Category: BEST OF

  • A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attach him saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’

    —St. Anthony the Great

  • “Honesty is unmeddling thought, sincere character, frank and unpremeditated speech.”

    —St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  • Some, I know not why (for I have not learned to pry conceitedly into the gifts of God) are by nature, I might say, prone to temperance, or silence, or purity, or modesty, or meekness, or contrition. But others, although almost their own nature itself resists them in this, to the best of their power force themselves; and though they occasionally suffer defeat yet, as men struggling with nature, they are in my opinion higher than the former.

    St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  • “One who loves his neighbour can never tolerate slanderers, but rather runs from them as from fire.”

    —St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  • “Not only do my choices and their consequences effect those around me immediately, but my choices also effect those far away and those not yet born.”

    —Fr. Michael Gillis

    “Your lives in your homes are a responsibility, and have a deep effect in the generations coming after you.”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III

    “The life of each one of us does not end at death on this earth and birth into heaven. We place a seal on everyone we meet. This responsibility continues after death, and the living are related to the dead for whom they pray. In the dead we no longer belong completely to the world; in us the dead still belong to history. Prayer for the dead is vital; it expresses the totality of our common life.”

    —Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

    Every human being is an incalculable force, bearing within him something of the future. To the end of time, our daily words and actions will bear fruit, either good or bad; nothing that we have once given of ourselves will perish, but our words and works, handed on from one to another, will continue to do good or harm to remote generations. This is why life is a sacred thing, and we ought not to pass through it thoughtlessly, but to appreciate its value and use it so that, when we are gone, the sum total of good in the world may be greater.

    —Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur

  • Let not we who are reasonable show ourselves to be more savage than the unreasoning animals. For even the animals use in common the plants that grow naturally from the earth. Flocks of sheep graze together upon the same hillside, herds of horses feed upon the same plain, and all living creatures permit each other to satisfy their need for food. But we hoard what is common, and keep for ourselves what belongs to many others.

    —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

  • “Truly, this is the worst kind of avarice: not even to share perishable goods with those in need.”

    —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

  • “You, however, have regard for gold, but not for your own brothers and sisters. You recognize the inscription on the face of a coin, and can tell the counterfeit from the genuine, but you completely ignore your brothers and sisters in their time of need.”

    —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

  • Imagine a society in which no one sold anything, but everyone shared freely their skills and wealth. Then every action in that society would bring not only material benefits, but spiritual benefits also. Such societies already exist in miniature: families operate in this way. How wonderful it would be if villages and towns could become like large families.

    On Living Simply
    St. John Chrysostom

  • “The pleasure is fleeting, while the pain is lasting.”

    —St. John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty