Category: KNOWLEDGE & SELF-KNOWLEDGE

  • God will teach you more than the most experienced Christians, and better than all the books that the world has ever seen. And what is your object in such an eager chase after knowledge? Are you not aware that all we need is to be poor in spirit, and to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified? Knowledge puffeth up; it is only charity that can edify. (1 Cor. viii. 1.) Be content with charity, then, alone. What! is it possible that the love of God, and the abandonment of self for his sake, is only to be reached through the acquisition of so much knowledge? You have already more than you use, and need further illuminations much less than the practice of what you already know. O how deceived we are, when we suppose we are advancing, because our vain curiosity is gratified by the enlightenment of our intellect! Be humble, and expect not the gifts of God from man.

    —François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress

  • be satisfied with thinking on your chosen subject simply and easily; suffer yourself to be led gently to the truths which affect you, and which you find to nourish your heart…Avoid likewise all refined speculation; confine yourself to simple reflections, and recur to them frequently. Those who pass too rapidly from one truth to another, feed their curiosity and restlessness; they even distract their intellect by too great a multiplicity of views.

    —François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress

  • Be content, then, to follow with simplicity, and without too many reflections, the emotions which God shall excite in view of your subject, or of any other truth. As for higher things, have no thoughts of them; there is a time for everything, and it is of the greatest importance that nothing should be precipitated.

    —François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress

  • “You have more need of mortification than of illumination”

    —François Fénelon, Spiritual Progress

  • Every wise person is intelligent, but not every intelligent person is wise.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Characteristics of the Spiritual Path

  • An intelligent person who, nonetheless, lacks the knowledge of the proper meaning of words will lack precision in his expression.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Characteristics of the Spiritual Path

  • The one who loves learning learns from everything (and everyone).

    —Pope Shenouda III, Words of Spiritual Benefit Vol. 1

  • ​​That books do not take the place of experience, and that learning is no substitute for genius, are two kindred phenomena; their common ground is that the abstract can never take the place of the perceptive.

    ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

  • “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

    ―Albert Camus

  • However great your knowledge may be, you cannot understand as long as you do not love. Love is much nobler than intellect. The logic of love is much more sublime than that of the intellect.
    …
    Human beings have more knowledge than wisdom. Their theories have become in their minds like the fog on the mountains and in the valleys; they prevent them from seeing things as they are. Their theories rob them of sight.

    —St. Charbel, Love is a Radiant Light