Quotes from John Chrysostom

Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.

For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force.

Nothing is more fallacious than wealth. It is a hostile comrade, a domestic enemy.

When one is required to preside over the Church, and be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.

Riches are not forbidden, but the pride of them is.

Fasting of the body is food for the soul.

The highest point of philosophy is to be both wise and simple; this is the angelic life.

The divine law indeed has excluded women from this ministry, but they endeavour to thrust themselves into it; and since they can effect nothing of themselves, they do all through the agency of others.

Slander is worse than cannibalism.

Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts.

I know my own soul, how feeble and puny it is: I know the magnitude of this ministry, and the great difficulty of the work; for more stormy billows vex the soul of the priest than the gales which disturb the sea.