Do not disdain the commandment to love, for through it you become a son of God, and when you break it, you become a son of Gehenna.

A Christian receives divine wisdom in three ways: by the commandments, teachings, and faith. The commandments free the mind from passions. Teachings lead it to true knowledge of nature. Faith leads to the contemplation of the Holy Trinity.

If you are remembering evil against someone, then pray for him; and as you remove through prayer the pain of the remembrance of the evil he has done, you will stop the advance of the passion. And when you have attained brotherly love and love for mankind, you will completely cast this passion out of your soul. Then when someone else does evil to you, be affectionate and humble toward him, and treat him kindly, and you will deliver him from this passion.

If you make provision for the desires of the flesh and bear a grudge against your neighbor on account of something transitory, you worship the creature instead of the Creator.

He who has realized love for God in his heart is tireless in his pursuit of the Lord his God, and bears every hardship, reproach and insult nobly, never thinking the least evil of anyone.

Just as the thought of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not actualize the light of spiritual knowledge in the soul.

There is a single energy of God and the saints? they are living icons of Christ, being the same as He is, by grace rather than by assimilation.