The Desert Fathers

BOOK VIII

VII. Another brother asked the abbot Theodore, saying, "Wilt thou that for some days I eat no bread?" And the old man said, "Thou dost well, and I myself have done the like." And the brother said to him, "I would like to take some peas to the mill and make flour of them." And the abbot Theodore said to him, "If thou art already for the mill, make thyself bread: and what need is there of this quibbling?"

VIII. Another brother questioned the same old man, the abbot Theodore, and began to discuss and inquire into labours which he had not yet performed. And the old man said to him, "Thou hast not yet found thy ship, nor put thy baggage in her, nor begun to sail, and art thou already in the city whither thou hast planned to come? When thou hast first laboured in that whereof thou speakest, then speak from out the thing itself."