“We should never talk aloud or at length with others about something we really want to happen or to achieve. Satan overhears and puts obstacles in the way. Only God knows your secret thoughts; the evil one knows only what we tell him.”
—Hieromonk Chrysostomos Stavronikitianos
Whatever you say out loud, the devil is listening. It’s not just God that hears you, the devil hears you too—he’s got demons everywhere. So when he hears that you like something, he will mimic it and do it as well to either push you towards something wrong, or to push you in all directions just to make you so confused, so tired and exhausted, that you give up in despair.
—Fr. Antony Paul, Discerning God’s Will
Category: SILENCE
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To You, O Lord, do I complain, and only You are able to console and strengthen me as You save me. You alone! As the saying goes, complaints to anyone other than God are humiliation. When I speak with You, I find comfort. I find comfort within me, reassured of Your work and intervention. I also find external comfort, as a result of Your work for me. You are the compassionate bosom on which I recline, and ask “Why?”, or, “How can this happen?” “O Lord, those who afflict me have multiplied.” Certainly, O Lord, You are not one of them, because You are my consolation and salvation.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Dialogue with the Divine
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“Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.”
— Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
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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 -
If some are still dominated by their former bad habits, and yet can teach by mere word, let them teach. But they should not have authority as well. For, perhaps, being put to shame by their own words, they will eventually begin to practise what they preach. And even if they do not begin, yet they may be able to help, as I saw happen with others who were stuck in the mud. Bogged down as they were, they were telling the passers-by how they had sunk there, explaining this for their salvation, so that they should not fall in the same way. However, for the salvation of others, the all-powerful God delivered them too from the mud. But if those who are possessed by passions voluntarily plunge into pleasures, let them teach by silence; for Jesus began both to do and to teach.
—St. John Climacus,The Ladder of Divine Ascent -
I’ve noticed that you always want to drop one thing to hurry on to the next. Yet each task takes you far too much time to finish because you dissect everything far too much. You are not slow—just long-winded. You want to say everything that has the slightest connection to the subject at hand. This always takes too long and causes you to rush from one thing to another.
Try to be brief. Learn to get to the heart of the matter and disregard the nonessential. Don’t spend all your time musing! What you really need to do is sit quietly before God and your active argumentative mind would soon be calmed. God can teach you to look at each matter with a simple, clear view. You could say what you mean in two words! And as you think and speak less, you will be less excitable and distracted. Otherwise, you will wear yourself out, and external thing will overpower your inward life as well as your health.
Cut all this activity short! Silence yourself inwardly. Come back to your Lord often. You will get more accomplished this way. It is more important to listen to God than to your own thoughts.
—François Fénelon, The Seeking Heart -
A person who knows little likes to talk, and one who knows much mostly keeps silent. This is because a person who knows little thinks that everything he knows is important, and wants to tell everyone. A person who knows much also knows that there is much more he doesn’t know. That’s why he speaks only when it is necessary to speak, and when he is not asked questions, he keeps his silence.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
we want to keep ourselves from putting blame for our misfortune on anybody else, no matter how obviously it may appear to be the fault of another person. Misfortune is meant to give us a bigger purpose than looking for someone to blame. It is to draw our attention to God and our need for God to bring us to repentance.
—Dee Pennock, God’s Path to Sanity
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“Could I too choose to make the pain stop by staying busy? Eventually, the action was over and everyone had to go home. There is always a point when the doing ends, and then we are faced with the deafening and horrendous silence that is our thoughts.”
—Joe Watson Jr., The End of Despair
SO GOOD QUOTES 