Clergyman's

In the whole range of evil thoughts, none is richer in resources than self-esteem.
- Evagrius Ponticus

70. You will not be able to pray purely if you are all involved with material affairs and agitated with unremitting concerns. For prayer is the rejection of conceptions.
- Evagrius Ponticus

64. The proof of apatheia is had when the spirit begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquility in the presence of the images it has during sleep and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life.
- Evagrius Ponticus

121. Happy is the man who thinks himself no better than dirt.
- Evagrius Ponticus

81. Agape is the progeny of apatheia. Apatheia is the very flower of ascesis. Ascesis consists in keeping the commandments. The custodian of those commandments is the fear of God which is in turn the offspring of true faith. Now faith is an interior an interior good, one which is to be found even in those who do not yet believe in God.
- Evagrius Ponticus

37. First of all pray to be purified from your passions. Secondly, pray to be delivered from ignorance. Thirdly, pray to be freed from all temptation and abandonment.
- Evagrius Ponticus

Just as it is possible to think of water both while thirsty and while not thirsty, so it is possible to think of gold with greed and without greed. The same applies to other things.
- Evagrius Ponticus

150. Just as sight is the most worthy of the sense, so also is prayer the most divine of the virtues.
- Evagrius Ponticus

117. Let me repeat this saying of mine that I once expressed on some other occasions: Happy is the spirit that attains to the perfect formlessness at the time of prayer.
- Evagrius Ponticus

35. Prayer is an ascent of the spirit to God.
- Evagrius Ponticus