“Attention must be so united to prayer as the body is to the soul…Attention must go forward and observe the enemies like a scout, and it must engage in combat with sin, and resist the bad thoughts that come to the soul. Prayer must follow attention, banishing and destroying at once all the evil thoughts which attention previously fought, because by itself attention cannot destroy them.” – St. Symeon the New Theologian
“No one will ever prove from the divine Scriptures that any person was ever cleansed without tears and constant compunction. No one ever became holy or recieved the Holy Spirit, or had the vision of God experienced His dwelling within himself, or ever had Him dwelling in his heart, without previous repentance and compunction and constant tears ever flowing as from a fountain. Such tears flood and wash out the house of the soul: they moisten and refresh the soul that has been possesed and inflamed by the unapproachable fire.” – St. Symeon the New Theologian