The soul which bears abundant clusters of fruit is the one which has divested itself of anxiety, uncertainty and dejectedness and put on calm, peace, and joy in God; has shut the door of perturbing thoughts, and opened the door of love to all men; has watched continually, night and day, at the door of its heart; has driven out of itself anything that says: ‘This man is good and that man is bad; this man is just and that man is a sinner.’ [It is the soul that] has sat on the high throne of its heart, and contemplated its armies and its helpers who are the mind, the intelligence, the intellect, the knowledge and the discernment; and has ordered and pacified them with meekness so that none of them should snarl with wrath, envy or wickedness, and that the mind should not be obscured by the thick clouds of perplexity. On the other hand the barren soul is the one which is clad in rancour, anxiety, perplexity, distress, dejectedness and perturbation, and which judges its neighbour as being good or evil.

Simon of Taibutheh (d. 680)