Selected quotes from St. Peter of Damascus

"If we are not willing to sacrifice this temporal life, or perhaps, even the life to come, for the sake of our neighbour, as were Moses and St. Paul, how can we say that we love him? For Moses said to God concerning his people, 'If Thou wilt forgive their sins, forgive; but if not, blot me as well out of the book of life which Thou hast written' (Ex. 32:32. LXX); while St. Paul said, 'For I could wish that I myself were severed from Christ for the sake of my brethren' (Rom. 9:3). He prayed, that is to say, that he should perish in order that others might be saved - and these others were the Israelites who were seeking to kill him."

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"The person found worthy of praising God gains more by it than God, for he has received a great and marvelous gift of grace. The more he praises God, the more he becomes a debtor, until finally he finds no limit or interruption to his knowledge of God or to thanksgiving or humility or love."

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" 'For everyone that asks receives, and he that seeks finds, and to him that knocks it shall be opened' (Luke 11:10). Wherefore let us knock at that very sweet garden of the Scriptures, so fragrant and sweet and blooming, with its varied sounds of spiritual and divinely-inspired birds ringing all round our ears, laying hold of our hearts, comforting the mourner, pacifying the angry and filling him with joy everlasting: which sets our mind on the gold gleaming, brilliant back of the divine dove (Ps. 68:13), whose bright pinions bear up to the only-begotten Son and Heir of the Husbandman (Matt. 21:37) of that spiritual Vineyard and bring us through Him to the Father of Lights (James 1:17)."