“Why hate the person who grieved you? It is the devil, not he, who grieved you. Hate the illness, not the person who is ill.”
—Amma Syncletica
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Utility measures our needs; but by what standard can you check the superfluous? It is for this reason that men sink themselves in pleasures, and they cannot do without them once they have become accustomed to them, and for this reason they are most wretched, because they have reached such a pass that what was once superfluous to them has become indispensable. And so they are the slaves of their pleasures instead of enjoying them; they even love their own ills—and that is the worst ill of all! Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits.
—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic -
“At your work, flee conversation; only speak in moderation when necessary.”
—Elder Ephraim -
There is no such thing as good or bad fortune for the individual; we live in common. And no one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility; you must live for your neighbour, if you would live for yourself.
—Seneca, Letters from a Stoic -
“Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely.”
—A.R. Asher -
In hindsight, it’s incredible how trivial some of it seems. At the time, though, it was the perfect storm. I include wording like “impossible situation,” which was reflective of my thinking at the time, not objective reality.
Tim Ferriss on How He Survived Suicidal Depression and His Tools for Warding Off the Darkness -
“If you only pray when you are inclined to, you will completely cease praying.”
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ -
Those who have not found Christ live in this life without hearty faith; they think and care more about worldly things—how to enjoy themselves, how to eat and drink pleasurably, how to dress exquisitely, how to satisfy their carnal desires, how to kill time, with which they do not know what to do, though time seeks them and, not finding them, quickly flies away before their eyes. Day flies away after day, night after night, month after month, year after year, until, finally, the last terrible hour strikes, and they hear a voice: “Stop, the course is finished; your time has been lost; your sins and iniquities have preceded you; they will fall upon you with all their power, and will crush you with their weight eternally.”
—St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
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“Above all let us be convinced that nothing can happen to us apart from the providence of God.”
—Dorotheos of Gaza
SO GOOD QUOTES 