#soul

[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, because through that, and through contemplation in equal measure, our soul is purified and brought closer to the divine. ... Thought and deed conjoined are crucial. ... The attempt must be made; the outcome is irrelevant. Right action is a pale material reflection of the divine, but reflection it is, nonetheless. Define your goal and exert reason to accomplish it by virtuous action; successs or failure is secondary. ↗

— Iain Pears

#deeds #divinity #failure #future #goals

And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes. ↗

— John Milton

#nature #soul #beauty

I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.” And with this terrible threat he faced forward and the procession started once more. In less than a minute they were gone. In her shady room Arbell Swan-Neck stood white and cold as alabaster. ↗

— Paul Hoffman

#arbell #bound #break #breath #breeze

Life can be seen through several spectrums of light, but it’s the person who is doing the soul searching that defines what they may see. ↗

— Nadège Richards

#lessons-in-life #life #light #love #soul

If death, said my father, reasoning with himself, is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body;--and if it is true that people can walk about and do their business without brains,--then certes the soul does not inhabit there. ↗

— Laurence Sterne

#death #the-soul #business

It is the great business of every Christian to save souls. People complain that they do not know how to take hold of this matter. Why, the reason is plain enough; they have never studied it. They have never taken the proper pains to qualify themselves for the work. If you do not make it a matter of study, how you may successfully act in building up the kingdom of Christ, you are acting a very wicked and absurd part as a Christian. ↗

— Charles Grandison Finney

#evangelism #inspirational #soul-winning #witnessing #business

As bronze may be much beautified by lying in the dark damp soil, so men who fade in dust of warfare fade fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul. ↗

— Wilfred Owen

#darkness #death-and-dying #sorrow #soul #warfare

The finger of the atheists' own divinity, Reason, wrote on the wall the appalling judgments that there is no God; that the universe is only matter in spontaneous motion; and, most grievous word of all, that what men call their souls die with the death of the body, as music dies when the strings are broken. ↗

— John Lothrop Motley

#divinity #god #reason #the-soul #the-universe

Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other. Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#change

In periods of rapid personal change, we pass through life as though we are spellcast. We speak in sentences that end before finishing. We sleep heavily because we need to ask so many questions as we dream alone. We bump into others and feel bashful at recognizing souls so similar to ourselves. ↗

— Douglas Coupland

#souls #what-makes-us-who-we-are #change