Quotes

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

Anger

Apt silence bridles anger.

Ilias the Presbyter

Scriptures

The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...

St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

Scriptures

If you love the Sender, then also love the letter which is sent from Him to you. For the word of God is given by God to me, to you, and to everyone, so that everyone who desires to be saved may receive salvation through it.

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

Anger

If you want to pray properly, do not let yourself be upset or you will run in vain.

St. Nilus of Sinai

Anger

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

St. Nilus of Sinai

Scriptures

God in His mercy gave us the Holy Scriptures that we might read them, and reading them we might fulfill what is sent by God to man, revealing His Holy Will and teaching us how to live. Consider with what attention and willingness that we ought to read God's letter to us. If an earthly king...wrote to you a letter, would you not read it with great joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful attention. The King of Heaven has sent a letter to you, an earthly and mortal man; yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a treasure. Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Him self is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with Him. God speaks to man, the King of Heaven talks with the corruptible creature, the Lord holds converse with the servant. What can be more pleasant... more instructive?

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

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

Long-Suffering

You have no peace from thoughts, which impel you to trouble others, and in turn to be troubled by others. But know, my brother, that if we offend by word or deed, we are thereby ourselves offended a hundredfold. Be longsuffering in all things and refrain from letting your own will enter into anything. Carefully examine your thoughts lest they infect your heart with deadly poison (ill temper) and make you take a gnat for a camel, a pebble for a cliff, and lest you become like a man who has a beam in his own eye but beholds the mote in the eye of another.

St. Barsanuphius the Great, St. John the Prophet

Intellect

Fear God and keep His commandments both in your feelings and in your intellect. If you force yourself to keep them in your intellect, bit by bit you will attain to fulfilling them in your feelings.

St. Hesychius the Priest

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

Scriptures

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye like a mirror in which the appearance of our inner being can be seen.

St. Gregory the Great

Intellect

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

St. Thalassios the Libyan

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

Scriptures

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

St. Mark the Ascetic

Anger

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

St. Ambrose of Optina

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

Anger

Through anger wisdom is lost, so that we no longer know what we are to do, or in what manner we should do it.

St. Gregory the Great

Scriptures

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

St. Peter of Damascus

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Apt silence bridles anger.

The Holy Fathers teach us how to become familiar with the Gospel, how to read it and how to understand it, what helps and what opposes its understanding. Therefore, at first you must devote more time to reading the Holy Fathers...

If you love the Sender, then also love the letter which is sent from Him to you. For the word of God is given by God to me, to you, and to everyone, so that everyone who desires to be saved may receive salvation through it.

If you want to pray properly, do not let yourself be upset or you will run in vain.

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

St. Barsanuphius the Great, St. John the Prophet

Fear God and keep His commandments both in your feelings and in your intellect. If you force yourself to keep them in your intellect, bit by bit you will attain to fulfilling them in your feelings.

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.

Holy Scripture is presented to the mind’s eye like a mirror in which the appearance of our inner being can be seen.

According to the degree to which the intellect is stripped of the passions, the Holy Spirit initiates the intellect into the mysteries of the age to be.

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

A humble and spiritually active man, when he reads the Holy Scripture, will refer everything to himself and not to another.

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

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.

Through anger wisdom is lost, so that we no longer know what we are to do, or in what manner we should do it.

Whoever is experienced in the spiritual interpretation of Scripture knows that the simplest passage is of a significance equal to that of the most abstruse passage, and that both are directed to the salvation of man.

St. Joseph of Optina, Letters...

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