quotations about the soul
How absurd it must seem for an immortal soul to be destined for Heaven or Hell, and yet be sitting in a kitchen, as a maid, or to see oneself objectified as a mechanic! how falsely the usual sunrise waked us, the clock dial, the city street the job! How wrongfully people find themselves in these systems--our time isn't there, our space isn't there, our space isn't even here, not even our name is there--the addressee for whom the alarm clock rings is identical to only a few, and the whole social story of waking, and certainly the day of the mechanic, is false.
ERNST BLOCH
Traces
All men's souls are immortal, but those of the righteous are both immortal and divine.
SOCRATES
attributed, Day's Collacon
The soul is the human being considered as having a value in itself.
SIMONE WEIL
Gravity and Grace
The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter.
SOPHOCLES
Philoctetes
I'm a lost soul. We do wail.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Jack of Shadows
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"A Psalm of Life"
Negativity is an addiction to the bleak shadow that lingers around every human form ... you can transfigure negativity by turning it toward the light of your soul.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
If you have the soul of a warrior, you are a warrior.
CASSANDRA CLARE
Clockwork Angel
The human soul is God's treasury, out of which he coins unspeakable riches.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The living soul of man, once conscious of its power, cannot be quelled.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
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
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
The eyes ... are the windows of the soul.
PLATO
Phaedrus
Reincarnation is essential to enable the soul to evolve to its Divine right.
R. F. GOUDEY
Reincarnation: A Universal Truth
The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty, by how little.
WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER
The Solitudes of Nature and of Man: Or, The Loneliness of Human Life
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
To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul -- would you understand why that's much harder?
AYN RAND
The Fountainhead
The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
FERDINAND FOCH
attributed, The 32d Infantry Division in World War II
What use do I put my soul to? It is a serviceable question this, and should frequently be put to oneself. How does my ruling part stand affected? And whose soul have I now? That of a child, or a young man, or a feeble woman, or of a tyrant, of cattle or wild beasts.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
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