“Purification of the soul … consists in scorning the pleasures that arise through the senses, in not feasting the eyes on the silly exhibitions of jugglers or on the sight of bodies which gives the spur to sensual pleasure, in not permitting licentious songs to enter through the ears and drench your souls.”

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 419

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Purification of the soul … consists in scorning the pleasures that arise through the senses, in not feasting the eyes o…" by Basil of Caesarea?
Basil of Caesarea photo
Basil of Caesarea 29
Christian Saint 329–379

Related quotes

Athanasius of Alexandria photo
John of St. Samson photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
W.B. Yeats photo

“Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.”

Among School Children http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1437/, st. 8
The Tower (1928)
Context: Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Joseph Joubert photo
Baltasar Gracián photo

“Imagination travels faster than sight. Deceit comes in through the ears, but usually leaves through the eyes.”

Adelántase más la imaginación que la vista, y el engaño, que entra de ordinario por el oído, viene a salir por los ojos.
Maxim 282 (p. 159)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Vātsyāyana photo

“Karma is the enjoyment of appropriate objects by the five senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting and smelling, assisted by the mind together with the soul. The ingredient in this is a peculiar contact between the organ of sense and its object, and the consciousness of pleasure which arises from that contact is called Kama.”

Vātsyāyana Indian logician

Source: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana: Translated from the Sanskrit. In seven parts, with preface, introduction, and concluding remarks http://books.google.com/books?id=-ElAAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA18, Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares, 1883, P. 17

Diadochos of Photiki photo

“The eye of the soul cannot be led astray when its veil, by which I mean the body, is refined to near-transparency through self-control.”

Diadochos of Photiki (400–486) Byzantine saint

§ 71
On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination (480 AD)

Basil of Caesarea photo
John Vance Cheney photo

Related topics