When you begin to read or listen to the Holy Scriptures, pray to God thus: "Lord Jesus Christ, open the ears and eyes of my heart so that I may hear Thy words and understand them, and may fulfill Thy will." Always pray to God like this, that He might illumine your mind and open to you the power of His words. Many, having trusted in their own reason, have turned away into deception.

If you wish to help someone, give secretly and avoid arrogance.

Blessed the one who has kept the mastery of his eyelids and has not deceived himself with either mind or sense with regard to the skin of the flesh that after a little while oozes putrefaction.

Blessed the one who, exalted by love, has become a city founded upon a mountain, from which the enemy, when he saw it, withdrew in fear, trembling at its security in the Lord.

Prayer is converse with God, equal honor with the Angels, progress in good things, averting of evils, righting of sinners.

Let books be your dining table, / And you shall be full of delights. / Let them be your mattress,/And you shall sleep restful nights

They went down to Egypt and provided food when famine reigned; they came to the obstinate sea, and taught it wisdom with a rod; they went out into the hostile desert and adorned it with a pillar; they entered the furnace, fiercely heated, and sprinkled it with their dew; into the pit where they had been thrown an angel entered and taught its wild beasts to fast.