quotations about the soul
Music, sculpture, poetry, painting--these are glorious works; but the soul that creates them is more glorious than they. The music shall die on the passing wind, the poem may be lost in the confusion of tongues, the marble will crumble and the canvas will fade, while the soul shall be quenchless and strong, filled with a nobler melody, kindling with loftier themes, projecting images of unearthly beauty, and drinking from springs of imperishable life.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they're blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul.
VICTORIA MORAN
Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty
Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Mother Earth, April 1913
The soul
Of man alone, that particle divine,
Escapes the wreck of worlds, when all things fail.
WILLIAM SOMERVILE
The Chase
You don't believe in the soul until you feel it straining to escape the body.
GLEN DUNCAN
A Day and a Night and a Day
To Canaan's land I'm on my way
Where the soul of man never dies
My darkest night will turn to day
Where the soul of man never dies
WILLIAM M. GOLDEN
"To Canaan's Land I'm On My Way"
My soul magnifies the Lord ... He has done great things for me.
VIRGIN MARY
Luke 1: 46-49
Souls were dangerous things to carry straight
Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Aurora Leigh
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
HORATIO SPAFFORD
"It Is Well With My Soul"
If the soul is impartial in receiving information, it devotes to that information the share of critical investigation the information deserves, its truth and untruth thus becomes clear.
IBN KHALDUN
The Muqaddimah
The soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He takes His delight. What do you imagine, must that dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God, for, as He told us, He created us in his own image and likeness.
TERESA OF AVILA
The Interior Castle
The soul is kissed by God in its innermost regions.
With interior yearning, grace and blessing are bestowed.
It is a yearning to take on God's gentle yoke,
It is a yearning to give one's self to God's Way.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
attributed, Soul Weavings
He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it may. You may clothe him with rags, may immure him in a dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks; but he is still great. You may shut him out of your houses; but God opens to him heavenly mansions.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
The soul knows God. It is a hypocrite when it professes ignorance. It has wilfully left home and the father's house to eat with swine.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Twenty-Four Sermons Preached in All Souls Church, New York
The only beautiful thing in the world whose beauty lasts for ever is a pure, fair soul.
BRAM STOKER
"The Rose Prince"
In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine the truth, and that illness and misfortune are caused and alleviated by spirits, ghosts, saints ... and gods.
STEVEN PINKER
How the Mind Works
Every little soul must shine.
BURL IVES
"Mr. Rabbit"
My Soul lives many lives.
Each life a thought, each thought a life.
I am but Thought.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
So it appears that amputation of the soul isn't just a simple surgical job, like having your appendix out. The wound has a tendency to go septic.
GEORGE ORWELL
"Notes on the Way", George Orwell: My country right or left
Ambition is a Dead Sea fruit, and the greatest peril to the soul is that one is likely to get precisely what he is seeking.
EDWARD DAHLBERG
Alms for Oblivion