No Christian believing rightly in God should ever be off his guard. He should always be on the look-out for temptation, so that when it comes he will not be surprised or disturbed, but will gladly endure the toil and affliction it causes, and so will understand what he is saying when he chants with the prophet: 'Prove me, Lord, and try me' (Ps. 26:2. LXX). For the prophet did not say, 'Thy correction has destroyed me', but, 'it has upheld me to the end' (Ps. 18:35. LXX).

In addition to voluntary suffering, you must also accept that which comes against your will - I mean slander, material losses and sickness. For if you do not accept these but rebel against them, you are like someone who wants to eat his bread only with honey, never with salt. Such a man does not always have pleasure as his companion, but always has nausea as his neighbor.

Mercy and truth precede all the other virtues. They in their turn produce humility and so discrimination; for, according to the fathers, discrimination comes from humility. Without discrimination, neither practice nor spiritual knowledge can fulfill its purpose. For practice uncontrolled by such knowledge strays here and there aimlessly, like a calf; while knowledge that refuses to clothe itself in the honorable vesture of practice lacks nobility, however much it may pretend to possess it.

Do not fetter yourself to a small thing and you will not be enslaved to a greater one. For the greater evil is built up only on the basis of the smaller.

Suffering deliberately embraced cannot free the soul totally from sin unless the soul is also tried in the fire of suffering that comes unchosen. For the soul is like a sword: if it does not go 'through fire and water' (Ps. 66:12. LXX) - that is, through suffering deliberately embraced and suffering that comes unchosen - it cannot but be shattered by the blows of fortune.

The virtuous may appear to be bad, but essentially they are good; superficially the self-important and pleasure-loving may appear to be good, but basically they are evil.

When it has rejected evil, let the soul still engaged in ascetic struggle repeat the words of the Song to the malicious demons and thoughts that forcibly try to turn its attention once more to vanities and delusion: 'I have taken off my coat; how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet; how can I make them dirty?' (Song of Songs 5:3).

Few are circumspect with regard to what is according to nature, but many with regard to what is contrary to nature. For having expended out of fear all their intrinsic quota of circumspection on what is contrary to nature, they have little left to exercise with regard to what is according to nature. Indeed, they expend most of it on superfluous things and what is by nature worthless.

Do not be angry with a person who unwittingly operates on you like a surgeon. Look rather at the abomination he has removed and, blaming yourself, bless him because through God's grace he has been of such service to you.

Many may be stripped of the coat of self-love, but few of the coat of worldly display; while only the dispassionate are free from self-esteem, the last coat of all.