“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”
—St. Augustine
Category: KNOWLEDGE
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Let books be your dining table,
And you shall be full of delights.
Let them be your mattress,
And you shall sleep restful nights.
—St. Ephrem the Syrian -
“If you are an ardent reader, seek not brilliant and erudite texts; otherwise the demon of haughtiness will strike your heart. But like a wise bee that gathers honey from flowers, so also through your reading obtain healing for your soul.”
—St. Ephrem the Syrian -
“I don’t know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn’t make you happy.”
Franny and Zooey
J.D. Salinger -
“Martha Graham once said, that each of us is unique and if we didn’t exist, something in the world would have been lost. I wonder, then, why we are so quick to conform—and what the world has lost because we have.”
—Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy -
But like our tribal ancestors, modern society needs wildcards and weirdos too. Humanity needs some source of innovation in order to take a gamble just as much as we need the stability that runs our everyday lives.
Maybe the hypersensitive anxiety that gives panic attacks to the girl at your office is the same hypersensitive anxiety that will inspire her to write a brilliant novel or poem.
Maybe the psychopathic asshole CEO of your company is good at making business decisions precisely because he’s a psychopathic asshole. He only sees the numbers, not people. And strangely, you all benefit financially from his lack of empathy.
Maybe that autistic kid in your calc class will go on to produce major advances in quantum physics and win a Nobel prize one day. So stop stealing his lunch money, asshole.
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“God saves one man through spiritual knowledge and another through guilelessness and simplicity. You should bear in mind that God will not reject the simple.”
—St. John of Karpathos -
The parable about the talents offers the thought that life is a time for trading.
That means that it is necessary to hasten to use this time as a person would hurry to a market to bargain for what he can. Even if one has only brought bast shoes, or only bast, (very inexpensive, unsophisticated items) he does not sit with his arms folded, but contrives to call over buyers to sell what he has and then buy for himself what he needs.
No one who has received life from the Lord can say that he does not have a single talent—everyone has something, and not just one thing; everyone, therefore, has something with which to trade and make a profit.
Do not look around and calculate what others have received, but take a good look at yourself and determine more precisely what lies in you and what you can gain for that which you have, and then act according to this plan without laziness.
At the Judgment you will not be asked why you did not gain ten talents if you had only one, and you will not even be asked why you gained only one talent on your one, but you will be told that you gained a talent, half a talent or a tenth of its worth.
And the reward will not be because you received the talents, but because you gained.
There will be nothing with which to justify yourself—not with nobleness, nor poverty, nor lack of education. When this is not given, there will be no question about it.
But you had hands and feet. You will be asked, what did you gain with them?
You had a tongue, what did you gain with it?
In this way will the inequalities of earthly states be leveled out at God’s judgment.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, Thoughts for Each Day of the Year: According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God -
“When there is no human being that can bring us comfort, then God comes and brings us joy through a book.”
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“When we demand respect and attention from others, they usually turn their backs on us; but when we give no thought to the respect of others and care nothing about it, then people flock around us and follow us.”
—Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica
SO GOOD QUOTES 