• These angers are crippling, like a fit when they happen, and then, when they are over, haunting me with remorse. Those who know me well and love me have come to accept them as part of me; yet I know they are unacceptable.

    —May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

  • We complain that we require solitude, as if we should find the virtue of patience there where nobody provokes us. We say that the reason of our disturbance does not spring from our own impatience, but from the fault of our brethren. And while we lay the blame of our fault on others, we shall never be able to reach the goal of patience and perfection.

    —St. John Cassian

  • No matter how just your words may be, you ruin everything when you speak with anger.


    —St. John Chrysostom

  • One of the saints said, “Those who come closest to Christ achieve the greatest victories.” What does that mean? It means that if you’re generous, and kind, you’re giving, you might overcome anger inside your heart, you might overcome resentment, hatred, lack of forgiveness inside your heart.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • “I could have yelled, I could have screamed, I could have hit them…”

    Is this an act of mercy? I don’t understand. This is the basic — this is a thought you should reject, this  isn’t a thought you should be proud that you rejected. This is not an act of kindness offered.

    This is not an act of mercy, this is you not being able to control yourself.

    Sometimes people look at their inability to control themselves as an act of mercy—this is being cruel, this is the mind of the wicked.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • “Any spiritual struggle carried out by a quick tempered man is wasted. He’s undisciplined, out of control, unpredictable. An impassioned hot-head clouds his judgment, and robs him all sense of proportion so that he overreacts, brings ruin to the community and upon himself.“

    —St. Antony

  • “The quick-tempered man—even if he raises the dead—is not acceptable in front of God.”

    —Abba Agathon

  • Proverbs 14:16

    But a fool rages and is self-confident.

    A quick-tempered man acts foolishly,

    Quick tempered people create an environment of fear. They rage and are self-confident. This anger sometimes comes as a self-confidence, but it’s not—it’s more of a hurt and pain inside their heart.

    —Fr. Mina Dimitri

  • Every bad behavior comes from an unmet need.

    —Fr. Paul Girguis

  • “I spent whole years of my youth” I suddenly shouted, overcome by a terrible rage, “dreaming of being a thief, a murderer, a criminal, just so as not to be what you wanted me to be. And you can thank heaven I didn’t become one, for lack of opportunity. And all this because I lived with you, in this house.”

    Boredom
    Alberto Moravia