
“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”
Source: The Judges
Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation (1943), Statement Of Obligations
Context: The human soul has need of disciplined participation in a common task of public value, and it has need of personal initiative within this participation.
The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other extreme evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.
“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”
Source: The Judges
Section 124
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
Context: The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
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.
Source: 1930s- 1950s, Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959), p. 93-94
Pt. I, The Unknowable; Ch. I, Religion and Science; quoting from "There is some soul of goodness in things evil / Would men observingly distil it out", William Shakespeare, Henry V, act iv. sc. i
First Principles (1862)
“If you don't take risks, you'll have a wasted soul.”
“There is no worse sickness for the soul,
O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.”
Rumi Daylight (1990)
Context: There is no worse sickness for the soul,
O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
The heart and eyes must bleed a lot
before self-complacency falls away.