“A horse when alone often imagines that it is galloping, but when it is with others it finds out how slow it is.”
—St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Category: JUDGMENT
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Offer to those who visit you what is necessary both for the body and for the spirit. If they are wiser than we are, let us show our philosophy by silence. And if they are brethren following the same way of life, let us open the door of speech to them in due measure. Yet it is better to regard all as superior to us.
—St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent -
If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him. For you are worse than he thinks you to be.
— Charles Spurgeon -
Never allow yourself boldly to judge your neighbour; judge and condemn no one, especially for the particular bodily sin of which we are speaking. If someone has manifestly fallen into it, rather have compassion and pity for him. Do not be indignant with him or laugh at him, but let his example be a lesson in humility to you; realising that you too are extremely weak and as easily moved to sin as dust on the road, say to yourself: ‘He fell today, but tomorrow I shall fall.’
—Lorenzo Scupoli, Unseen Warfare
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“Never condemn each other. We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves. When we gaze at our own failings, we see such a swamp that nothing in another can equal it. That is why we turn away, and make much of the faults of others. Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgement. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil.”
—St. Seraphim of Sarov -
“Remember the one who has ridiculed you, who has grieved you, who has wronged you, who has done evil to you, as your physician, your healer. Christ sent him to heal you; don’t remember him with anger.”
— Abba Zossima -
Love every man as yourself—that is, do not wish him anything that you would not wish for yourself; think, feel for him just as you would think and feel for your own self; do not wish to see in him anything that you do not wish to see in yourself; do not let your memory keep in it any evil caused to you by others, in the same way as you would wish that the evil done by yourself should be forgotten by others; do not intentionally imagine either in yourself or in another anything guilty or impure; believe others to be as well-intentioned as yourself, in general, if you do not see clearly that they are evilly disposed; do unto them as you would to yourself, or even do not do unto them as you would not do unto yourself, and then you will see what you will obtain in your heart—what peace, what blessedness!
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ -
“If poor judgment is harmful to everyone, it is particularly so to those who live with great strictness.”
—St. Mark the Ascetic
SO GOOD QUOTES 