Eastern Orthodoxy Quotes

“Until you have suffered much in your heart, you cannot learn humility.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“Our life depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture. If our thoughts are peaceful, calm, meek, and kind, then that is what our life is like. If our attention is turned to the circumstances in which we live, we are drawn into a whirlpool of thoughts and can have neither peace nor tranquility.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“Joy is thankfulness, and when we are joyful, that is the best expression of thanks we can offer the Lord, Who delivers us from sorrow and sin.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“It is of great significance if there is a person who truly prays in a family. Prayer attracts God's Grace and all the members of the family feel it, even those whose hearts have grown cold. Pray always.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“One must love God first, and only then can one love one's closest of kin and neighbors. We must not be idols to one another, for such is not the will of God.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“We have very little faith in the Lord, very little trust. If we trusted the Lord as much as we trust a friend when we ask him to do something for us, neither we as individuals nor our whole country would suffer so much.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“When we talk to our fellow men and they tell us about their troubles, we will listen to them carefully if we have love for them. We will have compassion for their suffering and pain, for we are God's creatures; we are a manifestation of the love of God.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“One should preach not from one's rational mind but rather from the heart. Only that which is from the heart can touch another heart. One must never attack or oppose anyone. If he who preaches must tell people to keep away from a certain kind of evil, he must do so meekly and humbly, with fear of God.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“Love is sacrifice. Love sacrifices itself for its neighbor.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“We need repentance. You see, repentance is not only going to a priest and confessing. We must free ourselves from the obsession of thoughts. We fall many times during our life, and it is absolutely necessary to reveal everything [in Confession] to a priest who is a witness to our repentance.

Repentance is the renewal of life. This means we must free ourselves from all our negative traits and turn toward absolute good. No sin is unforgivable except the sin of unrepentance.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“Christianity has from its beginning portrayed itself as a gospel of peace, a way of reconciliation (with God, with other creatures), and a new model of human community, offering the 'peace which passes understanding' to a world enmeshed in sin and violence. (1)”
― David Bentley Hart

“Everything is defeated before love.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“To share out your soul freely, that is what metanoia (a change of mind, or repentance)really refers to: a mental product of love. A change of mind, or love for the undemonstrable. And you throw off every conceptual cloak of self-defense, you give up the fleshly resistance of your ego. Repentance has nothing to do with self-regarding sorrow for legal transgressions. It is an ecstatic erotic self-emptying. A change of mind about the mode of thinking and being.”
― Christos Yannaras, Variations on the Song of Songs

“Where there is prayer, the fallen spirits have no power.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“Humility is a Divine property and the perfection of the Christian life. It is attained through obedience. He who is not obedient cannot gain humility. There are very few in the world today who have obedience. Our humility is in proportion to our obedience.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“Righteousness acts never in its own interest, but in the interest of fellow men.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“The Lord does not require us to wear a [cassock] — He wants us to be good and kind.”
― Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives: The Life and Teachings of Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnica

“Do not fill your mind with worldly noise without reason. Radios or televisions operating “in the background” prevent quietude by filling even empty moments with the distracting flow of sounds and voices. How shall we find quiet in our times of prayer, if we have so condition ourselves against it in every other moment?”
― Matthew C. Steenberg, The Beginnings of a Life of Prayer

“Accept what comes from God as His gift, and remain vigilant. Do not cling to even the good, past what is fitting. The weak mind can make idols even out of the good.”
― Matthew C. Steenberg

“Consider each temptation as an opportunity for purification, for strengthening your quiet resolve and spiritual fortitude. He who never falls in prayer is making no real attempt at growth.”
― Matthew C. Steenberg

“Let no temptation call you away from the life of prayer! Let no obstacle be for you a true menace! The Lord is victorious, mighty in battle, and our very Defender: who can do us harm?”
― Matthew C. Steenberg

“Our death is to be to this world in its sinful separation from God. We must die to our waywardness, to our self-will, to our false idols. We must die to a world that has taken death as its defining characteristic. Dying in this way, we open ourselves to life.”
― Matthew C. Steenberg

“The empty tomb transformed the cosmos. So will the prayer of the heart transform the person, the cosmos, even all creation.”
― Matthew C. Steenberg

“… any small step toward God reveals in a new way that we are not of this world.”
― Matthew C. Steenberg

“-O, lumea aceasta nefericită! - răspunse pustnicul. E cârmuită de diavol. Zilnic le-aduce oamenilor lucruri și întâmplări ca să le-alunge din minte pomenirea lui Hristos. Îi face să nu se mai uite la ei înșiși și la rănile lor lăuntrice. Îi face să fie mai interesați de alții decât de ei înșiși.”
― Hierotheos Vlachos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a hermit on Jesus prayer

“Să nu urmărim, așadar, să facem noi înșine cele dumnezeiești, și să nu ne așteptăm ca Dumnezeu să le facă pe cele omenești. Trebuie să înțelegem bine acest lucru: noi săvârșim cele omenești, Rugăciunea lui Iisus, și Dumnezeu cele dumnezeiești, adică mântuirea noastră.”
― Hierotheos Vlachos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a hermit on Jesus prayer

“Așa cum vântul stârnește valuri pe mare, la fel și vântul gândurilor ridică în suflet valuri.”
― Hierotheos Vlachos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a hermit on Jesus prayer

“[...] trebuie să citim cărțile cu inima, nu cu înțelegerea seacă. Să citim cărți scrise cu inima, care pot fi citite cu bucurie de inimă.”
― Hierotheos Vlachos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a hermit on Jesus prayer

“Așa cum apa curăță murdăriile, așa cum ploaia limpezește cerul de nori și pământul de tină, la fel lacrimile limpezesc și albesc sufletul.”
― Hierotheos Vlachos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a hermit on Jesus prayer

“Poruncile lui Hristos sunt "graiuri de viață veșnică", iar nu percepte morale, exterioare.”
― Hierotheos Vlachos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain: Discussion with a hermit on Jesus prayer