The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality
Context: I am dreaming...? Let me dream, if this dream is my life. Do not awaken me from it. I believe in the immortal origin of this yearning for immortality, which is the very substance of my soul. But do I really believe in it...? And wherefore do you want to be immortal? you ask me, wherefore? Frankly, I do not understand the question, for it is to ask the reason of the reason, the end of the end, the principle of the principle.
“Do not yearn, O my soul, for immortal life!
Use to the utmost
the skill that is yours.”
Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet
Pythian 3, line 61-62.
Variant translation: Seek not, my soul, immortal life, but make the most of the resources that are within your reach.
“I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
Source: To Love This Life: Quotations By Helen Keller
“The Theophilanthropists believe in the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist
1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
“Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.”
Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher
“Know that my soul is immortal. Know this for yourself”
Sai Baba of Shirdi (1836–1918) Hindu and muslim saint
Saying stated to his disciples
George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter
By Still Waters (1906)
