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We know the utility of prayer from the efforts of the wicked spirits to distract us during the divine office and we experience the fruit of prayer in the defeat of our enemies.

John Climacus

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More quotes by John Climacus

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Faith furnishes prayer with wings, without which it cannot soar to Heaven.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Do not make judgments, and you will travel no quicker road to the forgiveness of your sins. 'Judge not, so that you may not be judged' (Lk. 6:37).
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It happens, I do not know how, that most of the proud never really discover their true selves. They think they have conquered their passions and they find out how poor they really are only after they die.
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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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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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Pride is the utter poverty of soul disguised as riches, imaginary light where in fact there is darkness.
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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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Simplicity is an enduring habit within a soul that has grown impervious to evil thoughts.
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Someone who is elated with wine speaks the truth on all subjects, even without meaning to. In the same way, anyone who is inebriated with the spirit of penitence will never be able to tell lies.
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The friend of silence comes close to God. In secret he converses with him and receives his light.
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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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When you are depressed, bear in mind the Lord's command to Peter to forgive a sinner seventy times seven (cf. Mt. 18:22). And you may be sure that He Who gave this command to another will Himself do very much more.
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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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Obedience is the burial of the will and the resurrection of humility.
John Climacus