• Curiosity consists of trying to know everything without order, without aim, without distinguishing whether it is needful or not. It is only necessary that one should preserve a measure and order in exercising the senses, and direct them only to what is needful and to awareness of what is needful—then there will be no food for curiosity.

    —St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation

  • For example, if a sick man is disposed to bear his illness with a good heart and does so, the enemy knowing that he will thus become well grounded in the virtue of patience, attempts to disrupt this good disposition. For this purpose, he begins to remind him of the many good deeds he could have performed had his position been different, and tries to convince him that, had he been in good health, he would have achieved much in the service of God, bringing much profit to himself and others. He would have been able to go to church, to talk to people, to rend and to write for the instruction of his brethren, and so on. If he notices that such thoughts are accepted, the enemy introduces them into the man’s mind more and more often, multiplies and embellishes them, makes them enter the feelings and incites desires and impulses to such actions by depicting how successful these or other works would have been, and by evoking regret that the man is tied hand and foot by his illness. Little by little, after frequent repetition of such thoughts and inner movements in the soul, regret is gradually transformed into discontent and vexation. Thus the former good-hearted patience is upset and, instead of a medicine sent by God and a field for practising the virtue of patience, the illness presents itself as something hostile to the work of salvation. Thus the desire to be free of it becomes ungovernable, though still with a view to freedom to perform good deeds and to please God in every way. Having led a man thus far, the enemy robs his heart and mind of the good purpose, for which he desires to get well, and leaves only the desire of health for the sake of health, forcing him to look irritably at his illness, not as an obstacle to good but as an evil in itself. As a result impatience, not tempered by good thoughts, takes the upper hand and passes to complainings, thus depriving the sick man of the peace he enjoyed through good-hearted patience. But the enemy rejoices that he has managed to upset him. In exactly the same way, the enemy upsets a poor man who bears his lot with patience, depicting to him the good deeds he could do if he had a fortune.

    Unseen Warfare
    Lorenzo Scupoli

  • We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.

    —Blaise Pascal, Pensées

  • Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier’s servant, a cook, a porter brags, and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against it want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.

    —Blaise Pascal, Pensées

  • Misery.—The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this it the greatest of our miseries.  For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves.  Without this 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.

    —Blaise Pascal, Pensées

  • To leave off praying is the same thing as deserting one’s post. The gate stands open for the ravaging hordes, and the treasures one has gathered are plundered.

    Way of the Ascetics
    Tito Colliander

  • And so we come to realize that our support here in this life is nil. “There is no one who can understand me,” we say. The soul seeks unchangeable love, but there is no such thing here on Earth. Only the Lord can comfort us.

    —Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

  • Often the Lord allows the enemy to surprise us, and we wonder: what has happened to us? The Lord permits these things to happen in order that we might realize we are nothing and the trust we place in ourselves is nothing.  We must learn to never ascribe any merit to ourselves.

    —Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

  • “A household slave runs away from the master that beats him. But you remain with the wine that beats your head each day.”

    —St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts: St. Basil the Great, Homily Against Drunkards

  • “As health comes from the bitter medicine, so too does the salvation of souls come from bitter experiences.”

    — St. Paisios of Mount Athos, Spiritual Councils IV: Family Life 207