quotations about the soul
I believe that the soul consists of its sufferings. For the soul that cures its own sufferings dies.
ANTONIO PORCHIA
Voces
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 does contemplate and worship God; when it is not disturbed by the body.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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"
The soul's vitality after death is proportionate to its vitality before death.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
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
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. Some minds are incapable of skepticism.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Montaigne; or, the Skeptic", Representative Men
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