The cause of the intellectual and spiritual decadence of the entire Muslim world is not to be found in a supposedly overwhelming "worldliness" of the Muslim people but, on the contrary, in the insufficient worldliness on the part of their religious leadership: a failure which resulted in the gradual alienation of the Muslim faith from the Muslim reality.
Muhammad AsadRelated topics
alienation cause decadence entire failure faith found gradual worldlinessRelated quotes
The Church is an enclosure, if you are within, the wolf cannot enter, but if you stray outside the wild beasts will get you...Do not wander from the Church; there is nothing more impregnable than the Church. She is your hope and your salvation. She is higher than the heavens, firmer than rock, wider than the world; she never grows old, but is forever renewing her youth.
John Chrysostom
Everywhere Christians are tempted to take the easy path, to seek "peace" and "security" and flee from pain and affliction, to view life as an occasion for the enjoyment of earthly blessings, instead of a time of trial in which our eternal destiny is to be decided. But God expects more than this from those who glory in the name of Orthodox Christians.
Seraphim Rose
Modern men have faith in machines, in material well-being, in the substantiality of all that seems obvious to common sense; this is a petty faith, the faith of petty men. The Christian has faith in God and the world to come, in the insubstantiality of all that is obvious, in the passing of this world and the coming of the new, transfigured world; if there is a faith worthy of men, it is surely this.
Seraphim Rose
No one will ever be closer to you than your parents. And no one's heart will ache for you as much as a parent's does. Father and Mother are the only ones who care about you more than anything else in the world, the only ones who truly love you. In the world, many things can be found again, but you can't find another Father or another Mother. Parents sacrifice themselves, lighting our path...
Ephraim of Arizona
Unlike all other founders of a religious faith, Christ had no selfishness, no desire of dominance; and His system, unlike all other systems of worship, was bloodless, boundlessly beneficent, and - most marvelous of all - went to break all bonds of body and soul, and to cast down every temporal and every spiritual tyranny.
William Howitt