quotations about the soul
No soul that aspires can ever fail to rise; no heart that loves can ever be abandoned. Difficulties exist only that in overcoming them we may grow strong, and only those who have suffered are able to save.
ANNIE BESANT
Some Problems of Life
The Soul can hear the violets grow!
It can hear the throbbing heart of God!
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
Our souls, shame-wounded by our sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the more.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
A man can be compelled to do anything, but his soul cannot be forced.
SIMON SOLOVEYCHIK
"Parenting for Everyone"
Each man's soul is his genius.
XENOCRATES
attributed, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor
Happily, and thanks to God, there are orifices through which our inner life constantly escapes, and the soul, like the blood, hath its pores. The mouth is the chief and foremost of these channels which lead the soul out of its invisible sanctuary; it is by speech that man communicates the secret converse which is his real life.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
Jesus Christ: Conferences Delivered at Notre Dame in Paris
Would men take the same care of their souls as they do of their bodies, we should find our churches as thronged upon the Sabbath, as our markets are upon a Saturday.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
Some men live altogether outside their own souls; some live altogether within their own souls; some pass out and in: these last are the best men.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.
CHARLES DICKENS
A Tale of Two Cities
A good book is the purest essence of a human soul.
THOMAS CARLYLE
speech in support of the London Library, 1840
Soul is what you've been through
What's true for you
Where you going to
What you're gonna do
VAN MORRISON
"Soul"
The soul ties its shoe; the mind washes its hands in a basin. All is incongruous.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The stars that roll in glory far above us, and that have stood out so long upon the firmament, like figures on the dial of eternity, shall fade and disappear. But we, who tremble at their greatness and thirst for their secrets, shall pass and live beyond them. Time has no mortgage on the human soul.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
The hypothesis of the soul, on the other hand, has not once in all of human history been supported by good, solid scientific evidence. That's pretty surprising when you think about it. For decades, and indeed centuries, most scientists had some sort of religious beliefs, and most of them believed in the soul. So a great deal of early science was dedicated to proving the soul's existence, and discovering and exploring its nature. It wasn't until after decades upon decades of fruitless research in this area that scientists finally gave it up as a bad job, and concluded, almost unanimously, that the reason they hadn't found a soul was that there was no such thing.
GRETA CHRISTINA
Why Are You Atheists So Angry?
A soul--a soul--an immortal soul! Think of its capacity, its duration, its value! Think of the hell it must endure, if impenitent; of the heaven it shall possess, if pardoned. Think of the price laid down by the incarnate Son of God.
JAMES WADDEL ALEXANDER
The Revival and Its Lessons
Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
For men know not what the nature of the soul is; whether it is engendered with us, or whether, on the contrary, it is infused into us at our birth, whether it perishes with us, dissolved by death, or whether it haunts the gloomy shades and vast pools of Orcus.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Investigations
Bow with submission before thy soul's dictates rather than before the world's.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul:
There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires
That trample o'er the dead to seize their spoil,
Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible
As exhalations laden with slow death,
And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys
Breathes pallid pestilence.
GEORGE ELIOT
Daniel Deronda