+
“Journey freely with God within you; you will not lose the way, and you will not be left without shelter.”
“I prescribe fasting for my tongue, to break itself of the habit of idle chatter and to speak reservedly only those words that clear the way for You to come.”
“Help me, my God, to conquer the world within myself: and I shall easily conquer the world outside me.”
“All of us who walked towards the Kingdom of Light and Eternal Life are obliged to keep watch daily and see what sort of garments our Soul is clothed in. Let us look at those men and women who daily dress up, change clothes, decorate themselves, groom themselves and adorned themselves in order to physically look as nicely as they can. We ought to apply that much care and even more than that on the clothing of our Soul. They look at themselves in the Mirror. Our Mirror is Jesus Christ.”
“We are either fools to the world because of Christ, or fools to Christ because of the world.”
“The human Soul without Him becomes hell; a people without Him becomes a pack of famished and ravening wolves; a school without Him becomes a poison- factory of folly; a workshop without Him becomes a place of grumbling and hatred. Hospitals and prisons without Him become dark caverns of despair!”
“Our religion is founded on Spiritual experience, seen and heard as surely as any physical fact in this world. Not theory, not philosophy, not human emotions, but experience.”
“All that you lose in the name of God, you keep. All that you keep for your own sake, you loose. All that you give in the name of God, you will receive with interest. All that you give for the sake of your own glory and pride, you throw into the water. All that you receive from people as from God will bring you joy. All that you receive from people as from people will bring you worries.”
“Let your heart never be afraid of the size of evil before your eyes. The size of thy God is above every size. You’ll win for sure, only trust in God and love God.”
“Moments of happiness are given to you only in order to leave you longing for time happiness in the bosom of the ever happy Lord; and ages of unhappiness are given to you, to waken you out of the drowsy dream of illusions. O Lord, Lord, my only happiness, will You provide shelter for Your injured pilgrim?”
“Pride is a wide-open window out of which all the virtues and good works are blown. Nothing makes us so empty towards people and so unworthy before God as pride.”
“If my Soul has no open windows, no mud can be thrown into it.”
“Salvation of the Soul is the only meaning of all the labors of man on Earth.”
“The dead feel our presence in their graves, they feel our prayers and our sacrifices and love for them. And we will soon feel it, on that side of the grave, and will be grateful for those who remember us and Pray for us to God.”
“If you become rich, consider whether or not you could worthily bear poverty. If you are happy, imagine how you could worthily meet unhappiness. When people praise you, think how you might worthily bear insult. And, all your life, think how you might worthily meet death.”
“Truly terrifying is the abyss of those who are in love with the events that are dragging them downward.”
“We must keep in mind that whatever we do, openly or in secret, we do in the presence of our Guardian Angel.”
“Suicide is a mortal sin and an act of defiance against the Holy Spirit, Who gives life. Suicide is a much greater sin than murder, since for the sin of murder a man can still repent.”
“If we weave by day and undo at night, nothing gets woven. If we build by day and destroy by night, nothing is ever built. If we Pray to God and do evil before Him, then nothing is woven, and a house for our Soul is not built.”
“You ask if sins of the mind are dangerous? As a Monk you know this best. You know that one of the Holy Fathers has said that the essence of Monasticism is the cleansing of the mind of evil thoughts. You also know that the Church lists three types of sin: in deed, in word, in thought…. Evil thoughts are the seed of every evil. From that seed sprout sinful words, sinful desires and sinful deeds. Remember Christ’s second parable about the sower (the wheat and the tares)… So therefore, keep watch over yourself. Close your eyes more often and, as Saint Nikitas Stithatos said, “examine the thoughts sailing on the sea of the mind””
“Whoever desires life, must nourish himself with life.”
“Cast the world out of yourself, my heart, and then observe how feeble it is. And then observe yourself, and you will feel unheard-of power. The world seems powerful to us only when we serve it as its slave.”
“The Apostles of God taught others that which they themselves fulfilled in their own lives. When they had food and clothing, they were content. Even when it happened that they had neither food nor clothing, they were content, for their contentment did not emanate from outside but from within.”
“The walls that stand between you and truth and loom up before you like colossal mountains, which you have been trying to cross by running to the point of exhaustion, are your own creation and are more fragile than the white foam on the lake. If only you could open your eyes wide enough not to see them. Truly, the existence of these walls depends upon your seeing them. If you did not wish to see them, they would not exist.”
“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.”
“Man’s intellect can never rise to Heaven without God as a guide; and it cannot speak of what it has not seen, but must first ascend and see it.”
“This world is a battlefield on which people must consciously and voluntarily choose: either to follow Christ as the Victor, or follow the unclean and defeated demons.”
“Does peace kill? Yes, Godless peace kills. Does prosperity destroy? Yes, prosperity without God and contrary to the laws of God can destroy. O my brethren, the Christian teaching is the only reasonable teaching about peace and prosperity. All else is madness and foolishness.”
“God and the devil are found at opposite poles. No one can turn his face to God who has not first turned his back on sin. When a man turns his face to God, all of his paths lead to God. When a man turns his face away from God, all of his paths lead to perdition. When a man finally rejects God by word and in his heart, he is no longer fit to do anything that does not serve for his complete destruction, both of his Soul and of his body.”
“If I am called to defend myself, I will be silent, if I am called to defend the truth, I will speak.”