Ephrem The Syrian Quotes

#1. Be a lamp in brightness, and make the works of darkness cease, so that whenever your doctrine shines, no one may dare to heed the desires of darkness.

Ephrem The Syrian

#2. It is blasphemy if you pray before God while you are full of anger.

Ephrem The Syrian

#3. Blessed the one who loves truth continually and has not lent his mouth as an instrument of impiety by lying, for he fears the commandment about idle speech.

Ephrem The Syrian

#4. Whoever fears God stands above all manner of fear. He has become a stranger to all the fear of this world and placed it far from himself, and no manner of trembling comes near him.

Ephrem The Syrian

#5. Not only men, but also women, the weaker sex, in going by the narrow path of Christ have received for themselves the Kingdom of Heaven. For there is neither male nor female, but everyone receives his own reward according to his own labor.

Ephrem The Syrian

#6. Don't let your eyes look here and there, and don't look on someone elses' beauty, so that the devil will not conquer you with the help of your eyes.

Ephrem The Syrian

#7. Blessed the one who has become a good spiritual net and caught many for the good Lord, such a one will greatly praised by the Lord.

Ephrem The Syrian

#8. Blessed the one who continually humbles himself willingly; he will be crowned by the One who willingly humbled himself for our sake.

Ephrem The Syrian

#9. O Lord, we cannot go to the pool of Siloe to which you sent the blind man. But we have the chalice of Your Precious Blood, filled with life and light. The purer we are, the more we receive.

Ephrem The Syrian

#10. This Lord of natures today was transformed contrary to His nature;
it is not too difficult for us to also overthrow our evil will. Hymns of the Nativity, Hymn 1:97, pg. 74 in Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns (New York: Paulist Press, 1989).

Ephrem The Syrian

#11. If there were only one meaning for the words, the first interpreter would find it, and all other listeners would have neither the toil of seeking nor the pleasure of finding.

Ephrem The Syrian

#12. No one is truly poor but except the one who lacks the truth.

Ephrem The Syrian

#13. Blessed the one who meditates on death each day and destroys the base passions lurking in the vines of the heart, for he will be consoled in the moment of separation.

Ephrem The Syrian

#14. Have mercy, O Lord, on my children,
In my children,
Call to mind your childhood,
You who were a child.
Let them that are like your childhood
Be saved by your grace.

Ephrem The Syrian

#15. Like the apple of Thine eye preserve me, O Lord God; defend me and beneath Thy wings shelter me from temptations.

Ephrem The Syrian

#16. Prayer is converse with God, equal honor with the Angels, progress in good things, averting of evils, righting of sinners.

Ephrem The Syrian

#17. Who is far from love is a bad state, and to be pitied. He passes his days in a delirious dream, far from God, deprived of light, and he lives in darkness ... Whoever does not have the love of Christ is an enemy of Christ. He walks in darkness and is easily lead into any sin.

Ephrem The Syrian

#18. Blessed the one who has kept the mastery of his eyelids and has not deceived himself with either mind or sense with regard to the skin of the flesh that after a little while oozes putrefaction.

Ephrem The Syrian

#19. The seed, swollen with moisture, burst asunder its covering of soil and out peers the blade of wheat, full of symbols. So faith, whose bosom is filled with goodly fruits, is a blade of praise.

Ephrem The Syrian

#20. Let books be your dining table, / And you shall be full of delights. / Let them be your mattress,/And you shall sleep restful nights

Ephrem The Syrian

#21. Scripture brought me to the Gate of Paradise, and the mind stood in wonder as it entered.

Ephrem The Syrian

#22. In the measure to which a man cuts off and humbles his own will, he proceeds toward success. But insofar as he stubbornly guards his own will, so much does he brings harm to himself.

Ephrem The Syrian

#23. If you wish to help someone, give secretly and avoid arrogance.

Ephrem The Syrian

#24. Blessed the one who, exalted by love, has become a city founded upon a mountain, from which the enemy, when he saw it, withdrew in fear, trembling at its security in the Lord.

Ephrem The Syrian

#25. Anyone who wants to be an example to others, must first examine himself.

Ephrem The Syrian