Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Soul (The)
Today the journey is ended,
I have worked out the mandates of fate;
Naked, alone, undefended,
I knock at the Uttermost Gate.
Behind is life and its longing,
Its trial, its trouble, its sorrow,
Beyond is the Infinite Morning
Of a day without a tomorrow.
Wenonah Stevens Abbott—A Soul’s Soliloquy.
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
Addison—Cato. Act V. Sc. 1.
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.
Addison—Spectator. No. 215.
And see all sights from pole to pole,
And glance, and nod, and bustle by,
And never once possess our soul
Before we die.
Matthew Arnold—A Southern Night. St. 18.
But each day brings its petty dust
Our soon choked souls to fill.
Matthew Arnold—Switzerland. Pt. VI.
Anima certe, quia spiritus, in sicco habitare non potest; ideo in sanguine fertur habitare.
The soul, which is spirit, can not dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in the blood.
St. Augustine—Decretum. IX. 32. 2.
A soul as white as Heaven.
Beaumont and Fletcher—The Maid’s Tragedy. Act IV. Sc. 1.
John Brown’s body lies a mould’ring in the grave
His soul goes marching on.
Thos. Brigham Bishop—John Brown’s Body.
And I have written three books on the soul,
Proving absurd all written hitherto,
And putting us to ignorance again.
Robert Browning—Cleon.
And he that makes his soul his surety,
I think, does give the best security.
Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto I. L. 203.
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto II. St. 6.
Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires, Necessity and Freewill.
Carlyle—Essays. Goethe’s Works.
Imago animi vultus est, indices oculi.
The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.
Cicero—De Oratore. III. 59.
From the looks—not the lips, is the soul reflected.
M’Donald Clarke—The Rejected Lover.
The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed centre.
Hartley Coleridge—Poems. To Shakespeare.
My father was an eminent button-maker at Birmingham,… but I had a soul above buttons.
George Colman the Younger—Sylvester Daggerwood. Act I. 1. Also in Marryat’s Peter Simple.
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer’s day.
Richard Crashaw—In Praise of Lessius’ Rule of Health. L. 33.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o’er-inform’d the tenement of clay.
Dryden—Absalom and Achitophel. Pt. I. L. 156.
Lord of oneself, uncumbered with a name.
Dryden—Epistle to John Dryden.
I have a soul that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.
Dryden—Sebastian. Act I. Sc. 1.
The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.
Emerson—American Scholar.
Gravity is the ballast of the soul, which keeps the mind steady.
Fuller—Holy and Profane States. Gravity.
He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it.
Fuller—Life of the Duke of Alva.
Animula, vagula, blandula
Hospes comesque corporis!
Quæ nunc abibis in loca,
Pallidula, frigida nudula
Nec ut soles dabis joca?
O fleeting soul of mine, my body’s friend and guest, whither goest thou, pale, fearful, and pensive one? Why laugh not as of old?
Hadrian—Ad Animam, according to Ælius Spartianus. See Pope’s paraphrase, A Dying Christian to His Soul.
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.
Henley—Echoes. IV. To R. J. H. B.
Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear.
Herbert—Church Porch.
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
Holmes—The Chambered Nautilus. St. 5.
And rest at last where souls unbodied dwell,
In ever-flowing meads of Asphodel.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XXIV. L. 19. Pope’s trans.
The production of souls is the secret of unfathomable depth.
Victor Hugo—Shakespeare. Bk. V. Ch. I.
The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.
Samuel Johnson—See Northcote’s Johnsoniana. 487.
Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily course of duty run.
Bishop Ken—Evening Hymn. Taken from Salvator Mundi, Domine. In Hymni Ecclesiæ.
Arise, O Soul, and gird thee up anew,
Though the black camel Death kneel at thy gate;
No beggar thou that thou for alms shouldst sue:
Be the proud captain still of thine own fate.
James Benjamin Kenyon.
Ah, the souls of those that die
Are but sunbeams lifted higher.
Longfellow—Christus. The Golden Legend. Pt. IV. The Cloisters.
Ignoratur enim, quæ sit natura animai;
Nata sit, an contra nascentibus insinuetur;
Et simul intereat nobiscum, morte diremta,
An tenebras Orci visat, vastasque lacunas:
An pecudes alias divinitus insinuet se.
For it is unknown what is the real nature of the soul, whether it be born with the bodily frame or be infused at the moment of birth, whether it perishes along with us, when death separates the soul and body, or whether it visits the shades of Pluto and bottomless pits, or enters by divine appointment into other animals.
Lucretius—De Rerum Natura. I. 113.
Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Luke. XII. 19. Ecclesiastes. VIII. 15.
In your patience possess ye your souls.
Luke. XXI. 19.
This ae nighte, this ae nighte
Every nighte and all;
Fire and sleete, and candle lighte
And Christe receive thye saule.
Lyke-Wake Dirge. In Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Border. Vol. III. P. 163. T. F. Henderson’s ed. (1902). “Fire and fleet” in version given in John Aubrey’s—Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme. (1686–7). Lansdowne MSS. in British Museum. (“Fleet” given as meaning water; “Sleete” meaning salt.) Compare with chant to the departing spirit in Guy Mannering.
The soul of the river had entered my soul,
And the gathered power of my soul was moving
So swiftly, it seemed to be at rest
Under cities of cloud and under
Spheres of silver and changing worlds—
Until I saw a flash of trumpets
Above the battlements over Time!
Edgar Lee Masters—Spoon River Anthology. Isaiah Beethoven.
The dust’s for crawling, heaven’s for flying,
Wherefore, O Soul, whose wings are grown,
Soar upward to the sun!
Edgar Lee Masters—Spoon River Anthology. Julian Scott.
What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Matthew. XVI. 26.
The soul, aspiring, pants its source to mount,
As streams meander level with their fount.
Robert Montgomery—Omnipresence of the Deity. Pt. I. Ridiculed by Macaulay as “the worst similitude in the world.” Omitted in later editions.
There was a little man, and he had a little soul;
And he said, “Little Soul, let us try, try, try!”
Moore—Little Man and Little Soul.
I reflected how soon in the cup of desire
The pearl of the soul may be melted away;
How quickly, alas, the pure sparkle of fire
We inherit from heaven, may be quenched in the clay.
Moore—Stanzas. A Beam of Tranquillity.
Above the vulgar flight of common souls.
Arthur Murphy—Zenobia. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 154.
Lord of myself, accountable to none.
But to my conscience, and my God alone.
John Oldham—Satire addressed to a Friend.
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. FitzGerald’s Trans.
Est deus in nobis, et sunt commercia cœli.
Sedibus ætheriis spiritus ille venit.
There is a god within us, and we have intercourse with heaven. That spirit comes from abodes on high.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. III. 549.
Deus est in pectore nostro.
There is a divinity within our breast.
Ovid—Epistolæ Ex Ponto. III. 4. 93.
Egomet sum mihi imperator.
I am myself my own commander.
Plautus—Mercator. Act V.
No craving void left aching in the soul.
Pope—Eloisa.
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 97.
Stript to the naked soul.
Pope—Lines to Mrs. Grace Butler. Found in Sussex Garland. Nos. 9 and 10. Under Warminghurst. Attributed also to Charles Yorke.
Vital spark of heav’nly flame!
Pope—Paraphrase of Emperor Hadrian’s “Ode of the Dying Christian to His Soul.” Also inspired by Sappho—Fragment. In Spectator, Nov. 15, 1711.
Or looks on heav’n with more than mortal eyes,
Bids his free soul expatiate in the skies,
Amid her kindred stars familiar roam,
Survey the region, and confess her home.
Pope—Windsor Forest. L. 264.
The iron entered into his soul.
Psalms. CV. 18. In the Psalter.
Anima mea in manibus meis semper.
My soul is continually in my hand.
Psalms. CXIX. 109. (Latin in Vulgate.)
My soul, the seas are rough, and thou a stranger
In these false coasts; O keep aloof; there’s danger;
Cast forth thy plummet; see, a rock appears;
Thy ships want sea-room; make it with thy tears.
Quarles—Emblems. Bk. III. Ep. XI.
Goe sowle, the bodies gueste
vpon a thankeles errant;
feare not to touche the beste,
the trueth shalbe thie warrant,
goe, since I nedes muste die
and tell them all they lie.
Generally believed to be by Raleigh—The Lie. (Souls Errand.) Harleian MS. 2296. Folio 135. Also in MS. 6910. Folio 141. Assigned to him in Chetham MS. 8012. P. 103. Cottier MS. Bibl. Cat. Vol. II. P. 244. Printed as Davidson’s in his Poetical Rhapsody (Second Ed.) Pub. 1608. Claim for John Sylvester discredited by authorities, although it appears in the folio of his posthumous works. (1641). Printed in Lord Pembroke’s Poems. Attributed also to Richard Edwards by Campbell. Not proven that Raleigh wrote it 1618 or 1603. May have been written by him 1592–3(?) during his imprisonment.
Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the soul can kill!
Sir Walter Raleigh—The Farewell.
—’Tis my soul
That I thus hold erect as if with stays,
And decked with daring deeds instead of ribbons,
Twirling my wit as it were my moustache,
The while I pass among the crowd, I make
Bold truths ring out like spurs.
Rostand—Cyrano de Bergerac.
Animus hoc habet argumentum divinitatis suæ, quod ilium divina delectant.
The soul has this proof of its divinity: that divine things delight it.
Seneca—Quæstionum Naturalium. Præfet ad 1 lib.
Man who man would be
Must rule the empire of himself.
Shelley—Sonnet on Political Greatness.
Within this wall of flesh
There is a soul counts thee her creditor.
King John. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 20.
Thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out to-night.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 141.
Think’st thou I’ll endanger my soul gratis?
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 14.
Whate’er of earth is form’d, to earth returns,
***The soul
Of man alone, that particle divine,
Escapes the wreck of worlds, when all things fail.
W. C. Somerville—The Chase. Bk. IV. L. 1.
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For soule is forme and doth the bodie make.
Spenser—An Hymn in Honour of Beauty. L. 132.
The soul is a fire that darts its rays through all the senses; it is in this fire that existence consists; all the observations and all the efforts of philosophers ought to turn towards this M
Madame de Staël—Germany. Pt. III. Ch. II.
My soul is a dark ploughed field
In the cold rain;
My soul is a broken field
Ploughed by pain.
Sara Teasdale—The Broken Field.
But this main-miracle that thou art thou,
With power on thine own act and on the world.
Tennyson—De Profundis. Last lines.
***But while
I breathe Heaven’s air, and Heaven looks down on me,
And smiles at my best meanings, I remain
Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.
Tennyson—The Foresters. Act IV. Sc. 1.
What profits now to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt—
A dapper boot—a little hand—
If half the little soul is dirt.
Tennyson—The New Timon and the Poets. Appeared in Punch, Feb. 28, 1846. Signed Alcibiades. Answer to attack made by Bulwer-Lytton in The New Timon when Tennyson received a pension.
Her soul from earth to Heaven lies,
Like the ladder of the vision,
Wheron go
To and fro,
In ascension and demission,
Star-flecked feet of Paradise.
Francis Thompson—Scala Jacobi Portaque Eburnea. St. 1.
What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.
Voltaire—A Philosophical Dictionary. Soul.
And keeps that palace of the soul serene.
Edmund Waller—Of Tea. L. 9.
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measur’d by my soul:
The mind’s the standard of the man.
Watts—False Greatness. Horæ Lyricæ. Bk. II.
My soul is all an aching void.
Charles Wesley—Hymn.
A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify:
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.
Charles Wesley—Hymns. 318.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.
Walt Whitman—Song of Myself.
But who would force the Soul, tilts with a straw
Against a Champion cased in adamant.
Wordsworth—Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Pt. III. VII. Persecution of the Scottish Covenanters.
For the Gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
Wordsworth—Laodamia.
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
Sir Henry Wotton—The Character of a Happy Life.