Accidia Quotes

“The above explains why thoughts of acedia [despondency] can appear in apparently such contradictory ways: in the lukewarm, as sluggishness, indifference, and even depression, and in the conscientious and eager, as unrestrained activism and ascetical maximalism. If this vice is not healed by steadfast endurance and a life of discipline, combined with “tears before God” and constant short prayers, it leads to a complete standstill of the spiritual life and sometimes even suicide. Yet he who bravely and steadfastly passes the trials of this “noonday demon,” who “encompasses the entire soul and [threatens] to oppress the spirit,” emerges from these tests inwardly strengthened. Unexpectedly, those spiritual experiences from which he thought himself forever to be excluded are now revealed to him.”
― Gabriel Bunge, Dragon's Wine and Angel's Bread: The Teaching of Evagrius Ponticus on Anger and Meekness