Category: BEST OF

  • “For I have often seen people who had offended God and were not in the least perturbed about it. And I have seen how those same people provoked their friends in some trifling matter and then employed every artifice, every device, every sacrifice, every apology, both personally and through friends and relatives, not sparing gifts, in order to regain their former love.”

    — St. John Climacus

  • “Sometimes what serves as a medicine for one is poison for another; and sometimes something given to one and the same person at a suitable time serves as a medicine, but at the wrong time it is a poison.”

    —St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  • “We have very little faith in the Lord, very little trust. If we trusted the Lord as much as we trust a friend when we ask him to do something for us, neither we as individuals nor our whole country would suffer so much.”

    — Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

  • “Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.”

    —Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You

  • There was this that set him above many [others]: if he were asked about a phrase in Scripture or some spiritual matter, he did not answer immediately, but would say he did not know the answer.  And if he were pressed further, he would not give an answer.

    —Abba Pambo

    Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers

  • Do not easily speak or receive things in confidence. Do you think that someone else will understand better than Jesus?

    —A Carthusian

  • Therefore, do not let yourself be troubled by what’s happening. And stop beseeching this or that person for help, and running after shadows—for this is what human assistance amounts to—and instead, ceaselessly beseech God, whom you serve, simply to give a nod; and in one moment of time everything is brought into proper order. But if, in beseeching him for help, this does not come about quickly, this is how He often works—not crushing the evils immediately, but when they come to a head, when they increase, when there remains almost nothing that has not been ravaged by the evils of the enemies, then all at once he changes everything to tranquillity, and leads things to an unexpected stability. For He is able to accomplish not only what we expect and hope for, but what is much more, and what is infinitely greater. Therefore Paul says, “to the One who is able to do more than everything, even exceedingly more than we can ask or think.”

    —Saint John Chrysostom, Letters to Saint Olympia

  • “If you want spiritual health, listen to your conscience, do all it tells you, and you will benefit.”

    —St. Mark the Ascetic

  • Do not do anything that your conscience prohibits, and do not omit anything that it says to do, whether great or small.

    —St. Theophan the Recluse

  • We have no need or right to run hither and thither to ask our friends what we ought to do…Every one says we must do something; and indeed things seem to have reached so desperate a pitch that we must…It is not easy at such times to stand still…but we must.

    The Gift of Suffering
    by F.B. Meyers