Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The person who loves God cannot help loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.
Maximus the Confessor
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Maximus the Confessor
Philosopher
Theologian
Istanbul
Maximus of Constantinople
Maximus the Theologian
Helping
Delight
Cannot
Loves
Amend
Persons
Loving
Grieved
Person
Passion
Purified
Even
Though
Indescribable
Every
Help
Orthodox
Men
Christian
Passions
Lives
Bounds
More quotes by Maximus the Confessor
Love is manifested not only through the distribution of one's possessions, but even moreso through the spreading of the word of God and helpful deeds.
Maximus the Confessor
To harbor no envy, no anger, no resentment against an offender is still not to have charity for him. It is possible, without any charity, to avoid rendering evil for evil. But to render, spontaneously, good for evil - such belongs to a perfect spiritual love.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
Trials are sent to some so as to take away past sins, to others so as to eradicate sins now being committed, and to yet others so as to forestall sins which may be committed in the future. These are distinct from the trials that arise in order to test men in the way that Job was tested.
Maximus the Confessor
If an unexpected temptation comes, don't blame the one through whom it came, but seek out the reason. Thus you will find correction for your soul.
Maximus the Confessor
Only wonder can comprehend His incomprehensible power.
Maximus the Confessor
We must not only put bodily passions to death but also destroy the soul's impassioned thoughts. Hence the Psalmist says, 'Early in the morning I destroyed all the wicked of the earth, that I might cut off all evil-doers from the city of the Lord' (Ps. 101:8) - that is, the passions of the body and the soul's godless thoughts.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
Peace is truly the complete and undisturbed possession of what is desired.
Maximus the Confessor
Unclean spirits increase the passions in us, making use of our negligence, and inciting them. But the angels decrease our passions, inciting us to the perfection of virtue.
Maximus the Confessor
He has as yet no perfect love, whose disposition towards men depends on what they are like, loving one and despising another for this or that, or sometimes loving, sometimes hating one and the same man. Blessed is the man who can love all men equally.
Maximus the Confessor
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.
Maximus the Confessor
Just as the light of the sun attracts a healthy eye, so through love knowledge of God naturally draws to itself a pure intellect.
Maximus the Confessor
When what has been created in time according to the temporal order has reached maturity, it ceases from natural growth. But when what has been brought about by the knowledge of God through the practice of the virtues has reached maturity, it starts to grow anew. For the end of one stage constitutes the starting point of the next.
Maximus the Confessor
Humility and suffering free a man from all sin for the first cuts out spiritual passions, and the latter bodily.
Maximus the Confessor
Humility and ascetic hardship free a man from all sin, for the one cuts out the passions of the soul, the other those of the body. This is what the blessed David indicates when he prays to God, saying, Look on my humility and my toil, and forgive all my sins (Ps. 25:18).
Maximus the Confessor
Food is not evil, but gluttony is. Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse.
Maximus the Confessor
Blessed is he who like Joshua (cf. Josh. 10:12-13) keeps the Sun of righteousness from setting in himself throughout the whole day of his present life, not allowing it to be blotted out by the dusk of sin and ignorance. In this way he will truly be able to put to flight the cunning demons that rise up against him.
Maximus the Confessor
Some passions are bodily, other spiritual. Bodily passions have their sources in the body, while spiritual ones come from external things. But love and temperance cut out both the one and the other: Love cuts out spiritual passions, and temperance bodily ones.
Maximus the Confessor
If you expound the teaching of the Logos from the standpoint of the moral life, using materialistic words and examples which correspond to the capacity of your hearers, you make the Logos flesh. Conversely, if you elucidate mystical theology by means of the higher forms of contemplation you make the Logos spirit.
Maximus the Confessor