“knock on the door of scripture with the hands of the virtues.”

“A monk is a man who considers himself one with all men because he seems constantly to see himself in every man. ”

“A man who worships in Spirit and Truth no longer honors the Creator because of His works, but praises Him because of Himself. ”

“If your spirit still looks around at the time of prayer, then it does not yet pray as a monk. You are no better than a man of affairs engaged in a kind of landscape gardening. ”

“Evagrius, presbyter, to his dearest son Innocent, greeting in the Lord. A word-for-word translation from one language to another obscures the sense and as it were chokes the wheat with luxuriant grass. For in slavishly following cases and constructions, the language scarcely explains by lengthy periphrasis what it might state by concise expression. To avoid this, I have at your request rendered the Life of the blessed Antony in such a way as to give the full sense, but cut short somewhat of the words. Let others try to catch syllables and letters; you seek the meaning.”

“For God opens the doors of truth to him who knocks with the hand of faith”

“I’m a door-to-door salesman. I sell doors. If I can’t knock on yours, because you don’t have a door to knock on, I know you’ll be interested in what I’m selling.”