John of Kronstadt

"Adam and Eve ruined themselves through gluttony."

"Arius, the heretic, reduced the Creator to the rank of creatures and did not recognize Him as consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, a single Being with Him and the Holy Spirit."

"Avarice is from the devil, generosity is from God."

"All Israel shall be saved (Rom. 11:26), all Israel, that is, the true Israelites, like Nathanael, of whom the Lord said: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” (John 1:47). These are the Israelites who will be saved. The majority of Jews, because of their cunning and countless unrepented evil deeds, will perish. Change quickly with a good change, every Christian, as long as the doors of God’s mercy are not closed to you. Do works of mercy, while it is day; the night is coming, when no one can work (John 9:4)."

"All the saints will be witnesses to the salvific nature of the Christian faith against all our learned secular ignoramuses who pride themselves on their false education, against all non-Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and especially against those who are only called Orthodox Christians but have long since changed their faith in practice. That is why martyrs are called “witnesses” in Greek. Remember, Christian, how many witnesses will be against you at the judgment of Christ."

"Always consider it a great blessing to converse in prayer with the Lord, or with the Most Pure Lady, the Mother of God, or with Angels, or with holy people, and pray to Them always with joy and with a tremble of reverence, remembering with Whom you, an unclean and insignificant worm, are speaking."

"The body is only the material shell of the soul, its house."

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

"The character of people in the second half of the 19th century is self-worship, self-legislation (autonomy), materialism in life, and spiritual skepticism (unbelief)."

"The character of the present, temporary life is delusion."

"Churches are spiritual schools, clinics, places of enlightenment, rest stops for travelers to heaven, houses of charity where we are shown the greatest benefits and divine assistance to prepare us for settling in heaven."

"The Church is eternal truth, because it is united with Truth—Christ—and is animated by the Spirit of Truth."

"The Church is truly an earthly paradise."

"Caprice is the germ of heart decay, the rust of the heart, the moth of love, the seed of malice, an abomination to the Lord."

"Conscience in people is nothing other than the voice of the omnipresent God walking in the hearts of men."

"Consider all sweetness as sweepings and filth; do not love anything earthly, do not pity anything earthly for a person, and do not hold enmity against him for anything. Love seeks to please the beloved and to value nothing for his sake."

"Democracy is in hell, and in heaven, it is the Kingdom."

"The day is a symbol of the transience of earthly life."

"The devil is such an evil needle that at all times and everywhere it climbs into your heart's eyes, clouding and suppressing them; it is such a poisonous dust that constantly floats in our mental atmosphere and settles caustically on the heart, eating away at it and drilling it."

"Demon-possessed individuals are peaceful until they are brought close to a sacred object. When they are, an extraordinary force, a repulsion from the sacred, blasphemy, spitting on the sacred, and a piercing scream emerge from them."

"The death of a true Christian is no more than a sleep until the day of resurrection."

"Doubt and scorn for the word, like the poison of the spirit of falsehood, must be cut off."

"The enemy sometimes acts through evil people."

"Envy in a Christian is madness."

"Every person on Earth is sick with the fever of sin, with the blindness of sin, possessed by the rage of sin; and since sin consists primarily of malice and pride, every person, as one suffering from the illness of sin, must be treated with gentle love—an important truth that we often forget; we often, very often, act contrary to it: to malice, we add malice with our own bitterness; to pride, we oppose with pride. This is how evil grows, rather than diminishes; it is not cured, but becomes more infected. Lord, have mercy on us, have mercy on humanity!"

"The flesh flourishes, but the soul withers."

"Faith is the key to God's treasury."

"Food and drink should be used only to strengthen one's forces, and not for gluttony."

"The fiery catastrophe of the Earth expected at the end of the world could occur from the collision of the Earth with one of the wandering fragments or comets."

"Forced prayer develops sanctimony."

"God is good and all-good, and you, His image, should be good."

"God is the creative, living, and life-giving Thought."

"God is Spirit, a simple Being."

"Gluttony is the seed of decay and destruction of the soul."

"Heed: for the purification of your heart from sins, you will receive an infinite reward—you will see God, your all-good Creator, your Provider. The struggle to cleanse the heart is difficult because it is accompanied by great deprivations and sorrows, but the reward is great."

"A human who is embittered against us is a sick person."

"Humility is a great virtue, the mother of all virtues, the mother of all blessings."

"Humility is the foundation of all virtues."

"It has been calculated astronomically that the distance from the Earth to the Sun is one hundred and fifty million versts (approximately 160 million km)."

"Icons are the Church's response to the crying need of our nature."

"Intellectuals have abandoned heavenly wisdom and grasped at earthly vanity, falsehood, mirage, and impenetrable darkness."

"The Jesuits, to please the Pope and their selfish base views and goals, distorted the law of conscience and the law of the Gospel, asserting that to achieve selfish or religious goals, Catholics can use any illegal means."

"The Lord is the perfect Possessor and Master of all creation."

"The Liturgy is a supper, a meal of God's love for the human race."

"Love without thinking: love is simple. Love will never make a mistake."

"The Lutherans say: “Why should we ask for the prayers of the saints for ourselves? We ask God Himself”—and they contradict themselves: for why do they ask the pastor to pray for them? They would pray without a pastor if everyone had the same access to God and there was no need for sanctified intercessors for us. — What blindness! — They say: by praying to the saints, we are idolaters. That is not true. We do not honor a single saint as God, we do not pray to a single saint as God, but only ask for his prayers for us; is there even a shadow of idolatry here? — Just as we ask living ministers and intercessors for us before God to pray for us, so we also ask the heavenly intercessors, who have great boldness before Him due to their love for God; moreover, many of them were intercessors and advocates for the world before God even here on Earth; there, in heaven, their activity only continues, has larger dimensions, and is especially strong, because it is not hindered by heavy and sluggish flesh. — All the saints, although they have finished their earthly course, are alive: “For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him” (Luke 20:38)."

"Leo Tolstoy and writers like him, whose number is countless, have appeared and live on Earth to cloud and corrupt with their godlessness, faithlessness, and anarchy the multitude of people who follow them and read their blasphemous writings. Lord, destroy them from the Earth or turn them to faith, humble their demonic pride!"

"Our life is a child's game, but not an innocent one, but a sinful one, because with a strong mind and knowledge of the purpose of our life, we neglect this purpose and engage in empty, aimless affairs."

"The lusts and desires of the flesh, or the old man, are countless, but they are a dream, a vanity, a phantom, nothing."

"The life of the heart is love; its death is malice and enmity against a brother."