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Quotes

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

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.

Prove your love and zeal for wisdom in actual deeds.

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

Unless a man keeps the commandments of God, he cannot progress, even in a single virtue.

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.

The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. For where there is fear, there the commandments are kept; where the commandments are kept, there is the flesh purified—that cloud which envelops the soul and prevents it from seeing clearly the Divine ray; where the flesh is purified, there light springs forth, and the shining of the light fulfils desire above all desires.

Pride is the forerunner of every fall.

Where a fall has overtaken us, there pride has already pitched its tent; because a fall is an indication of pride.

A haughty person is not aware of his faults, or a humble person of his good qualities. An evil ignorance blinds the first, an ignorance pleasing to God blinds the second.

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.

The Holy Fathers say, 'Pride goeth before a fall, and humility before grace.' Whereas faintheartedness is the mother of impatience.

True wisdom is gazing at God. Gazing at God is silence of the thoughts. Stillness of mind is tranquility which comes from discernment.

Nothing so abets our secret destruction as conceit and self-satisfaction, or so cuts us off from God and provokes our chastisement at the hands of other men as grumbling, or so disposes us to sin as a disorderly life and talkativeness.

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.

The one who engages in a pursuit of wisdom out of devotion and stands prepared against the invisible forces should pray that both the natural discernment (with its proportionate light) and the illuminating grace of the Spirit remain with him. The former trains the flesh in the acquisition of virtue through asceticism while the latter illuminates the mind to select the companionship of wisdom before all others, according to the Scripture, 'He works the destruction of the strongholds of evil & of every pretension which raises itself up against the knowledge of God' (2 Cor. 10:5).

Make the body serve the commandments, keeping it so far as possible free from sickness and sensual pleasure.

I prefer a defeat accompanied by humility to a victory accompanied by pride.

In words of boastfulness and self-justification there always lie concealed contrariness and pride, from which God turns away. After sinning one ought immediately to 'flee.' But you say, where? To the calm haven of heartfelt repentance.

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Archangel Michael Orthodox Church
5025 E. Mill Rd
Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

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440-526-5192 (Phone)