quotations about the soul
The eyes ... are the windows of the soul.
PLATO
Phaedrus
I don't deserve a soul, yet I still have one. I know because it hurts.
DOUGLAS COUPLAND
The Gum Thief
If I were a carpenter, I would build you a window to my soul. But I would leave that window shut and locked, so that every time you tried to look through it all you would see is your own reflection. You would see that my soul is a reflection of you.
COLLEEN HOOVER
Point of Retreat
For it appears to be possible that a soul of a higher order may inhabit a body of a lower, and a soul of a lower order a body of a higher.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
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
Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd. There seems an unalterable contradiction between the human mind and its employments. How can a soul be a merchant? What relation to an immortal being have the price of linseed, the fall of butter, the tare on tallow, or the brokerage on hemp? Can an undying creature debit "petty expenses," and charge for "carriage paid"?
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
FERDINAND FOCH
attributed, The 32d Infantry Division in World War II
It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, where there is true air.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Lady Chatterley's Lover
A man can be compelled to do anything, but his soul cannot be forced.
SIMON SOLOVEYCHIK
"Parenting for Everyone"
Look how much the soul is better than the body; so much more grievous are the diseases of the soul than the griefs of the body.
DIOGENES
attributed, Day's Collacon
There are apartments in the soul which have a glorious outlook; from whose windows you can see across the river of death, and into the shining city beyond; but how often are these neglected for the lower ones, which have earthward-looking windows.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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 living soul of man, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
A soul. A soul is nothing. Can you see it, smell it, touch it? No.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENET
"The Devil and Daniel Webster"
The soul ties its shoe; the mind washes its hands in a basin. All is incongruous.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.
SAUL BELLOW
foreword, The Closing of the American Mind
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
Good men study to spiritualize their bodies; bad men to incarnate their souls.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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?