Do not approach the words of the mysteries contained in the divine Scriptures without prayer and beseeching God for help, but say: 'Lord, grant me to perceive the power in them!' Reckon prayer to be the key to the true understanding of the divine Scriptures.
Love sinners, but hate their works, and do not despise them for their faults, lest you be tempted by the same. Remember that you share the earthly nature of Adam and that you are clothed with his infirmity.
Just as we must beware of overeating, so too we must beware of excessive temperance or abstinence. Excessive temperance weakens the body, destroys wakefulness, coolness and freshness which are indispensable for vigilance, and which fade and weaken when the physical powers succumb and fail. If you force a weak body to labor beyond its powers, you subject your soul to double darkness, and lead it into confusion (and not relief)...
Love of God proceeds from conversing with him; this conversation of prayer comes about through stillness, and stillness comes with the stripping away of the self.
When the attention of the mind is fixed in the heart it is possible to control what happens in the heart, and the battle against the passions assumes a rational character. The enemy is recognized and can be driven off by the power of the Name of Christ.
A life of spiritual endeavor is the mother of sanctity; from it is born the first experience of perception of the mysteries of Christ--which is called the first stage of spiritual knowledge.
Let us love silence till the world is made to die in our hearts. Let us always remember death, and in this thought draw near to God in our heart--and the pleasures of this world will have our scorn.
Love giving hospitality, my child, for it opens the gates of Paradise. In this you also offer hospitality to angels. 'Entertain strangers so that you won't be a stranger to God.'
Train yourself to cut off an intrusive thought immediately…Be at pains over this, so that you acquire the habit. The soul is a creature of habit: according to the habit you have acquired, so will you act all the rest of your life.
We must always pray to the Lord to tell us what to do, and the Lord will not let us go astray. Adam was not wise enough to ask the Lord about the fruit which Eve gave him, and so he lost paradise.
A Christian has great difficulty in attaining three things: grief (over sins), tears, and the continual memory of death. Yet these contain all of the other virtues.
Only to the humble does the Lord reveal Himself in the Holy Spirit, but if we do not humble ourselves we shall not see God. Humility is the light in which we may behold the Light which is God, as the Psalmist sang: 'In Thy light we shall see light.'
As a man whose head is under water cannot inhale pure air, so a man whose thoughts are plunged into the cares of this world cannot absorb the sensations of that new world.
The Lord does not reveal Himself to many because of their intellectual pride; yet they think that they have much knowledge. But what is their knowledge worth, if they know not the Lord, know not the grace of the Holy Spirit, know not how this grace comes and wherefore it is lost? But let us humble ourselves, brethren, and the Lord will show us all things, as a loving father shows all things to his children.
