"'I have not yet become a monk myself, but I have seen monks.'"

     Collection systématique XX.4 (SC 498, pp. 164, 166) = Abba Macarius the Great 2 (PG 65, cols. 260-261).  The desert Christian:  sayings of the Desert Fathers:  the alphabetical collection, trans. Benedicta Ward (New York, NY:  Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1975), 125-126.