Selected quotes from St. Maximos the Confessor:

"There is no rational soul which is by essence more valuable than another rational soul. Indeed, God in His goodness, creating every soul to His image, brings it into being to be self-moving. Each one, then, deliberately either chooses honor or accepts dishonor by its own deeds."

+ + +

"Those that forever seek our soul do so through bad thoughts that they may throw it into some sin of thought or deed. When therefore they find the mind unreceptive, then will they be ashamed and confounded; but when they find it given over to spiritual contemplation, then will they be turned back and utterly put to shame in short order."

+ + +

"What a man loves that he assuredly clings to and everything that obstructs his way to it he despises, lest he be deprived of it; and the man that loves God is concerned for pure prayer and every passion that obstructs his way to it he casts out of himself."