St Gregory of Nyssa > Quotes

“One way of escape is open: it is, to be attached to none of these things, and to get as far away as possible from the society of this emotional and sensual world; or rather, for a man to go outside the feelings which his own body gives rise to. Then, as he does not live for the flesh, he will not be subject to the troubles of the flesh. But this amounts to living for the spirit only, and imitating all we can the employment of the world of spirits. There they neither marry, nor are given in marriage. Their work and their excellence is to contemplate the Father of all purity, and to beautify the lines of their own character from the Source of all beauty, so far as imitation of It is possible.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“Just so the human mind (so it seems to me), as long as its current spreads itself in all directions over the pleasures of the sense, has no power that is worth the naming of making its way towards the Real Good; but once call it back and collect it upon itself, so that it may begin to move without scattering and wandering towards the activity which is congenital and natural to it, it will find no obstacle in mounting to higher things, and in grasping realities.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“If, then, death cannot pass beyond virginity, but finds his power checked and shattered there, it is demonstrated that virginity is a stronger thing than death; and that body is rightly named undying which does not lend its service to a dying world, nor brook to become the instrument of a succession of dying creatures.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“The pleasures of eating and drinking, leading to boundless excess, inflict upon the body the doom of the most dreadful sufferings; for over-indulgence is the parent of most of the painful diseases. To secure for the body a continuous tranquillity, unstirred by the pains of surfeit, we must make up our minds to a more sparing regimen, and constitute the need of it on each occasion not the pleasure of it, as the measure and limit of our indulgence.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“They therefore do not understand that all virtue is found in moderation, and that any declension to either side of it becomes a vice.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“I venture to affirm that, to one who has cleansed all the powers of his being from every form of vice, the Beauty which is essential, the source of every beauty and every good, will become visible.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“Therefore the clearseeing mind which measures reality will journey on its path without turning, accomplishing its appointed time from its birth to its exit; it is neither softened by the pleasures nor beaten down by the hardships; but, as is the way with travellers, it keeps advancing always, and takes but little notice of the views presented. It is the travellers way to press on to their journey's end, no matter whether they are passing through meadows and cultivated farms, or through wilder and more rugged spots; a smiling landscape does not detain them; nor a gloomy one check their speed.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“What, indeed, among the things here is there enviable in that which so many strive for —honour? What is gained by those who win it? The mortal remains mortal whether he is honoured or not. What good does the possessor of many acres gain in the end? Except that the foolish man thinks his own that which never belongs to him, ignorant seemingly in his greed that the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof , for God is king of all the earth. It is the passion of having which gives men a false title of lordship over that which can never belong to them.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“How can any one fly up into the heavens, who has not the wings of heaven and is not already buoyant and lofty-minded by reason of a heavenly calling?”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“If you wish to learn all the trials of this married life, listen to those women who actually know it. How they congratulate those who have chosen from the first the virgin life, and have not had to learn by experience about the better way, that virginity is fortified against all these ills, that it has no orphan state, no widowhood to mourn; it is always in the presence of the undying Bridegroom; it has the offspring of devotion always to rejoice in; it sees continually a home that is truly its own, furnished with every treasure because the Master always dwells there; in this case death does not bring separation, but union with Him Who is longed for; for when (a soul) departs , then it is with Christ, as the Apostle says.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“Therefore, by contraries, the depravation of anything in our moral nature will extend to the whole virtuous life; and in very truth, as the Apostle tells us, the whole is affected by the parts, and if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, if one be honoured, all rejoice.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“I take that to mean that any man who entrusts to language the task of presenting the ineffable Light is really and truly a liar; not because of any hatred on his part of the truth, but because of the feebleness of his instrument for expressing the thing thought of.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“But God is not pain any more than He is pleasure; He is not cowardice any more than boldness; He is not fear, nor anger, nor any other emotion which sways the untutored soul, but, as the Apostle says, He is Very Wisdom and Sanctification, Truth and Joy and Peace, and everything like that. If He is such, how can any one be said to cleave to Him, who is mastered by the very opposite?”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“So the soul whose life is in God will find her pleasure in no single one of those things which make a beauteous show to deceive her.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“It is impossible that one who has turned to the world and feels its anxieties, and engages his heart in the wish to please men, can fulfil that first and great commandment of the Master, You shall love God with all your heart and with all your strength Matthew 22:37 . How can he fulfil that, when he divides his heart between God and the world, and exhausts the love which he owes to Him alone in human affections?”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived”
― St Gregory of Nyssa

“We shall become then as the light, in our nearness to Christ's true light, if we leave this dark atmosphere of the earth and dwell above; and we shall be light, as our Lord says somewhere to His disciples, if the true Light that shines in the dark comes down even to us; unless, that is, any foulness of sin spreading over our hearts should dim the brightness of our light.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“That is temperance's highest aim; it looks not to the afflicting of the body, but to the peaceful action of the soul's functions.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“For virtue is a possession which, though all according to their capacity should share it, yet will be always in abundance for those who thirst after it; unlike the occupation of the lands on this earth, which men divide into sections, and the more they add to the one the more they take from the other, so that the one person's gain is his fellow's loss; whence arise the fights for the lion's share, from men's hatred of being cheated.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“What, then, do we learn thereby? This: that the man who longs for union with God must, like those saints, detach his mind from all worldly business. It is impossible for the mind which is poured into many channels to win its way to the knowledge and the love of God.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“It would be our interest therefore to keep far away from such a stream, lest, engaged on temporal things, we should neglect eternity.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“The earthly envelopment once removed, the soul's beauty will again appear.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“If you want a graphic picture of this accursed chain, suppose a man who because of some special pleasure it gives him is a victim to his thirst for fame; then a desire to increase his fortune follows close upon this thirst for fame; he becomes grasping; but only because the first vice leads him on to this. Then this grasping after money and superiority engenders either anger with his kith and kin, or pride towards his inferiors, or envy of those above him; then hypocrisy comes in after this envy; a soured temper after that; a misanthropical spirit after that; and behind them all a state of condemnation which ends in the dark fires of hell. You see the chain; how all follows from one cherished passion.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“It is so, first, because a man who has thus died once for all to sin lives for the future to God; he brings forth no more fruit unto death; and having so far as in him lies made an end of this life within him according to the flesh, he awaits thenceforth the expected blessing of the manifestation of the great God, refraining from putting any distance between himself and this coming of God by an intervening posterity: secondly, because he enjoys even in this present life a certain exquisite glory of all the blessed results of our resurrection.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“For instance, to suppose that when he has escaped pleasure, he will find virtue in letting pain have possession of him; or when he has by an effort remained proof against anger, in crouching with fear. It matters not whether we miss virtue, or rather God Himself Who is the Sum of virtue, in this way, or in that.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity

“He who is of so weak a character that he cannot make a manful stand against nature's impulse had better keep himself very far away from such temptations, rather than descend into a combat which is above his strength.”
― St Gregory of Nyssa

“Will life's sweetness seem worth taking delight in to him who reflects on this? Will he ever be able really to feel it, so as to have joy in the goods he holds? Will he not, disturbed by the constant fear of some reverse, have the use without the enjoyment?”
― St Gregory of Nyssa