“But remember this, whenever you begin to consider whether you may safely take one draught more, it is then high time to give over : let that be accounted a sign late enough to break off; for every reason to doubt is a sufficient reason to part the company.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667), On Christian Sobriety – Rules for obtaining temperance.
Category: BEST OF
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“There’s a solo journey that everyone goes on. You can be with all your people [that you love], but if you don’t feel fulfilled with the place or your purpose in the place, then it doesn’t matter how much love you have [around you].”
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My child, it often happens that a man seeks ardently after something he desires and then when he has attained it he begins to think that it is not at all desirable; for affections do not remain fixed on the same thing, but rather flit from one to another. It is no very small matter, therefore, for a man to forsake himself even in things that are very small.
A man’s true progress consists in denying himself, and the man who has denied himself is truly free and secure.
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ -
Most married people did not marry on the proper bases. Consequently, they suffer regret for having married. Unable to confront themselves with this fact, they enter into an unconscious psychological trick, called denial, i.e., denying the suffering of regret. Having convinced themselves that a troublesome marriage is better than living a single life, they strive to comfort and console themselves.
When such people meet a happy unmarried person, they get disturbed by their status which shakes and threatens the foundation supporting their views and arouses the feeling of regret for their situation. Such an unhappily married person may, in an aggressive and hastening manner, start pressuring the single person to marry. They support their contention with some weak and unconvincing arguments such as:
“Marriage is the rule of life. Everyone should marry. Our fathers and grandfathers told us that everybody should marry, etc”
I Have No One: The Problem with Delayed Marriage
Dr. Niveen Adel Sadek -
If you are not yet married, you are in a better position and more fortunate than someone who has made a wrong choice and is suffering from a wrong marital bond. Such a person has exhausted the only life-time marriage opportunity, unlike you, who still has the chance to be bonded with the appropriate person, even if the chance has been delayed.
“Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” (Habakkuk 2:3)
I Have No One: The Problem with Delayed Marriage
Dr. Niveen Adel Sadek -
Are there aspects of yourself that have been revealed to you through marriage you didn’t really think or know of before?
You have no idea. So many. There are so many things – so many passions – you don’t realize you have if you’re living on your own that marriage will bring up so that you can then realize how spiritually sick you are. This is maybe the main benefit of marriage of the many. It’s such a mirror of your soul.
—Brother Augustine -
“Marriage can also help you grow as a loving person in a way you might not have otherwise.”
—Gary Chapman, Love as a Way of Life -
Be convinced that if a man is interiorly fighting and is troubled by some impassioned thought and publishes it abroad, he gives it more strength against himself, giving it power to fight against him and trouble him more. But if he faces it squarely and contests it and stirs up contrary thoughts, as I often tell you, he weakens that passionate thought and it becomes unable to fight against him and trouble him. And fighting in this way, little by little, and with the help of God, he overcomes the passion itself.
—Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings -
33. Those who are inconstant and uninstructed should not argue with intelligent men. An intelligent man is one who conforms to God and mostly keeps silent; when he speaks he says very little, and only what is necessary and acceptable to God.
—Anthony the Great: On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life: One Hundred and Seventy Texts
Philokalia
SO GOOD QUOTES 