• “Sometimes the annoyances that make you long for solitude are better for producing humility than the most complete solitude could be.”

    —François Fénelon, The Seeking Heart

    “In constant intercourse with other people we can sooner come to see our defects than we should in solitude.” 

    —Elder Macarius of Optina

    “The thing that annoys you about others is a reflection of you.” 

    —Maria Stenvinkel, 7 Things You Need to Know to Live Your Best Life and Make a Better World

    “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” 

    —Hermann Hesse

    Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your own opinion which has irritated you.  Therefore especially try not to be carried away by the appearance.  For if you once gain time and delay, you will more easily master yourself.

    Epictetus, Enchiridion

    “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” 

    —Carl Jung

    “We often look out to other people – they’re difficult, they’re rude, they’re arrogant, they’re…I can’t deal with that person, look at how bad they are. – but turn it around, let it become a mirror. Is that, in fact, myself? Is it myself?”

    —Fr. Daniel Fanous, Dealing with Difficult People

    “When I’m quiet, everyone is happy at home. Why? Maybe I’m the one that is causing all the turmoil.” 

    —Fr. Paul Girguis

    “Some of us at work, we’re very nice.  At church, we’re loved by all.  But the people in our house cringe when the garage door opens and they know we’re coming home.”

    —Fr. Anthony Messeh

    Correct yourself of your faults and hold fast to piety. Commit your conscience, your life, and deeds unto God, Who knows our hearts. However, look upon yourself impartially. Are you not indeed difficult in your character, especially to those of your household? Perhaps you are morose, unkind, unsociable, taciturn. Expand your heart for sociability and kindness, though not to over-indulgence and connivance; be gentle, not provoking, calm in reproof.

    —St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

  • “If you are going to correct someone when you are angry, you will achieve nothing. You will only hurt both the person and yourself.”

    —Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

  • The Holy Fathers say that, unless we humble ourselves, the Lord will not stop humbling us. He will use someone in order to humble us. Someone will provoke our anger and do it until we learn to remain calm and peaceful when provoked. When we can stay calm when someone attacks us from all sides, when we can keep our inner peace in spite of that person’s rudeness, then our soul will become meek and humble and we will live this life with a full understanding of it. And our neighbors will tell us, “You have changed; you used to have a fiery temperament, but now you have somehow become calm and dispassionate.”

    —Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

  • Therefore, keep watch over yourself and be deliberate. If you notice that you are becoming irritable and intolerant, lighten your load a little. If you have the desire to look askance at others, to reproach or instruct or make remarks, you are on the wrong road: he who denies himself, has nothing with which to reproach others. If you think you are becoming “disturbed” by people or by external circumstances, you have not understood your work aright: everything that at first glance appears disturbing is really given as an opportunity to practice in tolerance, patience and obedience. The humble man cannot be disturbed, he can only disturb.

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

  • “We learned quickly, however, that freshly picked oranges were not the best for making orange juice. The best were the ones that had been set aside for a week or ten days. These were the sweetest. The sour edge is taken off with time. 

    I have found the same thing is true about what we say—the juice of our soul, you might say. I have found that it is usually better for me to say nothing at the beginning, at the moment I feel like saying something. At that moment, it is usually best not to say anything because if I say something the very moment I feel like saying it, the juice is not sweet. It’s sour. And no matter how true or right what I have to say is, all the hearer notices is the sour, bitter, angry or judgmental note hidden in my words. Even when I do not intend to communicate anything but truth and edification, a bit of the bitterness or arrogance or prejudice of my own soul slips in and somehow sours the entire message.”
    ___

    O Lord Jesus Christ, grant me the strength to keep silent in knowledge, and the grace to know when it is necessary to speak without passion.
    —St. Barsanuphius

    On Remaining Silent, Praying in the Rain
    Fr. Michael Gillis

  • A brother asked Abba Poemen: “How can a person avoid speaking ill of his neighbor?” The elder said to him: “We and our brothers are two portraits. Whenever a man regards himself and finds fault [with what he sees], his brother will be found honorable before his eyes. But when he seems fine to himself, he finds his brother inferior in his sight.

    Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers

  • …‘O Lord, have I not asked you to free me from this anger?’ And the Lord answered, ‘Yes, Philip, and for this reason I am multiplying the occasions for you to learn.’

    —Met. Anthony Bloom, Beginning To Pray

  • I realized that a huge regret I felt with my mom was the complete disregard I’d had for her time. I came to visit when I felt like it, left when it was good for me, and flaked if I couldn’t “handle” her that day.

    When a Wrong Can’t Be Righted: How to Deal With Regret

  • If you are patient, the Holy Spirit that dwells in you will be pure. He will not be darkened by any evil spirit, he will rejoice and be glad; and with the vessel in which he dwells, he will serve God in gladness, having great peace within himself. But if any outburst of anger takes place, the Holy Spirit seeks to depart because He does not have a pure place. For the Lord dwells in patience, but the devil in anger. The two spirits, then, when living in the same place, are in conflict with each other and are troublesome to the person in whom they dwell. For if an extremely small piece of wormwood is put into a jar of honey, isn’t the honey entirely destroyed? And doesn’t the extremely small piece of wormwood take away the sweetness of the honey entirely so that it no longer pleases its owner, but has become bitter and lost its use? But if the wormwood isn’t put into the honey, then the honey remains sweet and is useful to its owner. You see, then, that patience is sweeter than honey. It is useful to God, and the Lord dwells in it. But anger is bitter and useless. If anger is mixed with patience, then the patience is polluted, and its prayer becomes useless to God.

    —Hermas

  • A lot of times, we think there is a problem in my life because of this or that. We rarely think that it’s my sins that are causing a problem. 

    It’s not my coworker, it’s not my life situation, it’s not my illness, not my family situation, or anything else; it’s my sins. My sins are making me incapable of dealing with this problem in a way that a true christian would deal with it. No matter your problems, no matter whose fault it is, it’s also always your fault. That’s the way a Christian thinks.

    —Fr. Seraphim Holland