Quotes about the soul
page 10

Barack Obama photo

“The word Tahrir means liberation.  It is a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom.  And forevermore it will remind us of the Egyptian people — of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2011, Remarks on Egyptian political transition (February 2011)
Context: Today belongs to the people of Egypt, and the American people are moved by these scenes in Cairo and across Egypt because of who we are as a people and the kind of world that we want our children to grow up in.
The word Tahrir means liberation.  It is a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom.  And forevermore it will remind us of the Egyptian people — of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world.

Rumi photo

“When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"I Died as a Mineral", as translated in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 125
Variant translation: Originally, you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable. From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man. During these periods man did not know where he was going, but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless. And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.
As quoted in Multimind (1986) by Robert Ornstein
Context: I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.

Maxim Gorky photo

“There — you say — truth! Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.”

Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer

The character "Luka" in The Lower Depths (1902) English translation by Laurence Irving (1912)
Context: There — you say — truth! Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul. For instance, I knew of a man who believed in a land of righteousness. He said: "Somewhere on this earth there must be a righteous land — and wonderful people live there — good people! They respect each other, help each other, and everything is peaceful and good!" And so that man — who was always searching for this land of righteousness — he was poor and lived miserably — and when things got to be so bad with him that it seemed there was nothing else for him to do except lie down and die — even then he never lost heart — but he'd just smile and say: "Never mind! I can stand it! A little while longer — and I'll have done with this life — and I'll go in search of the righteous land!" — it was his one happiness — the thought of that land. And then to this place — in Siberia, by the way — there came a convict — a learned man with books and maps — yes, a learned man who knew all sorts of things — and the other man said to him: "Do me a favor — show me where is the land of righteousness and how I can get there." At once the learned man opened his books, spread out his maps, and looked and looked and he said — no — he couldn't find this land anywhere... everything was correct — all the lands on earth were marked — but not this land of righteousness. The man wouldn't believe it.... "It must exist," he said, "look carefully. Otherwise," he says, "your books and maps are of no use if there's no land of righteousness." The learned man was offended. "My plans," he said, "are correct. But there exists no land of righteousness anywhere." Well, then the other man got angry. He'd lived and lived and suffered and suffered, and had believed all the time in the existence of this land — and now, according to the plans, it didn't exist at all. He felt robbed! And he said to the learned man: "Ah — you scum of the earth! You're not a learned man at all — but just a damned cheat!" — and he gave him a good wallop in the eye — then another one... [After a moment's silence. ] And then he went home and hanged himself.

W.B. Yeats photo

“I gave what other women gave
That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows”

A Last Confession http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1404/, St. 3 & 4
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
Context: p>I gave what other women gave
That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows,And give his own and take his own
And rule in his own right;
And though it loved in misery
Close and cling so tight,
There’s not a bird of day that dare
Extinguish that delight.</p

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo

“But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Letter to Michael Tolkien (March 1941)
Context: Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.

Saul Bellow photo

“In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Foreword to The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom (1987)
General sources
Context: In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.

Joseph Addison photo

“Music religious heat inspires,
It wakes the soul, and lifts it high”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1692), st. 4.
Context: Music religious heat inspires,
It wakes the soul, and lifts it high,
And wings it with sublime desires,
And fits it to bespeak the Deity.

Lewis Carroll photo
Mikhail Lermontov photo

“My whole past life I live again in memory, and, involuntarily, I ask myself: 'why have I lived - for what purpose was I born?'… A purpose there must have been, and, surely, mine was an exalted destiny, because I feel that within my soul are powers immeasurable… But I was not able to discover that destiny, I allowed myself to be carried away by the allurements of passions, inane and ignoble. From their crucible I issued hard and cold as iron, but gone for ever was the glow of noble aspirations - the fairest flower of life. And, from that time forth, how often have I not played the part of an axe in the hands of fate! Like an implement of punishment, I have fallen upon the head of doomed victims, often without malice, always without pity… To none has my love brought happiness, because I have never sacrificed anything for the sake of those I have loved: for myself alone I have loved - for my own pleasure. I have only satisfied the strange craving of my heart, greedily draining their feelings, their tenderness, their joys, their sufferings - and I have never been able to sate myself. I am like one who, spent with hunger, falls asleep in exhaustion and sees before him sumptuous viands and sparkling wines; he devours with rapture the aerial gifts of the imagination, and his pains seem somewhat assuaged. Let him but awake: the vision vanishes - twofold hunger and despair remain!
And tomorrow, it may be, I shall die!… And there will not be left on earth one being who has understood me completely. Some will consider me worse, others, better, than I have been in reality… Some will say: 'he was a good fellow'; others: 'a villain.”

And both epithets will be false. After all this, is life worth the trouble? And yet we live - out of curiosity! We expect something new... How absurd, and yet how vexatious!
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

Barack Obama photo

“People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, and the heart, and the soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)
Context: People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, and the heart, and the soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways. […] Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together.

“Without language, how can we tell anyone what we feel, or what we think? It might be said that until he developed language, man had no soul, for without language how could he reach deep inside himself and discover the truths that are hidden there, or find out what emotions he shared, or did not share, with his fellow men and women.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

On Seeing Plays (1990).
Context: It is mankind's discovery of language which more than any other single thing has separated him from the animal creation. Without language, what concept have we of past or future as separated from the immediate present? Without language, how can we tell anyone what we feel, or what we think? It might be said that until he developed language, man had no soul, for without language how could he reach deep inside himself and discover the truths that are hidden there, or find out what emotions he shared, or did not share, with his fellow men and women. But because this greatest gift of all gifts is in daily use, and is smeared, and battered and trivialized by commonplace associations, we too often forget the splendour of which it is capable, and the pleasures that it can give, from the pen of a master.

“What truly makes a man who he is? Is it the strength of his arms, or the courage of his soul?”

Source: Drenai series, The Swords of Night and Day, Ch. 8
Context: What I did understand from the rebirth process was that the rebirth reproduced a physical duplicate of the original. But this is my point. It is physical. What truly makes a man who he is? Is it the strength of his arms, or the courage of his soul? You have your own soul, Harad. You are not Druss. Live your own life.

“The Soul is a fact, but it is not physical.”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Entering the Castle : An Inner Path to God and Your Soul (2007), p. 57
Context: The Soul is a fact, but it is not physical. … Survivors of near-death experiences attest that some part of them apparently detaches from their physical bodies following the death of the body, but while that is proof of the soul for them, it does not prove it to us. The Soul is like divine music that only God can hear; it is the force of endless resurrection; the soul is like a fire that never goes out.

Black Elk photo

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka , and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

The Sacred Pipe (1953)
Context: The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men. <!-- p. 115

Sri Aurobindo photo

“A one transcendent, universal, original and sempiternal Divinity or divine Essence, Consciousness, Force and Bliss is the fount and continent and inhabitant of things.
Soul, nature, life are only a manifestation or partial phenomenon of this self-aware Eternity and this conscious Eternal.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Indian Spirituality and Life (1919)
Context: The fundamental idea of all Indian religion is one common to the highest human thinking everywhere. The supreme truth of all that is is a Being or an existence beyond the mental and physical appearances we contact here. Beyond mind, life and body there is a Spirit and Self containing all that is finite and infinite, surpassing all that is relative, a supreme Absolute, originating and supporting all that is transient, a one Eternal. A one transcendent, universal, original and sempiternal Divinity or divine Essence, Consciousness, Force and Bliss is the fount and continent and inhabitant of things.
Soul, nature, life are only a manifestation or partial phenomenon of this self-aware Eternity and this conscious Eternal.

Tertullian photo

“Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul though many tongues.”
Omnium gentium unus homo, uarium nomen est, una anima, uaria uox, unus spiritus, uarius sonus, propria cuique genti loquella, sed loquellae materia communis.

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

De Testimonio Animae (The Testimony of the Soul), 6.3
Context: Man is one name belonging to every nation upon earth. In them all is one soul though many tongues. Every country has its own language, yet the subjects of which the untutored soul speaks are the same everywhere.

Herbert Hoover photo

“Bureaucracy is ever desirous of spreading its influence and its power. You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people's souls and thoughts.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

The New Day: Campaign Speeches of Herbert Hoover (1928), Campaign speech in New York (22 October 1928)
Context: Bureaucracy is ever desirous of spreading its influence and its power. You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people's souls and thoughts. Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation's press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo

“Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh — that is to say, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness, of isolation, and of death.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

1 October 1849
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries
Context: Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh — that is to say, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness, of isolation, and of death. There is no serious piety without heroism. Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage.

Blaise Pascal photo

“God alone can place them in the soul”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion
Context: I do not speak here of divine truths... because they are infinitely superior to nature: God alone can place them in the soul... I know that he has desired that they should enter from the heart into the mind, and not from the mind into the heart, to humiliate that proud power of reasoning that pretends to the right to be the judge of the things that the will chooses; and to cure this infirm will which is wholly corrupted by its filthy attachments.

Saul Bellow photo

“The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Source: Introduction to The Closing of the American Mind (1988), pp. 16-17
Context: In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves—to that part of us which is conscious. … The independence of this consciousness, which has the strength to be immune to the noise of history and the distractions of our immediate surroundings, is what the life struggle is all about. The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether.

Hermann Hesse photo

“What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world.”

The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: To be capable of everything and do justice to everything, one certainly does not need less spiritual force and èlan and warmth, but more. What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualities toward an isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.

John of the Cross photo

“I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labours, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfil His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Note to Stanza 27
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas
Context: I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labours, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfil His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love. It is the property of love to place him who loves on an equality with the object of his love. Hence the soul, because of its perfect love, is called the bride of the Son of God, which signifies equality with Him. In this equality and friendship all things are common, as the Bridegroom Himself said to His disciples: I have called you friends, because all things, whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.

Henri Barbusse photo

“The cult of the masterpieces of art and thought is the only impulse of the soul which, by general consent, has always soared above patriotic littlenesses.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XX The Cult
Context: If, from the idea of motherland, you take away covetousness, hatred, envy and vainglory; if you take away from it the desire for predominance by violence, what is there left of it?
It is not an individual unity of laws; for just laws have no colors. It is not a solidarity of interests, for there are no material national interests — or they are not honest. It is not a unity of race; for the map of the countries is not the map of the races. What is there left?
There is left a restricted communion, deep and delightful; the affectionate and affecting attraction in the charm of a language — there is hardly more in the universe besides its languages which are foreigners — there is left a personal and delicate preference for certain forms of landscape, of monuments, of talent. And even this radiance has its limits. The cult of the masterpieces of art and thought is the only impulse of the soul which, by general consent, has always soared above patriotic littlenesses.

José Martí photo

“The soul, equal and eternal, emanates from bodies of different shapes and colors. Whoever foments and spreads antagonism and hate between the races, sins against humanity.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Our America (1881)
Context: There can be no racial animosity, because there are no races. The theorist and feeble thinkers string together and warm over the bookshelf races which the well-disposed observer and the fair-minded traveller vainly seek in the justice of Nature where man's universal identity springs forth from triumphant love and the turbulent hunger for life. The soul, equal and eternal, emanates from bodies of different shapes and colors. Whoever foments and spreads antagonism and hate between the races, sins against humanity.

Anthony de Mello photo

“God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Awakening : Conversations with the Masters (2003), p. 24
Context: The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body.

Simón Bolívar photo

“When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful.”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

Close of the address, as quoted in Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (1918) by William Spence Robertson, p. 239
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful. My imagination takes flight toward future ages and admiringly observes from them the prosperity, the splendor, and the life which will exist within this vast territory. I am carried away; and I seem to behold it in the heart of the universe, stretching along its extensive coasts between two oceans which nature has separated; but which our fatherland has united by long and wide canals. I see it serve as the bond, as the center, as the emporium of the human race. I see it sending to the ends of the earth the treasures of gold and silver which its mountains contain. I see it, through the healing virtue of its plants, dispensing health and life to afflicted men of the Old World. I see it disclosing its precious secrets to the sages who know that the store of knowledge is more valuable than the store of riches which nature has so prodigally bestowed upon us. I see it seated upon the throne of liberty, the scepter of justice in its hand, crowned by glory, showing to the Old World the majesty of the New World.

W.B. Yeats photo

“The hourly kindness, the day’s common speech,
The habitual content of each with each
When neither soul nor body has been crossed.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

King and No King http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1521/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Context: I that have not your faith, how shall I know
That in the blinding light beyond the grave
We’ll find so good a thing as that we have lost?
The hourly kindness, the day’s common speech,
The habitual content of each with each
When neither soul nor body has been crossed.

W.B. Yeats photo

“Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.”

Among School Children http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1437/, st. 8
The Tower (1928)
Context: Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Robert Browning photo

“Let us cry, "All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"”

Source: Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Line 70.

Fernando Pessoa photo

“Everything is worthwhile
if the soul is not small.”

Message
Original: Valeu a pena?
Tudo vale a pena
Se a alma não é pequena.
Poem "Mar Português", Verses 6-.
Context: Was it worthwhile?
Everything is worthwhile
if the soul is not small.

Barack Obama photo

“The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts. And it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe, and rejoice in the beauty of every soul. […] Do we act with compassion and empathy. […] we have to guard against any efforts to divide ourselves along sectarian lines or any other lines.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)
Context: The peace we seek in the world begins in human hearts. And it finds its glorious expression when we look beyond any differences in religion or tribe, and rejoice in the beauty of every soul. [... ] Do we act with compassion and empathy. [... ] we have to guard against any efforts to divide ourselves along sectarian lines or any other lines.

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine —”

"To One in Paradise", st. 1 (1834).
Context: Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine —
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo

“To be a man is to be responsible: to be ashamed of miseries you did not cause; to be proud of your comrades' victories; to be aware, when setting one stone, that you are building a world.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Variant: I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.
Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. II : The Men
Context: To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
There is a tendency to class such men with toreadors and gamblers. People extol their contempt for death. But I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.

Florence Nightingale photo

“Where shall I find God? In myself. That is the true Mystical Doctrine. But then I myself must be in a state for Him to come and dwell in me. This is the whole aim of the Mystical Life; and all Mystical Rules in all times and countries have been laid down for putting the soul into such a state.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Notes from Devotional Authors of the Middle Ages (1873-1874)
Context: Where shall I find God? In myself. That is the true Mystical Doctrine. But then I myself must be in a state for Him to come and dwell in me. This is the whole aim of the Mystical Life; and all Mystical Rules in all times and countries have been laid down for putting the soul into such a state.
That the soul herself should be heaven, that our Father which is in heaven should dwell in her, that there is something within us infinitely more estimable than often comes out, that God enlarges this "palace of our soul" by degrees so as to enable her to receive Himself, that thus he gives her liberty but that the soul must give herself up absolutely to Him for Him to do this, the incalculable benefit of this occasional but frequent intercourse with the Perfect: this is the conclusion and sum of the whole matter, put into beautiful language by the Mystics. And of this process they describe the steps, and assign periods of months and years during which the steps, they say, are commonly made by those who make them at all.

Barack Obama photo

“Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.
For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

Isadora Duncan photo

“To seek in nature the fairest forms and to find the movement which expresses the soul of these forms — this is the art of the dancer.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.
Context: To seek in nature the fairest forms and to find the movement which expresses the soul of these forms — this is the art of the dancer. It is from nature alone that the dancer must draw his inspirations, in the same manner as the sculptor, with whom he has so many affinities. Rodin has said: "To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard the works of nature, and to see in those of the classics only the method by which they have interpreted nature." Rodin is right; and in my art I have by no means copied, as has been supposed, the figures of Greek vases, friezes and paintings. From them I have learned to regard nature, and when certain of my movements recall the gestures that are seen in works of art, it is only because, like them, they are drawn from the grand natural source.
My inspiration has been drawn from trees, from waves, from clouds, from the sympathies that exist between passion and the storm, between gentleness and the soft breeze, and the like, and I always endeavour to put into my movements a little of that divine continuity which gives to the whole of nature its beauty and its life.

“The Soul is like divine music that only God can hear; it is the force of endless resurrection; the soul is like a fire that never goes out.”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Entering the Castle : An Inner Path to God and Your Soul (2007), p. 57
Context: The Soul is a fact, but it is not physical. … Survivors of near-death experiences attest that some part of them apparently detaches from their physical bodies following the death of the body, but while that is proof of the soul for them, it does not prove it to us. The Soul is like divine music that only God can hear; it is the force of endless resurrection; the soul is like a fire that never goes out.

“Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.”

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921) British poet

"The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.
Context: p>I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.Yet came there never voice nor sign;
But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine,
And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.</p

Kurt Vonnegut photo

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.”

A Man Without a Country (2005)
Context: If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual. Buddha preached the discipline of self-restraint and moral life; it is a complete acceptance of law. But this bondage of law cannot be an end by itself; by mastering it thoroughly we acquire the means of getting beyond it. It is going back to Brahma, to the infinite love, which is manifesting itself through the finite forms of law.

Romain Rolland photo

“Epic shouts passed, and trumpet calls, and tempestuous sounds borne upon sovereign rhythms. For in that sonorous soul everything took shape in sound. It sang of light. It sang of darkness, sang of life and death. It sang for those who were victorious in battle. It sang for himself who was conquered and laid low. It sang. All was song. It was nothing but song.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Journey's End: The Burning Bush (1911)
Context: God was not to him the impassive Creator, a Nero from his tower of brass watching the burning of the City to which he himself has set fire. God was fighting. God was suffering. Fighting and suffering with all who fight and for all who suffer. For God was Life, the drop of light fallen into the darkness, spreading out, reaching out, drinking up the night. But the night is limitless, and the Divine struggle will never cease: and none can know how it will end. It was a heroic symphony wherein the very discords clashed together and mingled and grew into a serene whole! Just as the beech-forest in silence furiously wages war, so Life carries war into the eternal peace.
The wars and the peace rang echoing through Christophe. He was like a shell wherein the ocean roars. Epic shouts passed, and trumpet calls, and tempestuous sounds borne upon sovereign rhythms. For in that sonorous soul everything took shape in sound. It sang of light. It sang of darkness, sang of life and death. It sang for those who were victorious in battle. It sang for himself who was conquered and laid low. It sang. All was song. It was nothing but song.

John Lennon photo

“Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Mind Games"
Lyrics, Mind Games (1973)
Context: So keep on playing those mind games together
Doing the ritual dance in the sun.
Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel.

Kurt Vonnegut photo

“I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to the human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will.”

Mother Night (1961)
Context: "You hate America, don't you?" she said.
"That would be as silly as loving it," I said. "It's impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn't interest me. It's no doubt a great flaw in my personality, but I can't think in terms of boundaries. Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies. I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to the human soul. Virtues and vices, pleasures and pains cross boundaries at will."

Johannes Tauler photo

“It is certain that if God is to be
born in the soul
it must turn back to eternity”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

Sermons
Context: It is certain that if God is to be
born in the soul
it must turn back to eternity….
It must turn in toward itself with all
is might, must recall itself,
and concentrate all its faculties within itself,
the lowest as well as the highest.
All its dissipated powers must be gathered up into one, because unity is It is certain that if God is to be born in the soul it must turn back to eternity strength.

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be explained by love; they are like body and soul. Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: Compulsion is not indeed the final appeal to man, but joy is. And joy is everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame; in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can share. Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, unnecessary; nay, it very often contradicts the most peremptory behests of necessity. It exists to show that the bonds of law can only be explained by love; they are like body and soul. Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.

John of the Cross photo

“When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love, we must not interfere with it.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Note to Stanza 28 part 3
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas
Context: When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love, we must not interfere with it. We should inflict a grievous wrong upon it, and upon the Church also, if we were to occupy it, were it only for a moment, in exterior or active duties, however important they might be. When God Himself adjures all not to waken it from its love, who shall venture to do so, and be blameless? In a word, it is for this love that we are all created. Let those men of zeal, who think by their preaching and exterior works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more edifying to the Church, and more pleasing unto God — setting aside the good example they would give if they would spend at least one half their time in prayer, even though they may have not attained to the state of unitive love.

Johannes Tauler photo

“This food of love draws the soul above distinction or difference, beyond resemblance to divine unity. This is what happens to the transfigured spirit.”

Johannes Tauler (1300–1361) German theologian

When the divine heat of love has drawn out all the moisture, heaviness, unfitness, then this holy food plunges such a one into the life of God. As Our Lord himself said to St Augustine, "I am the food of the strong: believe and feast on me. You will not change me into yourself; rather you will be changed into me".
Sermons, From Our Daily Bread

Sallustius photo
Sallustius photo
Malala Yousafzai photo
Pope Francis photo
Axel Munthe photo

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

Jeremy Bentham photo
Maximilien Robespierre photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Edgar Allan Poe photo

“A poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

The Poetic Principle (1850)

Ronald Reagan photo

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path.
Interview published in Reason (1 July 1975)
1970s

Jeff Buckley photo
Paul Valéry photo

“It is therefore reasonable to think that the creations of man are made either with a view to his body, and that is the principle we call utility, or with a view to his soul, and that is what he seeks under the name of beauty.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

But, further, since he who constructs or creates has to deal with the rest of the world and with the movement of nature, which both tend perpetually to dissolve, corrupt or upset what he makes, he must recognize and seek to communicate to his works a third principle, that expresses the resistance he wishes them to offer to their destiny, which is to perish. So he seeks solidity or lastingness.
Socrates, pp. 128–9
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Black Elk photo

“I do not wish to be a king; I am not anxious to be rich; I decline military command; I detest fornication; I am not impelled by an insatiable love of gain to go to sea; I do not contend for chaplets; I am free from a mad thirst for fame; I despise death; I am superior to every kind of disease; grief does not consume my soul.”

Tatian (120–180) Syrian writer

Original: (la) Regnare nolo: ditescere non libet: prae turam recuso, scortationem odi: navigare ob insatiabilem avaritiam non cupio: de coronis consequendis non dimico: liber sum ab insana gloria cupiditate: mortem contemno: guovis morbi genere superior sum: maror animum non peredit.
Source: Address to the Greeks, Chapter XI, as translated by J. E. Ryland

Catherine of Genoa photo
Marquis de Sade photo

“Benevolence is more a vice of pride than a true virtue of the soul.”

First Dialogue, Delmonce
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Kuvempu photo
Bhagawan Nityananda photo

“Just as camphor is consumed by the flames of fire, so also, mind must be consumed by soul-fire.”

Bhagawan Nityananda (1897–1961) Hindu guru and saint

4
The Chidakasha Gita (1927)

Karl Marx photo
Sufyan al-Thawri photo

“Five souls are the most dignified in creation: a scholar who is not self-indulgent (moderate), a Sufi jurisprudent, a humble rich person, a thankful poor one, and a noble who follows the Sunnah.”

Sufyan al-Thawri (716–778) Muslim Scholar and founder of Thawri Madhhab

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 28

Marquis de Sade photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Marcelo H. del Pilar photo

“I exhort you with all the ardour of my soul. Learn, instruct, encourage love of study, and you will have fulfilled your mission on earth.”

Marcelo H. del Pilar (1850–1896) Filipino writer, lawyer, and journalist (1850-1896)

Marcelo H. del Pilar to Josefa Gatmaitan (13 March 1889), in Epistolario de Marcelo H. del Pilar, vol. I, p.57

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!”

quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
Stanza 17.
The Raven (1844)

Paulo Coelho photo
Karl Marx photo

“Thus heaven I’ve forfeited, I know it full well. My soul, once true to God, is chosen for hell.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

“The Pale Maiden” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1837-pre/verse/verse24.htm (1837) ballad

Plato photo
Napoleon I of France photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Alfred Noyes photo
Angelo Vulpini photo

“Where did love go?
Where did love go?
Are our souls empty?
Are we done yet?”

Angelo Vulpini (2003) Venezuelan recording artist

Source: Song lyrics

Stepan Bandera photo
Jane Yolen photo

“For what was art, she thought, but the heart and soul made visible.”

Jane Yolen (1939) American speculative fiction and children's writer

Source: Short fiction, Dragonfield and Other Stories (1985), The Pot Child (p. 110)

Rumi photo

“Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

https://twitter.com/wise_chimp/status/1488946174321205253?s=21

Prevale photo

“True friends know how to listen with the heart, evaluate with reason and relate through their experiences. They treasure everything that lights up their eyes and warms their soul.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) I veri amici sanno ascoltare con il cuore, valutare con la ragione e relazionarsi attraverso le proprie esperienze. Fanno tesoro di tutto ciò che illumina i loro occhi e riscalda la loro anima.
Source: prevale.net

John Lennon photo

“So keep on playing those mind games together
Doing the ritual dance in the sun...
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Lyrics, Mind Games (1973)

Neale Donald Walsch photo