(Fear of Offending God With One's Sins)
The fear of God illumines the soul, annihilates evil, weakens the passions, drives darkness from the soul and makes it pure.
The fear of God is the summit of wisdom.
Where it is not you will find nothing good.
Whoever does not have the fear of God is open to diabolical falls.
(St. Ephraim Syrian)
A man obtains the fear of God if he has the remembrance of his unavoidable death and of the eternal torments that await sinners;
If he tests himself every evening as to how he has spent the day, and every morning as to how he has spent the night, and if is not sharp in his relations with others.
(St. Abba Dorotheos, Soul-profiting Teachings, 4)
Sin makes man a coward;
but a life in the Truth of Christ makes Him bold.
(St. John Chrysostom, On the Statues, VIII.2)
Whoever has become a servant of the Lord fears only his Master.
But whoever is without the fear of God is often afraid of his own shadow.
Fearfulness is the daughter of unbelief.
A proud soul is the slave of fear; hoping in itself, in comes to such a state that it is startled by a small noise, and is afraid of the dark.
(St. John of the Ladder, The Ladder, 21.11,1,4)
Whoever fears God stands above all manner of fear.
He has become a stranger to all the fear of this world and placed it far from himself, and no manner of trembling comes near him.
(St. Ephraim the Syrian, On the Fear of God and the Last Judgement)