As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.
Interpretation
Envy can eat away at a person's soul just as a moth destroys fabric.
This quote illustrates the destructive nature of envy, comparing it to a moth that slowly consumes and damages clothing. It emphasizes how envy can erode an individual from within, leading to negative thoughts and behaviors that ultimately undermine one's well-being and happiness.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth, one might use this quote to urge people to focus on gratitude rather than envy.
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.
The union of the mind and intuition which brings about illumination, and the development which the Sufis seek, is based upon love.
Julian spoke with the clear, unequivocal lucidity of madmen who have escaped the hypocrisy of having to abide by a reality that makes no sense.
One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
We cannot well do without our sins; they are the highway of our virtue.
Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.
When we preach the love of God there is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals not first the love of God but the intense, blazing holiness of God, with His love at the center of that holiness.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.