If the question which you raise

is concerning God, your inquiry is no simple or ordinary matter, for the Divinity is incomprehensible; and it will be sufficient for you to study the traditions of the holy apostles about Him and the teaching of the divine Fathers who followed in their steps and not trouble yourselves any further... [L]et us abstain from vain and dangerous questionings and let us each consider that which concerns ourselves... for it is written: 'Seek not out the things that are to high for thee, neither search the things that are too deep for thee.'

St. Daniel the Stylite in his Life

After John had been elected

[Patriarch of Alexandria, he said to all in the Patriarch's council-chamber]... 'Go therefore through the whole city, please, and make a list of all my masters down to the last'. But his hearers could not imagine who these could be, and besought him to tell them, as they were astonished that any could possibly be masters of the Patriarch; and he opened his angelic mouth again and said: 'Those whom you call poor and beggars, these I proclaim my masters and helpers. For they, and they only, are really able to help us and bestow upon us the kingdom of heaven.'

St. John the Almsgiver, in his Life

If you want to be freed

from all the vices simultaneously, renounce self-love, the mother of evils.

Thalassios the Libyan, in the Philokalia, vol. ii, p. 311

Paphnutius

recounted of a friend of the poor who died, and could not cross the river of fire which had separated him from Paradise, that the poor to whom he had given alms then lay down and formed a bridge, by means of which he attained to the Kingdom of God.

Venerable Paphnutius of Borovsk, in the Synaxarion

A man of compassionate heart

has a heart aflame for the whole of creation, for humankind, for the birds, for the animals, for the devils, for every creature. When he thinks of them or sees them, he sheds tears. So strong and violent is his compassion that his heart is in anguish and he cannot bear to hear or see the slightest ill or the least sadness in the heart of creation. Accordingly, he prays with tears at every moment for the dumb animals, for the enemies of the truth and for all who do him harm, that they may be protected and forgiven. In the immense compassion which arises overwhelmingly in his heart in the image of God he prays even for reptiles.

Isaac the Syrian Ascetic Homilies Discourse 71