The defects of the soul are like wounds in the body — whatever care one takes to heal, the scar still appears, and they are every moment in danger of reopening. – François VI de la Rochefoucault (1613–1680)

It would be idle to say that life is a steady progression in happiness. But it is most certain that in the natural course of things a healthy soul grows continually richer until its latest day on earth. – George S. Merriam

What he had yearned to embrace was not the flesh but a downy spirit, a spark, the impalpable angel that inhabits the flesh. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from Frenc