“Throw out of your head the idea that you can, through a comfortable life, become what you must be in Christ.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“Orthodox asceticism is not just for the Monasteries, but also for the world.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“Don’t consider as Martyrs only those who were beheaded because they didn’t renounce Christ. There are others too, who don’t renounce virtue or patience. The former were Martyred once, the second are Martyred constantly. ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered’ (Rom. 8:36). These are the bloodless Martyrs, Martyrs by their own will. The unseen Martyrs, yet visible to God.”
Saint Ephraim of Katounakia
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“Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14), Why did he say ‘strive’? Because it is not possible for us to become Holy and to be Saints in an hour! We must therefore progress from modest beginnings toward Holiness and purity. Even were we to spend a thousand years in this life we should never perfectly attain it. Rather we must always struggle for it every day, as if mere beginners.”
Saint Symeon the New Theologian
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“Call upon God to open the eyes of your heart, so that you may see the value of Prayer and of Spiritual reading when understood and applied.”
Saint Mark the Ascetic
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“I am crucified unto the world; and the world with its pleasures is crucified unto me.”
Saint Ephrem the Syrian
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“Whatever you do, do it gently and unhurriedly, because Virtue is not a pear to be eaten in one bite.”
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
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“Just as the blessings of God are unutterably great, so their acquisition requires much hardship and toil undertaken with hope and faith.”
Saint Makarios the Great of Egypt
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“When we speak about Asceticism in the Orthodox Church we do not simply mean bodily Ascetic practices, although these too are essential, but the Soul’s resurrection from the passions, love towards God and the quickening of the Soul by the Holy Spirit.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“And he who wants more Grace, must prepare himself better for temptations.”
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
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“Throw out of your head the idea that you can, through a comfortable life, become what you must be in Christ.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“We must struggle with philotimo to be saved, and so that we not sadden Christ. Christ will say to us: ‘My child, I did so much to save you. I shed my blood and endured so many passions, what did you do to save yourself?’”
Saint Paisios the Athonite
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“When we speak about Asceticism in the Orthodox Church we do not simply mean bodily Ascetic practices, although these too are essential, but the Soul’s resurrection from the passions, love towards God and the quickening of the Soul by the Holy Spirit.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“Let yourself die while striving, rather than living in laziness. For those who die while trying to keep the Commandments are just as much Martyrs as those who died for Christ’s sake.”
Saint Maximus the Confessor
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“Ascesis, my son, requires deprivation. You cannot obtain virtues through luxury and the easy life. It takes a struggle and much labour. It takes crying out to Christ day and night. It takes patience in all temptations and afflictions. It takes suppressing your anger and desires.”
Saint Joseph the Hesychast
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“In the beginning there is struggle and a lot of work for those who come near to God. But after that there is indescribable joy. It is just like building a fire: at first it is smoky and your eyes water, but later you get the desired result. Thus we ought to light the Divine Fire in ourselves with tears and effort.”
Saint Syncletica of Alexandria
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“The more we detach ourselves from external things and turn inward, the more we can experience and recognise God’s presence.”
Saint Anthony the Great
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“The soft life makes people useless. Without toil and struggle Sanctification doesn’t come.”
Saint Paisios the Athonite
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“Everyday I say to myself, today I will begin.”
Saint Anthony the Great
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“Every day and every hour the proof of our love for God is demanded of us through warfare and struggle against temptations.”
Saint Isaac the Syrian
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“He who is battling to repulse what harasses and wars against him must enlist the help of other allies – I mean humility of Soul, bodily toil and every other kind of ascetic hardship, together with Prayer that springs from an afflicted heart and is accompanied by many tears. He must be like David who says: ‘Look on my humility and my toil, and forgive all of my sins’ (Ps. 25:18)…”
Saint Theodoros the Great Ascetic
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“We were taught, not to kill the body, but to kill the passions.”
Saint Poemen the Great
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“Christ wishes to raise men up to Heaven, and has given them all the means to attain this; whilst the devil, who himself for his pride was cast down from Heaven into the dominions of the air, wishes by every means to attach men to earthly, sensual, transitory things, and, in order to attain this end, he employs the most powerful, most prodigious means.”
Saint John of Kronstadt
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“Perfection.. is clearly not achieved simply by being naked, by the lack of wealth or by the rejection of honours, unless there is also that love whose ingredients the Apostle described (cf. I Cor. 13) and which is to be found solely in purity of heart. Not to be jealous, not to be puffed up, not to act heedlessly, not to seek what does not belong to one, not to rejoice over some injustice, not to plan evil – what is this and its like if not the continuous offering to God of the heart that is perfect and truly pure, a heart kept free of all disturbance?”
Saint John Cassian
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“Fasts and vigils, the study of Scripture, renouncing possessions and everything worldly are not in themselves perfection, as we have said; they are its tools. For perfection is not to be found in them; it is acquired through them. It is useless, therefore, to boast of our fasting, vigils, poverty, and reading of Scripture when we have not achieved the love of God and our fellow men. Whoever has achieved love has God within himself and his intellect is always with God.”
Saint John Cassian
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“Once someone receives God’s Grace the war, the battle, begins. He receives great Grace and his body must also be transformed. The carnal mentality draws the Soul downwards, but at the same time God’s Grace draws it upwards. This is a difficult moment. Someone can be led astray from the right or from the left. The psychological pain is great, and it can strike him at the weakest point of his body, his heart or his brain. Then obedience to a discerning Elder is necessary. Our own will must disappear from within us.”
Saint Sophrony of Essex
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“Of course, it would be easier to get to Paradise with a full stomach, all snuggled up in a soft feather-bed, but what is required is to carry one’s cross along the way, for the Kingdom of God is not attained by enduring one or two troubles, but many!”
Saint Anthony of Optina
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The old man was asked, ‘What is the good of the fasts and watchings which a man imposes on himself?’ and he replied, ‘They make the Soul humble. For it is written, “Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins” (Ps. 25:18). So if the Soul gives itself all this hardship, God will have mercy on it.’
Saint Moses the Ethiopian
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“Just as the farmer wearies himself by merely plowing, digging and sowing the seed on the ground, but it grows and produces fruit early and late (cf. Jms. 5:7) by God’s gift, so it is in reality, as you will discover, in Spiritual matters. It belongs to us to engage in every activity and with much toil and weariness to sow the seeds of virtue, but by God’s gift and Mercy alone the rain of His loving-kindness and Grace falls and causes the unfruitful soil of our hearts to bear fruit. When the grain of the word falls on our Souls it receives the moisture of God’s goodness; it germinates, grows, and becomes a great tree (cf. Mt. 13:31-32), that is, it attains to mature manhood, to ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Eph. 4:13).”
Saint Symeon the New Theologian
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“Blessed the one who farms fair and good thoughts each day and by hope conquers the wicked passion of despondency, by which the Lord’s Ascetics are warred upon.”
Saint Ephrem the Syrian
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“The more you are purified from the passions, the more peace you have, the wiser you are, the more you understand God.”
Elder Ephraim of Arizona
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“Have patience in everything until death.”
Saint Joseph the Hesychast
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“Although a true servant of God is allowed to undergo a struggle with the many forms of solicitation and temptation to sin offered by satan and arising from our nature warped by the fall, yet God’s right hand is constantly supporting and guiding him. The very struggle brings the greatest profit, giving the combatant Spiritual experience, a clear and exact understanding of the corruption of human nature, of sin, of the fallen angel, leading the wrestler to contrition of spirit, to weeping and mourning over himself and all mankind.”
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov
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“Even though one is well advanced in virtue, should he stop mortifying himself, he soon would lose his modesty and virtue – just as fertile soul quickly becomes dry and arid and produces nothing but thorns and thistles if it is not cultivated.”
Saint John Climacus
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“If you love true knowledge, devote yourself to the ascetic life; for mere theoretical knowledge puffs a man up (1 Cor 8:1).”
Saint Mark the Ascetic
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“Don’t be lazy. Descend. You will find life in your heart. There you must live.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“Where there is Prayer and fasting, there are the demons.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“Nothing comes without effort. The help of God is always ready and always near, but is given only to those who seek and work, and only to those seekers who, after putting all their powers to the test, cry out with their whole heart: ‘Lord help us!’”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“Christianity is a vocation – a battle with death until the last breath, a battle until a final victory has been reached. Every sin is a retreat, every passion means running away, and every vice is a defeat.”
Saint Justin Popovich of Serbia
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“Theology without practice is the theology of demons.”
Saint Maximus the Confessor
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“If you empty your Soul of self, the Living God will fill you.”
Saint Nikolai Velimivoric
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“There is a profound divide between us Monks and the world. The world will never understand our lives and we will never understand theirs. If the Monks knew in advance how many temptations and sorrows awaited them on the narrow but life-saving path, no one would go to the Monastery. Likewise, if the world knew about the future benefits for the Monks, everyone would go to the Monastery.”
Saint Sebastian of Optina
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“The Doctor of our Souls has placed the remedy in the hidden regions of the Soul.”
Saint John Cassian
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“Just as a person does not notice how he grows from an infant into an adult, so also the Spiritual growth of a person occurs completely unnoticed by him.”
Saint Barsanuphius of Optina
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“Conquering sin in himself through Christ, man overcomes death. If you have lived the day without vanquishing a single sin of yours, know that you have become deadened. Vanquish one, two, or three of your sins, and behold: you have become younger than the youth which does not age, young in immortality and eternity. Never forget that to believe in the Resurrection of the Lord Christ means to carry out a continuous fight with sins, with evil, with death.”
Saint Justin Popovich of Serbia
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“The Soul is made drunk by the passions but can recover its health if it will use the virtues as the path to sobriety. The virtues, however, are woven through with sorrow and afflictions. Saint Isaac says that every virtue is a cross, and even that sorrows and afflictions are the source of the virtues. He therefore expressly advocates a love of oppression and sorrow, so that by them a man may be freed from the things of this world and have a mind that is detached from the world’s confusion. For man must first free himself from the material world in order to be born of God. Such is the economy of Grace; such, too, is the economy of knowledge.”
Saint Justin Popovich of Serbia
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“The servant of God who fulfills the Commandments of the Gospel reveals passions within himself in ever-increasing numbers. Even as the Grace of the Holy Spirit within him creates Blessed Spiritual states, such as poverty of spirit, tears, meekness, chastity and Spiritual wisdom, he considers himself the worst of all sinners – a man who has never done anything good, a man guilty of countless sins [and] worthy of eternal suffering – in fiery Gehenna – for breaking God’s law.”
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov
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“A small but persistent discipline is a great force; for a soft drop falling persistently, hollows out hard rock.”
Saint Isaac the Syrian
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“He who tries to conquer his own will by means of obedience and Prayer is following a wise ascetic method. His renunciation of external things indicates his inward struggle.”
Saint Mark the Ascetic
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“The warrior of Christ must fight first against his own passions!”
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov
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“You are a Christian, your calling is to achieve Eternal Life, to fight day and night for Eternal Life; and for the sake of it, you must bear every torment, every hardship, every struggle with joy”
Saint Justin Popovich of Serbia
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“We come to Monasticism like those sharp rocks from a quarry which are all corners and protrusions. Gradually by the Grace of God we become like the pebbles in a river or on the shore which are round and smooth.”
Saint Gavrilia, the Ascetic of Love
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“This is the great work of man: always to take the blame for his own sins before God, and to expect temptation to his last breath.”
Saint Anthony the Great
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“He who does not lose, does not find.”
Saint Gavrilia, the Ascetic of Love
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“If we live as though dying daily we shall not sin.”
Saint Anthony the Great
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“It is not necessary to roam Heaven and Earth after God or to send our mind to seek Him in different places. Purify your Soul, O son of man, remove from yourself the thought of memories outside of nature; hang the veil of chastity and humility before your impulses. By means of these you will be able to find Him Who is within you.”
Saint Isaac the Syrian
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“Just as the Blessings of God are unutterably great, so their acquisition requires much hardship and toil undertaken with hope and faith.”
Saint Macarius the Great
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“A sign of Spiritual life is the immersion of a person within himself and the hidden workings within his heart.”
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
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“Do not claim to have acquired virtue unless you have suffered affliction, for without affliction virtue has not been tested.”
Saint Mark the Ascetic
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“Blessed is the man who makes himself deaf to every pleasure that separates him from his Creator.”
Saint Isaac the Syrian
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“Die every day and you will live forever.”
Saint Anthony the Great
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“Unexpected trials are sent by God to teach us to practice the ascetic life; and they lead us to repentance even when we are reluctant.”
Saint Cosmas of Aitolia
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“The achievements of the worldly are failures for Monks; and the achievements of Monks are failures for the worldly. When the Monk is exposed to what the world sees as success – wealth, fame, power, pleasure, good health and many children, he is destroyed. And when a worldly man finds himself in the state desired by Monks – poverty, humility, weakness, self restraint, mortification and suchlike, he considers it a disaster.”
Saint Maximus the Confessor
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“Leaving the world is nothing other than cleaning up your entire external life, removing from it everything passionate and replacing it with something pure, which will not disrupt the Spiritual life, but rather aid it.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“The fruits of the Earth are not brought to perfection immediately, but by time, rain and care; similarly, the fruits of men ripen through Ascetic practice, study, time, perseverance, self-control and patience.”
Saint Anthony the Great