Nikolaj Velimirovic quotes

Christ did not say to Zacchaeus, "How short you are!” He did not say to Judas, "How ugly you are!” He did not say to the paralytic, "How paralytic you are!” He did not say to the leper, "You smell bad!” Christ would always speak to what was real and true in people - that is, to their souls. It was the Soul speaking to souls. Christ considered it indecent to talk about the bodies of people almost in the same way as mature people consider it indecent to speak to each other about clothes. Therefore, when a person is talking to you, do not think about his body, do not look at his body. But look at his soul, examine his soul, get accustomed to his soul - and then you will understand him. When you are talking to a person, do not think about either your body or his, but think about both your soul and his. Repeat to yourself, "This is a soul speaking to a soul. A soul is communicating with a soul.” And then you will feel the God is there with the two of you. And you will understand and be understood. (Nikolaj Velimirovic)
My whole life is a battle between me and me - between as I am and me as God wants me to be. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Three things in life that can destroy a person: - Anger, pride, lack of forgiveness. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
We fall, we rise, we fall, and we rise! When we fall, the Spirit of God stands by us and raises us, if we desire to be raised. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
No vice or passion appears under its real name. Fornication goes by the name of love, covetousness calls itself prosperity, gambling by fun, drunkenness and partying, by friendship, envy by justice and equality. In fact, often behind the rebellion against injustice and inequality is ordinary envy! View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
God did not send you to earth to live comfortably, rather to prepare for eternal life. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Care most of all for your soul, brother, it is your only treasure. Everything else you own, doesn't really belong to you. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Let the Church be the Church, that is, the community of the saints. Let the world know that the Church's mission on earth is not to accumulate wealth, or to gain political power or knowledge, or to cling to this institution or to that, but to cleanse mankind from its unclean, evil spirits, and to fill it with the spirit of saintliness. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
If men of our day simply restrained their tongues and stopped insulting each other, then half of all the evil in the world, and half of the evil spirits, would disappear. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
A drop of prayer is worth more than a sea of worrying. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
What a man thinks or feels when he prays to God is more important to God than the words his tongue forms. The tongue is capable of delusion, but his heart shows him as he is: black or white. (Nikolaj Velimirovic)
Do not be afraid, you are not alone. Lonely is he who does not know God, even if he is friends with half the world. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Every liturgy is an atomic bomb dropped on hell. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Bless my enemies, O Lord. And I bless them and do not curse them. My enemies have driven me into Your arms more than my friends have. My friends have bound me to the earth; My enemies have loosened my bonds from the earth and have torn up all my hopes in the earth. They have turned me into a stranger in the kingdoms of this earth and into a superfluous inhabitant of this earth. Like an animal that finds a safer shelter when hunted down rather than when not, so have I, hunted down by my enemies, found the safest shelter by hiding under Thy tent where neither friend nor foe can slay my soul. Bless my enemies, O Lord. And I bless them and do not curse them. They, instead of me, have confessed my sins before the world. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
We are waiting for Christ, and not a better time. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
The Lord says to us, 'I will look at you and I will see if there is Me in you, and you will look upon Me as in a mirror and you will see what kind of person you are.' View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Few have lost their minds from poverty; far more have gone mad from wealth. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
What does it mean to take up your cross? It means the willing acceptance, at the hand of Providence, of every means of healing, bitter though it may be, that is offered. Do great catastrophes fall on you? Be obedient to God's will, as Noah was. Is sacrifice demanded of you? Give yourself into God's hands with the same faith as Abram had when he went to sacrifice his son. Is your property ruined? Do your children die suddenly? Suffer it all with patience, cleaving to God in your heart, as Job did. Do your friends forsake you, and you find yourself surrounded by enemies? Bear it all without grumbling, and with faith that God's help is at hand, as the apostles did. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
If you can help a person help, if you cannot help - pray, if you do not know how to pray - think about the person in a good way! And this will already be a help, because godly thoughts are also a weapon! View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
When you lie, you lie to God; when you steal, you steal from God; when you have hatred for someone, you have hatred for God; when you don't honor your parents, you don't honor God; when you are jealous, you are jealous of God; when you begrudge alms to the poor, you begrudge recompense to God; when you plot evil, you plot it against God; when you work evil, you work evil against God. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Whatever you lose for God's sake, you will save; whatever you save for your own sake, you will lose. Whatever you give in God's name, you will receive a hundredfold; whatever you give for your own glory and vanity, will perish. Whatever you receive from people in God's name will bring you joy; whatever you receive from them as payment will bring you worry. (Nikolaj Velimirovic)
When you are attacked by people's envy or betrayal from a friend, do not lose heart and do not harbor evil in your heart, but say: 'I entrust all this to Your righteous judgment, Lord!' View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
The world has departed from the truth. The Christian world has departed from the truth. And when one departs from the truth even by a hair's breadth, one strays miles away from justice and honesty. The Christian world has thus become false, unjust, and dishonest-to such an extent that it has surpassed even non-Christian nations in this. Because of this, the Eternal Truth had to allow terrible upheavals, storms, and horrors to shake human consciousness and cleanse it from chaff and lies. If you ask what we must do to be saved, I will answer you: know the truth, and the truth will set you free from all evil. Christ is the Truth, and the witness of eternal heavenly truth. Know Christ. Show Christ in your life-in your personal life, in your family, and in society-and Christ will save you from all evils and from all evildoers, both visible and invisible. Amen. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
Let us be ashamed of our slowness in thanking God when He gives, and of our quickness in grumbling at Him when He takes away. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic
That God may forgive us, let us forgive men. We are all on this earth as temporary guests. Prolonged fasting and prayer is in vain Without forgiveness and true mercy. God is the true Physician; sins are leprosy. Whomever God cleanses, God also glorifies. Every merciful act of men, God rewards with mercy. He who returns sin with sin perishes without mercy. Pus is not cleansed by pus from infected wounds, Neither is the darkness of the dungeon dispelled by darkness, But pure balm heals the festering wound, And light disperses the darkness of the dungeon. To the seriously wounded, mercy is like a balm; As if seeing a torch dispersing the darkness, everyone rejoices in mercy. The madman says, "I have no need of mercy!” But when he is overcome by misery, he cries out for mercy! Men bathe in the mercy of God, And that mercy of God wakens us to life! That God may forgive us, let us forgive men, We are all on this earth as temporary guests. View quote
Nikolaj Velimirovic