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.

Whoever fears God stands above all manner of fear. He has become a stranger to all the fear of this world and placed it far from himself, and no manner of trembling comes near him.

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

Scripture brought me to the Gate of Paradise, and the mind stood in wonder as it entered.

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

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.

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.