Top 100 John Chrysostom Sayings
#1. Saturday 13 September 2014 Saint John Chrysostom,
Anonymous
#2. The thing that seemed to me so important about the psychedelic experience was that it happened to me. I wasn't reading John Chrysostom or Meister Eckhart. And so I assumed that I am a very ordinary person, therefore, if it happened to me it could happen to anyone.
Terence McKenna
#3. Reading from St. John Chrysostom that the life of a bishop should be more perfect than the life of a hermit. The reason he gave was that the holiness which the monk preserves in the desert must be preserved by the bishop into the midst of the evil of the world.
Fulton J. Sheen
#4. The fourth-century Greek theologian St. John Chrysostom said that Job's greatest trial was that his wife was not taken. (pg. 125)
Ellen F. Davis
#5. What gnats are compared with humans, so is the whole creation compared with God.
Saint John Chrysostom
#7. Musicke doth withdraw our mindes from earthly cogitations, lifteth up our spirits into heaven, maketh them light and celestial.
Saint John Chrysostom
#8. Imagine your anger to be a kind of wild beast, because it has ferocious teeth and claws, and if you don't tame it, it will devastate all things even corrupting the soul.
Saint John Chrysostom
#11. From the creation learn to admire thy Lord! And if any of the things thou see exceed thy comprehension, and thou are not able to find the reason thereof, yet for this glorify the Creator, that the wisdom of these works surpass thine understanding.
Saint John Chrysostom
#13. We ought not, as soon as we leave church, to plunge into business unsuited to church, but as soon as we get home, we should take the Scriptures into our hands, and call our wife and children to join us in putting together what we have heard in church.
Saint John Chrysostom
#14. You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment.
Saint John Chrysostom
#15. 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.
John Chrysostom
#16. Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts.
John Chrysostom
#17. What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger. Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well.
Saint John Chrysostom
#18. Just as those who are deprived of light cannot walk straight, so also those who do not behold the ray of the Holy Scriptures must necessarily sin, since they walk in the deepest darkness.
Saint John Chrysostom
#22. One who strictly prosecutes the misdemeanors of others will find not condescension towards his own.
Saint John Chrysostom
#23. To destroy the fetus 'is something worse than murder.' The one who does this 'does not take away life that has already been born, but prevents it from being born.'
Saint John Chrysostom
#24. Things themselves do not remain, but their effects do. Therefore we should not be mean and calculating with what we have but give with a generous hand. Look at how much people give to players and dancers-why not give just as much to Christ?
Saint John Chrysostom
#25. There are many poor men and poor women: set apart some one constantly to remain there: let the poor man be though but as a guard to thy house: let him be to thee wall and fence, shield and spear. Where alms are, the devil dares not approach, nor any other evil thing.
Saint John Chrysostom
#26. Whatever you may do for your brother, being hungry, and a stranger, and naked, not even the devil will be able to despoil, but it will be laid up in an inviolabe treasure.
Saint John Chrysostom
#27. When you are weary of praying, and do not receive, consider how often you have heard a poor man calling, and have not listened to him.
Saint John Chrysostom
#28. I am a Christian. He who answers thus has declared everything at once-his country, profession, family; the believer belongs to no city on earth but to the heavenly Jerusalem.
Saint John Chrysostom
#30. The highest point of philosophy is to be both wise and simple; this is the angelic life.
John Chrysostom
#31. Thus abide constantly with the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that the heart swallows the Lord and the Lord the heart, and the two become one.
Saint John Chrysostom
#32. No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.
Saint John Chrysostom
#33. Laughter has been implanted in our soul, that the soul may sometime be refreshed.
Saint John Chrysostom
#34. Is it not excessively ridiculous to seek the good opinion of those whom you would never wish to be like?
Saint John Chrysostom
#35. Woman is a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.
Saint John Chrysostom
#38. Memory of our good works makes us negligent and leads to arrogance. Do not think of your good deeds, so that God may remember them.
Saint John Chrysostom
#40. Prayer is the place of refuge for every worry, a foundation for cheerfulness, a source of constant happiness, a protection against sadness.
Saint John Chrysostom
#41. You can call happy those who saw Him ... But, come to the altar and you will see Him, you will touch Him, you will give to Him holy kisses, you will wash Him with your tears, you will carry Him within you like Mary Most Holy.
Saint John Chrysostom
#42. Before they committed the crime of crimes, before they killed their Master, before the cross, before the slaying of Christ, [Jewish sacrifices were] an abomination.
Saint John Chrysostom
#44. You can set up an altar to God in your minds by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft.
Saint John Chrysostom
#45. Every family should have a room where Christ is welcome in the person of the hungry and thirsty stranger.
Saint John Chrysostom
#48. Yet, when we must put aside our wrath, quench our envy, soften our anger, offer our prayers, and show a disposition which is reasonable, mild, kindly, and loving, how could poverty stand in our way? For we accomplish these things not by spending money but by making the correct choice.
Saint John Chrysostom
#50. For You are holy, our God, and to You we give glory, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever...
John Chrysostom
#53. Feet were made, not given for dancing, but to walk modestly, not to leap impudently like camels.
Saint John Chrysostom
#54. Do not the angels differs from us in this respect, that they do not want so many things as we do? Therefore the less we need, the more we are on our way to them; the more we need, the more we sink down to this perishable life.
Saint John Chrysostom
#55. Every trace of the old philosophy and literatureof the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth.
Saint John Chrysostom
#56. We follow the ways of wolves, the habits of tigers: or, rather we are worse than they. To them nature has assigned that they should be thus fed, while God has honoured us with rational speech and a sense of equity. And yet we are become worse than the wild beast.
John Chrysostom
#58. It is folly to abstain all day long from food, but fail to abstain from sin and selfishness.
Saint John Chrysostom
#60. We pray not to inform God or instruct Him but to beseech Him closely, to be made intimate with Him, by continuance in supplication; to be humbled; to be reminded of our sins.
Saint John Chrysostom
#62. 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.
John Chrysostom
#63. In the matter of piety, poverty serves us better than wealth, and work better than idleness, especially since wealth becomes an obstacle even for those who do not devote themselves to it.
Saint John Chrysostom
#65. I do not think there are many among Bishops that will be saved, but many more that perish.
Saint John Chrysostom
#66. A friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends
John Chrysostom
#68. The road to Hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lamp posts that light the path.
Saint John Chrysostom
#69. You cannot pray at home, like you can at church, where there is a great multitude; where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the unions of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of priests.
Saint John Chrysostom
#70. Of all the afflictions that burden the human race, there is not one, whether spiritual or bodily, that cannot be healed by the Holy Scriptures.
Saint John Chrysostom
#71. Surely we ought to show them (animals) great kindness and gentleness for many reasons, but, above all, because they are of the same origin as ourselves.
Saint John Chrysostom
#72. You [Jews] did slay Christ, you did lift violent hands against the Master, you did spill his precious blood. This is why you have no chance for atonement, excuse, or defense.
Saint John Chrysostom
#73. This is the highest point of philosophy, to be simple & wise; this is the angelic life.
Saint John Chrysostom
#74. Make account that thou hast done nothing, and then thou hast done all. For if, being sinners, when we account ourselves to be what we are, we become righteous, as indeed the Publican did; how much more, when being righteous we account ourselves to be sinners.
Saint John Chrysostom
#75. Everywhere, wherever you may find yourself, you can set up an altar to God in your mind by means of prayer.
John Chrysostom
#76. For nothing so much disturbs the mind, though it be done for some beneficial purpose, as to innovate and introduce strange things, and most of all when this is done in matters relating to divine worship and the glory of God.
Saint John Chrysostom
#77. If there were no tribulation, there would be no rest; if there were no winter, there would be no summer.
Saint John Chrysostom
#79. Let the mouth also fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and fowl and yet bite and devour our brothers and sisters? The evil speaker eats the flesh of his brother and bites the body of his neighbor.
John Chrysostom
#80. God helps those who work, not those who are idle. No one helps an inactive person, but one who joins in the labor. The good God himself will bring ... work to perfection.
Saint John Chrysostom
#82. Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.
John Chrysostom
#84. You say you don't mistrust me, yet you quote Chrysostom - Hell is paved with priests' skulls ...
John Geddes
#85. 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.
John Chrysostom
#86. For it cannot, it cannot be, that a man should enjoy the benefit of grace except he watch.
John Chrysostom
#87. Do you think that the man-loving God has given you much so that you could use it only for your own benefit? No, but so that your abundance might supply the lack of others.
Saint John Chrysostom
#88. Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.
Saint John Chrysostom
#89. If we were not passionately inclined to money or to vainglory, then we would not fear death or poverty. We would not know enmity or hatred, and we would not suffer from the sorrows of ourselves or others.
Saint John Chrysostom
#90. Charity is indeed, a great thing, and a gift of God, and when it is rightly ordered likens us unto God himself, as far as that is possible; for it is charity which makes the man.
Saint John Chrysostom
#91. We should not bear it with bad grace if the answer to our prayer is long delayed. Rather, let us, because of this, show great patience and resignation. For He delays for this reason: that we may offer Him a fitting occasion of honoring us through His divine providence.
Saint John Chrysostom
#92. How many of you say: I should like to see His face, His garments, His shoes. You do see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him. He gives Himself to you, not only that you may see Him, but also to be your food and nourishment.
Saint John Chrysostom
#93. If we approach with faith, we too will see Jesus ... for the Eucharistic table takes the place of the crib. Here the Body of the Lord is present, wrapped not in swaddling clothes but in the rays of the Holy Spirit.
Saint John Chrysostom
#94. Good men do not always have grace and favor, lest they should be puffed up, and grow insolent and proud.
Saint John Chrysostom
#97. The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of, a virtuous life.
Saint John Chrysostom
#98. It is possible to offer fervent prayer even while walking in public or strolling alone or seated in your shop ... while buying or selling ... or even while cooking.
Saint John Chrysostom
#99. Let us always guard our tongue; not that it should always be silent, but that it should speak at the proper time.
Saint John Chrysostom
#100. God loves us more than a father, mother, friend, or any else could love, and even more than we are able to love ourselves.
Saint John Chrysostom
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