Abba Isaiah said, “Nothing is so beneficial to a beginner as being insulted. A beginner who is insulted and endures it is like a tree watered every day.”
He also said to those who were making a good beginning and submitting themselves to holy Fathers, “The first dye does not wash out, as with purple.” And, “Just as tender branches are easily turned and bent, so are beginners who live in submission.”
He also said, “A beginner who moves from monastery to monastery is like an animal driven this way and that by a halter.”
He also said that when an agape meal was being held and the brothers were eating in the church and talking with one another, the priest of Pelusium rebuked them and said, “Be silent, brothers. I have seen a brother eating with you and drinking as many cups as you, yet his prayer rises before God like fire.”
They said of Abba Isaiah that once he took a small branch and went to the threshing floor. He said to the owner, “Give me some wheat.” The owner said to him, “Did you harvest too, Abba?” He said, “No.” The owner said, “How then do you want to receive wheat when you did not harvest?” The elder said to him, “So if someone does not harvest, he receives no wage?” The owner said, “No.” And the elder went away. When the brothers saw what he had done, they made a prostration in repentance before him and asked why he had done this. The elder said to them, “I did it as an example: if someone does not work, he receives no wage from God.”
The same Abba Isaiah called one of the brothers, washed his feet, put a handful of lentils into a pot, and brought it down as soon as it had boiled. The brother said to him, “They are not cooked yet, Abba.” Isaiah said to him, “Is it not enough for you that they have at least seen the flame? Even that is a great consolation.”
He also said, “When God wants to have mercy on a soul, but it rebels and will not endure anything and instead does its own will, He allows it to suffer what it does not want, so that in this way it may seek Him.”
He also said, “When someone wants to repay evil for evil, he can injure his brother’s conscience even by a single nod.”
The same Abba Isaiah was asked, “What is love of money?” He answered, “Not to believe that God takes care of you, to despair of God’s promises, and to love self-display.”
He was also asked, “What is speaking against another?” He answered, “Not to know the glory of God, and envy toward one’s neighbor.”
He was also asked, “What is anger?” He answered, “Quarreling, falsehood, and ignorance.”