Saint Basil

“Do not despise the fish because they are absolutely unable to speak or to reason, but fear lest you may be even more unreasonable than they by resisting the command of the Creator. Listen to the fish, who through their actions all but utter this word: 'We set out on this long journey for the perpetuation of our species.'”

“To lovers of the truth, nothing can be put before God and hope in Him.”

“There is nothing unpremeditated, nothing neglected by God. His unsleeping eye beholds all things.”

“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”

“Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.”

“What is the benefit of fasting in our body while filling our souls with innumerable evils? He who does not play at dice, but spends his leisure otherwise, what nonsense does he not utter? What absurdities does he not listen to? Leisure without the fear of God is, for those who do not know how to use time, the teacher of wickedness.”

“Indulging in unrestrained and immoderate laughter is a sign of intemperance, of a want of control over one's emotions, and of failure to repress the soul's frivolity by a stern use of reason.”

“Every evil is a sickness of soul, but virtue offers the cause of its health.”