Orthodox Quotes - Page 7

• Being delivered from bodily sins is not enough; we must also cleanse the inner energy which dwells in our soul. For out of our hearts 'proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness' (Mk. 7:21) and so on ? these are what motivate people.

  Gregory Palamas

  Christian, Heart, People

  Saint Gregory Palamas, Christopher Veniamin, Monastery of St. John the Baptist (Essex, England) (2009). “The homilies”, Mount Thabor Pub

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• Let us cleave... to those who cultivate peace with godliness, and not to those who hypocritically profess to desire it. For the Scripture says in a certain place (Mk. 7:6), 'This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts is far from Me.'

  Pope Clement I

  Christian, Heart, People

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• Our Lord reserved to Himself certain things which He would do in due time in a manner outside the course and order of nature, so that they would wonder and be astonished at seeing not great but unusual things, who are unmoved by things daily seen. For the government of the world is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand men from five loaves; yet at the former no one wonders, the latter astonishes all men: not as a greater wonder, but as a rarer.

  Saint Augustine

  Christian, Men, Unusual Things

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• The second request of the very pure soul is to see the coming of the Father's kingdom (cf. Mt. 6:10). What this means first of all is that each day Christ should reign among holy men. And this happens when the devil's power has been driven out of our hearts through the expulsion of sinful foulness and when God has begun to reign within us amid the good odors of virtue. With fornication vanquished, chastity rules; with anger overcome, peace is king; with pride under foot, humility is sovereign.

  John Cassian

  Christian, Kings, Father

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• The Son is 'Life' (Jn. 14:6) because He is 'Light', constituting and giving reality to every thinking being. 'For in Him we live, move and exist' (Acts 17:28) and there is a two-fold sense in which He breathes into us (cf. Gen. 2:7; Jn. 20:22); we are filled, all of us, with His breath, and those who are capable of it, all those who open their mind's mouth wide enough, with His Holy Spirit.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Moving, Son

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• If the words of God are uttered merely as verbal expressions, and their message is not rooted in the virtuous way of life of those who utter them, they will not be heard. But if they are uttered through the practice of the commandments, their sound has such power that they dissolve the demons and dispose men eagerly to build their hearts into temples of God through making progress in works of righteousness.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Heart, Men

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• A man does not possess all the gifts, lest he think that grace is nature.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Christian, Men, Thinking

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• 'Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights' (Jms. 1:17). But there is something more. Inspired by the Father, each procession of the Light spreads itself generously toward us, and, in its power to unify, it stirs us by lifting us up. It returns us back to the oneness and deifying simplicity of the Father who gathers us in. For, as the sacred Word says, 'from Him and to Him are all things' (Rom. 11:36).

  Pope Dionysius

  Christian, Father, Light

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• Do you conceive of your Lord as less because? He shows that humiliation is the best road to exaltation (cf. Mt. 23:12); because He humbles Himself for the sake of the soul that is bent down to the ground, that He may even exalt within Himself that which is bent double under a weight of sin?... If so, you must blame the physician for stooping over suffering and putting up with evil smells in order to give health to the sick?

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Smell, Order

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• ... it is better to believe even what is impossible to our own nature and to men, than to be unbelieving like the rest of the world, we have learned; for we know that our Master Jesus Christ said, that 'what is impossible with men is possible with God' (Mt. 19:26)?

  Justin Martyr

  Christian, Jesus, Believe

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• ...it is not the obscure passages in Scripture that bind you but the ones you understand. With these you are to comply at once. If you understood only one passage in all of Scripture, well, then you must do that first of all. It will be this passage God asks you about. Do not first sit down and ponder the obscure passages. God's Word is given in order that you shall act according to it, not that you gain expertise in interpreting it.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Christian, Order, Gains

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• ... the Apostle Paul says that we are sealed in the Spirit (cf. Eph. 1:13); since we have in the Son the image of the Father, and in the Spirit the seal of the Son. Let us, then, sealed by this Trinity, take more diligent heed, lest either levity of character or the deceit of any unfaithfulness unseal the pledge which we have received in our hearts.

  Ambrose

  Christian, Father, Heart

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• When a thought oppresses you, do not be downhearted, but put up with it in courage, saying, 'They swarmed around me closer and closer, but I drove them back in the name of the Lord' (Ps. 118:11). Divine help will arrive at your side immediately, and you will drive them away from you, and courage will compass you round about, and the glory of God will walk with you; and 'you will be filled to your soul's desire' (Isa. 58:11).

  Pachomius the Great

  Christian, Your Side, Names

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• Holy love has a way of consuming some. This is what is meant by the one who said, 'You have ravished our hearts' (Sg. Of Sgs. 4:9). And it makes others bright and overjoyed. In this regard it has been said: 'My heart was full of trust and I was helped, and my flesh has revived' (Ps. 27:7). For when the heart is cheerful, the face beams (cf. Prov. 15:13), and a man flooded with the love of God reveals in his body, as if in a mirror, the splendor of his soul, a glory like that of Moses when he came face to face with God (cf. Ex. 34:29-35).

  John Climacus

  Christian, Heart, Men

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• It is patience that reveals every grace to you, and it is through patience that the saints received all that was promised to them.

  Pachomius the Great

  Christian, Grace, Saint

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• Take as an example the wisdom of Joseph and his submission. Do battle in chastity and service until you make yourself a king (cf. Gen. 41).

  Pachomius the Great

  Christian, Kings, Cfs

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• It is only all too easy to understand the requirements contained in God's Word ('Give all your goods to the poor.' 'If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left.' 'If anyone takes your coat, let him have your cloak also. Rejoice always.' 'Count it sheer joy when you meet various temptations' etc.). The most ignorant, poor creature cannot honestly deny being able to understand God's requirements. But it is tough on the flesh to will to understand it and to then act accordingly. It is not a question of interpretation, but action.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Christian, Giving, Joy

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• How could it occur to anyone to demonstrate that God exists unless one has already allowed Himself to ignore Him? A king's existence is demonstrated by way of subjection and submissiveness. Do you want to try and demonstrate that the king exists? Will you do so by offering a string of proofs, a series of arguments? No. If you are serious, you will demonstrate the king's existence by your submission, by the way you live. And so it is with demonstrating God's existence. It is accomplished not by proofs but by worship. Any other way is but a thinker's pious bungling.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Christian, Kings, Offering

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• I can understand why Christians call us heretics. But most important, who will God call a heretic? From God's point of view, my revelation is deeply orthodox.

  Sun Myung Moon

  Christian, Views, Important

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• Someone who bears a grudge while he prays is like a person who sows in the sea and expects to reap a harvest.

  Isaac of Nineveh

  Christian, Sea, Bears

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• For virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who live in her way fly like clouds as Isaiah says, and as doves with their young ones; but sin is a heavy affair, as another of the prophets says, sitting upon a talent of lead.

  Gregory of Nyssa

  Christian, Clouds, Light

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• As the Holy Trinity, our God is One Being, although Three Persons, so, likewise, we ourselves must be one. As our God is indivisible, we also must be indivisible, as though we were one man, one mind, one will, one heart, one goodness, without the smallest admixture of malice - in a word, one pure love, as God is Love. That they may be one, even as We are One (John 17:22).

  John of Kronstadt

  Christian, Heart, Men

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• God always was, and always is, and always will be. Or rather, God always Is. For Was and Will be are fragments of our time, and of changeable nature, but He is Eternal Being. And this is the Name that He gives to Himself when giving the Oracle to Moses in the Mount. For in Himself He sums up and contains all Being, having neither beginning in the past nor end in the future; like some great Sea of Being, limitless and unbounded, transcending all conception of time and nature, only adumbrated [intimated] by the mind, and that very dimly and scantily.

  Gregory of Nazianzus

  Christian, Past, Sea

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• The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men.

  Isaac of Nineveh

  Christian, Men, Mourning

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• When you are insulted by someone or humiliated, guard against angry thoughts, lest they arouse a feeling of irritation, and so cut you off from love and place you in the realm of hatred. You should know that you have been greatly benefited when you have suffered deeply because of some insult or indignity; for by means of the indignity self-esteem has been driven out of you.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Self Esteem, Mean

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