Isaac The Syrian Quotes

Make peace with yourself, and both heaven and earth will make peace with you.

Dispassion doesn't mean to no longer feel the passions, but to no longer accept them.

This life was given to you for repentance, do not waste it in vain pursuits.

Syrian monk, Isaac of Niniveh: Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence. … Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself. … More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this “something” that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence … after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence.

In the seventh century, Isaac the Syrian wrote about 'stillness,' which in his writings has been summarized as 'a deliberate denial of the gift of words for the sake of achieving inner silence, in the midst of which a person can hear the presence of God. It is standing unceasingly, silent, and prayerfully before God.

Dispassion doesn't mean to no longer feel the passions, but to no longer accept them.

Causes or occasions of sin are the following: wine, women, wealth, health of body when excessive, authority or power, and honor or fame and name. “These,” says St Isaac the Syrian, “are not sins in themselves, but on account of our weakness and as our nature is easily drawn by them to various sins, there is need of peculiar caution in regard to them.”2

Turn my impulses into rigging for the ship of repentance, so that in it I may exult as I travel the world's sea to the haven of Thy hope.

Why do you increase your bonds? Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and do not find it. This life is given for repentance, do not waste it in vain pursuits.

Let us take refuge in the Lord and ascend a little to the place where thoughts dry up and stirrings vanish, where memories fade away and the passions die, where human nature becomes serene and is transformed as it stands in the other world.

A handful of sand, thrown into the sea, is what sinning is, when compared to God's Providence and mercy. Just like an abundant source of water is not impeded by a handful of dust, so is the Creator's mercy not defeated by the sins of His creations.

Apply yourself to entering your interior chamber and you will see the celestial chamber. For it is one and the same door open on the contemplation of both. The Ladder of this kingdom is hidden inside you, in your soul. Wash yourself of your sin and you will discover the degrees by which to ascend.

Blessed are those who have eaten from the bread of love which is Jesus. This is the wine that gladdens human hearts. This is the wine which the lustful have drunk and they have become chaste, the sinners and they forgot the ways of unrighteousness, the drunkards and they became fasters, the rich and they became desirous of poverty, the poor and they became rich in hope, the sick and they became courageous, the fools and they became wise. Mystical Treatises, St. Isaac the Syrian, 7th Century

Whoever does not voluntarily withdraw himself from the causes of the passions is involuntarily drawn away by sin.

Isaac the Syrian warns us that God's wrath visits all who refuse the bitter cross of agony, the cross of active suffering, and who, striving after visions and special graces of prayer, waywardly seek to appropriate the glories of the Cross. He also says, “God's grace comes of itself, suddenly, without our seeing it approach. It comes when the place is clean.” Therefore, carefully, diligently, constantly clean the place; sweep it with the broom of humility.

The book was The Sayings of the Holy Father Isaac the Syrian. Ivan read it mechanically.

Silence will illuminate you in God... and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God.... In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then from our very silence is born something that draws us into deeper silence. May God give you an experience of this 'something' that is born of silence

That is how Isaac the Syrian imagines the world to come: not as two different places but as two different ways of responding to the love of God. “Those who are punished in hell,” Isaac writes, “are scourged by the scourge of love. For what is so bitter and vehement as the punishment of love?

Dispassion does not mean that a man feels no passions, but that he does not accept any of them.