Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The friend of silence comes close to God.
Often the Lord heals vainglory by dishonor.
Humility is the only thing that no devil can imitate.
Humility is constant forgetfulness of one's achievements.
Obedience is the burial of the will and the resurrection of humility.
A proud monk needs no demon. He has turned into one, an enemy to himself.
Faith furnishes prayer with wings, without which it cannot soar to Heaven.
Just as the winds whip up the sea, so does anger stir confusion in the mind.
Repentance lifts a man up. Mourning knocks at heaven's gate. Holy humility opens it.
As long as anger lives, it continues to be the fruitful parent of many unhappy children.
The man who pets a lion may tame it, but the man who coddles the body makes it ravenous.
Simplicity is an enduring habit within a soul that has grown impervious to evil thoughts.
The lover of silence draws close to God. He talks to Him in secret and God enlightens him.
The friend of silence comes close to God. In secret he converses with him and receives his light.
Pride is the utter poverty of soul disguised as riches, imaginary light where in fact there is darkness.
A servant of the Lord stands bodily before men, but mentally he is knocking at the gates of heaven with prayer.
When you hear that your neighbor or friend has reproached you in your absence or presence, then show love and praise him.
The offspring of virtue is perseverance. The fruit and offspring of perseverance is habit and child of habit is character.
I would not consider my spirituality worthwhile that wants to walk in sweetness and ease and run from the imitation of Christ.
Fight to escape from your own cleverness. If you do, then you will find salvation and uprightness through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I know a man who, when he saw a woman of striking beauty, praised the Creator for her. The sight of her lit within him the love of God.
The slave of the belly ponders the menu with which to celebrate the feast. The servant of God, however, thinks of the graces that may enrich him.
Do not make judgments, and you will travel no quicker road to the forgiveness of your sins. 'Judge not, so that you may not be judged' (Lk. 6:37).
Humility is the only virtue that no devil can imitate. If pride made demons out of angels, there is no doubt that humility could make angels out of demons.
When a man has found the Lord, he no longer has to use words when he is praying, for the Spirit Himself will intercede for him with groans that cannot be uttered.
Do not be surprised that you fall every day; do not give up, but stand your ground courageously. And assuredly, the angel who guards you will honour your patience.
Confession is like a bridle that keeps the soul which reflects on it from committing sin, but anything left unconfessed we continue to do without fear as if in the dark.
He does not show humility who accuses himself (for who will not accept rebukes from himself?), but he who, being rebuked by another, does not decrease his love toward him.
Those who submit to the Lord with simple heart will run the good race. If they keep their minds on a leash, they will not draw the wickedness of the demons onto themselves.
We know the utility of prayer from the efforts of the wicked spirits to distract us during the divine office; and we experience the fruit of prayer in the defeat of our enemies.
An angel fell from Heaven without any other passion except pride, and so we may ask whether it is possible to ascend to Heaven by humility alone, without any other of the virtues.
When people begin to praise us, let us hurry to remember the multitude of ours transgressions, and we will see that we are truly unworthy of that which they say and do in our honor.
Someone who is elated with wine speaks the truth on all subjects, even without meaning to. In the same way, anyone who is inebriated with the spirit of penitence will never be able to tell lies.
It is not the self -critical who reveals his humility ( for does not everyone have some how to put up with himself? ). Rather, it is the man who continues to love the person who has criticized him.
As fire does not give birth to snow, so those who seek honor here will not enjoy it in heaven... As those who climb a rotten ladder are in danger, so all honor, glory, and power are opposed to humility.
It happens, I do not know how, that most of the proud never really discover their true selves. They think they have conquered their passions and they find out how poor they really are only after they die.
Become aware of God, in whose presence you are while you pray . . . Then take a formula of prayer and recite it with perfect attention both to the words you are saying and to the Person to whom you are saying them.
When you are depressed, bear in mind the Lord's command to Peter to forgive a sinner seventy times seven (cf. Mt. 18:22). And you may be sure that He Who gave this command to another will Himself do very much more.
Do not stop praying as long as, by God's grace, the fire and the water have not been exhausted, for it may happen that never again in your whole life will you have such a chance to ask for the forgiveness for your sins.
The first stage of this tranquility consists in silencing the lips when the heart is excited. The second, in silencing the mind when the soul is still excited. The goal is a perfect peacefulness even in the middle of the raging storm.
Even though one is well advanced in virtue, should he stop mortifying himself, he soon would lose his modesty and virtue - just as fertile soul quickly becomes dry and arid and produces nothing but thorns and thistles if it is not cultivated.
Forgetting offences is a sign of sincere repentance. If you keep the memory of them, you may believe you have repented but you are like someone running in his sleep. Let no one consider it a minor defect, this darkness that often clouds the eyes even of spiritual people.
It can happen that when we are at prayer some brothers come to see us. Then we have to choose either to interrupt our prayer or to sadden our brother by refusing to answer him. But love is greater than prayer. Prayer is one virtue among others, whereas love contains them all.
Everyone who asks something of God and does not receive it doubtless does not receive it for one of these reasons: either because they ask before the time, or they ask unworthily, or out of vainglory, or because if they received what they asked they would become proud or fall into negligence.
When the soul betrays itself and loses the blessed and longed-for fervor, let it carefully investigate the reason for losing it. And let it arm itself with all its longing and zeal against whatever caused this. For the former fervor can return only through the same door through which it was lost.
Whoever has become a servant of the Lord fears only his Master. But whoever is without the fear of God is often afraid of his own shadow. Fearfulness is the daughter of unbelief. A proud soul is the slave of fear; hoping in itself, in comes to such a state that it is startled by a small noise, and is afraid of the dark.
A discerning man, when he eats grapes, takes only the ripe ones and leaves the sour. Thus also the discerning mind carefully marks the virtues which he sees in any person. A mindless man seeks out the vices and failings ... Even if you see someone sin with your own eyes, do not judge; for often even your eyes are deceived.
Ascend, my brothers, ascend eagerly. Let your hearts' resolve be to climb. Listen to the voice of the one who says: 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of our God' (Isa. 2:3), Who makes our feet to be like the feet of the deer, 'Who sets us on the high places, that we may be triumphant on His road' (Hab. 3:19).
Meekness is an unchanging state of mind, which both in honor and dishonor remains the same. Meekness consists in praying sincerely and undisturbedly in the face of afflictions from one's neighbor. Meekness is a cliff rising from the sea of irritability, against which all the that waves that strive against it break, but which is itself never broken.
Our inhuman enemy inspires the thought that God loves mankind, and that He quickly forgives this sin. But when we observe the guile of demons, then we see that after the commission of the sin, they suggest to us that God is a righteous and implacable Judge. The first they say in order to lead us to sin, the second, in order to weigh us down in despair.