The quote has been attributed to him. It can be found in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection by Benedicta Ward found here.

Here you go

Yep.

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection

(Probably elsewhere, as well.)

Very acceptable?

I bought the alphabetical collection, and I re-read it every month or so. Fantastic book.

You can always try more "spiritual" Christian texts... For instance, you can slowly ease your way into those type of texts by reading more Pentecostal mystics. Here's an order to probably read texts in:

• How to Experience God by a Wesleyan Pentecostal named John Boruff
  
  
• Celebration of Discipline by a Conservative Quaker named Richard J. Foster (I read this book for a class, I highly recommend it).
  
  
• The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality by Catholic layman Carl McColman. I recommend this next because it's a nice overview of Christian Mysticism from its inception to roughly the 20th century.
  
  
• Anything by the Catholic monk Thomas Merton. He's an all-star for modern Christian Mysticism
  
  
• The Sayings of the Desert Fathers which is a collection of sayings and stories by some of the earliest Christian hermits. The Eastern Orthodox Church will quote these Fathers and Mothers much more than the Western (Catholic and Protestant) churches
  
  
• Not Of This World: A Treasury of Christian Mysticism edited by Orthodox theologian James S. Cutsinger. This book is an anthology of Christian Mysticism from Saints to (I believe) C.S. Lewis. I just finished this one last night and it was crazy good. I saved this one for last because there are some things in it that don't fit too well in the scheme of Evangelical Christianity (though there is one or two evangelicals sampled in here).
  
  
• Of course, you can't forget whole texts from authors of Meister Eckhart, St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Athanasius, Julian of Norwich, St. Ignatius, and Brother Lawrence.
  
  
• For some heterodox people look at Jacob Bohme and Emanuel Swedenborg.
  
  I hope this list helps you a little bit! It's not extensive nor anywhere complete. I tried to order the books from "easiest" for a Charismatic/Pentecostal believer (I was raised Assemblies of God, so I come from that background) to "hardest" for an Charismatic/Pentecostal believer. If you have any further questions, or what not, don't hesitate to ask!
  
  I pray that God lights your path a little bit more each day.
  

Sure. The first thing I did was read the primary sources and pretty much in chronological order. I began with the Apostolic Fathers (Michael Holmes has this edition with Greek and English). I then read some 2nd century stuff, especially Irenaeus. Cyprian, Tertullian, etc, were all important. The fourth century took me forever to read through. I probably stayed in the 4th century for a year.

For secondary literature, I'd recommend, in no particular order:

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition

J.N.D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrines

Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Chadwick is my doctoral grandfather, so to speak)

Adrian Fortescue, The Early Papacy: To the Synod of Chalcedon

Benedicta Ward's translation of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Less to do with Church history, but filling in some intellectual gaps:

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion

Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (This may shock people that I recommend it, but I do like the nouvelle théologie every now and again)

I also welcome /u/koine_lingua to offer some of his own recommendations to give some balance if he'd like.

• Have you read Sayings of the Desert Fathers? That's a pretty good one.
  
  
• But also The Spiritual Life and How to be Attuned to it by St. Theophan the Recluse is amazing, I'm still reading it and will probably reread it when I'm done.
  
  
• Another suggestion would be to get the Psalter and try to pray it regularly.
  
  
• The Dynamic Horologian will help you develop a prayer rule, it updates to keep with the current cycle of services with all the scripture readings and daily commemorations.
  
  
  
• Please note that a good prayer and fasting rule (with the help of a spiritual father) is important, pray the Jesus prayer as often as possible and learn silence. It's super hard and challenging, and you'll experience resistance as you start trying, but keep on pressing, even when you experience setbacks, keep pushing in, (for the violent take it by force, Matthew 11:12)

Sure! Most of what I learned wasn't in a class. College/seminary is super overrated outside of something to put on a resume imo (unless you want to get ordained).

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years REALLY good overview book.

The Early Church is really good. Might be a bit dry? But good information.

Christianizing the Roman Empire was pretty interesting and helpful.

Popular Religion in Late Saxon England is as cool as it sounds. My main complaint is that after chapter 3, she essentially just keeps repeating her thesis was more, similar, examples. Very good first 3 chapters tho!

Sayings of the Desert Fathers is good. Sometimes very odd, but at the least interesting.

Augustine's Confessions a must read for many reasons.

On the Holy Spirit can be dry and repetitive at points, but is really good.

Essentially any primary source (i.e. something an author actually wrote, not what someone wrote about them) is great to read. Look for stuff by Augustine, Jerome, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil, Maximus the Confessor, Aquinas, Lombard, Vermigli, Luther, Calvin, etc.

This version worked out great for me, as u/RWeGreatYet also linked.

2 is the best in my opinion.

The author also has the same collection available arranged alphabetically by Father (rather than by theme, as is the case with the Penguin edition).

Honestly, I am not a scholar so I don't know what translation is best but to get you started. https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Spiritual-Homilies-Macarius-Egyptian/dp/1785160346/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=Pseudo+macarius&qid=1557372832&s=books&sr=1-3

https://www.amazon.com/Sayings-Desert-Fathers-Alphabetical-Collection/dp/0879079592/ref=sr_1_1?crid=YECJXX02GYIC&keywords=sayings+of+the+desert+fathers&qid=1557373438&s=books&sprefix=sayings+o%2Cstripbooks%2C189&sr=1-1

A word of warning. I don't feel Orthodox is preoccupied with the cross alone but it is there and especially Monastic texts of any Christian tradition will speak about his quite a bit.

This sub is small you might be better off asking at r/orthodoxchristianity

I’d say you can’t really beat The Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

I just remember talking to you in Imgur. Respect for deleting your account. Best of luck as a lay ascetic. I'm trying similar things in order to strengthen my faith, though I am still in school.
http://www.amazon.com/Sayings-Desert-Fathers-Cistercian-studies/dp/0879079592
I recently got this book--pretty amazing what the ancients used to be able to do and how similar the temptations were then to today, despite the ages' differences.

I got these:

The Orthodox Church by Kallistos Ware

The Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware

The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos C. Markides

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

I'm still reading them but I hear that this selection will cover a lot of bases. Check eBay too, they can found pretty cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/Sayings-Desert-Fathers-Alphabetical-Collection/dp/0879079592 get this book. Not to mention all the stories of the saints and martyrs who didn't fight back!