"...this whirling is intensified and complicated a thousand times because the sinner is not alone. There is a whole world full of other people whose main concern is to test and scrutinize, to please themselves, and to possess. These people have justified all these things to themselves. They have put them in a certain order, subjected them to certain rules of propriety, and imposed the necessity of acting in accordance with these rules upon everyone under their dominion. Being connected with each other, these people necessarily come into contact and into conflict. During these frictions, people increase their inquisitiveness, their love for possessions, and their self-indulgence tenfold, a hundredfold, and a thousandfold. People tie all their happiness, bliss, and life to these things."
- St. Theophan the Recluse, Turning the Heart to God, p.7 (published separately, this is the second part of The Path to Salvation).