It's important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don't necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.

A pretty wife is something for the fastidious vanity of a roue to retire upon.

All that's bright must fade, The brightest still the fleetest; All that's sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest.

The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

Humility, that low, sweet root, from which all heavenly virtues shoot.

It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed.