Category: TEMPTATION & LUST & VIRGINITY

  • “A small fire often destroys a whole forest; so too a small flaw spoils all our labour.”

    —St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent

  • “For if a man does not first sin in his mind, he will never sin in action.”

    —St. Maximos the Confessor

  • “He who hates the passions gets rid of their causes. But he who is attracted by their causes is attacked by the passions even though he does not wish it.”

    —St. Mark the Ascetic

  • “Do not say: ‘I don’t want it, but it happens.’ For even though you may not want the thing itself, yet you welcome what causes it.”

    —St. Mark the Ascetic

  • You will lose nothing of what you have renounced for the Lord’s sake. For in its own time it will return to you greatly multiplied.

    —St. Mark the Ascetic

  • “The pleasure is fleeting, while the pain is lasting.”

    —St. John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty

  • Hold fast to your purpose and do not look back. We have been given a warning example in Lot’s wife, who was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back [Genesis 19:26]. You have cast off your old humanity; let the rags lie.

    Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
    Tito Colliander

  • The degree of victory over self is of trifling importance. It consisted perhaps in our skipping our morning cigarette, or only in such an apparently unimportant thing as not turning our head or refraining from meeting a glance. The externally noticeable happening is not the decisive one. The little thing can be big, and the big, little.

    Way of the Ascetics: The Ancient Tradition of Discipline and Inner Growth
    Tito Colliander

  • Don’t struggle directly with temptation, don’t pray for it to go away, don’t say, ‘Take it from me, O God!’ Then you are acknowledging the strength of the temptation and it takes hold of you. Because, although you are saying ‘Take it from me, O God’, basically you are bringing it to mind and fomenting it even more. Your desire to be free of the passion will, of course, be there, but it will exist in a hidden and discrete way, without appearing outwardly.

    —St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, Wounded by Love

  • Without temptations, no one can be saved.

    —Isaac the Syrian