– There is also a situation, Your Holiness, and that is very often even when we do something we like we do not rejoice as much as we should. Who steals our joy? We do not rejoice to the success of our work and that happens very often.

– The word of Christ must be accepted that greatness before God, before Christ, is measured by the greatness of service, nothing else. Certainly, a man can serve in every vocation he is interested in. A scientist can serve for the benefit of people. An artist can also do that. All those vocations can be directed in such way. If every one of them understood their work in such way, they would have bliss, not just happiness. Nobody could take that away from them. No matter how much other people talk bad about them or not recognize them, they will feel blissfulness in reaching the goal of their work. If we wait for the praise of this world, that is difficult. 

You know, people often are not capable of praising others because of their envy and malice. There is the story of ancient Greeks about Aristides the Rightous. A man cannot be righteous and honourable especially on high position. Even if he does everything right, de facto, he will cause harm to someone. So they wanted to expel Aristides. The Council gathered in the theatre. Likurg came and sat among others. A simple man was sitting next to him. They shared pieces of tile to write whether they should expel him or not. This person not knowing Aristedes, being illiterate, asked Likurg to write down that he should be expelled. “Do you know Aristides? – I have never seen him. – Did he do some injustice to you? – No. But I am bored of listening ‘Aristides the Righteous, Aristides the Righteous’. Let him go together with his justice.” There are those kind of people…

From an interview with patriarch Pavle