Quote by Socrates ~ man and woman

“Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”

– Socrates

Quote by Plato ~ Democracy a sort of equality

Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

 

~ Plato

Quote St. John Chrysostom ~ "The heart"

“Find the door of your heart, and you will discover it is the door to the kingdom of God.”

- St. John Chrysostom

quote:
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=20078.0

Quote by St. Maximus the Confessor ~ Scripture (Literal?)

St. Maximus the Confessor, living in 500-600 A.D. wrote,

“Ignorance, in other words, Hades, dominates those who understand Scripture in a fleshly (literal) way”

quote:
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=20078.0

Is Bill Maher Literally Wrong? The Ridiculous Wrongheadedness of Religulous by Jonathan McCormack

Is Bill Maher Literally Wrong?
                          The Ridiculous Wrongheadedness of Religulous                                   
                                                        by   
                                          Jonathan McCormack
                                         
     

      Bill Maher joins the ranks of the ‘new atheist’ crowd by attacking the Christian right in his new documentary Religulous, just out on DVD. He also joins Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris as being stupid, literally speaking; particularly in his simple minded devotion to acknowledging reality only in its most pared down anemic ideology of literal-minded rationality. There are intelligent atheists, many prominent philosophers and cultural critics, who correctly set their claims in the realms of meaning and symbolic knowledge. They dismiss Maher and Co’s sophomoric atheism because it actually pushes the same ideological framework as the people on the Christian right who believe in talking snakes.
     First off, Maher confuses categories of knowledge. You can say “a flower is a plant” and this belongs to ‘positive knowledge’ since it is empirical. Another category of knowledge is to say “flowers are beautiful.” The fundamentalist Christian, confusing the two modes of knowing, might say it is a scientific FACT that flowers are pretty. Then Bill Maher would come along and say, “We’ve dissected the flower and have found no ‘beauty cells’ or ‘beauty structures’, therefore flowers are not beautiful and furthermore beauty does not exist.” Both Maher and religious fundamentalists deny all modalities of knowing except for the scientific one and in so doing diminish what it means to be human.
      You don’t need philosophy to understand this. I once read about a Christian holy man who spoke about how silly it was to look for God using rationality. It’s the wrong tool, he said. It would be just as silly to use a telescope to look for God. If you want to make any statement on God you must first clear your heart of illusions, treachery, and passions, since the heart is the true instrument with which to seek God, only then can you say weather God exists or not.
    Many Christians understand this perfectly well. Maher spoke primarily to those Christians most easy to mock in order to push his own point. Here, however, are two quotes from typical priests of the third largest Christian denomination, Orthodox Christianity, Fr. Andrew Anglorus and Fr. Stephen Freeman:
…lack[ing] a Patristic understanding of the Scriptures…they do not understand the Scriptures spiritually, ascetically, allegorically, poetically, but only literally. We call such an understanding 'fundamentalist' (1).


Genesis, properly read, is not a science text book. It is about Christ and reveals Him as the very meaning and purpose of creation - as well as explicating His Pascha. If you don’t see that when you read the first chapter of Genesis, then no one ever taught you how to read Scripture as the primitive Church read Scripture….Scripture functions as a verbal icon - and like an icon requires an understanding of its spiritual grammar to see it correctly (2).
Nor is this simply a way for modern Christians to excuse obviously unscientific biblical passages. St. Maximus the Confessor, living in 500-600 A.D. wrote, “Ignorance, in other words, Hades, dominates those who understand Scripture in a fleshly (literal) way” (3).  Maher purposefully avoids this type of true Christian faith because it does not fit in with his simplified one dimensional view of black and white reality.
     Finally, here are some words from Slavoj Zizek, a modern philosopher/cultural critic who is a die-hard atheist. He has written many books on Christianity, including one recently where he debates with Christian theologian John Milbank, who happens to have a PHD and a firm grasp of postmodern philosophy, unlike the people Maher approaches who are either uninformed or incapable of defending themselves intellectually or dismissed out of hand. The italics are mine.

“Both liberal-skeptical cynics and fundamentalists share a basic underlying feature: the loss of the ability to believe, in the proper sense of the term. What is unthinkable for them is the groundless decision which installs every authentic belief, a decision which cannot be grounded in the chain of reasons, in positive knowledge. …the status of universal human rights is that of a pure belief: they cannot be grounded in our knowledge of human nature, they are an axiom posited by our decision. (The moment one tries to ground universal human rights in our knowledge of humanity, the inevitable conclusion will be that men are fundamentally different, that some have more dignity and wisdom than others.) At its most fundamental, authentic belief does not concern facts, but gives expression to an unconditional ethical commitment. 
For both liberal cynics and religious fundamentalists, religious statements are quasi-empirical statements of direct knowledge: fundamentalists accept them as such, while skeptical cynics mock them.
… its [religious fundamentalism’s] true danger does not reside in the fact that it poses a threat to secular scientific knowledge, but in the fact that it poses a threat to authentic belief itself” (4).
       In other words, by disregarding any symbolic mediation between humanity and a reality transcendent of logical apprehension both Maher and the Christian right are on the same team, since both equally undermine true belief and reject those more rarified modalities of understanding and being.

                                                          Work Cited

1) Anglorus, Fr. Andrew, “Towards an Orthodox View of Creation     
      And Evolution.” [Weblog entry.] Orthodox England on the ‘Net. Aug 2006.   
      (http://www.orthodoxengland.org.uk/towardso.htm)  03 March 2009.

2) Freeman, Fr. Stephen, “The Meaning of Scripture.” [Weblog entry.] Glory to God for         
     All Things. 26 Oct. 2008. (http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/the-
     meaning-of-scripture/) 03 March 2009.

3) Berthold, George, Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings. Paulist Press, 1985.


4) Zizek, Slavoj. How to read Lacan. W. W. Norton, 2007.


source:

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=20078.0

Quote by Lao Tzu ~ Leadership

“To lead the people, walk behind them.”

― Lao Tzu

 

 “To lead people, walk beside them ...
As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.
The next best, the people honor and praise.
The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ...
When the best leader's work is done the people say,
We did it ourselves!”

 

― Lao Tzu

Quote by Lao Tzu ~ The Three you say...?

ch. XLII

Tao produces one
 One produces two
 Two produce three
 Three produce myriad things
 Myriad things, backed by yin and embracing yang
 Achieve harmony by integrating their energy
 What the people dislike
 Are alone, bereft, and unworthy
 But the rulers call themselves with these terms
So with all things
 Appear to take loss but benefit
 Or receive benefit but lose
 What the ancients taught
 I will also teach
 The violent one cannot have a natural death
 I will use this as the principal of all teachings.

http://www.faithandconviction.org/?page_id=12665#.WD4bAn_rs-U
ch. XIV

What cannot be seen is called indistinguishable.
What cannot be heard is called indistinct.
What cannot be touched is called indefinite.
The three can’t be comprehended
So they’re confused and considered one.
Its surface is not bright.
Its depths are not obscured.
Dimly seen it can’t be named
So returns to the insubstantial.
This is the shapeless shape,
The form without substance.
This is called blurred and shadowy.
Approach it you can’t see its face.
Follow it you can’t see its back.
Hold fast to the ancient Way
In order to control the present.
Knowing the source of the ancient,
Is the thread that runs through the Way.
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Chinese/TaoTeChing.htm

Quote by Thomas Jefferson ~ Man and Governance

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Thomas Jefferson
1743-1826

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/thomasjeff109179.html

The Pilgrim ~ Confession

The elder at the Kitayev Hermitage looked at the long detailed list of the pilgrim, and gave some solemn advice on what confession should NOT be.

1. One should not confess sins that have previously been confessed and absolved by a priest, or it should imply a lack of faith on the mystery of reconciliation.

2. One should only confess sins relating to oneself, and never accuse others in one's confession.

3. One should not detail sins too much, but only in very general terms, as forbidden by the the Holy Fathers, because too much details may lead one and his confessor into tempation, since many sins are carnal and lustful in nature.

4. One should not repent with detachment, as if one is merely an observer to the sins, but must repent as one means it.

5. One should always remember the most important sins, that of not loving God, not loving our neighbors, not believe the Holy Scripture, and that one is filled with pride and greed. These are the fundamental sins that drive all other manners of sins and woes.
  

After that, the elder explained what true confession should be, and how such confession would nurture humility in a person, by sharing his own confession with the pilgrim.

A. I do not love God. Because if I truly love God, I would think of God the whole day and not get tired, and would pray, obey and glorify Him the whole day with joy (St John 14:23).

B. I do not love my neighbors as myself. Because if I did, I would carry the burden of others' worries, and take care of them as I would for my own burdens, and I would share in the joy of others as much as I rejoice in my own.

C. I have no faith in Holy Scripture. Because if I did, I would believe in the salvation Christ pointed us to through His Word, and in the caring for this life to prepare for our afterlife.

D. I am full of pride and greed. That is why I boast of needless things to others, display however little I have to snub others, to defend my sins with excuses, and even do charity for the sake of praise or social standing. I am worshipping myself rather than God.

source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=B_ZUBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=st.+john+chrysostom+thoughts+vs+deeds+lesson&source=bl&ots=2JVtJdaixb&sig=Y0D_Me_oKqJ7nEa23NvrvWMGpFA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJ2qiDs7rQAhVIy2MKHUnCBX0Q6AEIMDAE#v=onepage&q=st.%20john%20chrysostom%20thoughts%20vs%20deeds%20lesson&f=false

Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky ~ to see man as God intended him

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.


~ Fyodor Dostoevsky




Source:


https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/fyodor_dostoevsky.html

Quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~ men have forgotten God

On another occasion Solzhenitsyn reflected,


“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.’”



Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1918-2008


source:

http://www.firstcrclynden.org/worship/sermons/elections-chosen-by-god/

Quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~ warnings history gives

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said in a famous commencement speech at Harvard
University:


“There are meaningful warnings which history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1918-2008



source of quote:
http://www.firstcrclynden.org/worship/sermons/elections-chosen-by-god/

Quote by Gautama Buddha - Impermanence of things

'' 'All conditioned things are impermanent’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.”


~ Siddhartha Gautama "The Buddha"

Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky - prophets and martyrs

Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain.


Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov

St. Symeon the New Theologian ~ praises, reproaches/passionless

The likeness of Christ consists in truth, meekness, righteousness, and together with them humility and love of mankind. The truth is beheld in all one's words and meekness in all words spoken by others to oneself; because one who is meek, whether he is surrounded by praises or reproaches, preserves himself passionless and is neither exalted by praises nor embittered by reproaches.





The First-Created Man
pg. 55
St. Symeon the New Theologian

St. Basil the Great ~ on stillness

Stillness initiates the soul's purification.


St. Basil

Logismoi

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Logismoi (Greek: λογίσμοι lo-yeez-mee, Russian: помыслы) is a term used to describe assaultive or tempting thoughts.

Contents

 [hide] 

• 1 Logismoi in the Writing of the Fathers
  • 1.1 Evagrius Ponticus
  • 1.2 St. Hesychios the Priest
• 2 Logismoi in Modern Teaching
  • 2.1 Fr. Maximos of Mount Athos
  • 2.2 Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
• 3 Sources
• 4 External Links

Logismoi in the Writing of the Fathers

Evagrius Ponticus

Evagrius Ponticus (c.346-399), originally from Pontus, on the southern coast of the Black sea in what is modern-day Turkey. He served as a lector under St. Basil the Great and was made deacon and archdeacon under St. Gregory the Theologian. In order to deal with his sin, Evagrius retreated to the Egyptian desert and joined a cenobitic community. As a classically-trained scholar, Evagrius recorded the sayings of the desert monks and developed his own theological writings.
Evagrius developed a comprehensive list in 375 AD of eight evil thoughts (λογισμοι), or eight terrible temptations, from which all sinful behavior springs. This list was intended to serve a diagnostic purpose: to help readers identify the process of temptation, their own strengths and weaknesses, and the remedies available for overcoming temptation.
The eight patterns of evil thought are:

• gluttony
• fornication
• avarice
• sorrow
• discouragement
• anger
• vainglory
• and pride.

While Evagrius did not create the list from scratch, he certainly refined it. Some two centuries later in 590 AD, Gregory the Dialogist would revise this list to form the more commonly known Seven Deadly Sins, where St. Gregory the Great rolled acedia (discouragement) & tristitia (sorrow) into a newly defined sin of Sloth; Vainglory a part of Pride; and added Envy to the newly defined "Seven Deadly Sins".

St. Hesychios the Priest

St. Hesychios the Priest writes the following in the Philokalia: 'If we have not attained prayer that is free from thoughts [logismoi], we have no weapon to fight with. By this prayer I mean the prayer which is ever active in the inner shrine of the soul, and which by invoking Christ scourges and sears our secret enemy'

Logismoi in Modern Teaching

Fr. Maximos of Mount Athos

Fr. Maximos (Moschos?) of Mount Athos is quoted extensively on the subject of logismoi in Kyriakos Markides' book, Mountain of Silence. Fr. Maximos describes five stages of logismoi as detailed in the teachings of the Fathers of the Church:

• Assault - the logismoi first attacks a person's mind
• Interaction - a person opens up a dialogue with the logismoi
• Consent - a person consents to do what the logismoi urges him to do
• Defeat - a person becomes hostage to the logismoi and finds it more difficult to resist
• Passion or Obsession - the logismoi becomes an entrenched reality within the nous of a person

Fr. Maximos explains that no sin is committed until the stage of Consent, though he warns that if a person is of weak temperment, they are unlikely to be able to resist the logismoi at the Interaction stage.
Fr. Maximos teaches that the best way to combat logismoi is to be indifferent, to ignore them. He suggests that a person should pray to combat logismoi, but only when not overcome by fear.

Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos writing in Orthodox Psychotherapy says: 'When the Fathers speak of `thoughts'(logismoi), they do not mean simple thoughts, but the images and representations behind which there are always appropriate thoughts.'
Referring to an impressive list of patristic writers--including Hesychios the Priest, Gregory of Sinai, Maximus the Confessor, Evagrius Ponticus, Isaac the Syrian, Diadochos of Photiki, St. Thalassios, John Climacus, and Barsanuphius of Optina--explains the concept of logismoi, the difference between simple thoughts and "images with thoughts," that logismoi are caused by warfare with the devil, consequences of evil thoughts, and the cure for evil thoughts.
Met. Hierotheos' project in Orthodox Psychotherapy is bound up with battling and curing evil thoughts. He outlines a preventative plan that includes "watchfulness, attentiveness, hesychia, and cutting off evil thoughts." For a person already ill with evil thoughts Met. Hierotheos outlines a program of avoiding agitation, cutting off evil thoughts, not letting thoughts persist, chasing them away by prayer, the reading of Scripture and lives of the saints, and creating good thoughts.

Sources

• Markides, Kyriacos C. Mountain of Silence. New York: Image, 2002.
• Wikipedia:Evagrius_Ponticus
• Logismoi, Aaron Taylor
• Wikipedia:Pontus
• 'On Watchfulness and Holiness' 21, The Philokalia, Vol. I, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, et al. London: Faber, 1979, p. 165.
• Orthodox Psychotherapy - Logismoi, Met. Hierotheos Nafpaktos

External Links

• [[1]] Includes an excerpt from Markides' Mountain of Silence

Retrieved from "https://orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Logismoi&oldid=115735"

Categories:

• Desert Fathers
• Theology

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thanks to source

https://orthodoxwiki.org/Logismoi

Logismoi or Assaultive Thoughts

Logismoi or Assaultive Thoughts
Understanding assaultive thoughts and how to deal with them is key to living a victorious life in Christ.  Logismoi, (pronounced, log-is-mee) are thoughts and thought/images that come to us to lead us away from Christ.  The are distracting and are a result of the fall of mankind.  There are many church fathers who teach us how to identify them and how to deal with them.  St. John Climacus in his Ladder of Divine Ascent speak of various stages of how they afflict us and how we should deal with them.  Kyriacos Markides, a sociologist from the University of Maine explores this understanding in his conversation with Fr. Maximos who is a monk from Mount Athos which is outlined in his book, "The Mountain of Silence."  The book is a must read for anyone who struggles with their thoughts and wants to be free. 

Excerpts from the Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos Markides in his conversation with Fr. Maximos on the stages of Logismoi

“The holy elders,” Father Maximos claimed, “identify five stages in the development of a logismos. Of course, I am speaking of a logismos that goes contrary to God’s laws. The first is the assault stage, when the logismos first attacks our mind.”

“Let me give you an example. A thought enters our mind in the form of a suggestion urging us, let us say, to steal. It is as if this logismos knocks at the door of our mind and tells us: ‘Look at this pile of money. Nobody is looking. Take it.’

“When such a logismos strikes, no matter how sinful it may be, it does not render us accountable,” Father Maximos explained. “The quality of our spiritual state is not evaluated on the basis of these assaults. In simple language we commit no sin. The holy elders throughout the ages were relentlessly tempted and assaulted by similar and even worse logismoi.

 

“The second stage according to the holy elders is what they called interaction. It implies opening up of a dialog, an actual exchange with the logismos. When a logismos urges you, for example, to steal that pile of money, you begin to wonder, ‘Should I or should I not? What’s going to happen if I steal it? What’s going to happen if I don’t steal it?’ This is risky and dangerous. However, even at this stage there is no accountability on the part of the individual, no sin committed as yet. The person can indeed examine such a logismos and consider several options without being accountable. But if the person is weak by temperament, then defeat may be the most likely outcome of that exposure to the logismos.”

 

The third stage in the progression of a logismos is the stage of consent as we would say. You consent to commit what the logismos urges you to do, in this particular case, to steal money. You have made a decision. That’s when guilt and accountability start to emerge. It is the beginning of sin. Jesus was referring to this stage when he proclaimed that if you covet a woman in your mind you have already committed adultery in your heart. The moment this decision is allowed to take root in your heart, then you are well on the way to actually committing the act in the outer world.”

 

“In the event that a person is unable to free himself from the previous stage, then there is defeat. He becomes hostage to the logismos. The moment the person succumbs, the next time around the logismos returns with greater force. It is much more difficult to resist then. And so it is with the next time and the time after that. The holy elders called it the stage of captivity. That’s when the person can no longer retreat and proceeds along with this act which now becomes a habit that is repeated time and again.”

 

“Finally, the holy elders identify the end stage in the evolution of a logismos as that of a passion or obsession. The logismos has become an entrenched reality within the consciousness of the person, within the nous. The person becomes a captive of obsessive logismoi, leading to ongoing destructive acts to oneself and to others, such as in the case of a compulsive gambler. The holy elders have warned us that when we become dominated by such passions it is like giving the key or our heart to Satan so that he can get in and out any time he wishes. We see a lot of our brothers and sisters struggling desperately to overcome their obsessive passions and addictions but without much success. They are fully aware that what they do is self-destructive. They are capable of reasoning with clarity of mind, but their heart is captive. They cannot eject from themselves that negative energy that possesses and controls them.”

“So what can be done about these people? Are they beyond hope of freeing themselves from their destructive passions?” I asked.

“Through the Grace of the Holy Spirit everything is possible, including their healing,” Father Maximos replied. Then, like a good teacher, he summarized the five stages.

“So, we have five stages in the evolution of a logismos,” he concluded, spreading out the five fingers of his right hand. “Assault, interaction, consent, captivity, and passion. These are more or less all the stages. They unfold and grow within us sometimes gradually, sometimes like an avalanche.”

So how do we handle them?

The answer is surprising.  We ignore them.  That is what the Church fathers tell us to do.  They explain that they are like flies and we are to bat them away.  From a neurological perspective this makes perfect sense.  We don't want to think about the thought or even dialogue with it as it will grow even more.  That brain cells that we neglect will eventually die.  This should give any of us hope who has struggled with unwanted thoughts.  When the logismoi, like the unwanted salesmen comes to the door, we are to shut the door and not to even dialogue with him.  To invited him into our house or our heart constitute sin--sin of the heart.  The first two stages are not sin.  This should make it easier to ignore the first two stages, assault and dialogue. 
Of course, praying the Jesus Prayer is a great replacement for a repetitive assaultive thoughts.  St. Mark the Ascetic said that he gave credit for his prayer life to satan.  Every time he was tempted by the devil, he prayed; thus, he prayed a lot.  St. John Chrysostom talks about how a thief will not disturb a house where there is a party going on inside.  So it is with the heart of the person who says the Jesus prayer continually.  Logismoi, we are told, will always be with us in this life.  Even the holiest of people still have to contend with them. 

Logismoi and Mental Disorders

Some of us seem more prone to problems with thoughts and thinking than others.  People who have obssessional, anxious and depressive thinking could be struggling with logismoi.  The stinkin' thinkin' and resentments that is associated with addiction and alcoholism are probably logismoi.  Worry and many anxiety disorders could be seen as logismoi.  How many people may be on medicine to sedate themselves against the attack of the enemy.  I am not against the use of medicine for certain situations.  I am also not saying that all these disorders are caused by logismoi.  I just want to point out that we may have be deceived into thinking that satan and his assaultive thoughts have no part of our lives.  We live in an age where the spiritual world is downplayed and the biological and psychological is elevated.  The enemy also tries to get us to believe that the thoughts are our own.  Rather, we should see them as coming from the outside of us if we have been baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Christian Church.   Prior to this, the thoughts more likely than not are generated from the inside of us.  Satan loses power in the Holy Sacrament of Baptism.  "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." (Galatians 3:27)

Important Considerations

We tend to go about our lives thinking whatever thoughts come to us without considering this is warfare we are engaged in and the thoughts are the ammunition.  We are asleep.  We are walking through the battlefield and gunfire is whizzing past our heads, and we want to stop and have a closer look at the bullet.  Unfortunately, this is how we get hurt.  We look at the bullets when we take into our heart a resentment, hurt or angry thought about another person. We could choose to not "take into account a wrong suffered."  We would be following Christ, who didn't not open his mouth when wrong things were said about him.  We also take a closer look at the bullet, when we are taking a closer look at someone's beauty and are lusting. We get a closer look at the bullet when we judge ourselves as hopeless cases so we quit running the race or we judge ourselves as virtuous and we quit the race because we are "ahead." 
We should ignore these bullets and keep our own on Christ, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.  Why can we ignore the bullets?  We can ignore them because of the work of Jesus Christ's work on the cross.  He came to destroy the works of the enemy.  The cross is our weapon of peace. What we need to think about and ponder is his word, his commandments, his truth and to call upon his holy name in prayer.  Thank God we don't have to entertain, analyze, dissect, or interact with evil thoughts to overcome them.  We can ignore them and focus on him.  We can take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ by His grace.
Being in a state of awareness is another important asset in our fight.  Perhaps, this is what the Church father talked when they talked about nepsis, this vigilance and alert state.  We need to be like our computer security software that is constantly blocking and granting access for programs want to access our computer's files.  It also guards what goes out from our computers, like putting a guard over our mouths. 
"If you keep your inner man full of wicked thoughts, even if you were on Golgotha, even if you were on the Mount of Olives, even if you stood on the memorial rock of the Resurrection, you will be as afar away from receiving Christ into yourself as one who has not even begun to confess Him."  St. Gregory of Nyssa
To be continued---


thanks to source

http://orthodoxcounselor.com/Articles/logismoi.htm

St. Moses the Black - on Silence

+ A certain brother went to Abba Moses in Scete and asked him to speak a word. The elder said to him, "Go and sit ‎in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."


St. Moses the Black

St. Moses the Black - Martyrdom

His Martyrdom ‎
‎+ On one occasion when the brethren were sitting with Abba Moses, he said to them, "Behold, this day has the ‎barbarians come to Scete; rise up and flee." And they said to him, "Will you not flee, father? He said to them, "I ‎have been expecting this day to come for many years past, so that might be fulfilled the command of our Redeemer, ‎‎"Those who take by the sword shall perish by the sword’" (St. Matthew xxvi, 52). And they said to him, "We then ‎will not flee, but will die with you." He said to them, "This is not my affair, but your own desire; let every man look ‎after himself in the place where he dwells." Now the brethren were seven in number. And after a little he said to ‎them, "Behold, the barbarians have drawn near the door"; and the barbarians entered and slew them. Now one of ‎them had been afraid, and he fled behind the palm leaves, and he saw seven crowns come down and place ‎themselves on the heads of those who had been slain.


St. Moses the Black

St. John of Damaskos - good is good when rightly done

For the good is not good if it is not rightly done. It is really good only if it is not done with the purpose of receiving some reward....

St. John of Damaskos
Philokalia volume II

St. Thalassios on pain, patience and purification

Patiently endure the distressing and painful things that befall you, for through them God in His providence if purifying you.

St. Thalassios

Philokalia volume II

St. Maximos The Confessor ~ Philokalia II (Pleasure & Pain)

The Lord revealed His wisdom by the way in which He healed man, becoming man without the slightest change or mutation. He demonstrated the equity of justice when in His self-abasement He submitted deliberately to the sentence to which what is passible in human nature is subject, and made that sentence a weapon for the destruction of sin and of the death which comes through sin -- that is, for the destruction of pleasure and of the pain which pleasure engenders. It was in this pleasure-pain syndrome that the dominion of sin and death lay: the tyranny of sin committed in pursuit of pleasure, and the lordship of the painful death consequent upon sin. For the dominion of pleasure and pain clearly applies to what is passible in human nature. And we seek how to alleviate through pleasure the penalty of pain, thus in the nature of things increasing the penalty. For in our desire to escape pain we seek refuge in pleasure, and so try to bring relief to our nature, hard pressed as it is by the torment of pain. But through trying in this way to blunt pain with pleasure, we but increase our sum of debts, for we cannot enjoy pleasure that does not lead to pain and suffering.


St. Maximos The Confessor
Philokalia II

St. Maximos The Confessor - Philokalia II (Perfect Love)

If you are not indifferent to both fame and dishonour, riches and poverty, pleasure and distress, you have not yet acquired perfect love. For perfect love is indifferent not only to these but even to this fleeting life and to death.


St. Maximos The Confessor
Philokalia II

Quote by St. Mark The Ascetic on correcting others

If someone does not obey you when you have told him once, do not argue and try to compel him; but take for yourself the profit which he has thrown away. For forbearance will benefit you more than correcting him.

St. Mark The Ascetic
Philokalia