Soul Quotes

“If someone told me that I could live my life again free of depression provided I was willing to give up the gifts depression has given me--the depth of awareness, the expanded consciousness, the increased sensitivity, the awareness of limitation, the tenderness of love, the meaning of friendship, the apreciation of life, the joy of a passionate heart--I would say, 'This is a Faustian bargain! Give me my depressions. Let the darkness descend. But do not take away the gifts that depression, with the help of some unseen hand, has dredged up from the deep ocean of my soul and strewn along the shores of my life. I can endure darkness if I must; but I cannot lie without these gifts. I cannot live without my soul.' (p. 188)”
― David Elkins, Beyond Religion: A Personal Program for Building a Spiritual Life Outside the Walls of Traditional Religion

“re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

[From the preface to Leaves Grass]”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Who knew that the path to a womans heart was through the soul of an honest man?”
― Melissa De La Cruz

“Crying relieves pressure on soul.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“But souls can't be sold. They can only be lost and never found again.”
― Ray Bradbury, Long After Midnight

“The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity...”
― A. Edward Newton

“I wanted the monster back and that was plainly wrong.”
― Stephenie Meyer, The Host

“If my eyes have pain, I close them; If my body aches, I rest it; If my heart breaks, I mend it; If my soul is lost, I pray for it”
― Jeremy Aldana

“The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.”
― John Calvin

“He lives down in a ribcage in the dry leaves of a heart.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“...so i will greet you
in a way
all loved things
are meant to be greeted

with a tear in my heart
and a poem in my eye.”
― Sanober Khan, Turquoise Silence

“I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself — my past and the kaleidoscope of mistakes, failures and wrong turns that have stacked unbearable regret upon my shoulders.”
― Jennifer Elisabeth, Born Ready: Unleash Your Inner Dream Girl

“It may help us, in those times of trouble, to remember that love is not only about relationship, it is also an affair of the soul.”
― Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

“Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev

“The soul is the weariest part of the body.”
― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

“...and the vessel was not full, his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“He was a gentle and sensitive soul, and therefore had a short temper, which is why he went straight after everything with an ax...”
― Bohumil Hrabal, I Served the King of England

“The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the Music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonised the whole —
And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!”
― George Gordon Byron

“Knowledge is the food of the soul.”
― Plato

“Childhood is the one story that stands by itself in every soul.”
― Ivan Doig, The Whistling Season

“But don't forget who you really are. And I'm not talking about your so-called real name. All names are made up by someone else, even the one your parents gave you.
  You know who you really are. When you're alone at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe lying in your bed in total darkness, you know that nameless person inside you.
  Your life is about to be ripped apart. You will be turned into a digging machine. Your muscles will toughen. So will your heart and soul. That's necessary for survival. But don't lose touch with that person deep inside you, or else you won't really have survived at all.”
― Louis Sachar, Stanley Yelnats' Survival Guide to Camp Green Lake

“Do not live in the shadow of the masters for ever. Learn to live in the light of your soul. Life deserves full expression.”
― Amit Ray

“When a man touches a woman's body, he is not just touching her body. It goes MUCH DEEPER than that for a woman. He is touching parts of her soul-parts as diverse as how she feels about being a grandmother some day, to what is her favorite ice cream, to how much she loves her pet, and to her opinion of how the current President is governing. The man wants a sexual encounter and love is far from his mind; she desires permanence, commitment, safety, and security.”
― Jim Anderson, Unmasked: Exposing the Cultural Sexual Assualt

“To reiterate: not all things need to be finished, and free reading is a prime example of this. Writing – or the composition of words which are intended to be read – just like painting, sculpting, or composing music, is a form of art. Typically, not all art is able to resonate with each and every viewer – or, in this case, reader. If we walk through a museum and see a boring painting, or listen to an album we don’t enjoy, we won’t keep staring at said painting, nor will we listen to the album. So, if we don’t like a book, if we aren’t learning from it, dreaming about it, enjoying its descriptions, pondering its messages, or whatever else may be redeeming about a specific book, why would we waste our time to “just finish it?” Sure, we may add another book to the list of books read, but is more always better?”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“Again, the exercise begins. For me, the American in me, the city of Detroit comes to mind. A house, once within the bustling city, now lies on the outskirts. Industry has come and gone, and the car manufacturers have relocated. I recall images of the rough lifestyles south of 8 Mile. The city’s borders have changed. Post-apocalyptic, long grasses sway with the wind. The house is melancholy and lonely. The owners: maybe there, maybe not.”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“Yet, the work was not complete. Next, citing Bond’s veranda and our subsequent construction of it as an example, Sanjit elaborated on the thought which he had previously teased, but not fully explained: that when a reader reads, the reader constructs a setting and world and is able to view themselves through this world. However, he also added that when we read, we are not only able to see our constructed world, but to evaluate our constructed world. This is how, Sanjit would argue, we influence and better ourselves, even if unintentionally; for by pausing and analyzing our constructions we may be able to identify our assumptions about people, places, or things. And it is in this way that books may be an expressed form of art, not just for the writer, but also for the reader.”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School

“When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“The heart of an Irishman is nothing but his imagination”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Don't tell them too much about your soul. They're waiting for just that.”
― Jack Kerouac, Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954

“Everyone is recharged for the second half, no bell, no forced learning, no principal’s office for tardiness or absenteeism; instead, a voluntary return to our collective pane of learning. Final conversations simmer down and the attention is refocused.”
― Colin Phelan, The Local School