Soul Meaning Quotes & Sayings

The interesting thing, in the photograph, was how the fragile little knock-kneed boy - smiling sweetly, pristine in his sailor suit - was also the old man who'd clasped my hand while he was dying: two separate frames, superimposed upon each other, of the same soul. And the painting, above his head, was the still point where it all hinged: dreams and signs, past and future, luck and fate. There wasn't a single meaning. There were many meanings. It was a riddle expanding out and out and out. — Donna Tartt

If you put it as 'complex nervous systems' it sounds pretty deflationary. What's so special about a complex nervous system? But of course, that complex nervous system allows you to do calculus. It allows you to do astrophysics ... to write poetry ... to fall in love. Put under that description, when asked 'What's so special about humans ... ?', I'm at a loss to know how to answer that question. If you don't see why we'd be special ... because we can do poetry [and] think philosophical thoughts [and] we can think about the morality of our behavior, I'm not sure what kind of answer could possibly satisfy you at that point.
... I could pose the same kinds of questions of you ... So God says, 'You are guys are really, really special.' How does his saying it make us special? 'But you see, he gave us a soul.' How does our having a soul make us special? Whatever answer you give, you could always say ... 'What's so special about that? — Shelly Kagan

What matters is what appears in your soul, not what your eyes see and what you can name. — Zdzislaw Beksinski

The new meaning of soul is creativity and mysticism. These will become the foundation of the new psychological type and with him or her will come the new civilization. — Otto Rank

Texts like the Bible and the works of the holy elders were written under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The person who studies them partakes of this Divine Grace in a mystical way. The soul is nourished with Grace even if the person who reads such literature does not understand the meaning of what is being read. "Just by reading this material," he claimed, "the individual becomes spiritually empowered by the Grace embedded in the words themselves. — Kyriacos C. Markides

It was your covenant with the devil to exchange your soul for money and fame, so i won't be sorry for your damn f***ing soul, and the devil gat no time to refund what you had already sell, demons don't understand the meaning of sympathy, you should know that already, so, go make some dollar bill in hell, and come back and give me some. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Most people in our culture have been treated like objects all their lives. This is the source of the wound to the soul underlying most of the human misery that therapists encounter. Because people have come to experience themselves as objects, they in turn objectify other people and commodify the world. They feel alienated, isolated, and empty, believing their lives hold no meaning. — Linda Buzzell

Amidst such Soulful exploration each passage - is given new meaning, wisdom & insight. — Eleesha

1:92
THE WAYS OF ESSENCE

Now I will observe the nature of this being alive in the different ways we are. Essence can be known only in a living example. People are often dazzled by form because essence shines so in its qualities. Feelings of health and feelings of illness are not part of my meaning here. The green world, new friendships, discoveries, circumstances, the feel of water, our delight in the human body and its imaginings, these are areas where essence thrives. How we recognize anyone's presence, how people's lives register in the body, how soul goes to its guidance and agrees to the work it's given. Try to be more conscious of these living abilities, and be happy. — Bahauddin

Nobel intentions have no real meaning to them if you don't do it solely for you. Do it to satisfy your soul, not theirs. Don't do it in hope that it earns you a reward at the end, instead let the reward be the beauty created as a result of your actions. — Kendal Rob

Kali comes from the Sanskrit word 'kal', meaning time. She is a Hindu goddess, who is greatly misunderstood by the Western world as being associated with sex, death and violence, but in the Hindu text she kills only demons. For humankind, she represents the death of the ego and the will to overcome the 'I am the body' idea. She reminds us that the body is only temporary, and through this realisation she provides liberation to her children. To the soul who aspires to greater spiritual endeavours, Kali is receptive, supportive and loving. It is only a person filled with ego who will perceive Kali in a fearsome form. Her black skin represents the womb of the quantum darkness, the great non-manifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve. — Traci Harding

The intoxication of frenzy and, ultimately, some suitable crime reveal
in a moment the whole meaning of a life. Without exactly advocating crime, the romantics insist on
paying homage to a basic system of privileges which they illustrate with the conventional images of the
outlaw, the criminal with the heart of gold, and the kind brigand. Their works are bathed in blood and
shrouded in mystery. The soul is delivered, at a minimum expenditure, of its most hideous desires
desires that a later generation will assuage in extermination camps. Of course these works are also a
challenge to the society of the times. But romanticism, at the source of its inspiration, is chiefly concerned
with defying moral and divine law. That is why its most original creation is not, primarily, the
revolutionary, but, logically enough, the dandy. — Albert Camus

You open the gates of the soul to let the dark flood of chaos flow into your order and meaning. If you marry the ordered to the chaos you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness. — C. G. Jung

I do not want to say anything which is too severe because it is not strictly true - let your own consciences speak, but still, I make bold to enquire, - Do not many of you read the Bible m a very hurried way - just a little bit, and off you go? Do you not soon forget what you have read, and lose what little effect it seemed to have? How few of you are resolved to get at its soul, its juice, its life, its essence, and to drink in its meaning. Well, if you do not do that, I tell you again your reading is miserable reading, dead reading, unprofitable reading; it is not reading at all, the name would be misapplied. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I wish you to understand that there is one man, and only one, for each woman, and one woman only for each man. When those two meet they fly together and are one through all the endless chain of existence. Until they meet all unions are mere accidents which have no meaning. Sooner or later each couple becomes complete. It may not be here. It may be in the next sphere where the sexes meet as they do on earth. Or it may be further delayed. But every man and every woman has his or her affinity, and will find it. Of earthly marriages perhaps one in five is permanent. The others are accidental. Real marriage is of the soul and spirit. Sex actions are a mere external symbol which mean nothing and are foolish, or even pernicious, when the thing which they should symbolize is wanting. Am I clear? — Arthur Conan Doyle

Religious externals may have meaning for the God-inhabited soul; for any others they are not only useless but may actually become snares, deceiving them into a false and perilous sense of security. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

[A woman's] education should be as varied and perfect as possible. If for no other reason to enable her properly to educate and rear her own children. Whatever grand truths are planted in the mother's mind may take root in the next generation, and there grow, blossom, and shed their perfume on the world. The child receives the mother's very thought by intuition. If the mother's mind is weak and narrow in its range, the child is affected by this fact long before it finds meaning in the mother's words. But if the mother's mind is cultured and refined by study until her thoughts are grand and far-reaching, the child's soul will grow and expand under the mesmeric influence of these thoughts, as the plant grows under the influence of the sun. — Karen Andreola

It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it - and I do and always have - then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation in it. — May Sarton

Writing isn't about the destination-writing is the journey that transforms the soul and gives meaning to all else. — Sue Grafton

The Bible is not a book that you can open and say, 'Now, Lord, put some magic into my soul that will open up the meaning of this book.' There is only one way really to understand the Word, and that is through wrestling with the circumstances and happenings of life. — Oswald Chambers

Solitude helps the soul remember that life and
work have two completely different meanings. It reminds
us that we were created for greatness in relationship with
others, not task lists and spreadsheets. — Angela Lynne Craig

What is the meaning of La Belle Dame Sans Merci? - have you never been enthralled? enchantment that is unrequited desolates the soul ... — John Geddes

After my mother died, I had a feeling that was not unlike the homesickness that always filled me for the first few days when I went to stay at my grandparents' house, and even, I was stunned to discover, during the first few months of my freshman year at college. It was not really the home my mother had made that I yearned for. But I was sick in my soul for that greater meaning of home that we understand most purely when we are children, when it is a metaphor for all possible feelings of security, of safety, of what is predictable, gentle, and good in life. — Anna Quindlen

Truth is, I just shrug and soldier on. As kind as I am, as well-meaning and helpful as I try to be, I have no feelings finally, for good or ill. In the depths of my being, no matter what happens, I am left cold, impenetrable to remorse, to grief, to happiness, though I can pretend well enough even to the point of fooling myself. I am trying to say I am finally, terribly, unfeeling. My soul resides in a still, deep, beautiful, emotionless, calm cold pond of silence. — E.L. Doctorow

I will forever walk alone in a world overflowing with those that will never understand my meaning of "Learning to See" I'm always teaching myself to see beauty in all aspects of reality, yearning to learn the beauty in others, from their vision of everyday life to their deepest secrets of their dreams. As the sun rises I must smile, smile for those with the beautiful mind and soul. I'm so passionate for the visions I see, and the dreams I wish the world could be. — Michael Jones

There's something about a place you've been with someone you love. It takes on a meaning in your mind. It becomes more than a place. It becomes a distillation of what you felt for each other. The moments you spend in a place with someone... they become part of its bricks and mortar. Part of its soul. — Cassandra Clare

The book, that stubbornly unelectric artifact of pure typography, possesses resources conducive to the flourishing of the soul. A thoughtful reading of the printed text orients one to a world of order, meaning, and the possibility of knowing truth. — Douglas Groothuis

She had lost herself in this old work, her personality dissolving into it, so that she had been set free. The immortality of the soul lies in its dissolution; this was the cryptic comment that so frustrated Olivier and which Julien had only ever grasped as evidence for the history of a particular school of thought. He had known all about its history, but Julia knew what it meant. He found the realization strangely reassuring. — Iain Pears

But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer; and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion. — William James

The soul needs meaning as much as the body needs food. — Richard Rohr

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter. — Harold S. Kushner

For me, meaning of design is to give soul to objects by Art. Art sometimes need to be in every part of daily life, not only in the galleries and museums. — Baris Gencel

Words are words. People add meaning to words.
Information is information. With words people add value to information.
Words breathe life into information. Words move mountains of information.
Words are action. Momentum for living evolves from pursuit of deeper, wider and higher significance, utility and value of words.
Words we sow, nourish and harvest feed hungry minds and hearts. Gathered words strengthen, ignite and release us.
Words identify, signify and proclaim our individuality. Words pronounce a purposeful life's choices.
With wisdom, courage and patience we must choose high-performing words for long-term relationships. Chosen words become soul mates. — John R. Dallas Jr.

The mountain is not something eternally sublime; it has a great historic and spiritual meaning to us. It stands for us as the ladder of life. Nay, more; it is the ladder of the soul and in a curious way the source of religion. From it came the Law, from it came the Gospel in the Sermon of the Mount. We may trul say that the highest religion is the Religion of the Mountain. — Jan Smuts

The soul contains few secrets and longings which cannot be sensibly discussed, analyzed, and polled. Solitude, the very condition which sustained the individual against and beyond his society, has become technically impossible. Logical and linguistic analysis demonstrate that the old metaphysical problems are illusory problems; the quest for the "meaning" of things can be reformulated as the quest for the meaning of words, and the established universe of discourse and behavior can provide perfectly adequate criteria for the answer. — Herbert Marcuse

How many of those who are insecure seek power over others as a compensation for inadequacy and wind up bringing consequences down upon their heads and those around them? How many hide out in their lives, resist the summons to show up, or live fugitive lives, jealous, projecting onto others, and then wonder why nothing ever really feels quite right. How many proffer compliance with the other, buying peace at the price of soul, and wind up with neither? — James Hollis

The divine is at the edge of our awareness and vision, but it is also within us as the first seeker found when all seemed lost completely. In order to find the dream of life again, we must first find the way that the dream exists within our own souls. We may be daunted by the surfacing of all the dilemmas and trouble of this troubled world, but the deep self and soul within us already knows how we are intended to swim in the blessed turmoil of the waters of life. For humans exist to bring meaning to the surface of life and awareness to the dream of existence. — Michael Meade

I believe very deeply that this beauty I call the soul is not a random occurrence. I don't know what its meaning is at some larger level, but I know that it has meaning. — Andrew Solomon

Anyway, it struck me now in a different light, as being yet another bit of personal meaning which had ben taken from me, stripped off like clothes I'd only borrowed or stolen. I had maybe the least persuasive case for self-pity of any human soul on the planet. Or anyway, the most hilarious. — Jonathan Lethem

Synchronicity is the soul's reminder of authorship. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Story is the mechanism by which we live, express, understand, and evolve. Story is more than just equipment for living - it's life itself. When a culture's stories are honest, authentic, and connected to the truth, the culture is strong, productive, and progressive. When a culture's stories stagnate and become derivative, deceptive, shallow, and unconnected to the energy of life, the culture erodes, degrades, and eventually perishes (although the people may not realize they're dead!). Stories are the manner by which we extract meaning out of the fibrous pulp of our everyday lives. And meaning is the spiritual oxygen that allows our soul to breathe. Without stories, life has no meaning. Without meaning, we cannot live. — Derek Rydall

We live in a Patriarchal society meaning the masculine side of our mind dominates our environment. That means both men and women are identified with their masculine rational logical mind.- Author Serena Jade — Serena Jade

So it is with my life, a multilayered and ever-changing fresco that only I can decipher, whose secret is mine alone. The mind selects, enhances, and betrays; happenings fade from memory; people forget one another and, in the end, all that remains is the journey of the soul, those rare moments of spiritual revelation. What actually happened isn't what matters, only the resulting scars and distinguishing marks. My past has little meaning; I can see no order to it, no clarity, purpose, or path, only a blind journey guided by instinct and detours caused by events beyond my control. There was no deliberation on my part, only good intentions and the faint sense of a greater design determining my steps. — Isabel Allende

I carefully read each letter myself. Some of them are serious in tone, discussing the meaning of life, invoking the supremacy of the soul, the mystery of every existence. And by a curious reversal, the people who focus most closely on these fundamental questions tend to be people I had known only superficially. Their small talk had masked hidden depths. Had I been blind and deaf, or does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person's true nature? Other — Jean-Dominique Bauby

Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. — Herman Melville

In my view, I am often immensely rich, not in money, but (although just now perhaps not all the time) rich because I have found my metier, something I can devote myself to heart and soul and that gives inspiration and meaning to my life. — Vincent Van Gogh

All writing is rubbish.
People who try to free themselves from what is vague in order to state precisely whatever is going on in their minds are producing rubbish.
The whole literary tribe is a pack of rubbish mongers, especially today.
All those who have landmarks in their minds, I mean in a certain part of their heads, in well-defined sites in their skulls, all those who are masters of language, all those for whom words have meaning, all those for whom the soul has its heights and thought its currents, those who are the spirits of the times, and who have given names to these currents of thought - I am thinking of their specific tasks, and of that mechanical creaking their minds produce at every gust of wind - are rubbish mongers. — Antonin Artaud

The ordinary man thinks that yielding to doubts and worries is a sign of sensibility, of spirituality. Acting thus, he remains distant from the true meaning of life, for his reduced reasoning turns him into the saint or monster he imagines he is, and before he realizes it, he is caught in the trap he has set himself. This type of person loves being told what he should do, but even more than that, he loves not following sound advice - simply in order to anger the generous soul who, at a certain moment, was concerned about him. — Paulo Coelho

You are one with your skis and nature. This is something that develops not only the body but the soul as well, and it has a deeper meaning for a people than most of us perceive. — Fridtjof Nansen

In this vast universe There is but one supreme truth- That God is our friend! By that truth meaning is given To the remote stars, the numberless centuries, The long and heroic struggle of mankind ... O my Soul, dare to trust this truth! Dare to rest in God's kindly arms, Dare to look confidently into His face, Then launch thyself into life unafraid! Knowing thou art within my Father's house, That thou art surrounded by His love, Thou wilt become master of fear, Lord of Life, conqueror even of death! — Joshua L. Liebman

The characteristics of this kind of reading are perhaps summed up in the word "orthodox," which is almost always applicable. The word comes from two Greek roots, meaning "right opinion." These are books for which there is one and only one right reading; any other reading or interpretation is fraught with peril, from the loss of an "A" to the damnation of one's soul. This characteristic carries with it an obligation. The faithful reader of a canonical book is obliged to make sense out of it and to find it true in one or another sense of "true." If he cannot do this by himself, he is obliged to go to someone who can. This may be a priest or a rabbi, or it may be his superior in the party hierarchy, or it may be his professor. In any case, he is obliged to accept the resolution of his problem that is offered him. He reads essentially without freedom; but in return for this he gains a kind of satisfaction that is possibly never obtained when reading other books. — Mortimer J. Adler

Although, of course, my definition of evil is not everybody else's. Evil is being involved in the glamour and charm of material existence, glamour in its old Gaelic sense meaning enchantment with the look of things, rather than the soul of things. — Kenneth Anger

Real haiku is the soul of poetry. Anything that is not actually present in one's heart is not haiku. The moon glows, flowers bloom, insects cry, water flows. There is no place we cannot find flowers or think of the moon. This is the essence of haiku. Go beyond the restrictions of your era, forget about purpose or meaning, separate yourself from historical limitations - there you will find the essence of true art, religion, and science. — Santoka Taneda

Reflection is a good thing. It allows us to look back in time so we can connect the dots between specific memories to reveal the purpose and meaning behind synchronistic events. — Molly Friedenfeld

There are those who say that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through the denial of oneself; you must deny yourself many things, go and live in a mountaintop, never mingle with other people, talk to the birds..but I say to you, why should you dismantle your home? Where is the meaning in removing the bricks from your walls one by one? What is the purpose in uprooting your floors? Is there any significance in only allowing yourself a tin roof and a muddy bed? Why deny your house its structure? A truly enlightened soul is strong enough, is bright enough to live and shine through, even in a beautiful house! There is no need to ransack the house in order to see an inner beauty etched against a distraught surrounding. A bright and beautiful soul can shine forth even from inside an equally beautiful surrounding. — C. JoyBell C.

A person's Acts of #Kindness far outlives their lifespan,for they leave behind a true, meaningful legacy. — Michael Levy

The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love, in him we find our own soul in the highest sense. The final truth of our existence lies in this. God, the Supreme Soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the realisation of this truth. — Rabindranath Tagore

10:13 Your situation is not unique! Every human life faces contradictions! Here is the good news: God believes in your freedom! He has made it possible for you to triumph in every situation that you will ever encounter! 10:14 My 1dearly loved friends! Escape into his image and likeness in you where the 2distorted image (2idolatry) loses its attraction! (Dearly loved friends, translated as 1agapetos; to know the agape love of God is to know our true identity! The word, agape, comes from agoo, meaning to lead as a shepherd guides his sheep, and pao, to rest, like in Psalm 23, "he leads me beside still waters where my soul is restored; by the waters of reflection my soul remembers who I am! Now I can face the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil!") — Francois Du Toit

You see," he said turning to Mr Norton, "he has eyes and ears and a good distended African nose, but he fails to understand the simple facts of life. Understand. Understand? It's worse than that. He registers with his senses but short-circuits his brain. Nothing has meaning. He takes it in but he doesn't digest it. Already he is - well, bless my soul! Behold! a walking zombie! Already he's learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He's invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical man! — Ralph Ellison

There are no insignificant relationships. Every experience that we have contains purpose and meaning. Each event, each person in our lives embodies an energetic fragment of our own psyche and soul. Our individual spiritual task is to recognize and integrate all of them into our awareness so that the greater pattern of our mission can shine forth in its full dimensions. — Caroline Myss

That's what it is. That's what my morning was like: all these real physical heavy positive vibrations, the soul of this tape. The fuzzy groove. The meaning of it all, if it has one: All love, all the time. Peace and happiness in every day. Peace and happiness with cow blood dripping from your hands, bright blood staining your fingerprints because you didn't glove up since you don't normally do prep work. Peace and happiness when you're making a list of everything that's wrong with the world and squinting your eyes tight trying to imagine your way out of it. Peace, peace, peace, happiness, happiness, happiness. — John Darnielle

I was sick in my soul for that greater meaning of home that we understand most purely when we are children, when it is a metaphor for all possible feelings of security, of safety, of what is predictable, gentle, and good in life. During — Anna Quindlen

Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives? And that if we have experienced this much, then perhaps we haven't lived in vain? Is passion so deep and terrible and magnificent and inhuman? Is it indeed about desiring any one person, or is it about desiring desire itself? That is the question. Or perhaps, is it indeed about desiring a particular person, a single, mysterious other, once and for always, no matter whether that person is good or bad, and the intensity of our feelings bears no relation to that individual's qualities or behavior? — Sandor Marai

This is for you, all the women of the world
Those who lived, all who ever will
this is for your love, mine is yours
Love is fate, I am here
Because you know the meaning of life
That begins and ends with a kiss
We are knights in shining ardor, who toil for you
And our children, it's a circle
So they will know this truth
Love is the sacred gospel, all we need to know
As your son and lover, my spirit lives imbued
With, from and by your wisdom and beauty
I am here to pay honor and homage to your soul
This is and will always be my devotion
This I dedicate, because through you I become whole — Trevor McShane

Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning. — Albert Einstein

The child will leave the nest. The best paint job will crack. The best play will become boring. The best work will grow tedious. The best art will lose meaning. The greatest creation will decay. Behind all this, lies my true self. — Vironika Tugaleva

It's hurtful somehow to admit this thing and anyway that doesn't mean i'm losing my faith in this beautiful world. But these days now is the time where people have become so much more-excuse me-shallow. When all of the fancy things and outer beauty are demanded, and those who are lost enough to chase and manage to get those things, they will happen to get very nice response from social and able to expand their images and get famous and be seen as someone who has value. Meanwhile those who could see deeper and their souls are insecure of this mad world, they will have smaller space in width but they will dig deeper and deeper into their self, making space in height, finding the true meaning of their souls, the true essential unshakable truth that's beyond the fragile material worldly things. — Reza Rusandi

Love is the means of entry and our guide. Love keeps us on the labyrinthine path. If we can honor love as it presents itself, taking shapes and directions we would never have predicted or desired, then we are on the way toward discovering the lower levels of soul, where meaning and value reveal themselves slowly and paradoxically. — Thomas Moore

Women find ways to give sense and meaning to daily life
ways to be useful in the community, to keep mind active and soul growingeven while they change diapers and cook vegetables. — Lillian B. Rubin

If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning ... The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living. — Marion Woodman

The forms of mathematics, the harmonies of music, the motions of the planets, and the gods of the mysteries were all essentially related for Pythagoreans, and the meaning of that relation was revealed in an education that culminated in the human soul's assimilation to the world soul, and thence to the divine creative mind of the universe. — Richard Tarnas

The breath I take, the thoughts I think, the emotions I develop, the blood I circulate, the neurons that are wired, everything is completely controlled and has a deep meaning behind it. My soul is enlightened. — Magith Noohukhan

Some people write to make something ugly beautiful, some write to leave a part of themselves to be remembered, some write to give words soul and meaning, and some write to exist in non-existence. — Sam Madison

Are you familiar with the word inspiration? The meaning of it? Where it comes from?...In the Dark Ages no understood the things that made some people special. Every soul in that dark, difficult time faced the same limitations, every soul except a precious few who saw things differently, the poets, inventors, artists, stone masons. Regular folks didn't understand how a person could wake up one day and see the world differently. They thought it was a gift from God. Thus the word "inspiration." It means breathed upon...breathed upon by God himself. — John Hart

One of the gifts of a long marriage is the ability to communicate anything - from mild displeasure to the meaning of life - with a single glance. It's something you develop in the process of mixing your soul with your spouse's, if you're willing to mix your soul. — Cody McFadyen

Reality, in a sense, was not an objective place where you were thrust. You had to maintain your hold on it by vigilantly keeping watch over whatever slight and intangible thing gave your life its meaning. Call it a soul, or presence. Whatever it was, a prisoner or guest and you had to trick it or petition it into lingering. — Rachel Kushner

Be brave. Be free from philosophies, prophets and holy lies. Go deep into your feelings and explore the mystery of your body, mind and soul. You will find the truth. — Amit Ray

I know. You think you love art because you have a sensitive soul.
Isn't a sensitive soul simply a means of transforming a deficiency into proud disdain?
You think art has meaning. You think you're not like me. — Rabih Alameddine

(Decadent style) is ingenious, complicated, learned, full of shades of meaning and research, always pushing further the limits of language ... forcing itself to express in thought that which is most ineffable, and in form the vaguest and most fleeting contours; listening that it may translate them to the subtle confidences of the neuropath, to the avowals of aging and depraved passion, and to the singular hallucinations of the fixed idea verging on madness ... In opposition to the classic style, it admits of shading, and these shadows teem and swarm with the larvae of superstitions, the haggard phantoms of insomnia, nocturnal terrors, remorse which starts and turns back at the slightest noise, monstrous dreams stayed only by impotence, obscure phantasies at which daylight would stand amazed, and all that the soul conceals of the dark, the unformed, and the vaguely horrible, in its deepest and furthest recesses. — Theophile Gautier

A flame that flickered,
And a soul that whimpered,
A candle that blazed,
And a fragrance that raised.

The flames were fed the same,
But one remained diminished,
While the other touched vintage! — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

You never believed in the meaning of this world, and you therefore deduced the idea that everything was equivalent and that good and evil could be defined according to one's wishes. You supposed that in the absence of any human or divine code the only values were those of the animal world - in other words, violence and cunning. Hence you concluded that man was negligible and that his soul could be killed, that in the maddest of histories the only pursuit for the individual was the adventure of power and his own morality, the realism of conquests. — Albert Camus

But I still has enough longing for that concept that I didn't want to dispel it completely. Meaning: I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soul mate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine. — David Levithan

If you look up the meaning of healing you can find many different definitions. There's the adjective, noun, and verb (with and without objects). For argument's sake we will use the verb. Still there are many definitions. The one that fits here is to free from evil; cleanse; purify; to heal the soul.
Free from evil, even if you didn't know it was there. — Mandi Lynn

We are here among people who don't contemplate transience and the existence of the soul, the meaning of life and the nature of being. We are in a world in which man, crawling on the earth, tries to dig a few grains of wheat out of the mud just to survive another day. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

At first glance it seems strange that the attitude of the anti-Semite can be equated with that of the negrophobe. It was my philosophy teacher from the Antilles who reminded me one day: "When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you." And I believed at the time he was universally right, meaning that I was responsible in my body and my soul for the fate reserved for my brother. Since then, I have understood that what he meant quite simply was the anti-Semite is inevitably a negrophobe. — Frantz Fanon

Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history. — Nikolai A. Berdyaev

Storytelling, you know, has a real function. The process of the storytelling is itself a healing process, partly because you have someone there who is taking the time to tell you a story that has great meaning to them. They're taking the time to do this because your life could use some help, but they don't want to come over and just give advice. They want to give it to you in a form that becomes inseparable from your whole self. That's what stories do. Stories differ from advice in that, once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you."

~Alice Walker, in an interview about her work in Common Boundary, 1990 — Alice Walker

There is a deeper portion of our being that we rarely allow others to see. Call it a soul maybe, this is the place that holds the most value. All else can drift but this. When this dies our body has no meaning. — Jon Foreman

One of the deepest needs of the human soul is for centeredness ... which confers meaning on the shapelessness of temporal existence. — William Everson

Um, 'Soul Food' ... Another wonderful little movie that could. Here's a film that, I think our budget was maybe $6 million. We shot it in Chicago in six weeks. I was so proud of the film, because it showed America that an African-American film about family could sell, could do well, could cross over and have true meaning. — Vivica A. Fox

And, suddenly, the bitterness in his heart was swept away by a flood of peace, while new and incredible sources of power were thrown open within him. Again the veil was lifted and he saw, more clearly now, those unknown reaches of his art, trailing eternally in tranquil, sovereign certitude toward the ever unfolding bosom of the Infinite. Could he ever reach them? Came the answer - he would try! And he saw his path fixed forever in the wake of the workers, great and humble, who had seen that vision and held it always in their hearts, having learned in the anguish of renunciation, the inner meaning of the saying: 'Whoso loseth his life shall find it. — Maria Cristina Mena

Purpose is not that far my child---
it's just a journey's walk.
It is the One at the end of the journey,
it is the end of the journey, and it is the journey
itself.
And when you thirst, do you not drink?
And when you are cool, do you not warm yourself?
and when you are weary, do you not rest?
And if you need meaning, should you not reach out?
I said out! My child, out!
In all simplicity those in need reach out and receive beyond
themselves.
He's at the end of the quench,
and the relief of the warmth,
the satisfaction of a rest, and the
salvage of a soul. — Quinesia Johnson

Mingling with the remains of the plane, equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mother tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land, belonging, home. — Salman Rushdie

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self, the very meaning of one's soul. — Edith Wharton

Slay the idol of the seen, break the idols of performance, and believe the state of my house doesn't reflect the state of my soul...it's the priorities unseen - the prayers, the relationships, the love while doing the work - that hold the meaning, the merit. — Ann Voskamp

Perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love: he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. — George Eliot

The soul integrates the will and mind and body. Sin disintegrates them. In sin, my appetite for lust or anger or superiority dominates my will. My will, which was made to rule my body, becomes enslaved to what my body wants. When I flatter other people, I learn to use my mouth and my face to conceal my true thoughts and intentions. This always requires energy: I am disintegrating my body from my mind. I hate, but I can't admit it even to myself, so I must distort my perception of reality to rationalize my hatred: I disintegrate my thoughts from the reality. Sin ultimately makes long-term gratitude or friendship or meaning impossible. Sin eventually destroys my capacity even for enjoyment, let alone meaning. It distorts my perceptions, alienates my relationships, inflames my desires, and enslaves my will. This is what it means to lose your soul. — John Ortberg

For till the thunder and trumpet be,
Soul may divide from body, but not we
One from another — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two "hungers". There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning ...
There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.
There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you're happy or unhappy. You are content - you are not alone in your Spirit - you belong. — Laurens Van Der Post

Caring for the soul requires that we be fully present in situations we cannot control and patient as a genuine meaning and a direction unfold. It means seeing familiar things in new ways, listening rather than speaking, learning from patients rather than teaching them, and cultivating the capacity to be amazed. It means recognizing the power of our own humanity to make a difference in the lives of others and valuing it as highly as our expertise. Finally, it means discovering that health care is a front-row seat on mystery and sitting in that seat with open eyes. — Christina M. Puchalski