• Empty talk is the door to criticism and slander, the spreader of false rumours and opinions, the sower of discord and strife. It stifles the taste for mental work and practically always serves as a cover for the absence of sound knowledge. When wordy talk is over, and the fog of self-complacency lifts, it always leaves behind a sense of frustration and indolence. Is it not proof of the fact that, even involuntarily, the soul feels itself robbed?

    Unseen Warfare
    Lorenzo Scupoli

  • You will get as many opinions – if not more – from the number of people you talk to.


    —Fr. Antony Paul, Discerning God’s Will

  • “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

  • 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

  • “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

  • “Often I regret what I’ve said, but I have never regretted my silence.”

    —St. Arsenius

  • “If God is speaking explicitly, you will know.”

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • God also knows what help matches each personality. And so it’s important for you to seek God as you are, because God will respond to you as you are. He’ll always move you towards truth, but He’s not gonna be like, Well, here’s the thing, bro, you need to now take a vow of silence. But you’re like Moses, and you just want to laugh and chill with people, you’re not Arsenius. Cool, right? He does do that.

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • If your weakness is cognitive, grace can fix that.

    —Fr. Antony Paul

  • It is a grace. It is not that person’s intellect—it is God has gifted them of seeing with real sight — he graced them, he gifted them with something that doesn’t belong to them by nature.

    —Fr. Antony Paul