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Quotes

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

A person lighting a fire first has a small piece of tinder. This represents the word of the brother who has upset him. This little fire is very feeble. What significance has the word of your brother? If you put up with it you blow out the small fire, but if you begin to think to yourself, 'Why did he say that to me? I myself can answer him. If he did not want to hurt me, he wouldn't have said that and believe me, I can upset him too.' In this case, you add small pieces of wood to the fire and some other fuel like the person that lights a fire and you produce smoke which is agitation. Agitation is the movement and coming together of thoughts which stimulate the heart and make it audacious. Audacity is the taking of retribution against the person that has upset you, and this becomes insolence as Abba Mark said, 'Evil accepted in thought makes the heart audacious, but when this is revoked through prayer and hope, it makes it contrite.'

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.

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?

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.

Nothing so fills the heart with contrition and humbles the soul as solitude embraced with self-awareness, and utter silence.

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.

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.

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.

Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.

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

Solitude offers us an excellent opportunity for calming our passions and giving our reason time to remove them thoroughly from our soul. For just as wild animals can be soothed by being stroked, so all our anger, fear and stress, which poison and disrupt our soul, can be soothed by an atmosphere of peace where the freedom from constant disturbance ensures that our soul can be brought more easily under the power of reason.

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.

Every man that loves God loves a quiet life.

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

A fish swiftly escapes a hook and a sensual soul shuns solitude.

Nothing is better for rendering the heart penitent and the soul humble than wise solitude and complete silence.

The arrows of the enemy cannot touch one who loves quietness; but he who moves about in a crowd will often be wounded.

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

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440-526-5192 (Phone)