Category: Uncategorized

  • Poor are those who limit their thoughts to the past with all its troubles, mistakes and its sweet dreams. There would not be any time or strength left for them to do something for the future.

    They talk about the beauty of the past, the greatness of the past, either a boosting talk or a sorrowful talk. As for the present, there is nothing about it, it does not exist, the same with the future … etc. 

    The beautiful past is not going to satisfy you if the present is troublesome. Therefore, do not live on sweet memories but reach forward. Let your present always be better than your past.

    Do not remember from the past except what could make your present better and gives you a push forward in repentance or in growth.

    WORDS OF SPIRITUAL BENEFIT VOL III
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • A very important exercise to practice to attain the fear of the Lord is this: do not do in secret what you are ashamed to do before people. Do not have any thought which you cannot reveal before people. Say to yourself, “I should be ashamed from God who sees me and examines my thoughts, my intentions and the desires of my heart. 

    …

    Try, then, to be righteous before yourself as much as you are before others. Avoid any speculation which would make you embarrassed if others knew it, likewise with your deeds and emotions.

    Fear of God
    H.H. Pope Shenouda III

  • Blaise Pascal agreed; he predicted that the best way to make people truly miserable would be to take away all their diversions, whether at work or through recreation: “Without [diversions] we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.”

    Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies
    Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

  • It’s impossible for a person to have a good, peaceful relationship with God and not enjoy peace with others.

    —Matthew the Poor, Words For Our Time: The Spiritual Words of Matthew the Poor

  • “What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things.”

    —Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

  • As things are, we take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving after something–in which case distance and difficulties make our goal look as if it would satisfy us (an illusion which fades when we reach it).

    —Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

  • Take care also not to provoke laughter; for this is a slippery way toward vulgar habits, and is also adapted to diminish the respect of your neighbors.

    —Epictetus, Enchiridion

  • My soul has lost possibility. Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility. Pleasure disappoints, not possibility.

    Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
    Søren Kierkegaard

  • Health, above all, is so much more important than all external goods that, in truth, a healthy beggar is happier than a sick king. A calm and serene temperament, based on perfect health and a happy organization, a lucid, lively, penetrating and right-thinking reason, a tempered and gentle will that produces a good conscience, these are advantages that no wealth, no rank can replace.

    —Arthur Schopenhauer, ‘Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life’

    In the Presence of Schopenhauer
    Michel Houellebecq

  • From The Screwtape Letters—a fictional work written from a senior demon’s perspective, advising a junior tempter.

    When once a sort of official, legal, or nominal Unselfishness has been established as a rule-a rule for the keeping of which their emotional resources have died away and their spiritual resources have not yet grown-the most delightful results follow. In discussing any joint action, it becomes obligatory that A should argue in favour of B’s supposed wishes and against his own, while B does the oppos-ite. It is often impossible to find out either party’s real wishes; with luck, they end by doing something that neither wants, while each feels a glow of self-righteousness and harbours a secret claim to preferential treatment for the unselfishness shown and a secret grudge against the other for the ease with which the sacrifice has been accepted.

    The Screwtape Letters
    C. S. Lewis