Quotes about the soul
page 11

“All struggle becomes celebration, ultimately, in the mind of the Master, who understands that every circumstance and condition has been produced co-jointly, by all of the Souls collaboratively creating that experience or that event, in order that each of the Souls might have a perfect contextual field within which to announce and to declare, to express and to fulfill at the next level, Who They Really Are. This is about spiritual growth. This is about spiritual expansion. This is about the Soul’s evolution.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Perfection, Understanding

“The heart is the bridge between the mind and the soul. First get out of your mind and into your heart space. From there it is a quick jump into your soul.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Heart

“When we have a willingness to ask that first question, Who Am I?, and then to create the answer, it is immensely powerful to not simply respond to the question intellectually, as an intellectual excursion, but to create a response that makes sense to our Soul. A response that announces Who We Choose To Be, as opposed to who we imagine ourselves to be. Who I choose to be is an Individuation of Divinity, a wave on the Ocean of God.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Imagination, God, Question, Sense

“The heart is the bridge between the mind and the soul. First get out of your mind and into your heart space. From there it is a quick jump into your soul. When you are in your heart space with another, that is when you can have a real soul talk. When you are in your heart space with yourself, that is when you can experience connecting with your soul at a very deep level. That is when you can experience communion with God.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God, Heart

“Life is a dialogue between love and the dust,
but there's a deeper death than death,
this is death, when the love, departs,
Each drop of blood is a starry song
and our souls are breaths of eternity.
In the end the buds returning to the tree.
The tree cares for us.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://twitter.com/AKarpouzos/status/1607014795051687936

Tree, Love, Life, Death

“Think this: My Soul knows exactly what it is doing.
Also, think this: My Soul already knows what really matters.
So it is not a question of “finding” that answer, it is a question of remembering. It is not a process of discovery, it is a process of recovery. This data does not have to be researched, it merely has to be retrieved.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Question, Thinking

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Love, Heart

“In every battle, we don't always win. Perhaps we are defeated more often than not. We are made to hurt and suffer. We are made to cry and mourn each defeat, but we must not stop there. Because tomorrow there will be another battle. As long as we still have hope we must believe that one day we will win the battle. What can defeat us is the weakness of our own soul. We are not winners if we are unable to overcome our own fears and worries.”

Titon Rahmawan

Hurt, Suffering, Cry, Fear

Titon Rahmawan

Hurt, Suffering, Cry, Fear

“I must follow the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“It's one of the things that makes us different than they are, Harry. The blood on their hands does not make it right to bloody my own. My choices are measured against my own soul. Not against the stains on theirs.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

“There are two essential kinds of loneliness: that of not having found someone to love, and that of having been deprived of the one you did love. The first kind is worse. Nothing can compare to the loneliness of the soul in adolescence.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

Love, Loneliness

“What matters is that someone—that you—know me that well. When a person can see into your soul, it's hard. It forces you to be open. Vulnerable. It's much easier being with someone who's just more of a casual friend.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Personality

“We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And, indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again."
~Fiddler, pg. 558”

Steven Erikson book Deadhouse Gates

Source: Deadhouse Gates

“Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Light

“She now knew that the death she feared might not be a physical one, that it could be death of the will, the soul, the mind, the laws, and thus not death, but a perpetual dying.”

Joanne Greenberg book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Source: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Death, Fear, Law

“Erre es korakas, Blinky!" Dionysus cursed. "I will have your soul!”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Variant: Erre es korakas, Blinkey!" Dionysus cursed. "I will have your soul!"
"Um, he's a video game character," I said.
Source: The Last Olympian

“I am conscious of a soul-sense that lifts me above the narrow, cramping circumstances of my life. My physical limitations are forgotten- my world lies upward, the length and the breadth and the sweep of the heavens are mine!”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Source: The Story of My Life: With Her Letters (1887 1901) and a Supplementary Account of Her Education Including Passages from the Reports and Letters of Her Teacher Anne Mansfield Sullivan by John Albert Macy

Life, World, Sense

“Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Books

“He was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.”

Horace Walpole book The Castle of Otranto

Source: The Castle of Otranto

Happiness

“I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I’d be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Secret, Dreams, Imagination

“Who becomes you? No one. No one should become me. When I die, I don't want my body or soul inhabited. I wouldn't wish me on anyone.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face - I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Feeling, Search, Help

“The function of music is to liberate in the soul those feelings which normally we keep locked up in the heart.”

Sebastian Faulks book Birdsong

Source: Birdsong

Music, Feeling, Heart

“Bitter love, a violet with it's crown of thorns in a thicet of spiky passions, spear of sorrow, corolla of rage: how did you come to conquer my soul? What brought you?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Love, Rage, Passion

“What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
Source: Les Misérables

Wedding, For Him, Water, Star

“Generally speaking, colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

V. The psychological working of Colour: Quoted in: Hajo Düchting (2000) Wassily Kandinsky, 1866-1944: A Revolution in Painting. p. 17
Alternative translation:
Colour is a means of exerting direct influence on the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hands which plays touching one key or another purposively to cause vibrations in the Soul; in: Anna Moszynska, Abstract Art, Thames and Hudson, 1990
Source: 1910 - 1915, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1911

“Novels aren’t just happy escapes; they are slivers of people’s souls, nailed to the pages, dripping ink from veins of wood pulp. Reading the right one at the right time can make all the difference.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

People, Time, Reading, Happiness

“The secret and the sacred are sisters. When the secret is not respected, the sacred vanishes. Consequently, reflection should not shine too severe or aggressive a light on the world of the soul.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Secret, World, Sister, Light

“It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No--the soul of a man.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Fear, Boy

“What made you fall in love with a prostitute?”
“I didn’t understand it myself at the time. But I’ve thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Love, Understanding, Thinking, Time

“… and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

John Steinbeck book The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

People, Failure

“A: The soul wanders in the dark, until it finds love. And so, wherever our love goes, there we find our soul.
Q: It always happens?
A: If we're lucky. And if we let ourselves be blind.
Q: Instead of watching out?
A: Instead of always watching out.”

Mary Zimmerman Metamorphoses

Source: Metamorphoses

Love

“There was something much greater she needed to feed her soul, and perhaps one day soon she would go…”

Danielle Steel Wanderlust

Source: Wanderlust

“To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education, I call it intrusion.”

Muriel Spark book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Source: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), P. 36

Education

“The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Miserables

Bird, Help

“I am not loved. I am not a beautiful soul. I am not a good-natured, giving person. I am not anybody's savior.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love, Beauty, Nature, Personality

“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

“I haven't devoured a soul in… What month is this? March?”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

“Regret of neglected opportunity is the worst hell that a living soul can
inhabit”

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) Italian writer

Hell

“Man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man's soul, be it even the soul of an idiot.”

Witold Gombrowicz book Ferdydurke

Source: Ferdydurke

Dependency

“What did it avail to pray when he knew his soul lusted after its own destruction?”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

“A soul of water a soul of stone.
A soul by name a soul unknown.
The hours unmake our flesh our bone.
The Soul is all and all alone!”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Water

“Don't fear the light within. May it ignite the Sacred Flame in your soul.”

Paulo Coelho book The Valkyries

Source: The Valkyries

Fear, Light

“If you don't take risks, you'll have a wasted soul.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

“Of all our games, love's play is the only one which threatens to unsettle the soul…”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Source: Memoirs of Hadrian

Love, Game

“I was trying not to be happy, hopeful. I did not believe I deserved happiness or even hope, if you knew my soul.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Source: Faithless

Hope, Happiness

“Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Solitude

Help, Solitude, Life

“Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Love

“Oh, I have a very pure soul. It's only my private parts that have gotten me into trouble".”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

Parting

“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Variant: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

love, Cute, Romantic, Wedding

“We are changed souls; we don't look at things the same way anymore. For there was a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised again.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God

Way, Change, Time

“Because when push comes to shove, we really don't want to have sex with our friends… unless they're sexy. And sometimes we do want to have sex with our blackhearted, soul-sucking enemies… assuming they're sexy.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Sex

“Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Secret

“But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Madness

“No soul remembered is ever really gone.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The First Phone Call from Heaven

“Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can”

Louisa May Alcott book Rose in Bloom

Source: Rose in Bloom

Love, Books, Reading

“Do not touch me and keep your soul out of your fingertips… Die into me or don't come to me at all.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

“I should learn to run, to wrestle, to swim, to ride horses, to row, to drive a car, to fire a rifle. I should fill my soul with flesh. I should fill my flesh with soul. In fact, I should reconcile at last within me the two internal antagonists.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

Cars, Learning, Horse

“There was a man once who said that mothers carry the key of our souls with them all our lives. But you threw mine away”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery.”

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-British writer

Light

“Problems of the heart always bruised the soul.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Problem, Heart

“All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Children, Truth, Birth, Universe

“When I look in the mirror, I see a woman with secrets. When we don’t listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don’t, others will abandon us.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Secret

“A certain cynicism, born of the life she has led; a streak of strange wisdom; the wistfulness behind the gaiety; sometimes fear; and nearly always the memory of loneliness that hurts the soul.”

Georgette Heyer book These Old Shades

Source: These Old Shades

Life, Wisdom, Fear, Memory

“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

Variant: The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the spirit.

God, Music

“We have been moving along at such a fast pace that we no longer know what we are doing. Now we have to wait until our soul catches up with us.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

Waiting

“There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul.”

William Gibson book Pattern Recognition

Source: Pattern Recognition

“That's what came from having romance in your soul. You believe in things like love at first sight and perfect presents.”

Dorothy Koomson book My Best Friend's Girl

Source: My Best Friend's Girl

Love, Perfection

“For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.”

John Milton book Areopagitica

Source: Areopagitica

Life, Books, Dead

“Expectation. is the true soul of art. If you can give a man more than he expects, then he will laud you his entire life. If you can create an air of anticipation and feed it properly, you will succeed.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Life, Art

“Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man

Way, Optimism, Nature, Falseness

“All music should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the soul's refreshment; where this is not remembered there is no real music but only a devilish hubbub.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

Quoted in Ludwig Prautzsch Bibel und Symbol in den Werken Bachs, p. 7 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xaG9peANY9kC&pg=PA7&dq=teuflisches+%22Finis+und+Endursache+anders+nicht,+als+nur+zu+Gottes+Ehre+%22;translation from Albert Schweitzer (trans. Ernest Newman) J. S. Bach (New York: Dover, 1966), vol. 1, p. 167 <br class="br">Variant: Like all music, the figured bass should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul; where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamour and ranting.

God, Music