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Quotes

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

He who has become aware of his sins has controlled his tongue, but a talkative person has not yet come to know himself as he should.

Nothing is more unsettling than talkativeness and more pernicious than an unbridled tongue, disruptive as it is of the soul’s proper state. For the soul’s chatter destroys what we build each day and scatters what we have laboriously gathered together.

Think also of this: the person who is bound to earthly things may rejoice but may also be upset or disturbed or grieved over earthly things: his mind is exposed to continual changes. But the joy of your master (Matthew 25:21) is enduring, for God is unchangeable. Thus control your tongue at the same time as you discipline your body with fasting and strictness. Talkativeness is a great enemy of prayer. A spate of fluttering words stands in the way of the words of prayer. This is the reason that we shall render account for every careless word we utter (Matthew 12:36). One does not bring the dust of the road into a room that one wishes to keep clean; thus keep your heart free from gossip and chatter about the events of the day that is past.

In general, loquacity opens the doors of the soul, and the devout warmth of the heart at once escapes. Empty talk does the same, but even more so… Empty talk is the door to criticism and slander, the spreader of false rumors and opinions, the sower of discord and strife. It stifles the taste for mental work and almost always serves as a cover for the absence of sound knowledge…

You have a mouth sealed by the Spirit? When you are speaking, think first of what you are saying, of what words are fitting for a mouth such as yours.

If Moses, who was a god to Pharaoh, was shut out from the Land of Promise because of one word, how much more will not the evil speech of our tongue, by which we offend and hurt both God and man, shut us out from heaven?

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

Beware of reading the doctrines of heretics for they, more than anything else, can equip the spirit of blasphemy against you.

A single word made the thief pure and holy, despite all his previous crimes, and brought him into paradise (cf. Luke 23:42-43). A single ill-advised word prevented Moses from entering the promised land (cf. Num. 20:12). We should not suppose, then, that garrulity is only a minor disease. Lovers of slander and gossip shut themselves out of the kingdom of heaven.

Only with the greatest struggle and sacrifice is the chaff of heresy separated from the wheat of Orthodox truth.

Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ.

He who guards his lips, watches over his soul; but he who is bold with his lips, dishonors himself. Silence gathers, but much talking scatters.

But let us speak that which is good, to the edification of faith. That is, to speak only what will help to build up our neighbor in virtue; nothing more than that.

When the door of steam baths is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul in its desire to say many things, dissipates the remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good. Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy. Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.

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.

The iniquitous mouth is stopped during prayer, for the condemnation of the conscience deprives a man of his boldness.

He who guards his lips preserves his soul; but he who is bold with his lips dishonors himself.

Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.

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

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