"In the world, slander has caused many a breakup, but in monastic communities it is gluttony that brings about all the falls and transgressions. Keep mistress gluttony under control and every abode will then give you dispassion, but let her take hold of you and every place outside the grave will be a menace to [...]
"We should practice complete silence and ignorance in the presence of the superior, for a silent man is a son of wisdom and is always gaining great knowledge." -St. John Climacus
"Very often demons manage to persuade us either to omit confession, or else to confess as though the sins were committed by someone else or else to blame others as responsible for our own sins." -St. John Climacus
"Habit forms things and follows them. And it is particularly true that virtue depends on habit, and here God is the great collaborator." -St. John Climacus
"Confession is like a bridle that keeps the soul which reflects on it from committing sin, but anything left unconfessed we continue to do without fear as if in the dark." -St. John Climacus
"He who is not submissive in his talk will certainly not be so in what he does. To be unfaithful in the small things is to be unfaithful in the great, and this is very hard to bring under control." -St. John Climacus
"Macedonius explained to me, lowly that I am, why he had voluntarily adopted a humbled life of this kind. 'I have never felt such absence of conflict within me, such sweetness of divine light, as now,' he said." -St. John Climacus
"Confession is like a bridle that keeps the soul which reflects on it from committing sin, but anything left unconfessed we continue to do without fear as if in the dark." Source: St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
"He who is not submissive in his talk will certainly not be so in what he does. To be unfaithful in the small things is to be unfaithful in the great, and this is very hard to bring under control." Source: St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
"Macedonius explained to me, lowly that I am, why he had voluntarily adopted a humbled life of this kind. 'I have never felt such absence of conflict within me, such sweetness of divine light, as now,' he said." Source: St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent