“Two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul”

— Chaim Potok

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Chaim Potok 21

American rabbi 1929–2002

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“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Variant: A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
Variant: Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Source: The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, p. 188; also reported in various sources as:
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

“He was once asked what a friend is, and his answer was, "One soul abiding in two bodies."”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Aristotle, 9.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 5: The Peripatetics

“True lovers will be able to enter the garden of beauty without fear of being judged. They will no longer be two bodies and two souls meeting, but a single fountain out of which pours the true water of life.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About sex

“One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strenth alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. I: Of Our Spiritual Strivings
Context: After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, — a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

“After realizing God, one does not identify oneself any more with the body. Then one knows that body and soul are two different things.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 319
Context: The body was born and it will die. But for the soul there is no death. It is like the betel-nut. When the nut is ripe it does not stick to the shell. But when it is green it is difficult to separate it from the shell. After realizing God, one does not identify oneself any more with the body. Then one knows that body and soul are two different things.

“Suppose that there are two sorts of existences, one seen, and the other unseen. …The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging. …And further, is not one part of us body, and the rest of us soul? …Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen? …the soul is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

“There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body's sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers forever.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

“Body and soul are not two different things, but only two different ways of perceiving the same thing.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Aphorism (1937), p. 38
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: Body and soul are not two different things, but only two different ways of perceiving the same thing. Similarly, physics and psychology are only different attempts to link our experiences together by way of systematic thought.

“Two souls in one, two hearts into one heart.”

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) French writer

First Week, Sixth Day. Compare: "Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspir'd", Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, Book xvi, line 267.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)

“He who has two cakes of bread, let him dispose of one of them for some flowers of the narcissus; for bread is the food of the body, and the narcissus is the food of the soul.”

Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher

Arabian Society In The Middle Ages, by Edward William Lane, (1883) citing Nowwájee, En-, Shems-ed-deen Moḥammad (died 1454), Ḥalbet El-Kumeyt, at footnote 167.
Latter day attributions

“Two people who are true friends are like two bodies with one soul”

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Chaim Potok 21

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