On Fornication and Adultery

If the fire of fleshly passion burns you, set against it the unquenchable fire of Gehenna, and the flame of your passion will at once die down and vanish.

If bodily beauty tempts your heart, picture how it will decay, and you will grow calm. Abba Isaiah

However great the power of lust may be, if you wall in your thoughts and yourselves with the fear of God, you will easily overcome the fury of passion.

Lust drives us to do what we shrink even from thinking about.

Take bread in moderation, drink water by measure, and the passion of fornication will leave you. Abba Evagrius

Every pillar rests on a firm foundation, and the passion of adultery is founded on gluttony.

Carelessness brings on the warfare of the flesh; it quietly carries you away to judging and condemning others, and in this way betrays you.

As the force of a storm carries off a boat without a helmsman, so the desire for fornication carries off a mind that is unguarded and left to carelessness.

As it is impossible to hold fire with reeds and hay, so it is impossible to fight and overcome the passion of fornication while eating one’s fill.