“Adultery is always a matter of choice; no amount of lust, and no passion of love, can overwhelm a person’s capacity to choose between fidelity and betrayal.”
On Living Simply
St. John Chrysostom
Category: TEMPTATION & LUST & VIRGINITY
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My child, it often happens that a man seeks ardently after something he desires and then when he has attained it he begins to think that it is not at all desirable; for affections do not remain fixed on the same thing, but rather flit from one to another. It is no very small matter, therefore, for a man to forsake himself even in things that are very small.
A man’s true progress consists in denying himself, and the man who has denied himself is truly free and secure.
—Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ -
You were more of an imperfect escape from reality due to the asymmetry in our feelings for each other.
Bimbo Ubermensch
The Ocean -
It’s the terror young men feel towards attractive women, who are nature itself, ever ready to reject them, intimately, at the deepest possible level. Nothing inspires self-consciousness, undermines courage, and fosters feelings of nihilism and hatred more than that.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Jordan B. Peterson -
The dangerous thing is when the feelings of sin are aroused in a person, like lust, envy, or other feelings, so he tries to ignore their existence, and thinks that if these feelings were truly present, they would defile him. There is a difference, however, between a person who admits the existence of these feelings and then deals with them to make them godly feelings, and [a person who] ignores and suppresses them. When a person deals with these feelings and reveals them to the light of Christ, he is sanctified. But if he ignores and denies their existence, they will remain buried within him, and they may come out violently at some point in time, thereby causing devastation in his life.
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Develop Your Personality
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Likewise, the devil may approach an adolescent young man, and entice him into satisfying his flesh by way of sensual pleasure, but the Lord says to him, “Wait until you are in a godly relationship through the Mystery of Matrimony. Then you will find perfect satisfaction.”
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Develop Your Personality
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It was no secret that Kafka felt great embarassment and disgust in regards to the human body because to him it was a reminder of the passing of time and of its horrifying effects on man, it was a reminder of the clock ticking away which made him feel powerless. He most likely was overpowered by this awareness that engaging in the act was just a mere distraction from the passing of time. Franz Kafka had this longing for perfection, personal fulfillment and greatness so it was pretty obvious that, since he felt like he could never accomplish anything in his lifetime, he saw death as the definitive deadline to the point where he even asked that his literary production would be burned after his death.
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I know you are so focused on how attractive Hermione looks and your heart is in a flurry of excitement, but if you really think about what you are attracted to—a physical body that is just full of fluid, food, bile, spit, and other such things—you would hopefully realize what you admire is far less beautiful than one’s soul.
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, ON REPENTANCE & DEFEATING DESPAIR
Letters to Theodore -
the power which, in our disordered, fallen nature, draws us towards sin, is not entirely exterminated in baptism, but it is only placed in a condition in which it has no power over us, no dominion over us, and we do not serve it. But it is still in us, it lives and acts, only not as a lord. The primacy from now on belongs to the grace of God and to the soul that consciously gives itself over to it.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, Raising Them Right: A Saint’s Advice on Raising Children p.21
SO GOOD QUOTES 