SO GOOD QUOTES

  • But in order to pronounce a book bad it is not enough to discover that it elicits no good response from ourselves, for that might be our fault.

    —C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

    There is an unconscious antagonism in us to anything that threatens our ingrained prejudices, and challenges us to grow. Because we are reluctant to admit our intolerance of a different viewpoint, we project the problem onto the text and proclaim, “This is a hard saying and who can bear with it?” We blame the text for our unwillingness to receive.

    —Fr. Michael Casey, OCSO

    “There is no book so bad…that it does not have something good in it.”

    —Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

  • The litmus test of true love for God is our love for our neighbor.

    —Archbishop Averky (Taushev)

  • “In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”

    Elwood P. Dowd | Harvey (film)

  • Nevertheless, true fidelity towards a person may on occasion impose on us the duty to withdraw altogether from contact with him. In the case where he would constitute a threat to our fidelity to God, and when we on the other hand feel powerless to help him, our breaking off relations with him is still consistent with our true fidelity towards him: it is destined to promote his spiritual good as well as our own, and is therefore involved in our very love for him so far as love in a higher and ultimate sense implies, above all, responsibility.

    Transformation in Christ
    Dietrich von Hildebrand

  • Every thought which brings despair and excessive grief is from the devil, and you should reject it immediately, for it will cut the thread of prayer.

    —Elder Ephraim of Arizona

  • Do not do anything without signing yourself with the sign of the Cross! When you depart on a journey, when you begin your work, when you go to study, when you are alone, and when you are with other people, seal yourself with the Holy Cross.” 

    —Elder Cleopa of Sihastria

  • You lash out at other people for enjoying indulgences that you will never let yourself enjoy.

    —Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly: ‘I’ve Lost My Joy and I Want It Back!’

  • Humility is acquired after struggles. When you know yourself you acquire humility, which becomes a (permanent) condition. Otherwise you can become humble for a moment, but your thought will say to you that you are something, although in reality you’re nothing; and you’ll be deluded like that to the moment of death. If death finds you with the thought that you are nothing, then God will speak. If, however, your thought says at the hour of death that you are something and you don’t understand it, all your effort goes to waste.

    —St Paisios of Mount Athos

  • Learning about other people’s routines has less to do with what we should be doing, and more to do with informing us about what does or doesn’t work for us.

    —Madeleine Dore

  • Some people ask if help is needed. And others just help. The former act as good people, and the latter are likened to Christ.

    —Monk Simeon of Mt. Athos