Category: GOSSIP & SLANDER

  • When we see a person who has committed vicious sins and crimes escaping with impunity, we react with indignation. We want to see that person called to account and punished, and feel angry that this has not happened.  But at such moments we should reflect on our own actions; indeed we should turn that sense of indignation inward against ourselves.  Each of us should ask: “How many sins have I committed against others, when I have escaped with impunity?” There are, no doubt, many examples in all our cases. Recognizing this fact will cause our anger against others to melt away. More importantly, it will make us turn to God and ask forgiveness of these sins. Yet there is perhaps a difference between our own sins and the sins which we notice in others. Our own sins are probably quite subtle and inconspicuous, whereas the sins of others are obvious and gross. Should we, therefore, regard our own sins as less important or die? On the contrary, we should realize that subtle sins are frequently the most harmful. Obvious sins, such as robber and violence, are easily recognized, and so can often be guarded against by physical means. The more subtle sins, such as lying and slander and power-mongering are frequently hard to spot, and so difficult to prevent.

    On Living Simply
    St. John Chrysostom

  • At the bottom of the human heart there is an ulcer which grows with the years. It is the ulcer of resentment at being exploited by others. Nobody escapes it; it takes time for the soul to locate it and, if and when God wills, to root it out.

    Letters from the Desert
    by Carlo Carretto

  • “Three things the mind is enlightened with: doing good to those who wrong you, enduring what befalls you from your enemies, and abandoning looking at and envying those who are ahead of you in the world.“

    —Abba Arsenius
    Abba Arsenius – The Tutor of the Emperor’s Sons

  • “To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.”

    —Will Durant

  • There are some who, if they meet with any reverse, or are slandered by any one, or if they fall into any bodily malady, any pain in the foot or head, or any other disease, immediately blaspheme. In this way they endure the affliction, but are deprived of the benefit.

    On Wealth and Poverty
    St. John Chrysostom

  • Sin makes man afraid of being exposed and his sin revealed before the others. And he fears the consequences of sin: the punishment inflicted by the society or the law, and he fears God and His judgment.

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

  • Therefore, whoever uses hurting or hard words like stones cast on others is not a person of chaste tongue. The chaste tongue does not defame or expose anyone, because it is a polite and decent tongue that weighs every word before uttering it.

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

  • So many are the causes of fear, and they all come out of
    one’s own heart.

    Some fear slander from others, fear their attacks and plotting; and some fear their envy. One who believes in the envious eye and its harm will keep afraid. The cause of his fear is not the power of the envious eye, but the weakness of his heart that believes in that.

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

  • Did someone slander you? Leave it to Me; be attached to Me so that you can hide from the “contradiction of the nations.” I will make your righteousness shine like light and your life like midday noon.

    This was from Me.
    St. Seraphim of Viritsa

  • Leave all human injustices to the Lord, for God is the Judge, but as to yourself, be diligent in loving everybody with a pure heart.

    —St. John of Kronstadt