Category: CONTENTMENT

  • Besides, with love one can live even without happiness.

    Notes from the Underground
    Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  • “Beware of passionate attachments to the world. Although they deceive you with peace and comfort, they are so fleeting that you do not notice how you are deprived of them, and in their place come sorrow, longing, despondency, and no comfort whatsoever.”

    —St. Leonid of Optina

  • “Be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again.”

    —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

  • Stop pleasing yourself and you will not hate your brother; stop loving yourself and you will love God.”

    —St. Maximos the Confessor

  • “As often as you find your way to be peaceful, without variations, be suspicious. For you are deviating from the divine ways trodden by the weary footsteps of the saints. The more you proceed on the way towards the city of the kingdom and approach its neighborhood, this will be the sign: you will meet hard temptations. And the nearer you approach, the more difficulties you will find.”

    —St. Isaac of Syria

  • If the path toward heavenly bliss seems difficult, compare it with the path toward earthly happiness, and you will see that the path toward earthly happiness is not really easier at all. Just observe how much people toil to amass earthly things, how many disappointments, fights, sleepless nights and deprivations they bear. Or remind yourself of how much effort and expenses it takes to achieve some meaningless and fleeting pleasure! And for what? Instead of the expected happiness, you are left with disappointment and weariness. When you carefully examine the heart of the matter, it becomes evident that people stay away from the Heavenly Kingdom not because the path to it is more difficult than the other paths of this world, but because it appears that way to them.

    —St. Innocent of Alaska, The Way Into the Kingdom of Heaven

  • “If we always see God in our minds, and always remember Him, everything appears tolerable to us.”

    —St John Chrysostom

  • “When you see that you’re making no progress in your spiritual life, don’t despair. But neither should you be content with whatever progress you may have already made.”

    —Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Mount Athos

  • In my life, wherever I was, I accepted everything as the Will of God and lived as if I were to stay in that place forever. This is the only way God wants us to be. Never a thought about the future. The future is His! The whole earth is but a waiting room for Eternity. Are we doing what we should at every moment of our life? Do we love according to the Commandments of God? Do we follow the example of Christ? …We must think always, “How would I behave if Christ were here, visible, near us, everywhere and at all times?” This should be the way of our life… Do not think about tomorrow, for “the morrow will take care of itself.” He Who has freed you from bondage will – if you believe – guide you, like Moses, to the Promised Land… Have no fear… If you have faith, follow the Good Shepherd and everything will be joy, peace, tranquility, and love for everyone and everything.

    —Mother Gavrilia (The Ascetic of Love)

  • “Every blessing comes from the Lord providentially. But this fact escapes the notice of the ungrateful and the idle.”

    —St. Mark the Ascetic