"As it is the character of great minds to make many things heard in a few words, small minds, on the contrary, have the gift of speaking a lot, and of saying nothing."

"The desire to appear skillful often prevents one from becoming so."

"Only those with real strength of character can have real gentleness; those who look gentle are usually merely weak"

"The most insignificant man can be complete if he works within the limits of his capacities, innate or acquired; but even fine talents can be obscured, neutralised, and destroyed by lack of this indispensable requirement of symmetry. This is a mischief which will often occur in modern times; for who will be able to come up to the claims of an age so full and intense as this, and one too that moves so rapidly?"

"Pride has more part than kindness in the remonstrances we make to those who make mistakes; and we do not take them back so much to correct them as to persuade them that we are exempt from them."

"Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage."

"Those who focus too much on small things usually become incapable of big ones."

"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm."

"A good reputation is more valuable than money."

"The judge is condemned when the guilty is absolved."

"A clever man must regulate the rank of his interests and lead them each in his order."

"Maxim... Generally any simple and memorable rule or guide for living; for example, 'neither a borrower nor a lender be'. Tennyson speaks of 'a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart (Locksley Hall), and maxims have generally been associated with a 'folksy' or 'copy-book' approach to morality."

"There is something anachronistic about the very idea of aphorisms or maxims. Contemporary culture isn’t stately enough, or stable enough, to support them."

"He doubly benefits the needy who gives quickly."

"If your parent is just, revere him; if not, bear with him."

"Bitter for a free man is the bondage of debt."

"It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth."

"Aphorism or maxim, let us remember that this wisdom of life is the true salt of literature; that those books, at least in prose, are most nourishing which are most richly stored with it; and that is one of the great objects, apart from the mere acquisition of knowledge, which men ought to seek in the reading of books."

"Audacity augments courage; hesitation, fear."

"Our greed often troubles him by making us run to so many things at once that, in order to desire too much the less important, we miss the most important."

"Mediocre minds usually condemn anything that is beyond their reach."

"It is better to use our minds to endure the misfortunes that happen to us than to foresee those that may happen to us."

"The world rewards the appearances of merit more often than merit itself."

"Hell is full of good meanings and wishings."

"Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works."

"It has been more wittily than charitably said that hell is paved with good intentions; they have their place in heaven also."

"El infierno es lleno de buenas intenciones."

"Die Helle ist mit Mönchskappen, Pfaffenfalten, und Pickelhauben gepflastert."

"Hell is paved with priests' skulls."

"L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés ou désirs."

"Do not be troubled by St. Bernard's saying that "Hell is full of good intentions and wills.""

"Hell is paved with good intentions."

"[T]he road to hell is paved with adverbs."

"Hell is paved with infants' skulls."

"Hell is paved with the skulls of great scholars, and paled in with the bones of great men."

"A brother asked an elder and said to him: ‘Do you wish me to meditate on what people read in the Scriptures when I go to church?’ The elder said to him: ‘You are going to the source of life.’"

"Abba Elijah was asked: ‘How will we be saved these days?’ He replied: ‘We will be saved through each of us having no regard for himself.’"

"I heard that my father, Abba Paphnutius, said: ‘If a man does not change the skin of his face [to be] as the sole of his foot, he cannot be a monk at all.’"

"Father Makar [Macarius] said to the young brother Zak’arē [Zacharaeus]: ‘What is the task of the solitary?’ And Zak’arē said: ‘To give thanks for temptations and to be silent.’ [in hêsychia]"

"An elder was asked: ‘Why am I fearful on going into the desert?’ He said: ‘Because you think yourself alone, and you do not see God with you.’"

"An elder said: ‘If you wish to be known to God, be unknown to mankind.’"

"I heard that the great Abba Agathon used to say: ‘All the time God was showing me the way that I was to take.’"

"Abba Sisoes showed us about Abba Antony and said, ‘So then, in the cave of a lion a fox dwells.’"

"Abba Moses gave the following seven precepts to Abba Poemen which, if observed, will lead to salvation for anybody, whether in a coenobion or in solitude or in the world itself: 1. In the first place, as it is written a man must love God with all your heart and with all your mind. 2. A man must love his neighbour as himself. 3. A man must do to death all evil in him. 4. A man must not judge his brother in any dispute. 5. A man must do no evil to another person. 6. Before departing this life, a man must cleanse himself of every fault of mind or body. 7. A man must always be of a humble and contrite heart. This can be achieved by anyone who thinks of his own sins all the time and not of his neighbour’s, with the assistance of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns world without end. Amen."

"An elder said, ‘Do not do anything without prayer, and afterwards you will not be sorry.’"

"An elder said: ‘A monk ought to be courageous and single-hearted – then he will be saved.’"

"An elder said: ‘The work of a monk is to see his logismoi from afar.’"

"An elder said: ‘To be humble and self-deprecatory is like a protective wall for a monk.’"

"A brother asked an elder, ‘If I am in a beautiful place and the time of worship has arrived, should I return?’ The elder said to him, ‘Who is it that, when he remembers wealth, returns to poverty?’"