Men are often called intelligent wrongly. Intelligent men are not those who are erudite in the sayings and books of the wise men of old, but those who have an intelligent soul and can discriminate between good and evil.

They avoid what is sinful and harms the soul; and with deep gratitude to God they resolutely adhere by dint of practice to what is good and benefits the soul.

These men alone should truly be called intelligent.

St Anthony the Great

Истинная радость рождается из боли. Испытания усиливают нашу веру.

Старец Паисий Святогорец

True joy is born from pain. The test reinforces our belief.

Elder Elder Paisios

It is not food that is evil but gluttony, not the begetting of children but unchastity, not material things but avarice, not esteem but self-esteem.

This being so, it is only the misuse of things that is evil, and such misuse occurs when the intellect fails to cultivate its natural powers.

~St Maximos the Confessor

Divine Scripture often repeats the same words, yet this is not to be regarded as verbosity. On the contrary, by means of this frequent repetition it unexpectedly and compassionately draws even those who are very slow in grasping things to an awareness and understanding of what is being said; and it ensures that a particular saying does not escape notice because of its fleetingness and brevity.

This can happen especially when we are much involved in the affairs of this life, and know nothing save in part - though, as St John Chrysostom says, we do not know wholly even what is given ‘in part’, but know only a part of a part.’ This part Itself will be ‘done away with’ (1 Cor. 13:l0), not in the sense that it disappears and is reduced to nothing - for then we would have no knowledge at all and would not be human - but in the sense that it will give place to the knowledge that comes from meeting ‘face to face’, in the same way as childhood disappears when one grows up, to use the analogy given by St Paul (cf. 1Cor. 13:11-12).

This again is what St John Chrysostom means when he says that now we know that heaven exists, though not what it is; but that later the lesser will be ‘done away with’ by the greater, that is, by our knowing what heaven is, so that our knowledge increases.

St Peter of Damaskos

Every struggle in the soul's training, whether physical or mental, that is not accompanied by suffering, that does not require the utmost effort, will bear no fruit. 'The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force' (Matt. 11:12). Many people have worked and continue to work without pain, but because of its absence they are strangers to purity and out of communion with the Holy Spirit, because they have turned aside from the severity of suffering. Those who work feebly and carelessly may go through the movements of making great efforts, but they harvest no fruit, because they undergo no suffering.

St. Theophan the Recluse

As he advances through this humility towards divine and unfailing love, he accepts sufferings as though he deserved them.

Indeed, he thinks he deserves more suffering than he encounters; and he is glad that he has been granted some affliction in this world, since through it he may be spared a portion of the punishments which he has prepared for himself in the world to be.

And because in all this he knows his own weakness, and that he should not exult, and because he has been found worthy of knowing and enduring these things by the grace of God, he is filled with a strong longing for God.

St Peter of Damaskos

It is well known that obedience is the chief among the initiatory virtues, for first it displaces presumption and then it engenders humility within us. Thus it becomes, for those who willingly embrace it, a door leading to the love of God.

It was because he rejected humility that Adam fell into the lowest depths of Hades. It was because He loved humility that the Lord, in accordance with the divine purpose, was obedient to His Father even to the cross and death, although He was in no way inferior to the Father; and so through His own obedience He has freed mankind from the crime of disobedience and leads back to the blessedness of eternal life all who live in obedience.

Thus humility should be the first concern of those who are fighting the presumption of the devil, for as we advance it will be a sure guide to all the paths of virtue.

St Diadochos of Photiki

"Speak more to God about your children than to your children about God…The soul of the teenager is in a state of an explosion of freedom. For this reason he has a hard time accepting various counsels. So, rather than counseling him continuously and reproaching him now and again, leave the situation to Christ, to the Panaghia (Theotokos) and to the Saints, asking them to bring him to reason."

– Elder Epiphanios of Greece

Good advice...Only constant prayer for your child during these years, especially in these times, will get them through to healthy adulthood. Elder Porphyrios also counseled the same thing for mothers who sought him out in Athens for their rebellious teens.



This is very profound--there is a new thing spoken about called 'emotional I.Q.', but Saint Anthony here is speaking about 'soul or spiritual I.Q.' !! This is something many in today's world are sorely lacking because it can only be cultivated through Christ.

"Не сознающий своей греховности, своего падения, своей погибели не может принять Христа, не может уверовать во Христа, не может быть христианином".
Святитель Игнатий Брянчанинов

"If we are not aware of our own sinfulness, our fall, our death - we could not accept Christ, we cannot not believe in Christ, we cannot be a Christians."
St. Ignatius Bryanchaninov