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

Prayer is the seed of gentleness and the absence of anger.

Pride is the forerunner of every fall.

Pride is known by its deeds as a tree is known by its fruits.

Know that if your thought leads you to look at how others live, this is a sign of pride.

Arrogance cannot bear to see itself scorned and humility held in honor.

Those who mourn and those who are insensitive are not subject to fear, but the cowardly often have become deranged. And this is natural. For the Lord rightly forsakes the proud that the rest of us may learn not to be puffed up.

Pride is known by its deeds as a tree is known by its fruits.

When one gets angry, he is deprived of God's protection.

Wrath is a reminder of hidden hatred, that is to say, remembrance of wrongs. Wrath is a desire for the injury of the one who has provoked you. Irascibility is the untimely blazing up of the heart. Bitterness is a movement of displeasure seated in the soul. Anger is an easily changeable movement of one’s disposition and disfiguration of soul.

Keep a strict watch against any appearance of pride: it appears imperceptibly, particularly in time of vexation and irritability against others for quite unimportant causes.

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

As a general rule, decide whether a thing is permissible by the effect it produces within. Permit yourself what is constructive, but never what is destructive.

How great the evil of pride is, that it deserves to have as its adversary not an angel or other virtues contrary to it but rather God Himself! For it must be noted that it is never said of those who are caught up in the other vices that the Lord resists them, or that the Lord is set against the gluttonous, or fornicators, or the angry, or the avaricious; this is true of the proud alone. For those vices only turn back upon wrongdoers or seem to be committed against those who have a part in them -- that is, against other human beings. This one, however, of its very nature touches God, and therefore it is specially worthy of having God opposed to it.

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

It is no small struggle to be freed from self-esteem. Such freedom is to be attained by the inner practice of the virtues and by more frequent prayer; and the sign that you have attained it is that you no longer harbor rancor against anybody who abuses or has abused you.

Empty your mind of these two things: the belief that you are deserving of great things, or the thought that any man is beneath you. If you do this anger will never be permitted to rise up within you.

Paissy the Great, having lost his temper, begged the Lord to deliver him from irritability. The Lord appeared to him and said, ‘Paissy, if thou dost not wish to get angry, desire nothing, neither criticize nor hate any man, and thou wilt have no anger.’

Leaves, whether of gold or lead, placed over the eyes, obstruct the sight equally, for the value of gold does not affect the blindness it produces. Similarly, anger, whether reasonable or unreasonable, obstructs our spiritual vision.

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