SO GOOD QUOTES

Category: FORGIVENESS

  • The gentle person is always cheerful, and never frowns at anyone.

    His smile is sweet and loved by everyone, and his features are nice giving comfort to whoever looks at him. In his calmness he cannot rebuke or blame, nor can he act with excitedness or harshness, nor can he change the tone of his voice when rebuking someone.

    Even if mistreated, the gentle will not grumble, get bored, or complain.

    He often finds excuses for others, justifies their conduct, and thinks no evil. He never speaks about the offences against him, as if nothing has happened. He does not even feel sad within, and if he is provoked his anger will soon clear away and not turn into malice.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Fruits of the Spirit

  • Repent before the time comes when your sorrow will not make a difference. You have the opportunity now as long as you live.

    Orthodox Afterlife
    John Habib

  • How will I be able to live all my life away from sin when my heart loves it? If I repent, I will return to it!

    The false notion by which Satan instills despair into your heart is that you will live in repentance with the same heart that loves sin! No, not at all, for God “will give you a new heart” (Ez.36:26), and He will uproot the love of sin from you. Then you will never consider returning to sin, but on the contrary, God will cause you in your repentance, to hate and abhor sin. Your present feelings will change.

    Even if I repent, my thoughts will be stained with former images

    Do not fear. In repentance, God will cleanse your mind and you will attain the “renewing of your mind” of which the Apostle spoke in his epistle to the Romans (Rom. 12:2). How numerous were the bad images in the memory of Augustine and in the memory of Mary of Egypt! But the Lord wiped them away, that the mind might be sanctified by His love.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge

  • “If someone has repented once of a sin, and again does the same sin, this is a sign that he has not been cleansed of the causes of the sin, wherefrom, as from a root, the shoots spring forth again.”

    —St. Basil the Great

  • “Thorns are as much a part of a rose as the flower.”

    — Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

  • “Guilt is something that is only good if it leads you to doing something about it. Guilt is only good if it makes you turn away from whatever it is that makes you feel guilty.”

    —Bishop Angaelos

  • Abba Paphnutius, the disciple of Abba Macarius [the city-dweller], said that the elder used to say: “When I was a child, I and the other children used to pasture cattle and they went off to steal some figs. One [fig] fell as they were running along: I took it and ate it and, when I recall that, I sit weeping.”

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

  • “Why hate the person who grieved you? It is the devil, not he, who grieved you. Hate the illness, not the person who is ill.”

    —Amma Syncletica

  • “We take others to task for small mistakes, and overlook greater ones in ourselves.”

    —Thomas à Kempis

  • If your brother does not wish to live peaceably with you, nevertheless guard yourself against hatred, praying for him sincerely and not abusing him to anybody.

    —St Maximos the Confessor