SO GOOD QUOTES

If you settle down and ask yourself, ‘I’m not really hungry, but there are so many nice things one can eat, what would I fancy?’ In five minutes’ time you will have projected tentacles over a variety of things…Once you have allowed your imagination full sway, things are much more difficult. In that respect we must be sober and we must fight for freedom. There is a great deal of difference between attachment and love, between hunger and greed, between a live interest and curiosity, and so forth. Every one of our natural propensities has got a counterpart which is marked by evil and which is one of the ways in which we get enslaved. This is what I meant by withdrawing tentacles. To begin with, say ‘no’. If you haven’t said ‘no’ in time, you are in for a fight. But then be ruthless about it, because reason and detachment are more precious than what you get as a slave in terms of enjoyment.

—Met. Anthony Bloom, Beginning To Pray