"Whoever loves himself cannot love God."

“Spiritual discourse always keeps the soul free from self-esteem, for it gives every part of the soul a sense of light, so that it no longer needs the praise of men.”

“No one can love God consciously in his heart unless he has first feared Him with all his heart. Through the action of fear the soul is purified and, as it were, made malleable and so it becomes awakened to the action of love.”

“The eye of the soul cannot be led astray when its veil, by which I mean the body, is refined to near-transparency through self-control.”

“The perceptive faculty natural to our soul is single, but it is split into two distinct modes of operation as a result of Adam's disobedience.”

“With tears we sow seeds of prayer in the earth of the heart, hoping to reap the harvest in joy.”

“If the soul, through attentiveness, reduces the blindness caused by the love of this world, it will consider its slightest faults to be very grave and will continually shed tears. ... But if the soul persists in its worldly disposition, even though it commits a murder or some other act deserving severe punishment, it takes little notice; and it is quite unable to discern its other faults, often considering them to be signs of progress, and in its wretchedness it is not ashamed to defend them heatedly.”