“Be eager for more frequent gatherings for thanksgiving [Eucharist] to God and His glory, for when you meet thus, the forces of Satan are annulled and his destructive power is cancelled in the concord of your faith.” St. Ignatius of Antioch (1st-2nd centuries)

‎”The devil is afraid of us when we pray and make sacrifices. He is also afraid when we are humble and good. He is especially afraid when we love Jesus very much. He runs away when we make the Sign of the Cross” St. Anthony of Egypt (3rd-4th centuries)

“Empowered by God’s blessing man held a lofty position. He was appointed to rule over the earth and everything on it. His form was beautiful, for he was created as an image of the archetypal beauty. In nature he was free from passion, for he was a copy of Him Who is without passion. He was wholly free and open, reveling in the direct vision of God. But all this was fuel to the flames of the adversary’s passionate envy. He could not fulfill his purpose by violence or brute force, for the power of God’s blessing was stronger than such force. So he contrived to detach man from the power which strengthened him and thus to render him an easy prey to his intrigue.” St. Gregory of Nyssa (4th century)

“Because God did not make evil, and the devil’s villainy introduced it, God postponed vengeance so that the devil could be overcome by those very persons whom he had deceived.” St. Ambrose of Milan (4th century, Doctor of the Church)

“Lifted up on the cross, therefore, Christ turned death back onto the one who gave rise to it.” Pope St. Leo the Great (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church)

 
“Yes, the devil indeed has powers to persuade and in the last resort to terrify, and even to cause serious annoyance, if God permits it. We have to beg the Lord for the virtue which will stop the devil’s smooth tongue from trapping us or his rough tongue from breaking us.” St. Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church)

 
“The devil is most happy when he can snatch from a servant of God true joy of spirit. He carries dust with him to throw into the smallest chinks of conscience and thus soil one’s mental candor and purity of life. But if joy of spirit fills the heart, the serpent shoots his deadly venom in vain.” St. Francis of Assisi (12th-13th centuries)

 
“One day, while I was hearing confessions, a man came to the confessional where I was. He was tall, handsome, dressed with some refinement and he was kind and polite. He started to confess his sins, which were of every kind: against God, against man and against the morals. All the sins were obnoxious! I was disoriented, in fact for all the sins that he told me, but I responded to him with God’s Word, the example of the Church, and the morals of the saints. But the enigmatic penitent answered me word for word, justifying his sins, always with extreme ability and politeness. He excused all the sinful actions, making them sound quite normal and natural… He continued this way with the sins that were gruesome against God, Our Lady, the saints, always using disrespectful round-about argumentation. He kept this up even with the foulest of sins that could be conjured in the mind of the most sinful man. The answers that he gave me with such skilled subtlety and malice surprised me. I wondered: who is he? What world does he come from? And I tried to look at him in order to read something on his face. At the same time I concentrated on every word he spoke, trying to discover any clue to his identity…But suddenly, through a vivid, radiant and internal light I clearly recognized who he was. With a sound and imperial tone I told him: ‘Say long live Jesus, long live Mary!’ As soon as I pronounced these sweet and powerful names, Satan instantly disappeared in a trickle of fire, leaving behind him an unbearable stench.” St. Pio of Pietrelcina (19th-20th centuries)

 
“I hear Satan grinding his teeth. He cannot stand God’s mercy.” St. Faustina Kowalska (20th century)