When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge.

The holy Cross goes forward; it brings joy and consolation to every quarter where Christians live; and these God-fearing people, elated, stand in their doorways and greet it reverently, the strength, the salvation of the universe, the Cross.

Nero wasn't worried at all when he heard the utterance of the Delphic Oracle: "Beware the age of seventy-three." Plenty of time to enjoy himself still. He's thirty. The deadline the god has given him is quite enough to cope with future dangers.

Have Ithaka always in your mind. Your arrival there is what you are destined for. But don't in the least hurry the journey.

He wasn't completely wrong, poor old Gemistus (let Lord Andronicus and the patriarch suspect him if they like), in wanting us, telling us to become pagan once again.

Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality's laws - poorly understood and applied - are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.

The frivolous can call me frivolous. I've always been most punctilious about important things. And I insist that no one knows better than I do the Holy Fathers, or the Scriptures, or the Canons of the Councils.