Through your rags I see your vanity.

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.

There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride.

Playback singing is fun and good money. But it's no big art really; only the film and record people glorify it with all those gold and silver discs given to singers. I wish I could take all of them to the goldsmith and draw the metal out.

The whole world recognizes Russia's cultural achievements. It is impossible to imagine the world culture without Russian culture, without our music and literature.

We should not feel pride in our charity, austerity, valour, scriptural knowledge, modesty, and morality, for the world is full of the rarest gems.