Scott

“You know, O friend, any meeting is surely more than parting. There is emptiness before meeting someone, just nothing, but there is no longer emptiness after parting. After having met someone once, it is impossible to part completely. A person remains in the memory, as a part of the memory. The person created that part and that part lives, sometimes coming into contact with its creator. Otherwise, how would we sense those dear to us from a distance?”
― Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus

“Towards the end of the Seventh Step of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. John of Sinai says that we shall not be condemned for not having performed miracles, nor for not having been great theologians or contemplatives. We shall, however, need to give an account for not having mourned sufficiently over our sins, our state of corruption, and our imperfections. For we know very well (and the prayers of our Church confirm it) that no man can live a single day upon earth without sin. This being the case, we must do our utmost to keep ourselves from sin by cultivating the new tree of the spiritual paradise which has taken root inside our bosom, and by watering it with the streams of our tears. And the One Who would be enthroned within our hearts will show Himself to be stronger than the one that rules over this world (cf. 1 John 4:4). In other words, the presence of God must become active within us that the enemy, the possessor of this world and tormentor of our souls, be overcome.”
― Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou, The Hidden Man of the Heart (1 Peter 3:4): The Cultivation of the Heart in Orthodox Christian Anthropology

“Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment. Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“For as medical men sometimes,   although they could quickly cover over the scars of wounds, keep back   and delay the cure for the present, in the expectation of a better and   more perfect recovery, knowing that it is more salutary to retard the   treatment in the cases of swellings caused by wounds, and to allow the   malignant humours to flow off for a while, rather than to hasten a   superficial cure, by shutting up in the veins the poison of a morbid   humour, which, excluded from its customary outlets, will undoubtedly   creep into the inner parts of the limbs, and penetrate to the very   vitals of the viscera, producing no longer mere disease in the body,   but causing destruction to life; so, in like manner, God also, who   knows the secret things of the heart, and foreknows the future, in much   forbearance allows certain events to happen, which, coming from without   upon men, cause to come forth into the light the passions and vices   which are concealed within, that by their means those may be cleansed   and cured who, through great negligence and carelessness, have admitted   within themselves the roots and seeds of sins, so that, when driven   outwards and brought to the surface, they may in a certain degree be   cast forth and dispersed. [2342]   And thus, although a man may appear   to be afflicted with evils of a serious kind, suffering convulsions in   all his limbs, he may nevertheless, at some future time, obtain relief   and a cessation from his trouble; and, after enduring his afflictions   to satiety, may, after many sufferings, be restored again to his   (proper) condition.  For God deals with souls not merely with a view to   the short space of our present life, included within sixty years [2343]   or more, but with reference to a perpetual and never-ending period,   exercising His providential care over souls that are immortal, even as   He Himself is eternal and immortal. ”
― Origen, The Works of Origen: De Principiis/Letters/Against Celsus