Hold faith and humility fast within you; for through them you will find mercy, help, and words spoken by God in the heart, along with a protector who stands beside you both secretly and manifestly.
A righteous person who is wise resembles God: he never disciplines anyone in order to take vengeance upon a wrongdoing, but only so that the person may be set aright, or that others may be deterred.
On that day God will not judge us about psalmody, nor for the neglect of prayer, but because by abandoning them, we have opened our door to the demons.
As a man cannot remain unscathed who spares his enemy on the field of battle, so a man engaged in spiritual warfare cannot save his soul if he spares his body.
The fear of God is the beginning of virtue, and it is said to be the offspring of faith. It is sown in the heart when a man withdraws his mind from the world’s distraction so as to confine its wandering thoughts within the ruminations of reflection upon the restitution to come.
The more a man's tongue flees verbosity, the more his intellect is illumined so as to be able to discern deep thoughts; for the rational intellect is befuddled by verbosity.
Be despised and rejected in your own eyes, and you will see the glory of God within yourself. For where humility blossoms, there God’s glory bursts forth.
It is not possible for any man to draw near to Christ without tribulation, and without afflictions his righteousness cannot be preserved unchanged. If he puts an end to the labors that make righteousness increase, he will put an end to that which guards it, and his righteousness will be like unguarded treasure. And he will be like a gladiator surrounded by enemy ranks and stripped of his weapons, like a ship bereft of its sails and tackle, and like a garden deprived of its source of water.
Prayer offered up at night possesses a great power, more so than the prayer of the day-time. Therefore all the righteous prayed during the night, while combating the heaviness of the body and the sweetness of sleep and repelling bodily nature.
