Fight to escape from your own cleverness. If you do, then you will find salvation and uprightness through Jesus Christ our Lord.
John ClimacusHumility is the only virtue that no devil can imitate. If pride made demons out of angels, there is no doubt that humility could make angels out of demons.
John ClimacusEveryone who asks something of God and does not receive it doubtless does not receive it for one of these reasons: either because they ask before the time, or they ask unworthily, or out of vainglory, or because if they received what they asked they would become proud or fall into negligence.
John ClimacusThe lover of silence draws close to God. He talks to Him in secret and God enlightens him.
John ClimacusFire and water do not mix, neither can you mix judgment of others with the desire to repent. If a man commits a sin before you at the very moment of his death, pass no judgment, because the judgment of God is hidden from men. It has happened that men have sinned greatly in the open but have done greater deeds in secret, so that those who would disparage them have been fooled, with smoke instead of sunlight in their eyes.
John ClimacusYou wish, or rather, have decided, to remove a splinter from someone? Very well, but do not go after it with a stick instead of a lancet for you will only drive it deeper. Rough speech and harsh gestures are the stick, while even-tempered instruction and patient reprimand are the lancet. 'Reprove, rebuke, exhort,' says the Apostle (II Tim. 4:2), not 'batter'.
John Climacus