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.

Anyone who wants to be an example to others, must first examine himself.

No one is truly poor but except the one who lacks the truth.

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.

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

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.