SO GOOD QUOTES

It is better to elude the passions by the recollection of the virtues than by resisting and disputing with them. For when the passions leave their place and arise for battle, they
imprint on the mind images and idols, and this warfare has great force, able to weaken the mind and violently to perturb and confuse a man’s thinking. But if a man acts by the first rule we have mentioned, when the passions are repulsed they leave no trace in the mind.

—St. Isaac the Syrian