Asceticism Quotes

Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body ?

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.  That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

Asceticism is to remain pure amidst impurities.

The ascetic makes a necessity of virtue.

I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and divisive.  A life of prayer is basically a very simple life. This simplicity, however, is the result of asceticism and effort: it is not a spontaneous simplicity.

prayer

Ascetic Christianity called the world evil and left it.  Humanity is waiting for a revolutionary Christianity which will call the world evil and change it.