My children, if you are truly strugglers, men who pay heed to virtue and care for your souls, and you earnestly desire your mind to be limpidly pure before Christ and to do that which is pleasing to him, then it surely behooves you to accept for His sake every warfare kindled by our nature’s passions, the attractions of this world, the duration and persistence of the demons’ wickedness with which they are accustomed to confront you, and all their snares. Do not grow faint-hearted because of the continuing and obdurate fierceneness of the battle; do not become hesitant because of the long duration of your struggle; do not grow lax, neither be afraid of the hosts of your enemies, and if for a season you should perhaps stumble and sin, do not fall into the pit of despair. But if something should befall you in this great war and you should even be wounded upon your face, let this in no wise hinder you from attaining your goal. Rather, persevere in the pursuit that you have chosen, and you will achieve that thing most desirable and praiseworthy, to prove steadfast and unmoving in war, reddened by the blood of your wounds. Never cease, therefore, from wrestling with your adversaries.
– Saint Martinian ( as quoted by St. Isaac the Syrian )