Sayings of St Tikhon of Zadonsk
The radii of a circle are joined to its centre, and the nearer they are to the centre, the nearer they come to one another. But if they move away from the centre, they move away from one another too. So it is with people: the further they are from God, the further they draw apart from one another.
Love the one God, and you will love all His children.
God always cares for you; do not you stop caring for your neighbour. If your neighbour, to your mind, is not worthy of love, God is worthy of love, whose servant and image he is; Christ is worthy of love, who shed His blood for him.
In nothing do we need God’s help so much as in the work of our salvation, because in nothing are we so weak as in doing good.
“I will repent before I die,” some say. With such repentance one may end up in hell.
Let us take care that the sick man’s repentance should not be sick too, and the dying man’s dead.
If we repent only before death, it may be said that it is not we who leave our sins, but they who leave us. We must leave our desires before they leave us, and leave vanity before it leaves us of its own accord.
What destroys a sinner is not the multitude of his sins but a life without repentance.
A spiritual father has to fight against many temptations, and the devil with his servants fights against him in particular. That is exactly why he needs God’s special help and strengthening. And like every person, you, his spiritual child, must pray for him, that God may strengthen and confirm him. The well-being of a house depends on the head of the family, the success of a soldier on his commander, good sailing on the helmsman. So pray that your spiritual father may be wise and good, and the flock of Christ too will prosper.
There is no greater victor in this world than he who conquers himself and rules over his own passions.
Many want to know what is happening in foreign lands, but what state their own soul is in, they do not seek.
No one harms society so much as usurers. Society groans, sighs and grows faint more because of them than because of foreign enemies.
The cross and various sorrows are the Christian banner, under which the Christian fights for his King, the Crucified.
The Christian name without a Christian life is flattery.
Poor is the Christian who wants to grow rich in this world.
If you do not want to suffer evil, do not wish to do it either. The first unfailingly follows the second. “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7).
Christian victory is not revenge, but meekness and patience.
A stumbling-block is like a plague sore, which begins in one person and harms many who are near.
Before a sin the devil shows us God as merciful, and after the sin as just. This is his cunning. But you do the opposite: before a sin picture God’s justice, so that you may not sin, and after sinning think on the greatness of God’s mercy, so that you may not fall into the despair of Judas.
Turn your mind and heart toward heaven and eternity, and the devil will not be able to catch you: the higher a bird flies, the safer it is; but when it comes down low, to the ground, it is easily caught or killed.
There is no one the devil leads astray so deftly as the idle and the lazy.
The pleasure of sin is temporary, but eternal death follows it.
If need be, prefer death to sinning.
Every gift of God becomes harmful to us when we seek in it not God’s glory but our own.
Rank or honour is a yoke for a Christian, which must be borne for the glory of God’s name and for the good of one’s neighbour.
Many lord it and reign over people, yet they themselves are slaves and captives of their own passions.
Wretched is the judge who judges people with tongue and pen, while he himself is ceaselessly rebuked and judged by his own conscience.
First you must learn to govern yourself, and then others.
Do not readily believe an informer; listen to him with one ear, and keep the other for the one accused.
Be among the people as Lot was in Sodom, where all did lawlessness, yet he did not imitate them and did what was pleasing to God’s holy will: do likewise — do not imitate what the wicked world does.
A God-fearing soul has no true home or homeland in this world; everywhere there is persecution and exile.
It is far better to be loved by God alone than by the whole world.
Our earthly life is nothing else than a ceaseless and constant drawing near to God.
He who lives in idleness sins without ceasing.
If you understand that there is an eternity, and picture in your mind how grievous it is to be deprived of eternal glory and to fall into the fire of Gehenna, which even the demons fear, you will choose to endure any torment and will give thanks to God for His fatherly, merciful chastisement.
Our sins, by which we offend the Lord’s goodness, are far greater than God’s chastisement, whatever it may be: God, in His very great mercy, always punishes us less than we deserve.
Lift up the eyes of your mind to the heavenly world and look upon its inhabitants — you will not find a single one there who did not arrive by the way of patience.
As sufferings are lightened by patience, so they are multiplied by impatience.
For a sorrowing person prayer is the same as dew in a drought.
In three arshins of earth there is room even for those for whom the whole world was not enough.
It is vain to boast of having noble ancestors if you do not imitate their deeds.
Do not be a post standing by the road, which points the way to the city but does not itself move from its place; be a guide, who shows others the way and goes ahead himself.
