SO GOOD QUOTES

  • “If we don’t pray for the sick, then the sickness will develop naturally. But if we pray for them, it can change it’s natural course. Therefore, always pray for the sick.”

    —St. Paisios the Athonite

  • Pray as much as you can, not as much as you should.

    —Fr. Thomas Hopko

  • “Better a stupid and unlettered brother who, working the good things he knows, merits life in Heaven than one who though being distinguished for his learning in the Scriptures, or even holding the place of a doctor, lacks the bread of love.”

    —St. Bede the Venerable

  • “In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting—any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends, “Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.”

    ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

  • “Therefore, let us be careful of slothfulness and negligence. These are the worst demons that exist. They make you fall apart, they tear you to shreds, and you cannot even pick up a prayer rope. I am telling you this from personal experience. If one is not careful, he will reach a point where, upon seeing the prayer rope, he will wonder how he is going to take it in his hands. However, when he stands up straight and says ‘I am going to get up; I am going to stand; I will put my feet together and begin praying’. Then you will see how quickly the demons of sloth, indolence, and depression will leave”

    —Blessed Gerondissa Makrina Vassopoulou

  • A wandering mind is made stable by reading, vigil and prayer. Flaming lust is extinguished by hunger, labor, and solitude. Stirrings of anger are calmed by psalmody, magnanimity, and mercifulness. All this has its effect when used at its proper time and in due measure. Everything untimely or without proper measure is short-lived; and short-lived things are more harmful than useful.

    —Abba Evagrius the Monk

  • Preparing ourselves for our deaths is the most important task of life, at least when we believe that death is not the total dissolution of our identity but the way to its fullest revelation.

    —Henri Nouwen

  • Every time a fast comes…they [monks and saints] don’t know what it means to gratify the desires of the flesh and I don’t know what it’s like to deny the flesh. If I’m hungry, I eat. If I’m tempted, I look.

    —Fr. Paul Girguis

  • I’m so learned, but I don’t know how to live.

  • “The person that’s rejecting you is the one with the issue—the one who needs you.”

    —Edward Rizgallah