Acedia Quotes & Sayings

Spiritual sloth, or acedia, was known as The Sin of the Middle Ages. It's the sin of my middle age, too. — Mignon McLaughlin

Writing is the process of finding something to distract you from writing, and of all the helpful distractions - adultery, alcohol and acedia, all of which aided our writing fathers - none can equal the Internet. — Adam Gopnik

Beware of destructive individuals whose spirits breathe every day the worst toxic oxygen of the soul, "SALIGIA" Superbia, Avaritia, Luxuria, Invidia, Gula, Ira, Acedia.
No matter how much goodness, patience, understanding, assistance, forgiveness and letting go you have given them, they will resurface again and again at the doors of your home to impede your happiness.
Let truth and goodness always prevail but never be again a doormat of their abusive, evil ways. — Angelica Hopes

Sloth, or acedia, is the unheralded, almost hidden, besetting sin
of our times - unheralded because it is misunderstood; hidden
because its symptoms are disguised or misdiagnosed; and besetting
us all to some degree because we have overlooked a mighty, Godgiven cure. It is, as the Church fathers taught, deadly. It strikes at the
very roots of our freedom - at human dignity itself. Sabbath rest
cannot be understood or appreciated apart from awareness of this
sin that undermines everything Sabbath was created to give to the
human person for his edification and development. — Charlotte Ostermann

Acedia is sorrow so complete that the flesh pervails completely over the spirit. You don't just turn your back on the world, you turn your back on God. You don't care, and you don't care that you don't care. — Mishka Shubaly

They have taken the care and upbringing of children out of the hands of parents, where it belongs, and thrown it upon a gang of irresponsible and unintelligent quacks. — H.L. Mencken

Vampires were always either trying to kill me, or own me. God I hated being popular. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Possessing an array of athletic gifts is something most tennis players can only dream about. Most players, if they're lucky, have one attribute that stands out
either a monster serve, great footspeed, superb touch, superior timing or innate feel for the ball. — Dave McPherson

The Clinton Administration has turned out to be a boon. I knew that he would be wonderful, I just knew it from the beginning. From Arkansas? Shoot. — Pat Paulsen

In the Middle Ages, the sin of sloth had two forms," he said. "One was paralysis, the inability to do anything - what we would see as lazy. But the other side was something called acedia - running about frantically. The sense that, 'There's no real place I'm going, but by God, I'm making great time getting there. — Brigid Schulte

He found, using fifty stones to keep track, that he could easily remember the names of all fifty states, and he knew the capitols of a lot of them. He knew his times tables all the way up to twelves, and he knew when they'd signed the Declaration of Independence and when John Glenn landed on the moon.

But he was keenly aware that he didn't know how to tell if nuts were good to eat, or what berries will make you sick, or what mushrooms were poisonous, and he slowly began to wonder why not one person had ever taught him anything useful. — Michael Montoure

The most important thing in art is taste. — Sean Lennon

Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or even if there is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than ten minutes a day; like sit-ups, they can make you thin — Lorrie Moore

Depression is anger turned inward. — Sapphire.

Acedia is not in every dictionary; just in every heart. — Mignon McLaughlin

In the fourth century, John Cassian described a condition among his fellow monks that he called "acedia": a "weariness or distress of heart . . . akin to dejection" that took "possession" of unhappy souls and left them lazy, sluggish, restless, and solitary. Later, acedia became widely translated as sloth, one of the seven deadly sins, and blended with melancholy in the popular mind. Both required, at the very least, confession and penitence. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a 'dangerous form of spiritual alienation'
a devaluing of the world and its creator. — Richard Louv

It's very strange to go from being completely secluded and doing your own work for yourself, to having an audience - and having an audience that's aware of what you do and expects you to do things that they like. It can make things difficult. — Jhonen Vasquez

What sort of technology is this that can send a man to the moon but can't put a piece of bread on every human being's table?" "Perhaps the problem doesn't lie in the technology, but in those who decide how to make use of it," I suggested. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

You're wonderful. So full of life and excitement. The priests and servants of the palace, they wear colors, but there's no color inside of them. They just go about their duties, eyes down, solemn. You've got color on the inside, so much of it that it bursts out and colors everything around you. — Brandon Sanderson

Acedia is not a relic of the fourth century or a hang-up of some weird Christian monks, but a force we ignore at our peril. Whenever we focus on the foibles of celebrities to the detriment of learning more about the real world- the emergence of fundamentalist religious and nationalist movements, the economic factors endangering our reefs and rain forests, the social and ecological damage caused by factory farming - acedia is at work. Wherever we run to escape it, acedia is there, propelling us to 'the next best thing,' another paradise to revel in and wantonly destroy. It also sends us backward, prettying the past with the gloss of nostalgia. Acedia has come so far with us that it easily attached to our hectic and overburdened schedules. We appear to be anything but slothful, yet that is exactly what we are, as we do more and care less, and feel pressured to do still more. — Kathleen Norris

The monk in the grip of acedia would find it difficult or impossible to read. Looking away from his book, he might try to distract himself with gossip but would more likely glance in disgust at his surroundings and at his fellow monks. He would feel that things were better somewhere else, that he was wasting his life, that everything was stale and pointless, that he was suffocating. — Stephen Greenblatt

The sixth deadly sin is named by the church acedia or sloth. In the world it calls itself tolerance; but in hell it is called despair. It is the accomplice of the other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for. We have known it far too well for many years. The only thing perhaps that we have not known about it is that it is a mortal sin. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I recall the passage in the letter to the Hebrews in which we are reminded that Christ has already done everything for us. It speaks of the Christ who "offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews 10:12). And yet the church teaches, and our experience of faith confirms, that Christ continues to be with us and to pray for us. The paradox may be unraveled, I think, if we remember that when human beings try to "do everything at once and for all and be through with it," we court acedia, self-destruction and death. Such power is reserved for God, who alone can turn what is "already done" into something that is ongoing and ever present. It is a quotidian mystery. — Kathleen Norris

Seven Deadly Sins. Saligia is an acronym for: superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, and acedia. — Dan Brown

Sometimes the things that scare me are the things I'm drawn to: moving to London, L.A., New York; marrying, having a kid. In order to live a full life, sometimes you have to do things that scare you. — Jason O'Mara

We have a wonderful history behind us ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'. — Carter G. Woodson