A Quote by Bernard of Clairvaux
Inordinate love for the flesh is cruelty, because under the appearance of pleasing the body, we kill the soul.
Related Quotes
The relation of the soul to the body is like that of a house to its bricks. The soul is a principle of organisation, which governs the flesh and endows it with meaning. It is no more separable from the flesh than is the house from its bricks, even if the soul may survive the gradual replacement of every bodily part.
You can kill my body, and you can take my life but you can never kill my soul. My soul will live forever!
I know the woman has no soul, I know The woman has no possibilities Of soul or mind or heart, but merely is The masterpiece of flesh: well, be it so. It is her flesh that I adore; I go Thirsting afresh to drain her empty kiss. I know she cannot love: it is not this My vanquished heart implores in overthrow. Tyrannously I crave, I crave alone, Her splendid body, Earth's most eloquent Music, divinest human harmony; Her body now a silent instrument, That 'neath my touch shall wake and make for me The strains I have but dreamed of, never known.
The chief evil with relation to the body is love for the body and pitying it. This takes away all the soul's authority over the body and makes the soul the slave of the body. And on the contrary, one who does not spare the body will not be disturbed in whatever he does by apprehensions born of blind love of life. How fortunate is one who is trained to this from childhood!
Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify our pride and arrogance.
An inordinate love of ritual can be harmful to the soul, unless, of course, in times of great crisis, when ritual can protect the soul from fracture.
A genuine fast cleanses the body, mind and soul. It crucifies the flesh and to that extent sets the soul free.
For as the body is clad in the cloth, and the flesh in the skin and the bones in the flesh and the heart in the whole, so are we, soul and body, clad in the goodness of God and enclosed. Yea and more homely; for all these may wear and waste away, but the Goodness of God is ever whole.
Tolerance of Cruelty in any form is a degraded state of mind and soul. When we freely allow the massacre and prolonged torture of defenseless creatures, it increases our receptivity to human cruelty and war and steals our humanity, peace and soul. Very little speeds and greases your way to Hell, like animal cruelty.
Family transcends the flesh. You don't love someone because they look like you, you love their spirit; it's the soul connection.
He who commends the nature of the soul as the supreme good, and condemns the nature of the flesh as evil, at once both carnally desires the soul, and carnally flies the flesh, because he feels thus from human vanity, not from divine truth.
It is the Spirit that sheds the love of God abroad in their hearts, and the love of all mankind; thereby purifying their hearts from the love of the world, from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. It is by Him they are delivered from anger and pride, from all vile and inordinate affections.
Antichrist is the pope and the Turk [Muslim] together. A beast full of life must have a body and soul. The spirit or soul of Antichrist is the pope, his flesh or body the Turk.
I am in Love with Love
and Love is in love with me.
My body is in Love with the soul
and the soul is in Love with my body.
I opened my arms to Love
and Love embraced me like a lover.
The reflection, the verisimilitude, of life that shines in the fleshly cells from the soul source is the only cause of man's attachment to his body; obviously he would not pay solicitous homage to a clod of clay. A human being falsely identifies himself with his physical form because the life currents from the soul are breath-conveyed into the flesh with such intense power that man mistakes the effect for a cause, and idolatrously imagines the body to have life of its own.
Flesh will not stand in front of God, so all the decisions you make from your flesh will be paid for with your soul. Your flesh rejects the truth because it desires to do what it wants to do.
