“Yes, I have shattered your projects, I have annihilated your pride. Nobody needs you, you live without self-contentment, you are before me like a lamp which shines for the satisfaction of nobody, – you are ‘without any purpose.’ But you are my love and my glory, I placed my delight in you, you are the portion reserved to me, so well preserved that you are wanted by nobody else, and that you do not even think of being useful, you are my purest reflection because you have become the saints you did not want to become.”
(L. Evely)
Category: PRIDE
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For to drink wine with reason is better than to drink water with pride. And, please, look on those who drink wine with reason as holy men and those who drink water without reason as profane men, and no longer blame or praise the material, but count happy or wretched the minds of those who use the material well or ill.
—Palladius, The Lausiac History -
If you fall under discipline, know for sure that this is a great profit, for God chastises the soul that has forgotten its weakness and has been puffed up by its talents and success. This is carried on until it realizes its weakness, especially when God does not provide in tribulation a way of escape. He besieges the soul from all sides and embitters it with inward and outward humiliation, whether by sin or by scandal, until it abhors itself, curses its own intelligence, and disowns its counsel. Finally, it surrenders itself to God, feeling crushed and lowly. At such a time, it becomes easy for man to hate himself. He even wishes it to be hated by everybody. This is the way of true humility. It leads to total surrender to divine plan. It ends up with freeing one’s soul from the tyranny of the ego, with its deception, its stubbornness, and its vanity.
—Matthew the Poor, Orthodox Prayer Life -
64. A virtuous way of life and gratitude towards God are fruits of man that are pleasing to God. The fruits of the earth are not brought to perfection immediately, but by time, rain and care; similarly, the fruits of men ripen through ascetic practice, study, time, perseverance, self-control and patience. And if, because of all you do, anyone should ever think that you are a devout man, distrust yourself so long as you are in the body, and think that nothing about you is pleasing to God. For you must know that it is not easy for anyone to keep himself sinless until the end.
—St Anthony the Great
On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life
One Hundred and Seventy Texts -
Vainglory and pride are very like each other. But vainglory incites us to show off our piety or intelligence and to put much store by the opinion others hold of us; it makes us love praise and go out of our way to get it, and fills us with false shame; whereas pride is chiefly manifested through anger and embarrassment, through the despising, condemnation, and humiliation of others, and through holding oneself-one’s own actions and achievements-in high esteem. Pride has made great men-men spiritually great-fall very low. All human misfortunes and all un-Christian actions spring from pride; all good comes from humility.
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One of the most famous sidetracks is pride. Having overcome an over-eating problem or a drinking problem or an addiction or bad habit of one sort or another, instead of being humbly thankful for one’s new life, the reformed person becomes puffed up at his or her success. In such cases, the person may be worse off than before, from a spiritual perspective. And this pride can take on a whole range of hues and tones so that it does not appear as pride, so that it seems to be nothing more than so-called self-esteam or a new passion to be better and better at fitness, or healthy eating or even preaching the evils of self indulgence. Pride hides behind many masks.
—Fr. Michael Gillis, A Small Affliction Born For God’s Sake -
On the spirit of Pride
CHAPTER XIII: The teaching of the elders on the method of acquiring purity. WHEREFORE it is now time to produce, in the very words in which they hand it down, the opinion of the Fathers; viz., of those who have not painted the way of perfection and its character in high-sounding words, but rather, possessing it in deed and truth, and in the virtue of their spirit, have passed it on by their own experience and sure example. And so they say that no one can be altogether cleansed from carnal sins, unless he has realized that all his labours and efforts are insufficient for so great and perfect an end; and unless, taught, not by the system handed down to him, but by his feelings and virtues and his own experience, he recognizes that it can only be gained by the mercy and assistance of God. For in order to acquire such splendid and lofty prizes of purity and perfection, however great may be the efforts of fastings and vigils and readings and solitude and retirement applied to it, they will not be sufficient to secure it by the merits of the actual efforts and toil For a man’s own efforts and human exertions will never make up for the lack of the divine gift, unless it is granted by divine compassion in answer to his prayer.
—St. John Cassian, Institutes
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So those who wish to live virtuously should not hanker after praise, be involved with too many people, keep going out, or abuse others (however much they deserve it), or talk excessively, even if they can speak well on every subject.
—St. Diadochus -
[There] is a disease of today’s Orthodox Christians which can be deadly: the “correctness disease.” If you are critical of others, self-confident about your correctness, eager to quote canons to prove someone else is wrong, constantly “knowing better” than others – you have the germs of the “correctness disease.” These are signs of immaturity in spiritual life.
—Father Seraphim Rose
SO GOOD QUOTES 