Top 150 Saint John Chrysostom Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “From the creation learn to admire thy Lord! And if any of the things thou see exceed thy comprehension, and thou are not able to find the reason thereof, yet for this glorify the Creator, that the wisdom of these works surpass thine understanding.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

52. “When we once begin to form good resolutions, God gives us every opportunity of carrying them out.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

53. “Fasting is a medicine.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

54. “I am a Christian. He who answers thus has declared everything at once-his country, profession, family; the believer belongs to no city on earth but to the heavenly Jerusalem.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

55. “Is it not excessively ridiculous to seek the good opinion of those whom you would never wish to be like?”

— Saint John Chrysostom

56. “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.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

57. “Nothing is more powerful than meekness. For as fire is extinguished by water, so a mind inflated by anger is subdued by meekness. By meekness we practice and make known our virtue, and also cause the indignation of our brother to cease, and deliver his mind from perturbation.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

58. “Charity is indeed, a great thing, and a gift of God, and when it is rightly ordered likens us unto God himself, as far as that is possible; for it is charity which makes the man.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

59. “What is it to be a fool for Christ? It is to control one’s thoughts when they stray out of line. It is to make the mind empty and free...”

— Saint John Chrysostom

60. “Even if we have thousands of acts of great virtue to our credit, our confidence in being heard must be based on God’s mercy and His love for men. Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

61. “If there were no tribulation, there would be no rest; if there were no winter, there would be no summer.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

62. “The drunken man is a living corpse.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

63. “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.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

64. “The desire to rule is the mother of heresies.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

65. “In the Christian combat, not the striker, as in the Olympic contests, but he who is struck, wins the crown. This is the law in the celestial theatre, where the Angels are the spectators.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

66. “What gnats are compared with humans, so is the whole creation compared with God.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

67. “We should not bear it with bad grace if the answer to our prayer is long delayed. Rather, let us, because of this, show great patience and resignation. For He delays for this reason: that we may offer Him a fitting occasion of honoring us through His divine providence.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

68. “Let the mouth also fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and fowl and yet bite and devour our brothers and sisters? The evil speaker eats the flesh of his brother and bites the body of his neighbor.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

69. “That is true plenty, not to have, but not to want riches.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

70. “Men have the power of thinking that they may avoid sin.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

71. “There is nothing colder than a Christian who does not seek to save others.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

72. “When the Mass is being celebrated, the sanctuary is filled with countless angels, who adore the Divine Victim immolated on the altar.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

73. “We pray not to inform God or instruct Him but to beseech Him closely, to be made intimate with Him, by continuance in supplication; to be humbled; to be reminded of our sins.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

74. “Endurance is the queen of all virtues.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

75. “A friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

76. “What shepherd feeds his sheep with his own blood? But Christ feeds us with His own Blood and in all things unites us to Himself.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

77. “If you wish to leave much wealth to your children, leave them in God’s care. Do not leave them riches, but virtue and skill. For if they learn to expect riches, they will not mind anything besides, and their abundant riches shall give them the means of screening the wickedness of their ways.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

78. “It is simply impossible to lead, without the aid of prayer, a virtuous life.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

79. “As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

80. “Are you angry? Be angry at your sins, beat your soul, afflict your conscience, but strict in judgement and a terrible punisher of your own sins. This is the benefit of anger, wherefore God placed it in us.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

81. “Even if we stand at the very summit of virtue, it is by mercy that we shall be saved.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

82. “Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

83. “You can set up an altar to God in your minds by means of prayer. And so it is fitting to pray at your trade, on a journey, standing at a counter or sitting at your handicraft.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

84. “Memory of our good works makes us negligent and leads to arrogance. Do not think of your good deeds, so that God may remember them.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

85. “Every trace of the old philosophy and literatureof the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

86. “What the soul is in the body, let Christians be in the world.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

87. “Feet were made, not given for dancing, but to walk modestly, not to leap impudently like camels.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

88. “If you would rise, shun luxury, for luxury lowers and degrades.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

89. “It brings comfort to have companions in whatever happens.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

90. “God measures out affliction to our need.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

91. “Whatever you may do for your brother, being hungry, and a stranger, and naked, not even the devil will be able to despoil, but it will be laid up in an inviolabe treasure.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

92. “Every time that we sin, we are born of the devil. But every time that we do good, we are born of God.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

93. “Words would be superfluous if we had deeds to show for Them.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

94. “Musicke doth withdraw our mindes from earthly cogitations, lifteth up our spirits into heaven, maketh them light and celestial.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

95. “I exhort and entreat you all, disregard what this man and that man thinks about such things, and inquire from the Holy Scriptures all these things.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

96. “Mary was made Mother of God to obtain salvation for many who, on account of their wicked lives, could not be saved according to the rigor of Divine justice, but might be saved with the help of her sweet mercy and powerful intercession.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

97. “Woman -a foe of friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

98. “Almsgiving above all else requires money, but even this shines with a brighter luster when the alms are given from our poverty. The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all.”

— Saint John Chrysostom

99. “Let us return from that Table like lions breathing out fire, terrifying to the devil!”

— Saint John Chrysostom

100. “The test of sincerity of one’s prayer is the willingness to labor on its behalf.”

— Saint John Chrysostom