it cannot be denied that in every component of the universe there is a striving for ultimate perfection. For example, in vines or cattle we see that nature will proceed along her own path to the goal of completeness unless some outside force intervenes. We know that with painting or architecture or other arts, there is an idea of perfect workmanship. Even more so with nature as a whole it is necessary that there must be some process of moving toward completion and perfection. Of course, the many individual parts of nature at times encounter obstacles which block their path to perfect realization of their potential, but it cannot be that nature as a whole can be frustrated, since she embodies and contains all things. This is why the fourth and highest level must exist [ = divine universe], so that no external force can approach it.

It is on this fourth level that the nature of all things rests. Since this level is such that it presides over everything and nothing is able to impede it, it necessarily follows that the universe is intelligent and indeed wise.

Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.35-36

Julian - Against the Galileans

I. [193-4] «(...) Then Jupiter set over her [Rome] the great philosopher Numa. This then was the excellent and upright Numa who dwelt in deserted groves and ever communed with the gods in the pure thoughts of his own heart. (...) It was he who established most of the laws concerning temple worship. Now these blessings, derived from a divine possession and inspiration, (...) were manifestly bestowed on the City by Jupiter.»

@collispalatinus

Now, the members of this small group have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and at the same time they've also seen the madness of the majority and realized, in a word, that hardly anyone acts sanely in public affairs and that there is no ally with whom they might go to the aid of justice and survive, that instead they'd perish before they could profit either their city or their friends and be useless both to themselves and to others, just like a man who has fallen among wild animals and is neither willing to join them in doing injustice nor sufficiently strong to oppose the general savagery alone. Taking all this into account they lead a quiet life and do their own work. Thus, like someone who takes refuge under a little wall from a storm of dust or hail driven by the wind, the philosopher - seeing others filled with lawlessness - is satisfied if he can somehow lead his present life free from injustice and impious acts and depart from it with good hope, blameless and content.

Plato, Republic 496c-d

All these rules are brought forth as from a fountain and first principle, namely the saying, ‘be ashamed before yourself’, and this exhortation already implies the other saying, ‘know yourself’, which must be presumed for all serious practices and all forms of theoretical knowledge. Since from where should we get the knowledge that it is our duty to moderate the passions and to know reality? For there is a difficulty here, first, whether it is possible for men, and then, whether there are advantages for those who can. In fact, the upright man demonstrates just the opposite, because he gets the worst of it in the daily affairs of life by not unjustly taking from where he should not and by justly spending on what he should, and more than anyone he is prone to be easily assailable in his body, because he is not concerned with seeking power nor does he slavishly serve those in power. As a result, unless there were some other substance in us that benefits from virtue, we would hardly reject wealth or a position of power on account of virtue. For this reason also those people who consider the soul mortal speak ingeniously, rather than truthfully, about rejecting these things for the sake of virtue. Surely, if there were not something of us that should remain after death and this part by nature be capable of being adorned with truth and virtue, such a part as we say the rational soul is, our desire for noble things would not be pure. For a suspicion of the soul’s destruction robs people from the outset of their zeal for these goods and leads to bodily enjoyments, of whatever sort they may be or from whatever source they can be provided.

Hierocles of Alexandria, Commentary on the Golden Verses 10.18-20

"I beseech you, Lord, father and guide of the reason in us, remind us of our noble origin, which we were deemed worthy to receive from you. Act with us (as we are self-movers) for our purification from the body and its irrational emotions, that we may be superior to them and rule them, and that we may use them as instruments in the fitting way. Act with us also for the precise correction of the reason in us and its unification with the genuinely existent things through the light of the truth. And the third request to the Saviour: I beseech you, completely remove the mist from the eyes of our souls, 'so that we may clearly know,' as Homer says, 'both God and man.'"

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus' Handbook 454

And then Diomedes of the war cry prayed:
"Hear me, child of Zeus who wields the aegis, Weariless One, Athena;
if ever you stood by my father in kindness of heart
in deadly battle, now also be my friend, Athena;
and grant that I kill this man and come within spear-cast of him,
who struck me before I saw him and boasts about it, and declares that
I will not look long upon the shining light of the sun."
So he spoke, praying; and Pallas Athena heard him,
and made his limbs light and his feet and his arms above,
and standing close she addressed him with winged words:
"With good heart now, Diomedes, go to battle with the Trojans;
for in your breast I have caused to flow the mighty spirit of your father,
unshakable, such as the shield-wielding horseman Tydeus possessed.
I have taken from your eyes the mist that was before upon you,
so that you may well distinguish god and also mortal man.
Therefore now, should a god come here to test you,
do you in no way wage head-on battle with the immortal gods,
with any of the others - only if Aphrodite daughter of Zeus
comes to war, her you can wound with sharp bronze."

Homer, Iliad 5.114-132

Plutarch warns against naturalistic pseudo pagan atheists

As regards piety towards the gods, you should know that the most important point is to hold correct opinions about them, regarding them as beings who exist and govern the universe well and justly, and to have made up your mind to obey them and submit to everything that comes about, and to fall in with it of your own free will, as something that has been brought to pass by the highest intelligence.

Epictetus, Handbook 31.1