"His whole life was an ongoing self-abasement, an unending self-emptying, from the moment of His conception until His death and burial and beyond. In the extreme humility of His descent, God did not stop at the clouds. Neither did His journey end on earth. He went all the way to hell. In His extreme humility, He descends to the extremity of man's damnation, and stretches forth His hand to those sitting in the darkness and the shadow of death. In stretching forth His hands, He embraces all those who loved Him, and those who hated Him; those who stood by Him throughout His life, and those who denied Him. He extends His open hands to all, so that anyone who wants can take hold of Him, and He will pull them out of Hell. Lower than this, there is no place for man or God to go."

+Elder Aimilianos

"And you shall be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For you have become God: for whatever sufferings you underwent while being a man, these He gave to you, because you were of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon you, because you have been deified, and begotten unto immortality."

+St. Hippolytus of Rome

"Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life... For He was made man so that we might be made God."

+St. Athanasius

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

John 17:20-27 KJV

"Modern civilized man cannot endure cruelty, pain and suffering and is more merciful than men of the past, but this is not because he is morally and spiritually higher than they. He fears pain and suffering more than they did, he is more effeminate, less firm, patient and courageous than they; in other words he is spiritually less strong."

~Nicolas Berdyaev

"Men crave duty; a cross to bear, a cause to defend, a family to protect."

~Mælurain

“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

~J.R.R. Tolkien

“Behold, the rebirth of the world itself proclaims what gifts all have received with our risen Lord. Honoring Christ's triumph after His descent to the gloomy depths of hell, the very leaves of every grove of trees and the flowers of every field all around us blossom in joy... the heavens above, the fields below, and the expansive sea duly all join in the praise of God Who has crushed the powers of hell. Behold, He who was crucified reigns as God over all things, and all created things offer praise to their Creator. Hail, thee festive day, reverenced throughout the world, on which God has conquered hell, and the stars themselves shine in His praise...“

+Saint Venantius Fortunatus

“If Jesus Christ is not risen from the dead, then why believe in Him? To be honest, I would never have believed in Him had He not risen and not, therefore, vanquished death. Our greatest enemy was killed, and we were given immortality. Without this, our world is a noisy display of revolting stupidity and despair. For neither in Heaven nor under Heaven is there greater stupidity than this world without resurrection. And there is not a greater despair than this life without immortality. There is no being in this world more miserable than a man who does not believe in the resurrection of the dead. It would have better for such a man never to have been born.”

+Saint Justin Popovic

"Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has arisen from the grave. Let no one fear death; for the death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it. He spoiled Hades when He descended thereto. He vexed it even as it tasted of His flesh... It is vexed; for it is annihilated. It is vexed, for it is made captive. It took a body and it discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took what it saw and was overcome by what it did not see... Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of the dead."

+Saint John Chrysostom

“Europe's rise is written in the terms of Christianity and Monarchy; Europe's decay in the terms of Republicanism, Progressivism, and Godlessness."

~Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

'Now every step forward of technological advance is introduced into our lives under the guise of convenience. But that convenience is only measurable in terms of an economic efficiency and has no regard for the self-fulfilment of the worker. When we speak today of ”creating jobs” we know we mean “occupying posts”.'

'Having destroyed the organic link between the worker and his accomplishments the factory system needed the worker merely to expend his energies on tasks the outcome of which had little or no bearing on life except to postpone starvation. His was not the responsibility to decide what shall be made, or how. His was simply to slave irresponsibly at the behest of those who held the monopoly on profits.' - Brian Keeble

Scene from the 1927 film 'Metropolis'

"Pride is denial of God, an invention of the devil, the despising of men, the mother of contamination, the offspring of praise, a foothold for Satan, a source of anger, a door of hypocrisy, the support of demons, the guardian of sins, the rejection of compassion, an opponent of God, a root of blasphemy."

+John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent

“Men's hearts are failing them for fear, not knowing any longer where to rest. We look this way and that way, and catch at one another like drowning men. Go where you will, you find the same phenomena. Science grows, and observers are adding daily to our knowledge of the nature and structure of the material universe, but they tell us nothing, and can tell us nothing, of what we most want to know. They cannot tell us what our own nature is. They cannot tell us what God is, or what duty is. We had a belief once, in which, as in a boat, we floated safely on the unknown ocean; but the philosophers and critics have been boring holes in the timbers to examine the texture of the wood, and now it leaks at every one of them. We have to help ourselves in the best way that we can.”

~James Anthony Froude

"We are proud of our museums, where we display the damning evidence of a way of life we have made impossible."

~Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

“A person who has not been completely alienated, who has - remained sensitive and able to feel; who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet “for-sale", who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity.

He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his “normal” contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane fociety, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity, his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves."

~Erich Fromm

"Beauty awakens the soul to act."

~Dante Alighieri