Quotes

A collection of scriptural meditations from Saints and Fathers of the Church.

Anger

Do not let the sun go down on the anger of your brother (Eph. 4:26); that is, let no one be angry and enraged against his brother until the setting of the sun.

Elder Ephraim of Mt. Athos

Anger

Do not befoul your intellect by clinging to thoughts filled with anger and sensual desire. Otherwise you will lose your capacity for pure prayer and fall victim to the demon of listlessness.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Anger

Silence of lips is better and more wonderful than any edifying conversation. Strive to acquire humility and submissiveness. Never insist that anything should be according to your will, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this gives birth to anger. Do not judge or humiliate anyone, for this exhausts the heart and blinds the mind, and thereon leads to negligence and makes the heart unfeeling.

St. Barsanuphius the Great, St. John the Prophet

Chastity

Offer to the Lord the weakness of your nature, fully acknowledging your own powerlessness, and imperceptibly you will receive the gift of chastity.

St. John Climacus

Anger

The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; the next, to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset; the last, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing.

St. John Climacus

Anger

If, wishing to correct another, you are moved to anger, you gratify your own passion. Do not lose yourself in order to save another.

Abbot Macarius

Anger

Anger is by nature designed for waging war with the demons and for struggling with every kind of sinful pleasure. Therefore angels, arousing spiritual pleasure in us and giving us to taste its blessedness, incline us to direct our anger against the demons. But the demons, enticing us towards worldly lusts, make us use anger to fight with men, which is against nature, so that the mind, thus stupefied and darkened, should become a traitor to virtues.

St. Evagrius the Solitary

Anger

Truly, arrogance knows that it is guilty; therefore it places anger at the gate, to act as its sentry.

St. Nikolai Velimirovic

Chastity

Every man who loves purity and chastity becomes the temple of God.

St. Ephraim the Syrian

Anger

My children, desire to purify your hearts from envy and from anger with each other, lest death should overcome you, and you will be counted among the murderers. For whosoever hates his brother, kills a soul.

St. Anthony the Great

Anger

It is not possible for a man to control his anger when abused, or to overcome trials with patience when afflicted, if he is not willing to take the last and lowest place among other men.

St. Basil the Great

Anger

He who is not indifferent to fame and pleasure, as well as to love of riches that exists because of them and increases them, cannot cut off occasions for anger. And he who does not cut these off cannot attain perfect love.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Vocation

Strive to walk worthily of the vocation to which you were called.

St. Philotheus of Sinai

Knowledge

If someone is judged worthy to receive the gift of knowledge but allows his heart to be full of bitterness or rancor or aversion to another, it is as if he had been struck in the eye by a thornbush. That is why knowledge is no good without charity.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Knowledge

If you have received from God the gift of knowledge, however limited, beware of neglecting charity and temperance. They are virtues which radically purify the soul from passions and so open the way of knowledge continually.

St. Maximus the Confessor

Anger

Of the Only Case in Which Anger is Good... But we have a use for anger most properly planted within us, and for this use alone it is profitable and healthful for us to entertain it, namely, when we burn with wrathful indignation against the lustful motions of our own hearts, and are enraged to find that those things which we should be ashamed to do or to speak of before men have found admittance into the secret places of our minds. We may then well dread and fear exceedingly the presence of the Angels and the Omnipresence of God Himself, and His all-seeing Eye from which no secrets of our hearts can lie hid.

St. John Cassian

Anger

How then shall we escape the disasters that anger brings? By training the force of our feelings not to rush ahead of the power of reason.

St. Basil the Great

Anger

He who has put a stop to anger has also destroyed remembrance of wrongs; because childbirth continues only while the father is alive.

St. John Climacus

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Do not let the sun go down on the anger of your brother (Eph. 4:26); that is, let no one be angry and enraged against his brother until the setting of the sun.

Do not befoul your intellect by clinging to thoughts filled with anger and sensual desire. Otherwise you will lose your capacity for pure prayer and fall victim to the demon of listlessness.

St. Barsanuphius the Great, St. John the Prophet

Offer to the Lord the weakness of your nature, fully acknowledging your own powerlessness, and imperceptibly you will receive the gift of chastity.

The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; the next, to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset; the last, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing.

If, wishing to correct another, you are moved to anger, you gratify your own passion. Do not lose yourself in order to save another.

Truly, arrogance knows that it is guilty; therefore it places anger at the gate, to act as its sentry.

Every man who loves purity and chastity becomes the temple of God.

My children, desire to purify your hearts from envy and from anger with each other, lest death should overcome you, and you will be counted among the murderers. For whosoever hates his brother, kills a soul.

It is not possible for a man to control his anger when abused, or to overcome trials with patience when afflicted, if he is not willing to take the last and lowest place among other men.

He who is not indifferent to fame and pleasure, as well as to love of riches that exists because of them and increases them, cannot cut off occasions for anger. And he who does not cut these off cannot attain perfect love.

Strive to walk worthily of the vocation to which you were called.

If someone is judged worthy to receive the gift of knowledge but allows his heart to be full of bitterness or rancor or aversion to another, it is as if he had been struck in the eye by a thornbush. That is why knowledge is no good without charity.

If you have received from God the gift of knowledge, however limited, beware of neglecting charity and temperance. They are virtues which radically purify the soul from passions and so open the way of knowledge continually.

How then shall we escape the disasters that anger brings? By training the force of our feelings not to rush ahead of the power of reason.

He who has put a stop to anger has also destroyed remembrance of wrongs; because childbirth continues only while the father is alive.

"Without sorrows there is no salvation. On the other hand, the Kingdom of God awaits those who have patiently endured. And all the glory of the world is nothing in comparison."

St. Seraphim of Sarov

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