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Simplicity is an enduring habit within a soul that has grown impervious to evil thoughts.

John Climacus

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John Climacus
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Saint John Climacus
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A proud monk needs no demon. He has turned into one, an enemy to himself.
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It can happen that when we are at prayer some brothers come to see us. Then we have to choose either to interrupt our prayer or to sadden our brother by refusing to answer him. But love is greater than prayer. Prayer is one virtue among others, whereas love contains them all.
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Forgetting offences is a sign of sincere repentance. If you keep the memory of them, you may believe you have repented but you are like someone running in his sleep. Let no one consider it a minor defect, this darkness that often clouds the eyes even of spiritual people.
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Humility 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.
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The slave of the belly ponders the menu with which to celebrate the feast. The servant of God, however, thinks of the graces that may enrich him.
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Fight to escape from your own cleverness. If you do, then you will find salvation and uprightness through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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When people begin to praise us, let us hurry to remember the multitude of ours transgressions, and we will see that we are truly unworthy of that which they say and do in our honor.
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When you hear that your neighbor or friend has reproached you in your absence or presence, then show love and praise him.
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The first stage of this tranquility consists in silencing the lips when the heart is excited. The second, in silencing the mind when the soul is still excited. The goal is a perfect peacefulness even in the middle of the raging storm.
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A servant of the Lord stands bodily before men, but mentally he is knocking at the gates of heaven with prayer.
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Often the Lord heals vainglory by dishonor.
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Pride is the utter poverty of soul disguised as riches, imaginary light where in fact there is darkness.
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He does not show humility who accuses himself (for who will not accept rebukes from himself?), but he who, being rebuked by another, does not decrease his love toward him.
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As fire does not give birth to snow, so those who seek honor here will not enjoy it in heaven... As those who climb a rotten ladder are in danger, so all honor, glory, and power are opposed to humility.
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Repentance lifts a man up. Mourning knocks at heaven's gate. Holy humility opens it.
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Meekness is an unchanging state of mind, which both in honor and dishonor remains the same. Meekness consists in praying sincerely and undisturbedly in the face of afflictions from one's neighbor. Meekness is a cliff rising from the sea of irritability, against which all the that waves that strive against it break, but which is itself never broken.
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An angel fell from Heaven without any other passion except pride, and so we may ask whether it is possible to ascend to Heaven by humility alone, without any other of the virtues.
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Those who submit to the Lord with simple heart will run the good race. If they keep their minds on a leash, they will not draw the wickedness of the demons onto themselves.
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Confession is like a bridle that keeps the soul which reflects on it from committing sin, but anything left unconfessed we continue to do without fear as if in the dark.
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The man who pets a lion may tame it, but the man who coddles the body makes it ravenous.
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