Only that which is spiritual truly exists. Everything material is merely an appearance.
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.
— Matthew 6:24
These two masters are the soul and the body.
It is impossible to simultaneously care about your soul and about worldly goods. If you want worldly goods, give up your soul; if you want to keep your soul, renounce worldly goods. Otherwise you will constantly be splitting yourself in two and will get neither the one nor the other.
— Epictetus
If people think that the only things that exist are the things they can touch with their hands, then such people are still very ignorant.
— Plato
A human being can lead one of two lives: a true (inner) life or a false, illusory (external) life. By inner life I understand that life when a human being is no longer living by impressions alone, but sees through everything the one harbor and shore—God—and in God’s name strives and hurries to put to use the talent he was given, rather than burying it into the ground, knowing that it was not for his personal pleasure that life was given him.
— Gogol
Our sense of duty forces us to feel the reality of the material world and to participate in its life, while simultaneously pulling us away from it and showing us its unreality.
— After Amiel
It is only that which is invisible, intangible, spiritual and that which we perceive within ourselves and by ourselves that is real. Everything that is visible and tangible is a product of our senses and therefore only illusory.
There are teachings of the body and teachings of the spirit. Beware of the former, for they lead the people to slavery. The one who toils only for the body forges his own shackles in which he will soon be chained. Woe to the one who lives a sensuous life, forgetting about the life of the spirit, be that a single person or a whole nation, which has fallen so far that it has become wholly immersed in the interests of the flesh and is nourished by these interests, growing fat—preparing a feast for worms. Only the teachings of the soul give one freedom, life and salvation; only they revive what was already dead. Listen then to the voice of the spirit, you who want to be revived, who want to leave the grave of the old world, full of decay and bones. No one knows where this voice comes from, for this is not a voice of something known. This voice cannot be heard in the universities, nor in public meetings, where people gather to hear empty words of an indifferent teaching. It is like a desert breeze, of which no one can say: this breeze originated here or there. How far this voice will reach no one knows; today it is here, tomorrow there, everywhere where one can find attentive ears and ready hearts. And no one knows how far it will lead those who say to this voice: guide me.
— Lamennais
In essence, there is only one subject of study: the different types and transformations of the spirit. All other subjects come down to the same; all other studies come down to this.
— Amiel
I can send my thoughts to different people; they will cross the seas and possess all the lands, if only they have the divine power of love and wisdom in them. My thoughts are the spiritual parts of my self and so can be in a thousand places at once, while my body can only be in one place at any one moment.
— Lucy Mallory
Nature is unjust. If we are a product of nature, then why are we dissatisfied with nature’s injustice? Why does the consequence place itself before the cause? Is this dissatisfaction caused by empty, childish vanity? No, it is a cry coming from the depths of our being, which considers itself independent from nature and demands justice no matter what! The heavens and the earth may be destroyed, but goodness must exist, and injustice must be eradicated. Such is the consciousness of all of humankind. The soul does not depend on nature.
— After Amiel
It always seems to us that everything that is material, i.e. what we perceive with our senses, is what is most clear, understandable and obviously real, and meanwhile it is precisely this that is most unclear, incomprehensible, contradictory and unreal.
