The proper function of the soul’s intelligent aspect is devotion to the knowledge of God, while that of its passible aspect is the pursuit of self-control and love….Although we have received the power to become the children of God (John 1:12), we do not actually attain this sonship unless we strip ourselves of the passions….
A wise man in one who pays attention to himself and is quick to separate himself from all defilement.
~St Thalassios the Libyan
God is one because there is one Divinity: unoriginate, simple, beyond being, without parts, indivisible. The Divinity is both unity and trinity — wholly one and wholly three. It is wholly one in respect of the essence, wholly three in respect of the hypostases of persons.
For the Divinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and is in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The whole Divinity is in the whole Father and the whole Father is in the whole Divinity….
The whole Son is in the whole Divinity and the whole Divinity is in the whole Son; the whole Son is both the whole Divinity and in the whole Divinity….The Divinity is not partially in the Holy Spirit, nor is the Holy Spirit part of God. For the Divinity is not divisible; nor is the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit incomplete God.
On the contrary, the whole and complete Divinity is completely in the complete Father; the whole and complete Divinity is completely in the complete Son; and the whole and complete Divinity is completely in the complete Holy Spirit….
Therefore the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. The essence, power and energy of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one, for none of the hypostases or persons either exists or is intelligible without the others.
~St Maximos the Confessor
If you make a habit of listening to spiritual teaching, your intellect will escape from impure thoughts.
God alone is good and wise by nature; but if you exert yourself your intellect also becomes good and wise through participation.
Self-love–that is, friendship for the body–is the source of evil in the soul….For the deiform (Godlike) soul to abandon the Creator and worship the body is an act of depravity.
You were commanded to keep the body as a servant, not to be unnaturally enslaved to its pleasures.
Break the bonds of your friendship for the body and give it only what is absolutely necessary.
Enclose your senses in the citadel of stillness so that they do not involve the intellect (nous) in their desires.
The greatest weapons of someone striving to lead a life of inward stillness are self-control, love, prayer and spiritual reading.
~St Thalassios the Libyan
He who does not envy the spiritually mature and is merciful to the wicked has attained an equal love for all….Spiritual commerce consists in being detached equally from the pleasures and the pains of this life for the sake of the blessings held in store….
To each virtue there is an opposing vice; hence the wicked take vices for virtues.
~St Thalassios the Libyan
He who stands in awe of God searches for the divine principles that God has implanted in creation; the lover of truth finds them.Rightly motivated, the intellect will find the truth; but motivated by passion it will miss the mark….
Only spiritual conversation is beneficial; it is better to preserve stillness than to indulge in any other kind.
~St Thalassios the Libyan
Guard yourself from hatred and dissipation, and you will not be impeded at the time of prayer….Stillness, prayer, love and self-control are a four-horsed chariot bearing the intellect (nous) to heaven….
Our Lord and God is Jesus Christ, and the intellect (nous) that follows Him will not remain in darkness (John 12:46).
~St Thalassios the Libyan
A man keeps his soul undefiled before God if he compels his mind to meditate only on God and His supreme goodness, makes his thought a true interpreter and exponent of this goodness, and teaches his senses to form holy images of the visible world and all the things in it, and to convey to the soul the magnificence of the inner principles lying within all things.
An all-embracing and intense longing for God binds those who experience it both to God and to one another….
Love alone harmoniously joins all created things with God and with each other.
~St Thalassios the Libyan
Prayerful Life 