Do you understand what we are? Flower, shadow, dream, spider web, the shadow of a cloud on earth, nothing else. Our life resembles the most helpless illusions. Don’t count on the fact that you are healthy, beautiful, rich or young! These are shadows and dreams. Our life is short. Very, very short. We need to live here for the eternal life.

We should live on earth for the Heavens, for the boundless joy that awaits beyond our graves! Our life has four seasons: spring is our childhood, summer is our youth and autumn is our elderly period. When winter comes, so does our end!

(Translated from Arhimandrit Cleopa Ilie, Îndrumări duhovniceşti pentru vremelnicie şi veşnicie, Editura Teognost, Cluj-Napoca, 2004, p. 163)