We must, with God's help, eradicate the deadly poison of the demon of anger from the depths of our souls. So long as he dwells in our hearts and blinds the eyes of the heart with his somber disorders, we can neither discriminate what is for our good, nor achieve spiritual knowledge, nor fulfill our good intentions, nor participate in true life; and our intellect will remain impervious to the contemplation of the true, divine light; for it is written, 'Man's anger does not bring about the righteousness of God' (Jms. 1:20).

If you want to correct your brother when he is doing wrong? you must keep yourself calm; otherwise you yourself may catch the sickness you are seeking to cure and you may find that the words of the Gospel now apply to you? 'Why do you look at the speck of dust in your brother's eye, and not notice the rafter in your own eye?'

...just as the edifice of all the virtues strives upward toward perfect prayer so will all these virtues be neither sturdy nor enduring unless they are drawn firmly together by the crown of prayer. This endless, unstirring calm of prayer... can neither be achieved nor consummated without these virtues. And likewise virtues are the prerequisite foundation of prayer and cannot be effected without it.

The bond between friends cannot be broken by chance; no interval of time or space can destroy it. Not even death itself can part true friends.

Perfection... is clearly not achieved simply by being naked, by the lack of wealth or by the rejection of honors, unless there is also that love whose ingredients the apostle described (cf. I Cor. 13) and which is to be found solely in purity of heart. Not to be jealous, not to be puffed up, not to act heedlessly, not to seek what does not belong to one, not to rejoice over some injustice, not to plan evil - what is this and its like if not the continuous offering to God of the heart that is perfect and truly pure, a heart kept free of all disturbance?

No other virtue makes man more equal to the angels, than the imitation of their way of life.

...whoever is guided solely by his own judgment and decision will never climb up to the summit of perfection and will not fail to be the victim of the devil's ruinous power to delude.