Soul and Inspiration

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is a vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. ~~ Carl Jung

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose--a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. ~~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The wildcat is the "real" cat, the soul of the domestic cat; unknowable to human beings, he yet exists inside our household pets, who have long ago seduced us with their seemingly civilized ways. ~~ Joyce Carol Oates

A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternately absorbs and expresses ideas. ~~ Agnes Repplier

No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. ~~ Ingmar Bergman

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky --
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through. ~~ Edna St Vincent Millay

Trust, like the soul, never returns, once it is gone. ~~ Publilius Syrus

There must be something like dyslexia of the soul … that impeded people of different groups when they talked of certain matters: you just couldn't read each other right. ~~ Gwendoline Butler ["Cracking Open a Coffin"]

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without passion, without business, without entertainment, without care. It is then that he recognizes that he is empty, insufficient, dependent, ineffectual. From the depths of his soul now comes at once boredom, gloom, sorrow, chagrin, resentment, and despair. ~~ Blaise Pascal

The body is a thing. The soul is also a thing. Man is not a thing, but a drama. ~~ Jose Ortega y Gasset

[On cats:] Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes! ~~ Theophile Gautier

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. ~~ Tom Robbins

God, grant me peace in my heart, serenity in my soul, and laughter on my face. ~~ Unattributed

The truth about vanilla is that it's as much a smell as a taste. Saturate your nose with glistening, soulful vanilla, and you can taste it. ~~ Diane Ackerman

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. ~~ Desiderata

Soul is howling at the moon -- and having the moon respond. ~~ Daryl Hall

To some blind souls all cats are much alike. To a cat lover every cat from the beginning of time has been utterly and amazingly unique. ~~ Jenny de Vries

Christian: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. ~~ Ambrose Bierce

The really great thing about cats is their endless variety. One can pick a cat to fit almost any kind of décor, income, personality, mood. But under the fur, there still lies, essentially unchanged, one of the world's free souls. ~~ Eric Gurney

Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently, his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterward. Thus the progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior. ~~ Charlie Chaplin

Intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind, and without it, the world is a prison, the universe a dungeon. ~~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Ambition is a Dead Sea fruit, and the greatest peril to the soul is that one is likely to get precisely what he is seeking. ~~ Edward Dahlberg

I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream. ~~ Heywood Broun

It may have been noticed that I use the word "guardianship," in preference to "ownership" of a cat. "Ownership" implies authority over body and soul. A dog, in its devotion, will of its own free will accept this authority; a cat, never. This independence is offensive to people who do not care for cats: I have never been able to understand why. I can no more see why one should assume possession over an animal than over a human being. ~~ Marguerite Steen

Language is the soul of intellect, and reading is the essential process by which that intellect is cultivated beyond the commonplace experiences of everyday life. ~~ Charles Scribner

Until you know that life is interesting -- and find it so -- you haven't found your soul. ~~ Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher

Hearing all this praise makes me feel like the soul on Judgment Day who rose, looked at the words on his tombstone, and remarked, "Either I'm in the wrong hole or someone is a terrible liar." ~~ Unattributed

A good woman inspires a man; a brilliant woman interests him; a beautiful woman fascinates him; and a sympathetic woman gets him. ~~ Helen Rowland

Eternal vigilance is the price, not only of liberty, but of a great many other things. It is the price of everything good. It is the price of one's own soul. ~~ Woodrow Wilson

Soul is the way black folks sing when they leave themselves alone. ~~ Ray Charles

There is no greater excitement than to support an intellectual wife and have her support you. Marriage is a partnership in which each inspires the other, and brings fruition to both of you. ~~ Millicent Carey McIntosh

What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? I suppose this depends somewhat upon the size of the soul. I think there are cases where the trade would do. ~~ Josh Billings

[Book dedication:] To myself, without whose inspired and tireless efforts this book would not have been possible. ~~ Al Jaffee

You can ruin your life in an hour by listening to [the] puerile opinions [of little souls]. ~~ David Seabury

Living is being born slowly. It would be a little too easy if we could borrow ready-made souls. ~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without words
And never stops -- at all. ~~ Emily Dickinson

Just as appetite comes by eating,so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning. ~~ Igor Stravinsky

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? ~~ Bible, Matthew 16:26

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. ~~ Aristotle

No matter how much of a shabby animal you may be, you can learn from Dostoyevsky and Chekhov, etc., how to have the most tender, unique, coruscating soul on earth. ~~ D. H. Lawrence

Only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's edifice henceforth be built. ~~ Bertrand, Lord Russell [Philosophical Essays]

Writers are the engineers of human souls. ~~ Joseph Stalin

To every man who struggles with his own soul in mystery, a book that is a book flowers once, and seeds, and is gone. ~~ D. H. Lawence

My body is merely the shell of my soul
But the flesh must be given its due
Like a pony that carries its rider back home
Like an old friend that's tried and been true. ~~ John Denver and Joe Henry [Eagles and Horses]

There is something about a monolithic tech culture like Microsoft that makes humans seriously rethink fundamental aspects of the relationship between their brains and their bodies -- their souls and their ambitions; things and thoughts. ~~ Douglas Coupland

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand! ~~ Sir Walter Scott

If there is a transmigration of souls, then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth. ~~Franz Kafka

In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. ~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was thrown out of NYU my freshman year … for cheating on my metaphysics final. You know, I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me. ~~ Woody Allen

In a free society art is not a weapon... Artists are not engineers of the soul. ~~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

What do the facts we know about a man amount to? Only two things we can know of him, and this by pure soul-intuition: we can know if he is true to the flame of life and love which is inside his heart, or if he is false to it. ~~ D. H. Lawrence

There is no evil in the atom; only in men's souls. ~~ Adlai Stevenson

I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell,
And by and by my Soul returned to me,
And answered "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell." ~~ Omar Khayyam [Rubaiyat]

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul. ~~ W. E. Henly [Invictus]

Persian cat suddenly deposited in a milieu wholly foreign to him and no less insistent that, though he be living in exile, his royal prerogatives should be granted him. Nor will mere possession of his earthly body by his captor guarantee possession of the proud creature's soul. ~~ Rogers E. M. Whitaker

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man. ~~ William Wordsworth

For there are as many interpretations of the Word of God as there are religions upon the face of the earth. And none can tell you the separate truth that lies only within your soul. ~~ Glenn Kleier

A deep distress hath humanized my Soul. ~~ William Wordsworth

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; -- they are the life, the soul of readings; -- take them out of this book for instance, -- you might as well take the book along with them. ~~ Laurence Sterne

Feeling is the language of the soul. ~~ Neale Donald Walsch

Software is the part of a computer system which has no soul to be damned and no body to be kicked. Hardware is the bit you can kick. ~~ Unattributed

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. ~~ Plato

To live happily is an inward power of the soul. ~~ Marcus Aurelius

If you are losing your leisure, look out! You are losing your soul. ~~ Logan Pearsall Smith

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one's talent, to one's affections, and one's inner happiness. ~~ George Sand

Little souls wish you to be unhappy. It aggravates them to have you joyous, efficient, and free. They like to feel that fate is disciplining you. It gives their egos wings if yours are clipped. ~~ David Seabury

A house is a home when it shelters the body and comforts the soul. ~~ Phillip Moffitt

He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul. ~~ David Lloyd George

Most people sell their souls and live with a good conscience on the proceeds. ~~ Logan Pearsall Smith

There is a sort of hatred which is never extinguished: it is the hatred that superiority inspires in mediocrity. ~~ Paul Bourget

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are sheared with scars. ~~ E. H. Chapin

The world's history is constant, like the laws of nature, and simple, like the souls of men. The same conditions continually produce the same results. ~~ Friedrich von Schiller

We are very strange creatures, so strange that, in my opinion at least, not a philosopher of them all has written the first sentence in the book of the soul. ~~ W. Macneile Dixon

Creativity is essentially a lonely art. An even lonelier struggle. To some a blessing. To others a curse. It is in reality the ability to reach inside yourself and drag forth from your very soul an idea. ~~ Lou Dorfsman

I have never yet met a healthy person who worries very much about his health or a really good person who worries much about his own soul. ~~ J. B. S. Haldane

I don't know anything about inspiration because I don't know what inspiration is; I've heard about it, but I never saw it. ~~ William Faulkner

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas … just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man. ~~ Fyodor Dostoyevski

Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded. ~~ William Hazlitt

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls. ~~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. ~~ George Carlin

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. ~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Impropriety is the soul of wit. ~~ William Somerset Maugham

O Lord, if there is a Lord, save my soul, if I have a soul. ~~ J. Earnest Renan

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it. ~~ Vincent van Gogh

The soul, like the moon, is new, and always new again. ~~ Lalleswari

Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. ~~ Mark Twain

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~~ Berthold Auerbach

There are some men whom a staggering emotional shock, so far from making them mental invalids for life, seems, on the other hand, to awaken, to galvanize, to arouse into an almost incredible activity of soul. ~~ William McFee

Going through the necessary soul searching of deciding whether to fight a battle, or to run away from it, is far more difficult than the battle itself. ~~ Richard Milhous Nixon

Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked? ~~ Edward Thurlow

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul, but his life. ~~ G. K. Chesterton

Do not inflict your will. Just give love. The soul will take that love and put it where it can best be used. ~~ Emmanuel

Since we are mortal, friendships are best kept to a moderate level, rather than sharing the very depths of our souls. ~~ Hippolytus

Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny. ~~ George Santayana

To them that ask, where have you seen the gods, or how do you know for certain there are gods, that you are so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I ever seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it. ~~ Marcus Aurelius

Develop a little self-righteousness. A lot of that is an ugly thing, God knows, but a little applied over all your scruples is an absolute necessity! It is to the soul what a good sun block is to the skin during the heat of summer. You can only captain your own soul, and from time to time some smart-ass psychologist will question your ability to do even that. ~~ Stephen King (See Said Who?) ["The Stand"]

He who doesn't accept the conditions of life sells his soul. ~~ Charles Baudelaire

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you that you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. ~~ Robert Louis Stevenson

It is not that we have a soul, we are a soul. ~~ Amelia E. Barr

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. ~~ Carl G. Jung

The man who is always worrying whether or not his soul would be damned generally has a soul that isn’t worth a damn. ~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out. ~~ Jonathan Swift

Body and soul are not two substances but one. They are man becoming aware of himself in two different ways. ~~ C. F. Von Weizsacker

The hardest sentiment to tolerate is pity, especially when it's deserved. Hatred is a tonic, it vitalizes us, in inspires vengeance, but pity deadens, it makes our weakness weaker. ~~ Balzac

He who, having lost one ideal, refuses to give his heart and soul to another and nobler, is like a man who declines to build a house on rock because the wind and rain ruined his house on the sand. ~~ Constance Naden

All living souls welcome whatsoever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible. ~~ George Santayana

No stranger can get a great many notes of torture out of a human soul; it takes one that knows it well -- parent, child, brother, sister, intimate. ~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

The great question … which I have not been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?" ~~ Sigmund Freud

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. ~~Oscar Wilde

Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes. ~~ Chinese proverb

Some people say a man is made out of mud.
A poor man's made out of muscle and blood.
Muscle and blood and skin and bone
A mind that's weak and a back that's strong...
I owe my soul to the company store. ~~ Merle Travis [Sixteen Tons, 1947]

All human beings have gray little souls -- and they all want to rouge them up. ~~ Maxim Gorky

Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. ~~ Marilyn Monroe

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul. ~~ W. E. Henley [Invictus]

The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. ~~ Emerson

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong. ~~ Ella Fitzgerald

Ah Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be. ~~ Tennyson

[In praise of cats]
You see the beauty of the world
Through the eyes of unalloyed content,
And in my study chair upcurled,
Move me to pensive wonderment.
I wish I knew your trick of thought,
The perfect balance of your ways;
They seem an inspiration, caught
From other laws in older days. ~~ Unattributed

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. ~~ Victor Hugo