Ignatius Bryanchaninov Quotes

As someone who is in one mind and heart with the Holy Fathers, you will be saved.

Guard your conscience. Do not forget that you are the image and likeness of God, that you are obliged to present this image in purity and holiness to God himself. Woe to you if God will not recognize His image, will not find in it any similarity with Himself! He will utter the dreadful words: "I do not know you."

The fall has become so assimilated to the essence of all mankind that rejection of the fall has become tantamount to rejection of our very life.

He who has felt spiritual love will only despise carnal love, seeing it for the unsightly parody of love that it is.

The prince of this world tries to keep us in constant diversion, darkening us through the pleasures of the body!

The truth of the scribes and Pharisees contented itself with studying the letter of the Law of God without any corresponding study of the life according to the Law, so instead they led a life contrary to God's Law. As a result of their superficial knowledge, those who limit themselves to studying the letter of the Law fall into pride and conceit.

Do you want to learn to love God? Separate yourself from any word, deed, thought and feeling forbidden by the Gospels.

Let us not foolishly waste our abilities of soul and body; let us not bring them as a sacrifice to the vain and fading world.

Our helmsman, the mind, sometimes loses his way and takes our whole life along with him down the wrong path.

Even in Eden, the mind tried to acquire knowledge without wisdom and attentiveness, and the knowledge proved to be lethal!

The Lord came to the earth to save sinners, and so he expects an inevitable admission of sinfulness from every person; judging one's neighbor is a rejection of this acknowledgement.

The light of Christ's teaching is heavy and intolerable for the sons of the world. They run from it into their dark, soundless pits—into distraction, into various earthly pastimes, into carnal pleasures. There, in their moral darkness, they live their earthly life with no spiritual, eternal goals.

The books of the Holy Fathers, according to the words of one of their number, are like a mirror—the soul who looks at them often and with attention will be able to see its deficiencies.

Try to integrate the Gospel into your mind and heart so that your mind will in a manner of speaking, swim in it, live in it. Then your every action will truly become evangelical.

Do not waste time trying to determine who is right and who is wrong, you or your neighbor. Instead, try to accuse yourself and preserve peace with your neighbor through your humility.