quotations about the soul
In this way the Soul deliberately labours for growth; deliberately it works at itself, purifying always the lower nature with unceasing effort and with untiring demand; for ever it is comparing itself not with those who are below it but with Those who are above it, ever it is raising its eyes towards Those who have achieved.
ANNIE BESANT
In the Outer Court
The soul of Man must quicken to creation.
T. S. ELIOT
The Rock
The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Discipline and Punish
I was brought up on a side street, listen now
I learned how to love before I could eat
I was educated from good stock
When I start lovin', oh, I can't stop
I'm a soul man, I'm a soul man
ISAAC HAYES & DAVID PORTER
"Soul Man"
Reincarnation is essential to enable the soul to evolve to its Divine right.
R. F. GOUDEY
Reincarnation: A Universal Truth
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
attributed, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice
The soul is often hungrier than the body, and no shops can sell it food.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The soul is the connecting link between God and man, and between the spirit and the flesh, and has its earthly abode in the blood or life.
VAN BRUNT WYCKOFF
attributed, Day's Collacon
You are a little soul carrying about a corpse.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
letter, June 1880
Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.
LEO TOLSTOY
Diary
Within the human soul lie depths as deep
As ever slept within the ocean's breast,
And heights that rise beyond the breaker's crest
In the vain wish to pass their narrow bound.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"The Depths"
There is one argument commonly employed for the immateriality of the soul, which seems to me remarkable. Whatever is extended consists of parts; and whatever consists of parts is divisible, if not in reality, at least in the imagination. But it is impossible anything divisible can be conjoined to a thought or perception, which is a being altogether inseparable and indivisible. For supposing such a conjunction, would the indivisible thought exist on the left or on the right hand of this extended divisible body? On the surface or in the middle? On the back or fore side of it? If it be conjoined with the extension, it must exist somewhere within its dimensions. If it exist within its dimensions, it must either exist in one particular part; and then that particular part is indivisible, and the perception is conjoined only with it, not with the extension: Or if the thought exists in every part, it must also be extended, and separable, and divisible, as well as the body; which is utterly absurd and contradictory. For can any one conceive a passion of a yard in length, a foot in breadth, and an inch in thickness? Thought, therefore, and extension are qualities wholly incompatible, and never can incorporate together into one subject.
DAVID HUME
"Of the Immateriality of the Soul", A Treatise of Human Nature
If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior.
CASSANDRA CLARE
Clockwork Angel
Well my soul Lord
My soul's got wings
My load is heavy
But I can still sing
JOHN MELLENCAMP
"My Soul's Got Wings"
The soul, then, lives by God when it lives well, for it cannot live well unless by God working in it what is good; and the body lives by the soul when the soul lives in the body, whether itself be living by God or no. For the wicked man's life in the body is a life not of the soul, but of the body.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"The Philosophy of Composition", The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 3
To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul.
MURIEL SPARK
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Trouble is, most times, when you go looking to sell your soul, nobody's buying.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
Radiance
The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter.
SOPHOCLES
Philoctetes