“What weighs on the soul is ignorance of one's own will and worry over the absence of a future.”

Last update Feb. 10, 2024. History

Related quotes

Meister Eckhart photo

“A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

As translated in A Dazzling Darkness: An Anthology of Western Mysticism (1985) by Patrick Grant
Context: The most powerful prayer, one wellnigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.

Jacob Bronowski photo

“With the… symbolic memory we spell out the future—not one but many futures, which we weigh one against another.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

Christopher Titus photo

“I lost 28 pounds in my divorce…because that's what a soul weighs.”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

Love is Evol (2009)

Oscar Wilde photo
James Joyce photo

“He tried to weigh his soul to see if it was a poet's soul.”

"A Little Cloud"
Dubliners (1914)
Context: He tried to weigh his soul to see if it was a poet's soul. Melancholy was the dominant note of his temperament, he thought, but it was a melancholy tempered by recurrences of faith and resignation and simple joy. If he could give expression to it in a book of poems perhaps men would listen.

Jean Paul Sartre photo

“Yes, I am so free. And what a superb absence is my soul.”

Orestes, Act 1
The Flies (1943)

Karl Popper photo

“True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.”

Karl Popper (1902–1994) Austrian-British philosopher of science

As quoted by Mark Damazer in "In Our Time's Greatest Philosopher Vote" at In Our Time (BBC 4) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/greatest_philosopher_celeb.shtml

Thich Nhat Tu photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo

“Only a fool worries over what he can’t control.”

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Related topics