• “Love can’t be earned, it can only be given.”

    —Donald Miller

  • “Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward and learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.”

    —St. John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty

  • Silence and conversation

    Question. There are certain conversations that are indifferent, bearing neither sin nor profit. These may include conversations with someone about, say, the prosperity of cities or their turmoil or peace, or about wars that are going to break out, or other such matters. Is it inappropriate to speak about these matters, as well?

    Response by John
    If silence is more necessary even during conversations about good matters, how much more so in matters that are indifferent? However, if we cannot keep silent, being overcome by conversing with others, let us at least not prolong the conversation in order not to fall into the snare of the enemy through chattering too much.

    Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses
    Barsanuphius & John

  • “The path to God is a daily cross. No one has ascended to heaven by way of ease—we know where the easy way leads.”

    —St. Isaac the Syrian

  • “If when praying no other joy can attract you, then truly you have found prayer.”

    —Evagrius Ponticus

  • For many it would mean great renunciation and discipline to give up these sources of noise: but they know that is what they need. Afraid to do it because their neighbors would think they were bats.

    —Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas

    The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
    Cardinal Robert Sarah

  • In the noise of everyday life there is always a certain agitation that is stirred up in man. Noise is never serene, and it is not conducive to understanding another person. How right Pascal was when he wrote in his Pensées: “All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”

    The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise
    Cardinal Robert Sarah

  • “You ask about eternal life, yet show yourself completely bound to the enjoyment of this present life.”

    —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

  • You will lose nothing of what you have renounced for the Lord’s sake. For in its own time it will return to you greatly multiplied.

    —St. Mark the Ascetic

  • Let not we who are reasonable show ourselves to be more savage than the unreasoning animals. For even the animals use in common the plants that grow naturally from the earth. Flocks of sheep graze together upon the same hillside, herds of horses feed upon the same plain, and all living creatures permit each other to satisfy their need for food. But we hoard what is common, and keep for ourselves what belongs to many others.

    —St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice