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(:pos1: N/phrase:) (:pos2: ---:) (:type1: Citation:) (:type2: ---:) (:status1: Salesian:) (:status2: ---:) (:equivot: Da mihi animas cetera tolle:) (:code: Latin_la:) (:def: Trans: give me souls, take away the rest:) (:des: Often left in its Latin form, this is the motto adopted by Don Bosco from the time he began the work of the Oratories (his own claim), though it did not become an official motto until the debate, late in his life, over the wording to include in the Congregation's Coat of Arms, where he insisted on this motto as one which had characterised his work from the beginning. His claim, in his ''Life of Dominic Savio'', that it was frequently to be heard on the lips of St Francis of Sales, has little evidence behind it. In all of the published writings of Saint Francis of Sales we do not find it once. Instead his close friend, the Bishop of Belley, in his 'Spirit of St Francis de Sales', a book that no doubt Don Bosco had read as a seminarian at Chieri, quotes Francis as having said this in response to a question whether he would want to be the Prince Bishop of Geneva, given that circumstances did not allow him to take possession of that See. He answered along the lines that all he wanted was the souls of the people, not the rest that went with such an Office. The phrase itself is a direct quote from Genesis 14:21 (the king of Sodom's response to Abram).:) (:note: Sometimes ''cetera'' is spelled with another variant: ''coetera''. There is an argument that ''cetera'' is the more original, the other being a corrupted form. Very often the full expression is shortened to ''Da mihi animas''.:) (:nl:)