SO GOOD QUOTES

Author: SO GOOD QUOTES

  • The one who is a stranger here will be a citizen up there; the one who is a stranger here will not be happy to live among present realities, will not be concerned for dwellings, money, food, anything else of that kind. Instead, just as people living in foreign parts do everything and busy themselves with a view to their return to their homeland, and daily strive to see the land that bore them, so too those in love with future realities are neither dejected by present griefs nor buoyed up by success, but ignore both like a traveler on the road.

    —St. John Chrysostom

  • Often the Lord allows the enemy to surprise us, and we wonder: what has happened to us? The Lord permits these things to happen in order that we might realize we are nothing and the trust we place in ourselves is nothing. We must learn to never ascribe any merit to ourselves.

    Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: the Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

  • “Openly appearing to those who look for Him with all their heart, while hiding from those who run from Him with all their heart, God governs human knowledge of His presence.  He gives signs that are visible to those who search for Him, and yet invisible to those who are indifferent to Him. To those who wish to see, God gives sufficient light; to those who do not wish to see, He gives sufficient darkness.”

    —Blaise Pascal

  • Silence is a sweet, violent seizure by God. The abstinence of speech, austerity, poverty: this is the asceticism of silence, the one that brings us back to the purity of the just.

    The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
    Cardinal Robert Sarah

  • Hold fast to your purpose and do not look back. We have been given a warning example in Lot’s wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back [Genesis 19:26]. You have cast off your old humanity; let the rags lie.

    Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
    Tito Colliander

  • How do you benefit if, for example, you begin to sleep on a hard mattress but instead indulge in warm baths?

    Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
    Tito Colliander

  • The degree of victory over self is of trifling importance. It consisted perhaps in our skipping our morning cigarette, or only in such an apparently unimportant thing as not turning our head or refraining from meeting a glance. The externally noticeable happening is not the decisive one. The little thing can be big, and the big, little.

    Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
    Tito Colliander

  • Don’t struggle directly with temptation, don’t pray for it to go away, don’t say, ‘Take it from me, O God!’ Then you are acknowledging the strength of the temptation and it takes hold of you. Because, although you are saying ‘Take it from me, O God’, basically you are bringing it to mind and fomenting it even more. Your desire to be free of the passion will, of course, be there, but it will exist in a hidden and discrete way, without appearing outwardly.

    —St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, Wounded by Love

  • “To leave off praying is the same thing as deserting one’s post. The gate stands open for the ravaging hordes, and the treasures one has gathered are plundered.”

    Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
    Tito Colliander

  • “The abundance of words is the symptom of doubt. Incredulity is always talkative.”

    The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
    Cardinal Robert Sarah