Maximus the Confessor Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• A pure heart is perhaps one which has no natural propulsion towards anything in any manner whatsoever. When in its extreme simplicity such a heart has become like a writing-tablet beautifully smoothed and polished, God comes to dwell in it and writes there His own laws.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Heart, Writing

  51 Copy quote

• Dispassion and humility lead to spiritual knowledge. Without them no one will see the Lord.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Spiritual, Humility

  21 Copy quote

• As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly

  Maximus the Confessor

  Bears, Heavenly

  40 Copy quote

• If everything that exists was made by God and for God, and God is superior to the things made by Him, he who abandons what is superior and devotes Himself to what is inferior shows that he values things made by God more than God Himself.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Made, Orthodox

  33 Copy quote

• Peace is truly the complete and undisturbed possession of what is desired.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Possession, Orthodox

  34 Copy quote

• You will be able to check envy if you rejoice with the man whom you envy whenever he rejoices, and grieve whenever he grieves.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Men, Grieving

  31 Copy quote

• There is a single energy of God and the saints? they are living icons of Christ, being the same as He is, by grace rather than by assimilation.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Icons, Grace

  30 Copy quote

• The man who has struggled bravely with the passions of the body, has fought ably against unclean spirits, and has expelled from his soul the conceptual images they provoke, should pray for a pure heart to be given him and for a spirit of integrity to be renewed within him (cf. Ps. 51:10). In other words, he should pray that by grace he may be completely emptied of evil thoughts and filled with divine thoughts, so that he may become a spiritual world of God, splendid and vast, wrought from moral, natural and theological forms of contemplation.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Spiritual, Integrity

  20 Copy quote

• For him who is perfect in love and has reached the summit of dispassion there is no difference between his own or another's, or between Christians and unbelievers, or between slave and free, or between male and female. But because he has risen above the tyranny of the passions and has fixed his attention on the single nature of man, he looks on all in the same way and shows the same disposition to all. For in him there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, bond not free, but Christ who 'is all, and in all' (Col. 3:11; cf. Gal. 3:28).

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Passion, Men

  30 Copy quote

• He who asks to receive his daily bread does not automatically receive it in its fullness as it is in itself: he receives it according to his own capacity as recipient. The Bread of Life (cf. Jn. 6:35) gives Himself in His love to all who ask, but not in the same way to all; for He gives Himself more fully to those who have performed great acts of righteousness, and in smaller measure to those who have not achieved so much. He gives Himself to each person according to that person's spiritual ability to receive Him.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Spiritual, Bread Of Life

  28 Copy quote

• Every genuine confession humbles the soul. When it takes the form of thanksgiving, it teaches the soul that it has been delivered by the grace of God.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Grace, Soul

  14 Copy quote

• Inasmuch as you pray with all your soul for the one who has slandered you, so much will God reveal the truth to them who have believed the slander.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Christian, Teaching, Mean

  28 Copy quote

• When we think of the height of God's infinity we should not despair of His compassion reaching us from such a height; and when we recall the infinite depth of our fall through sin we should not refuse to believe that the virtue which has been killed in us will rise again. For God can accomplish both these things: He can come down and illumine our intellect with spiritual knowledge, and He can raise up the virtue within us and exalt it with Himself through works of righteousness.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Spiritual, Believe

  22 Copy quote

• Let us be satisfied simply with what sustains our present life, not with what pampers it. Let us pray to God for this, as we have been taught, so that we may keep our souls unenslaved and absolutely free from domination by any of the visible things loved for the sake of the body. Let us show that we eat for the sake of living, and not be guilty of living for the sake of eating. The first is a sign of intelligence, the second proof of its absence.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Soul, Body

  24 Copy quote

• The mind of a man that loves God does not fight against things or thoughts about them, but against the passions that are connected with these thoughts. That is, he does not struggle against a woman, or against one who has insulted him, and not against the images of them, but against the passions that are aroused by these images.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

  6 Copy quote

• Whatever a man loves he inevitably clings to, and in order not to lose it he rejects everything that keeps him from it. So he who loves God cultivates pure prayer, driving out every passion that keeps him from it. He who drives out self-love, the mother of the passions, will with God's help easily rid himself of the rest, such as anger, irritation, rancor and so on. But he who is dominated by self-love is overpowered by the other passions, even against his will. Self-love is the passion of attachment to the body.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Mother, Prayer, Passion

  12 Copy quote

• A soul that is nurtured by hatred toward man can not be at peace with God, Who has said: If you forgive not men their sins, neither shall your Father forgive your sins (Matt. 6:15). If a man does not want to be reconciled, you must at least guard yourself from hating, praying with a pure heart for him, and speaking no evil of him.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

  8 Copy quote

• Temptations come on some people for the cleansing of previous sins, on other for the beautification of their current perfection, and on yet others, as preparation for things to come, except temptations, which are for the increase of a man's faith and virtue, as it was with Job.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

  30 Copy quote

• When a man's intellect is constantly with God, his desire grows beyond all measure into an intense longing for God and his incensiveness is completely transformed into divine love. For by continual participation in the divine radiance his intellect becomes totally filled with light; and when it has reintegrated its passible aspect, it redirects this aspect towards God, filling it with an incomprehensible and intense longing for Him and with unceasing love, thus drawing it entirely away from worldly things to the divine.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Men, Drawing

  26 Copy quote

• A passion is a contranatural movement of the soul or an irrational love, or an blindfold hatred toward any material thing, or because of it: for example, for food, or for women, or for riches, or for worldly glory, or any other sensible thing; or for the sake of such things, as in a senseless hatred for someone on account of the things mentioned above.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Inspirational, Christian, Religious

  23 Copy quote

• When you are insulted by someone or humiliated, guard against angry thoughts, lest they arouse a feeling of irritation, and so cut you off from love and place you in the realm of hatred. You should know that you have been greatly benefited when you have suffered deeply because of some insult or indignity; for by means of the indignity self-esteem has been driven out of you.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Christian, Self Esteem, Mean

  23 Copy quote

• 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

  Christian, Hate, Blessed

  8 Copy quote

• A man who has been assiduous in acquiring the fruits of love will not cease loving even if he suffers a thousand calamities. Let Stephen, the disciple of Christ, and others like him persuade you of the truth of this (cf. Acts 7:60). Our Lord Himself prayed for His murderers and asked the Father to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing (cf. Luke 23:34).

  Maximus the Confessor

  Forgiveness, Father, Men

  28 Copy quote

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