quotations about the soul
Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
letter, June 1880
There's no such thing as a soul. It's just something they made up to scare kids, like the boogeyman or Michael Jackson.
BART
The Simpsons
The soul is a thing so impalpable, so often useless and sometimes so embarrassing that I suffered, upon losing it, a little less emotion than if I had mislaid, while out on a stroll, my calling-card.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Joueur généreux", Le Spleen de Paris
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"The Philosophy of Composition", The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 3
Well my soul Lord
My soul's got wings
My load is heavy
But I can still sing
JOHN MELLENCAMP
"My Soul's Got Wings"
I am always confused by the language that claims, "I have a soul." Who is the "I" who possesses this soul? Perhaps I should say, "I am a soul." Or, "I am a union of body and soul."
CROW
"Do we have a soul? The concept can be confusing", Winston-Salem Journal, August 5, 2017
Life, with the Soul predominant,
Is a noble mosaic, a bewitching arabesque.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
A man's soul ought to be as the heavens were on the night when the shepherds looked up, and saw them full of angels as well as stars.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The soul is too great to know itself, yet each individual portion of the soul seeks this knowledge, and in the seeking creates new possibilities of development, new dimensions of actuality. The individual self at any given moment can connect with its soul.
JANE ROBERTS
Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness
Laughter is the sound of the soul dancing. My soul probably looks like Fred Astaire.
JAROD KINTZ
This Book Is Not For Sale
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
ANATOLE FRANCE
attributed, Kinship with the Animals
The human soul is God's treasury, out of which he coins unspeakable riches.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
How can any man be free without a soul of his own, that he believes in and won't sell at any price?
D. H. LAWRENCE
Studies in Classic American Literature
The soul has, living apart from its corporeal envelope, a profound habitual meditation which prepares it for a future life.
THEODOR GOTTLIEB HIPPEL
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is one argument commonly employed for the immateriality of the soul, which seems to me remarkable. Whatever is extended consists of parts; and whatever consists of parts is divisible, if not in reality, at least in the imagination. But it is impossible anything divisible can be conjoined to a thought or perception, which is a being altogether inseparable and indivisible. For supposing such a conjunction, would the indivisible thought exist on the left or on the right hand of this extended divisible body? On the surface or in the middle? On the back or fore side of it? If it be conjoined with the extension, it must exist somewhere within its dimensions. If it exist within its dimensions, it must either exist in one particular part; and then that particular part is indivisible, and the perception is conjoined only with it, not with the extension: Or if the thought exists in every part, it must also be extended, and separable, and divisible, as well as the body; which is utterly absurd and contradictory. For can any one conceive a passion of a yard in length, a foot in breadth, and an inch in thickness? Thought, therefore, and extension are qualities wholly incompatible, and never can incorporate together into one subject.
DAVID HUME
"Of the Immateriality of the Soul", A Treatise of Human Nature
The soul, like the body, acquires vigor by the exercise of all its faculties. In the midst of the world, in overcoming difficulties, in conquering selfishness, indolence, and fear--in all the occasions of duty, it employs, and reveals by employing, energies that render it efficient and robust--that broaden its scope, adjust its powers, and mature it with a rich experience.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
I was brought up on a side street, listen now
I learned how to love before I could eat
I was educated from good stock
When I start lovin', oh, I can't stop
I'm a soul man, I'm a soul man
ISAAC HAYES & DAVID PORTER
"Soul Man"
It is common, even in the pulpit, to hear the phrase, "Man has a soul;" and it is scarcely possible to avoid embodying this same thought sometimes in the phrase "man's soul," which is only an abbreviation. This phrase, however, expresses a falsehood. It is not true that man has a soul. Man is a soul. It would be more accurate to say that man has a body. We may say that the body has a soul, or that the soul has a body; as we may say that the ship has a captain, or the captain has a ship; but we ought never to forget that the true man is the mental and spiritual; the body is only the instrument which the mental and the spiritual uses.
LYMAN ABBOTT
A Study in Human Nature
You are a little soul carrying about a corpse.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditations
The body is our dwelling-place, and the soul the immortal guest which lodges there.
MENCIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon