When you read the Gospels, do not seek enjoyment, do not search for exalted feelings, do not try to find brilliant thoughts. Seek instead to perfectl… - Ignatius Bryanchaninov

Those who desire to learn attentiveness must reject all empty activity in their lives.

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

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.