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

If you are an ardent reader, seek not brilliant and erudite texts; otherwise the demon of haughtiness will strike your heart. But like a wise bee that gathers honey from flowers, so also through your reading obtain healing for your soul.

It is blasphemy if you pray before God while you are full of anger.

In the measure to which a man cuts off and humbles his own will, he proceeds toward success. But insofar as he stubbornly guards his own will, so much does he brings harm to himself.

The seed, swollen with moisture, burst asunder its covering of soil and out peers the blade of wheat, full of symbols. So faith, whose bosom is filled with goodly fruits, is a blade of praise.

Blessed the one who loves truth continually and has not lent his mouth as an instrument of impiety by lying, for he fears the commandment about idle speech.

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.