“I thought... their elegance... lies not so much in their clothes as in their bodies, and their bodies have received it, and continue to unceasingly receive it, from their souls, which are just like yours, lovely Simonetta.”

“Body and spirit, I surrendered whole, To harsh Instructors- and received a soul.”

“And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.”

“...nothing has humbled me so much as your love. Right or wrong it may be, but true it is, and I tell you. Your love has been to me like God's own love, which makes the receivers of it kneelers.”

“The body is not a task to be completed but a gift we receive from God himself.”

“Once the soul looked contemptuously upon the body, and then that contempt was the supreme thing: - the soul wished the body lean, monstrous, and famished. Thus it thought to escape from the body and the earth. But that soul was itself lean, monstrous, and famished; and cruelty was the delight of this soul! So my brothers, tell me: What does your body say about your soul? Is not your soul poverty and filth and miserable self-complacency?”