quotations about the soul
The mind as a glass, receives all images; and the soul becomes that with which it is in conjunction.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
The soul is made of stuff so mysteriously elastic that a single event can make it big enough to contain the infinite.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The Post Office Girl
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
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
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
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
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.
BIBLE
Matthew 10:28
Just as a mirror, which reflects all things, is set in its own container, so too the rational soul is placed in the fragile container of the body. In this way, the body is governed in its earthly life by the soul, and the soul contemplates heavenly things through faith.
HILDEGARD OF BINDEN
letter to the Monk Guibert, 1175
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
Bow with submission before thy soul's dictates rather than before the world's.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy -- the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
ERIC HOFFER
The Passionate State of Mind
The soul ties its shoe; the mind washes its hands in a basin. All is incongruous.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
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
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 human body is the best picture of the human soul.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
Philosophical Investigations
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
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
I believe that the soul consists of its sufferings. For the soul that cures its own sufferings dies.
ANTONIO PORCHIA
Voces
If thy soul be good, the stroke of death cannot hurt thee, for thy spirit shall live blessedly in heaven.
ST. BASIL
attributed, Day's Collacon
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