“Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passions.”

— Arsenius the Great

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, as translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG (Cistercian Publications: 1975), Saying 9, Page 10

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 28, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passion…" by Arsenius the Great?

Arsenius the Great photo

Arsenius the Great 2

Desert Father 354–449

Related quotes

“Bestir, ladies! To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best. Soon the eyes of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your interior to-morrow will depend upon the impression made by your exterior to-day.”

Rafael Sabatini book Scaramouche

Book II. Chapter 2. The Service of Thespis
Scaramouche (1921)

“In other words, the real problem is not exterior. The real problem is interior.”

Ken Wilber book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995, 2000)
Context: In other words, the real problem is not exterior. The real problem is interior. The real problem is how to get people to internally transform, from egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric consciousness, which is the only stance that can grasp the global dimensions of the problem in the first place, and thus the only stance that can freely, even eagerly, embrace global solutions.

“Give according to your means, or God will make your means according to your giving.”

John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898

Reported in Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908), p. 194.

“Commit yourself then to God! He will be your guide. He Himself will travel with you, as we are told He did with the Israelites, to bring them step by step across the desert to the promised land. Ah! what will be your blessedness, if you will but surrender yourself into the hands of God, permitting Him to do whatever He will, not according to your desires, but according to His own good pleasure?”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 601.

“It might help if you imagine an inner living dimension within yourself in which you create, in miniature psychic form, all the exterior conditions that you know. Simply put, you do exactly this. Your thoughts, feelings and mental pictures can be called incipient exterior events, for in one way or another each of these is materialized into physical reality.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Nature of Personal Reality (1974), p. 35

“God does not judge you according to your bodies and appearances, but He looks into your hearts and observes your deeds.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sunni Hadith

“Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

The Sayings of Light and Love

“Your experience in the world of physical matter flows outward from the center of your psyche. Then you perceive this experience. exterior events, circumstances and conditions are meant as a kind of living feedback. Altering the state of the psyche automatically alters the physical circumstances. There is no other valid way of changing physical events. It might help if you imagine an inner living dimension within yourself in which you create, in miniature psychic form, all the exterior conditions that you know. Simply put, you do exactly this. Your thoughts, feelings and mental pictures can be called incipient exterior events, for in one way or another, each of these is materialized into physical reality.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The Nature of Personal Reality (1974), p. 9-10, Session 613

“Though your experience may indicate that God has forgotten you or has left you alone, He is on your side. He is the God of grace, and He is actively working on your behalf.”

John Townsend (1952) Canadian clinical psychologist and author

Where Is God (2009, Thomas Nelson publishers)

“They thought I suffered from lack of exterior, when I suffered from excess of interior”

Romain Gary book Gros-Câlin

Source: Gros-Câlin

Related topics