SO GOOD QUOTES

Author: SO GOOD QUOTES

  • “When they asked St. Antony the Great which of the virtues was the greatest, he replied, “Discernment,” which he called the “lantern of the soul.” Discernment includes wisdom, the ability of “seeing the whole picture” and understanding the why and purpose behind all things. It also refers to the grace to know the Will of God. As a charismatic gift of the Church, discernment is also a unique manifestation in the lives of the saints given by God to lead other souls to salvation. Likewise, St. John Climacus in the Ladder of Divine Ascent describes the progression of discernment. First, beginners start with self-knowledge. At a middle level, one can distinguish between what is truly good and what is opposed to the good. Finally, the perfection of discernment is attained with knowledge resulting from divine illumination.”

    — All That I Have Is Yours: 100 Meditations with St. Pope Kyrillos VI on the Spiritual Life by Kyrillos Ibrahim

  • “The virtue of prudence is doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right measure. St. Augustine said of it, “Prudence is the knowledge of what to seek and what to avoid.””

    — All That I Have Is Yours: 100 Meditations with St. Pope Kyrillos VI on the Spiritual Life by Kyrillos Ibrahim

  • In truth, self knowledge seems the most important of all. For not only the eye, looking at outward things, fails to exercise its sight upon itself, but our understanding also, though very quick in apprehending the sin of another, is slow to perceive its own defects.

    —St. Basil the Great

  • There are various ways we feel confident.  Confidence can come from a sense of zeal, a feeling that we are doing something important—even if we don’t exactly know what we are doing.   Confidence can come from the thought that you know what God is doing in your life or in the lives of those around you.  It is a kind of figuring it out, a reduction to principles that can be applied to any situation.  This kind of knowledge, I think, is akin to the knowledge that St. Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, the knowledge that puffs up, as opposed to the love that builds up. Confidence can also come from a sense that we are right, that we know what is right to do and we are doing it. This, in my experience, is the most deceptive kind of confidence.  Feeling right is a dangerous feeling, for our right-ness (i.e. our “righteousness”) quickly becomes a idol with clay feet.  And feeling that we are right and being zealous at the same time is the most dangerous kind of confidence.

    —Fr. Michael Gillis, Happy Ignorance With Peace

  • Rather, in peace, he should seek for consolation in God, continuing faithfully in the work that is before him, knowing that if God wants him somewhere else doing something else, God is able to make that abundantly clear to him.  

    —Fr. Michael Gillis, Happy Ignorance With Peace

  • As we begin to grow in our knowledge of God, St. Isaac tells us, we begin to really love: love both God and neighbour. This knowledge of God is not a knowledge about God, not what most Protestant and Catholic Christians would refer to as a “theological” knowledge.  Rather, this knowledge of God that St. Isaac is talking about is a personal knowledge, a knowledge of encounter, an intuitive knowledge based on experience.  It is what Orthodox writers usually mean when they speak of theological knowledge.  It’s not something that one can get from a book—although many saints and saintly people have written about their theological knowledge.

    —Fr. Michael Gillis, A Small Affliction Born For God’s Sake

  • “The awareness of God shall be with you as clearly as a toothache.  When you have a toothache, you don’t forget it at all.  You may be talking, you may be reading, you may be scrubbing, you may be singing, you may be doing anything; the toothache is there continuously present and you cannot escape the ache of its presence.”

    —St. Theophan the Recluse

  • Very often we do not find sufficient intensity in our prayer, sufficient conviction, sufficient faith, because our despair is not deep enough. We want God in addition to so many other things we have. We want His help, but simultaneously we are trying to get help wherever we can, and we keep God in store for our last push. We address ourselves to the princes and the sons of men, and we say ‘O God, give them strength to do it for me.’ Very seldom do we turn away from the princes and sons of men and say, ‘I will not ask anyone for help, I would rather have Your help.’ If our despair comes from sufficient depth, if what we ask for, cry for, is so essential that it sums up all the needs of our life, then we find words of prayer and we will be able to reach the core of the prayer, the meeting with God.

    —Met. Anthony Bloom, Beginning To Pray

  • St. Anthony also said, “I saw many monks who were confused because they depended solely on their own knowledge and did not heed the advice, ‘Ask your father and he will tell you; ask your elders, they will inform you.’” (Paradise of Monks)

    —H.H.Pope Kyrillos VI, Christian Behavior according to Saint Pope Kyrillos the Sixth

  • “Remember everything is right until it’s wrong. You’ll know when it’s wrong.”

    —Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden