Quotes about the soul
page 3

Edgar Allan Poe photo
Harbhajan Singh Yogi photo

“Your shallowness or greatness of the soul shows up in your aura.”

Harbhajan Singh Yogi (1929–2004) Indian-American Sikh Yogi

The Eight Human Talents (2001)

Clement of Alexandria photo
Martin Luther photo
Thomas Fuller photo

“He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it.”

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian

Life of the Duke of Alva (1642). Compare: "A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy-body to decay, And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay", John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, part i. line 156.

Hasan al-Askari photo

“Beauty of the face is the outward charm of a human being, and the beauty of soul is his inner charm.”

Hasan al-Askari (846–874) Eleventh of the Twelve Imams

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.1, p. 95
General

James Russell Lowell photo

“All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

An Incident in a Railroad Car

James Hetfield photo

“Everybody is born good and everybody has got the same size soul. We're here to connect with that.”

James Hetfield (1963) American musician, songwriter and record producer

at St Quentin during the videoshoot for St Anger

Thomas Paine photo
Socrates photo
Socrates photo
Martin Luther photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“And you, the living soul, you over there
get away from all these people who are dead.”

Canto III, lines 88–89 (tr. Mark Musa).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Karel Čapek photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Elvis Presley photo

“A well I bless my soul
What's wrong with me?
I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree.
My friends say I'm actin' wild as a bug.
I'm in love,
I'm all shook up.
Mm mm oh, oh, yeah, yeah!”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

All Shook Up, written by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley (1957)
Song lyrics

Diogenes Laërtius photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“The dames and cavaliers, the toils and ease
That filled our souls with love and courtesy,
There where the hearts have so malicious grown!”

Canto XIV, lines 109–111 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Dante Alighieri photo

“At once I understood,
and I was sure this was that sect of evil souls who were
hateful to God and to His enemies.”

Canto III, lines 61–63 (tr. Mark Musa).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Karl Popper photo
Socrates photo

“We shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and a migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the site of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now, if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O friends and judges, can be greater than this? …Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. …What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they would not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

40c–41c
Plato, Apology

Edgar Allan Poe photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
MF Doom photo

“Got more soul (sole) than a sock with a hole.”

MF Doom (1971) hip hop artist from America

As Madvillain, "Rhinestone Cowboy", Madvillainy (2004)
Sourced Lines

John of the Cross photo
J.C. Ryle photo
Madhvacharya photo

“Salvation lies in the soul experiencing its intrinsic joy.”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

Beginner’s Guide to Sri MadhvAchArya’s Life and Philosophy

Socrates photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
John of the Cross photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo

“Virtue is the health of the soul.”

Aristo of Chios (-300) ancient greek philosopher

Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, fragment 359

Socrates photo
Dante Alighieri photo

“For all the gold that is beneath the moon,
Or ever has been, of these weary souls
Could never make a single one repose.”

Canto VII, lines 64–66 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Mikhail Bakunin photo

“I eagerly await tomorrow's mail to have news of Russia and Poland. For now, I have to content myself with a few vague rumors which float around. I have heard about new, bloody skirmishes in Poland between the people and troops; I was told that, even in Russia, there was a conspiracy against the czar and the whole royal family.
I am equally passionate about the struggle between the North and the Southern American states. Of course, my heart goes out to the North. But alas! It is the South who acted with the most force, wisdom, and solidarity, which makes them worthy of the triumph they have received in every encounter so far. It is true that the South has been preparing for war for three years now, while the North has been forced to improvise. The surprising success of the ventures of the American people, for the most part happy; the banality of the material well being, where the heart is absent; and the national vanity, altogether infantile and sustained with very little cost; all seem to have helped deprave these people, and perhaps this stubborn struggle will be beneficial to them in so much as it helps the nation regain its lost soul. This is my first impression; but it could very well be that I will change my mind upon seeing things up close. The only thing is, I will not have enough time to examine really closely.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Letter http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/letters/toherzenandogareff.html to Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and Ogareff from San Francisco (3 October 1861); published in Correspondance de Michel Bakounine (1896) edited by Michel Dragmanov

Dante Alighieri photo

“This miserable state
is borne by the wretched souls of those
who lived without disgrace and without praise.”

Canto III, lines 34–36 (tr. John D. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Bertrand Russell photo

“The facts of science, as they appeared to him [Heraclitus], fed the flame in his soul, and in its light, he saw into the depths of the world.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic

Chuck Berry photo

“You know, my temperature's risin'
and the jukebox blows a fuse
My heart's beatin' rhythm
and my soul keeps on singin' the blues
Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Roll Over Beethoven" (1956) ·  Live performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT3kCVFFLNg
Song lyrics

Edvard Munch photo
Adam Weishaupt photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

“One artist sees himself as the creator of an independent spiritual world; he hoists onto his shoulders the task of creating this world, of peopling it and of bearing the all-embracing responsibility for it; but he crumples beneath it, for a mortal genius is not capable of bearing such a burden. Just as man in general, having declared himself the centre of existence, has not succeeded in creating a balanced spiritual system. And if misfortune overtakes him, he casts the blame upon the age-long disharmony of the world, upon the complexity of today's ruptured soul, or upon the stupidity of the public.
Another artist, recognizing a higher power above, gladly works as a humble apprentice beneath God's heaven; then, however, his responsbility for everything that is written or drawn, for the souls which perceive his work, is more exacting than ever. But, in return, it is not he who has created this world, not he who directs it, there is no doubt as to its foundations; the artist has merely to be more keenly aware than others of the harmony of the world, of the beauty and ugliness of the human contribution to it, and to communicate this acutely to his fellow-men. And in misfortune, and even at the depths of existence — in destitution, in prison, in sickness — his sense of stable harmony never deserts him.
But all the irrationality of art, its dazzling turns, its unpredictable discoveries, its shattering influence on human beings — they are too full of magic to be exhausted by this artist's vision of the world, by his artistic conception or by the work of his unworthy fingers.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Nobel lecture (1970)

Arthur Miller photo

“I've almost asked that question, then realized it's good for my soul not to know. For a while! Just to let the evening wear on and see what I think of this person without knowing what he does and how successful he is, or what a failure. We're ranking everybody every minute of the day.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

Paris Review (Summer 1966)
Context: Success, instead of giving freedom of choice, becomes a way of life. There's no country I've been to where people, when you come into a room and sit down with them, so often ask you, "What do you do?" And, being American, many's the time I've almost asked that question, then realized it's good for my soul not to know. For a while! Just to let the evening wear on and see what I think of this person without knowing what he does and how successful he is, or what a failure. We're ranking everybody every minute of the day.

Horace Mann photo

“Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up all the vacuities of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

Congressional speech (1849)
Context: I affirm, in words as true and literal as any that belong to geometry, that the man who withholds knowledge from a child not only works diabolical miracles for the destruction of good, but for the creation of evil also. He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place. Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up all the vacuities of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge. He who dethrones the idea of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead. Superstition is the mathematical complement of religious truth; and just so much less as the life of a human being is reclaimed to good, just so much more is it delivered over to evil. The man or the institution, therefore, that withholds knowledge from a child, or from a race of children, exercises the awful power of changing the world in which they are to live, just as much as though he should annihilate all that is most lovely and grand in this planet of ours, or transport the victim of his cruelty to some dark and frigid zone of the universe, where the sweets of knowledge are unknown, and the terrors of ignorance hold their undisputed and remorseless reign.

Matka Tereza photo

“I speak of love for souls, of tender love for God, words pass through my words sic, lips], and I long with a deep longing to believe in them!”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

On her dark night of spiritual desolation amidst devotion, in a letter addressed to Jesus, as quoted in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (2007) edited by Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, p. 192; regarding this quote, Fr. Kolodiejchuk writes: "...when addressing Jesus — that is, in prayer — she could express herself with ease. Fufilling her confessor's request, she sent to him a letter addressed to Jesus, enclosing it with her letter dated September 3, 1959." https://books.google.com/books?id=P4cqT0nK_joC&pg=PA192&dq=%22when+addressing+Jesus+-+that+is,+in+prayer+-+she+could+express+herself+%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjk0IOm5vTOAhVF1x4KHYdRDE4Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=%22when%20addressing%20Jesus%20-%20that%20is%2C%20in%20prayer%20-%20she%20could%20express%20herself%20%22&f=false
1950s
Context: My own Jesus,
They say people in hell suffer eternal pain because of the loss of God – they would go through all that suffering if they had just a little hope of possessing God. In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing (Jesus, please forgive my blasphemies, I have been told to write everything). That darkness that surrounds me on all sides. I can’t lift my soul to God – no light or inspiration enters my soul. I speak of love for souls, of tender love for God, words pass through my words sic, lips], and I long with a deep longing to believe in them! What do I labour for? If there be no God—there can be no soul.—If there is no soul then Jesus—You also are not true... Jesus don't let my soul be deceived—nor let me deceive anyone. In the call You said that I would have to suffer much.—Ten years—my Jesus, You have done to me according to Your will—and Jesus hear my prayer—if this pleases You—if my pain and suffering—my darkness and separation gives You a drop of consolation—my own Jesus, do with me as You wish—as long as You wish, without a single glance at my feelings and pain... I beg of You only one thing—please do not take the trouble to return soon.—I am ready to wait for You for all eternity.

Maxim Gorky photo

“Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.”

Maxim Gorky (1868–1936) Russian and Soviet writer

Untimely Thoughts (1917-18) (original: Наиболее успешно и могуче будит в нашей душе ее добрые начала сила искусства. Как наука является разумом мира, так искусство — сердце его.)
Context: The good qualities in our soul are most successfully and forcefully awakened by the power of art. Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.

Isaac Newton photo

“Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person.”

Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), Scholium Generale (1713; 1726)
Context: This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all: And on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God παντοκρáτωρ or Universal Ruler. For God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God, not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: These are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God; a true, supreme or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows, that the true God is a Living, Intelligent and Powerful Being; and from his other perfections, that he is Supreme or most Perfect. He is Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from Eternity to Eternity; his presence from Infinity to Infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not Eternity or Infinity, but Eternal and Infinite; he is not Duration or Space, but he endures and is present. He endures for ever, and is every where present; and by existing always and every where, he constitutes Duration and Space. Since every particle of Space is always, and every indivisible moment of Duration is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and no where. Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, co-existant parts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and every where. He is omnipresent, not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. 'Tis allowed by all that the supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always and every where. Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched; nor ought to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal thing. We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of any thing is, we know not. In bodies we see only their figures and colours, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the favours; but their inward substances are not to be known, either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds; much less then have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes; we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion. For we adore him as his servants; and a God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find, suited to different times and places, could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. But by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build. For all our notions of God are taken from the ways of mankind, by a certain similitude which, though not perfect, has some likeness however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy.

Epicurus photo

“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.”

"Letter to Menoeceus" http://www.epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html, as translated in Stoic and Epicurean (1910) by Robert Drew Hicks, p. 167
Variant translation: Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young, and when he is old let him not become weary of the study; for no man can ever find the time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his soul. And he who asserts either that it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come to be happy, or that it is too late. So that both young and old should study philosophy, the one in order that, when he is old, he many be young in good things through the pleasing recollection of the past, and the other in order that he may be at the same time both young and old, in consequence of his absence of fear for the future.
Context: Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed towards attaining it.

John of the Cross photo

“Hence the love of God in the pure and simple soul is almost continually in act.”

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

The Sayings of Light and Love
Context: Souls will be unable to reach perfection who do not strive to be content with having nothing, in such fashion that their natural and spiritual desire is satisfied with emptiness; for this is necessary in order to reach the highest tranquility and peace of spirit. Hence the love of God in the pure and simple soul is almost continually in act.

Ellen G. White photo

“In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.”

Christ's Object Lessons (1900)
Context: Through the creation we are to become acquainted with the Creator. The book of nature is a great lesson book, which in connection with the Scriptures we are to use in teaching others of His character, and guiding lost sheep back to the fold of God. As the works of God are studied, the Holy Spirit flashes conviction into the mind. It is not the conviction that logical reasoning produces; but unless the mind has become too dark to know God, the eye too dim to see Him, the ear too dull to hear His voice, a deeper meaning is grasped, and the sublime, spiritual truths of the written word are impressed on the heart.
In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.

Keith Haring photo

“Art should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.”

Keith Haring (1958–1990) American artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s b…
Eliphas Levi photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
Margherita Hack photo
Edgar Allan Poe photo
Arvo Pärt photo
Pope Francis photo
Marcel Proust photo
Angelo Vulpini photo

“Our dedication to good actions as human beings is what most nourishes our souls”

Angelo Vulpini (2003) Venezuelan recording artist

Source: Posted on @angelovulpini, Instagram (June 15, 2019)

Angelo Vulpini photo

“The body dies, and the soul remains, I dare to think. Life is short, and it has to be lived, but hell is eternal, and it has to be avoided.”

Angelo Vulpini (2003) Venezuelan recording artist

Source: Posted on instagram @angelovulpini, September 2nd, 2021.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTVVtsfrRvh/

Syed Ahmed Khan photo

“[Jihad is an] act of extreme religious piety, the spiritual benefits ( sawab ) of which accrue to the sacred soul of Muhammad Ismail , the martyr who led it .”

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

Source: Sir Syed A. Khan quoted in Jain, M. (2010). Parallel pathways: Essays on Hindu-Muslim relations, 1707-1857. quoting Ashraf 2007, also in 1857 in the Muslim Historiography, Muḥammad Ikrām Cug̲h̲tāʼī. also in Rebellion 1857 A Symposium (1957)" https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.52043/2015.52043.Rebellion-1857-A-Symposium-1957_djvu.txt

Kanye West photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo
Konrad Lorenz photo

“The human soul is very much older than the human mind.”

Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) Austrian zoologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“The pure soul is a pure lie.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Peter Handke photo
Pablo Neruda photo
Richard Sibbes photo
Christine de Pizan photo

“The foolish rush to end their lives.
Only the steadfast soul survives.”

Christine de Pizan (1365–1430) Italian French late medieval author

Source: Lyric Poetry

William Shakespeare photo
Ram Dass photo

“It's very different because the Indians live as if they are their souls and Americans live as if they are their egos.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now
Giorgos Seferis photo
Fernando Pessoa photo
Laurie Halse Anderson photo

“I can't do everything for you. You must walk alone to find your soul.”

Variant: You must walk alone to find your soul.
Source: Speak

H.P. Lovecraft photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“I must get back my soul from you; I am killing my flesh without it.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Draft of letter to Richard Sassoon (1956-03-01)
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000)
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Jean Rhys photo
Henry Miller photo

“It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another person, not with the mind, not even with the heart.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Variant: It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another human being, not with the mind, nor even with the heart.

Ntozake Shange photo
W.E.B. Du Bois photo

“One ever feels his twoness, -- an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strenth alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. I: Of Our Spiritual Strivings
Context: After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, — a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, — this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

W.B. Yeats photo
Lewis Carroll photo
John Muir photo

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 15: Hetch Hetchy Valley
1910s
Variant: Everybody needs beauty... places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.

William Shakespeare photo
Herman Melville photo
Alice Munro photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.”

Letter to Elisabeth Nietzsche, Bonn, 1865-06-11. Quoted in Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (opening epigram).
Variant: Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.
Source: Twilight of the Idols

Oscar Wilde photo

“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.”

Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney

Variant: Be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.

Oscar Wilde photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“She who saves a single soul, saves the universe.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Derek Landy photo