"Let us hold fast to the true faith handed down to us by the apostles, guarding it with vigilance and love."

• St Cyril of Alexandria

"Alone with none but thee, my God,
I journey on my way.
What need I fear when thou art near,
Oh king of night and day?
More safe am I within thy hand
Than if a host did round me stand."

• St Columba of Iona

`You need not be despondent. Let those be despondent who do not believe in God. For them sorrow is burdensome, of course, because besides earthly enjoyment they have nothing. But believers must not be despondent, for through sorrows they receive the right of sonship, without which is impossible to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

• St Barsanuphius of Optina ☦️`

"Likewise, if we truly love God, then we never for a second forget about Him, no matter where we go or what we do. We do it all as if before Him. It naturally follows that we strive to avoid anything that would compromise us in His eyes. We fear to lower ourselves in His opinion by any dishonorable, or ignoble or shameful act."

• Archbishop Averky Taushev

"A division within the Church has never occurred, nor indeed can one take place, while apostasy from the Church has and will continue to occur after the manner of those voluntarily fruitless branches which, having withered, fall away from the eternally living theanthropic Vine—the Lord Christ (John 15:1-6). From time to time, heretics and schismatics have cut themselves off and have fallen away from the one and indivisible Church of Christ, whereby they ceased to be members of the Church and parts of her theanthropic body. The first to fall away thus were the gnostics, then the Arians, then the Macedonians, then the Monophysites, then the Iconoclasts, then the Roman Catholics, then the Protestants, then the Uniates, and so on—all the other members of the legion of heretics and schismatics.”

• St Justin Popovich

“To yield and give way to our passions is the lowest slavery, even as to rule over them is the only liberty.”

• St Justin Martyr

"When praying, keep to the rule that it is better to say five words from the depth of your heart than ten thousand words with your tongue only. When you observe that your heart is cold and prays unwillingly, stop praying and warm your heart by vividly representing to yourself either your own wickedness, your spiritual poverty, misery, and blindness, or the great benefits which God bestows every moment upon you and all mankind, especially upon Christians, and then pray slowly and fervently."

• St John of Kronstadt

Why do we judge our neighbors? Because we are not trying to get to know ourselves. Someone busy trying to understand himself has no time to notice the shortcomings of others. Judge yourself — and you will stop judging others. Judge a poor deed, but do not judge the doer. It is necessary to consider yourself the most sinful of all, and to forgive your neighbor every poor deed. One must hate only the devil, who tempted him. It can happen that someone might appear to be doing something bad to us, but in reality, because of the doer's good intentions, it is a good deed. Besides, the door of penitence is always open, and it is not known who will enter it sooner — you, "the judge," or the one judged by you.

St. Seraphim of Sarov

So proceed with quiet steps, in perfect silence. Let no one enter here with worldly cares, no one with dissipation and confusion, but let us leave all these things at the first door, and thus let us all enter here. We are entering the royal heavenly chambers, we are entering into the bright regions, inside they are filled with great silence and unspeakable mysteries.

• St John Chrysostom

"To repent is not to look downwards at my own shortcomings but upwards at God's love, it is not to look backwards at self-reproach but forwards with trustfulness, it is to see not what I have failed to be but what by the grace of Christ I might yet become."

• St John Climacus