Imagine your anger to be a kind of wild beast, because it has ferocious teeth and claws, and if you don't tame it, it will devastate all things even corrupting the soul.
Interpretation
Anger can be destructive if left uncontrolled, leading to harm and corruption.
This quote by Saint John Chrysostom uses the metaphor of anger as a wild beast to illustrate how powerful and harmful uncontrolled anger can be. If not tamed, anger can cause significant destruction, not only affecting external circumstances but also corrupting one's inner self, potentially leading to a loss of integrity and peace.
In practice
In a discussion about emotional intelligence, you might say this quote to emphasize the importance of managing one's anger.
No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbour a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.
It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life.
When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their follow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we instill virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them.
Abba Moses asked Abba Sylvanus, Can a person lay a new foundation every day? The old man replied, If you work hard, you can lay a new foundation every moment. Abba Pimen said, To throw yourself before God, not to measure your progress, to leave behind all self-will; these are the instruments for the work of the soul. The desire to rule is the mother of heresies.
I hear no one boast, that he hath a knowledge of the Scriptures, but that he owneth a Bible written in golden characters. And tell me then, what profiteth this? The Holy Scriptures were not given to us that we should enclose them in books, but that we should engrave them upon our hearts.
Prayer should be the means by which I, at all times, receive all that I need, and, for this reason, be my daily refuge, my daily consolation, my daily joy, my source of rich and inexhaustible joy in life.
One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up.
If I could not be persuaded into doing what I thought wrong, I never will be tricked into it.
Eventually we grow weary of seeking treasures outside _x000D_ ourselves and we begin to look within. There we discover _x000D_ that the gold we sought, we already are.
By a peculiar prerogative, not only each individual is making daily advances in the sciences, and may make advances in morality (which is the science, by way of eminence, of living well and being happy), but all mankind together is making a continual progress in proportion as the universe grows older. So that the whole human race, during the course of so many ages, may be considered as one man who never ceases to live and learn.
What really counts are good endings, not flawed beginnings.
You gave too much rein to your imagination. Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.
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