quotations about the soul
What can be more discouraging to a man than to doubt if his soul be material, like a stone or a reptile, and subject to corruption like the vilest creatures? And does it not prove much more strength of mind and grandeur to be able to conceive the idea of a Being superior to all other beings, by whom and for whom all things were made ; of a Being absolutely perfect and pure, without beginning or end, of whom our soul is the image, and of whom, if I may say so, it is a part, because it is spiritual and immortal?
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Freethinkers", Les Caractères
For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates ... in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes.
PLATO
Charmides
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
I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.
CHARLES DICKENS
A Tale of Two Cities
In the hour of strait and need, we measure men's stature not by the body, but the soul!
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
The Last of the Barons
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 intricacy and the inherent beautiful fragility of the human soul is such that it is uniquely damaged and only God knows how to heal it, and it's going to take time.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
"Unpacking The Shack: WM Paul Young Interview", Eden
Keep your soul in exercise, lest her faculties rust for want of motion ... to dwell too long in the employments of the body is both the cause and sign of a dull spirit.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
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
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.
JAMES HERRIOT
All Creatures Great and Small
My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
The soul does contemplate and worship God; when it is not disturbed by the body.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
From the magnitude of the brilliant and its properties, the jeweller may arrive at its value; but who can comprehend fully the preciousness of man's soul, except the God who gave it, and the Saviour who died in agony, to redeem it.
WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY
Proverbs
I imagine a soul is a little perfect crystal egg floating in your chest. Somewhere deeper than where they put your heart. Somewhere so deep inside that the doctors can't find it with all their machines and microcameras.
ADAM RAPP
The Children and the Wolves
The soul of man; what is it? That is the question. One thing is certain to my mind, it is immortal and cannot die. It is supposed to be an invisible spirit, ordering, ruling, and in every way guiding the mind, which transmits those orders to the brain, the brain then putting the machinery of the body in motion. The nerves and organs of the body likewise communicate with the brain direct, as the nerves of the eye, ear, nose, mouth, hand, foot, face, leg, arm, &c. &c. When the body is asleep and at rest, the mind is often most active, which seems in itself to be, as it were, a kind of pointing to the soul's immortality. It is, indeed, wonderful to think that when the sun, the moon, and stars shall have grown dim and faded, and the earth we live in melted into infinite space, and time shall have rolled on its countless course of years--in number quite beyond the limited comprehension of mortal man--his immortal soul shall still be alive and young, either clad like the angels in the beauty of holiness, with everlasting bliss and peace as its portion, or the reverse.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On the Soul of Man", Short Essays
Unless our souls had root in soil divine
We could not bear earth's overwhelming strife.
The fiercest pain that racks this heart of mine,
Convinces me of everlasting life.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Pain's Proof"
Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never divine the preciousness of the fruit.
GEORGE ELIOT
Silas Marner
The soul's vitality after death is proportionate to its vitality before death.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
The sphere that is deepest, most unexplored, and most unfathomable, the wonder and glory of God's thought and hand, is our own soul!
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Strong souls
Live like fire-hearted suns to spend their strength
In farthest striving action; breathe more free
In mighty anguish than in trivial ease.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Spanish Gypsy