Category: Uncategorized

  • The most frustrated people are those who feel their lives can only improve when others put forth the necessary effort to make things better.

    Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely
    Lysa TerKeurst

  • Attend, and let us learn what corporeal and what spiritual beauty are. There is soul and body: they are two substances. There is a beauty of body, and there is a beauty of soul. What is beauty of body? An extended eyebrow, a merry glance, a blushing cheek, ruddy lips, a straight neck, long wavy hair, tapering fingers, upright stature, a fair blooming complexion. Does this bodily beauty come from nature or from choice? Confessedly it comes from nature. Attend that you may learn the conception of philosophers. This beauty whether of the countenance, of the eye, of the hair, of the brow, does it come from nature or from choice? It is obvious that it comes from nature. For the ungraceful woman, even if she cultivate beauty in countless ways, cannot become graceful in body, for natural conditions are fixed and confined by limits which they cannot pass over. Therefore the beautiful woman is always beautiful, even if she has no taste for beauty, and the ungraceful cannot make herself graceful, nor the graceful ungraceful. Wherefore? Because these things come from nature.

    Well! You have seen corporeal beauty. Now let us turn inwards to the soul: let the handmaid approach the mistress! Let us turn, I say, to the soul. Look upon that beauty, or rather listen to it, for you cannot see it since it is invisible. Listen to that beauty. What then is beauty of soul? Temperance, mild-ness, almsgiving, love, brotherly kindness, tender affection, obedience to God, the fulfillment of the law, righteousness, contrition of heart. These things are the beauty of the soul. These things then are not the results of nature, but of moral disposition. And he who does not possess these things is able to receive them, and he who has them, if he becomes careless, loses them. For as in the case of the body I was saying that she who is ungraceful cannot become graceful; so in the case of the soul I say the contrary: that the graceless soul can become full of grace. For what was more graceless than the soul of Paul when he was a blasphemer and insulter; what was more full of grace when he said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 47)? What was more graceless than the soul of the thief? What was more full of grace when he heard the words, “Verily I say unto you today shall you be with me in paradise (Lk. 23:43? What was more graceless than the publican when he practiced extortion? But what was more full of grace when he declared his resolution? (Lk. 19:8). Do you see that you cannot alter grace of body, for it is the result not of moral disposition, but of nature. But grace of soul is supplied out of our own moral choice. 

    You have now received the definition. Of what kind are they? That the beauty of the soul proceeds from obedience to God. For if the graceless soul obeys God it puts off its un-gracefulness and becomes full of grace. “Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute Me? and he replied, And who are You Lord? I am Jesus” (Acts 9:4-5). And he obeyed, and his obedience made the graceless soul full of grace. Again, He says to the publican, “Come follow Me (Matt. 9:9), and the publican rose up and became an apostle, and the graceless soul became full of grace. Whence? By obedience. Again He says to the fishermen, “Come ye after Me and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19), and by their obedience their minds became full of grace.

    Saint John Chrysostom
    HOMILY TWO, After Eutropios, having been found outside the church, was taken captive
    On the Vanity of Riches

  • “And what concern is that to us?” you say. The greatest possible concern if you pay no attention to your brethren, if you do not exhort and advise, if you put no constraint on them, and do not forcibly drag them hither and lead them away out of their deep indolence. For that one ought not to be useful to himself alone, but also to many others, Christ declared plainly when He called us salt and leaven and light: for these things are useful and profitable to others.

    For a lamp does not shine for itself, but for those who are sitting in darkness: and you are a lamp not that you may enjoy the light by yourself, but that you may bring back yonder man who has gone astray. For what profit is a lamp if it does not give light to him who sits in darkness? And what profit is a Christian when he benefits no one, neither leads anyone back to virtue?

    Saint John Chrysostom
    If Thine Enemy Hunger, Feed Him
    Homilies on Profitable Subjects

  • In his heart, he knows those of whom it was said that they were “light.” The righteous person is light, of whom the Lord said: “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5.14). If such a person is in any place, darkness disappears because of his light. It is as if a lamp were placed in a dark place, so that darkness is dispersed and the place becomes luminous. The same thing happens with the presence of the righteous in any place they stay; light spread and darkness disappears.

    Similarly, with the saints, because of their spiritual reverence, darkness can find no opportunity for itself in their presence. Sinners are embarrassed to be around them on account of their dignity and holiness. No one dares in their presence to act in a degrading way, or say a bad word, but rather he is ashamed of himself and his conduct. The people present feel that a spiritual atmosphere has prevailed in that place as a result of the presence of one of these righteous people. If there was a sinful talk before their entrance, it stops, and everyone is quiet and the darkness disappears when they enter. No one can sin in their presence.

    Are you the same? Have you become light after your repentance? Have you become even a small candle, giving dim light but in any case dispersing darkness? If you have not become such a light, then be very cautious of darkness. Remember at all times the saying of the Lord: “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning” (Luke 12.35).

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity

  • “A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

    —Roald Dahl

  • The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

    —René Descartes

  • You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me.

    —Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

  • I have been so many different people, played so many different roles in my life…I was people I hated and people I admired.

    —Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

  • “Look for what you notice but no one else sees.”

    —Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

  • I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel.

    Walden
    by Henry David Thoreau