Ignatius Bryanchaninov Quotes

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

Indulging sinful and vain desires always leads to obsession with them, and after the obsession comes slavery, which is death to everything spiritual. Those who allowed themselves to follow their desires and carnal mind became obsessed with them, enslaved by them, forgot God and eternity, and waster their earthly lives pointlessly, dying an eternal death.

Brothers! Let us study the all-powerful and life-giving commandments of our great God, Creator, and Redeemer. Let us learn them assiduously, by word and by life. They are read in the holy Gospels, but they are known only as much as they are done in actual fact.

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.

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.

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.

Being offended at the sins of others is a serious spiritual disease.

Earthly wealth does not belong to us, as those who have never thought about this erroneously believe. Otherwise, it always and forever would remain in our possession. But it changes hands constantly, thereby proving that it is given only for us to watch over temporarily.

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 spiritual harvest requires a heart that is harrowed by repentance, softened by compunction, and irrigated by tears.

If you think that you love God, but in your heart lives an unpleasant disposition toward even one person, you are grievously self-deluded.

The world pushes us off course because it serves vanity and death and tries to force everyone else to serve its fallen masters, sometimes with kind words, sometimes with outright persecution..

Do you want to belong in heaven and to its society; do you want to be a sharer of its blessedness? From this moment, begin to spend your time with the saints. When you leave your mortal body, they will accept you as their own, as an acquaintance, as a friend.

Our heart distracts us when it inclines to the fulfillment of its own fallen desires, when it leaves the path of God's will.

It is harder to fool the conscience than the mind. The conscience is capable of fighting long and hard against the mind deluded by its love of sin.