• By design, we must fully live the life that only we can live.  Every person that lives less than his or her potential is limiting all human potential because that person is not offering the world the fullness of his or her true self.

    More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity
    Jeff Shinabarger

  • “Not only do my choices and their consequences effect those around me immediately, but my choices also effect those far away and those not yet born.”

    —Fr. Michael Gillis

    “Your lives in your homes are a responsibility, and have a deep effect in the generations coming after you.”

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III

    “The life of each one of us does not end at death on this earth and birth into heaven. We place a seal on everyone we meet. This responsibility continues after death, and the living are related to the dead for whom they pray. In the dead we no longer belong completely to the world; in us the dead still belong to history. Prayer for the dead is vital; it expresses the totality of our common life.”

    —Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

    Every human being is an incalculable force, bearing within him something of the future. To the end of time, our daily words and actions will bear fruit, either good or bad; nothing that we have once given of ourselves will perish, but our words and works, handed on from one to another, will continue to do good or harm to remote generations. This is why life is a sacred thing, and we ought not to pass through it thoughtlessly, but to appreciate its value and use it so that, when we are gone, the sum total of good in the world may be greater.

    —Servant of God Elisabeth Leseur

  • “Thorns are as much a part of a rose as the flower.”

    — Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

  • Just as people do not enter a war in order to enjoy war, but in order to be saved from war, so we do not enter this world in order to enjoy this world, but in order to be saved from it. People go to war for the sake of something greater than war. So we also enter this temporal life for the sake of something greater: for eternal life. And as soldiers think with joy about returning home, so also Christians constantly remember the end of their lives and their return to their heavenly fatherland.

    —St. Nicholas of Serbia, Thoughts on Good and Evil

  • “If you want to do something but cannot, then before God, who knows our hearts, it is as if we have done it. This is true whether the intended action is good or bad.”

    —St. Mark the Ascetic

  • This is a bit of a somber exercise, but it’s very powerful:

    When you are with your spouse, significant other, best friend or a close relative, picture the moment, in all its mundane detail, as if you’re looking back on it from a point in life where that person is no longer around. No need to imagine any upsetting explanations for their absence; the part of your life that includes that special person is just over, and you are happy to have been with them while your lives overlapped.

    Observe them as if you’ve been shipped back from the future, to see them once again on an ordinary day, with absolutely no reason to take it for granted.

    You will probably feel a heavy sensation of gratitude, and you’ll find it difficult not to pay attention to the things that were said today.

    Things We Said Today
    David Cain

  • “When you see that you’re making no progress in your spiritual life, don’t despair. But neither should you be content with whatever progress you may have already made.”

    —Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Mount Athos

  • Honest people don’t feel the need to convince you of their honesty.

    7 Ways to Spot a Lie

  • “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”

    — Dorothy Day

  • Too often we emulate someone without realizing we don’t actually want to be like them. We look up to the person with the high-paying job, the prestigious career, or the material possessions for which we yearn, and we believe we want what they have—all the while not realizing how unhappy many of those people actually are.

    Instead of emulating someone because of their accomplishments, then, it seems more prudent to emulate them for who they are: to learn from the person, not their facade of so-called achievements. There’s nothing wrong with earning a shedload of money—it’s just that the money doesn’t matter if you’re not happy with who you’ve become in the process.

    Who to Emulate?
    By Joshua Fields Millburn