This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Soul is not easy to find in infinite space, but it can always be discovered in a particular place." - Edward S. Casey
"All that a man does outwardly is but the expression and completion of his inward thought. To work effectually, he must think clearly; to act nobly, he must think nobly. Intellectual force is a principal element of the soul’s life, and should be proposed by every man as the principal end of his being." - William Ellery Channing
"Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the universe." - William Ellery Channing
"The greatest truths (thoughts) are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul, when arranged in this their natural and fit attire." - William Ellery Channing
"There are seasons, in human affairs, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when to dare, is the highest wisdom." - William Ellery Channing
"We cannot enjoy a friend here. If we are to meet it is beyond the grave. How much of our soul a friend takes with him! We half die in him." - William Ellery Channing
"Bigotry dwarfs the soul but shutting out the truth." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"How often a new affection makes a new man! The sordid, cowering soul turns heroic. The frivolous girl becomes the steadfast martyr of patience and ministration, transfigured by deathless love. The career of bounding impulses turns into an anthem of sacred deeds." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Not in the achievement, but in the endurance of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite God." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"There are interests by the sacrifice of which peace is too dearly purchased. One should never be at peace to the shame of his own soul - to the violation of his integrity or of his allegiance to God." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"There have been men who could play delightful music on one string of the violin, but there never was a man who could produce the harmonies of heaven in his soul by a one-stringed virtue." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"The habits of time are the soul's dress for eternity. Habit passes with its owner beyond this world into a world where destiny is determined by character, and character is the sum and expression of all preceding habit." - George Barrell Cheever
"Every human soul has the germ of some flowers within; and they would open, if they could only find sunshine and free air to expand in. I always told you that not having enough of sunshine was what ailed the world. Make people happy, and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there is." -
"In a noble soul, merit alone should light the flame of love." - Pierre Cornielle
"No man is free who is not master of his soul and controller of his spirit." - Thomas Crombie
"Philosophers have very justly remarked that the only solid instruction is that which the pupil brings from his own depths; that the true instruction is not that which transmits notions wholly formed, but that which renders him capable of forming for himself good opinions. That which they have said in regard to the intellectual faculties applies equally to the moral faculties. There is for the soul a spontaneous culture, on which depends all the real progress in perfection." - Joseph Marie, baron de Gérando, born Joseph Marie Degérando, also Joseph-Marie de Gérando
"Watch, for the idleness of the soul approaches death." - Demophilus NULL
"Sincerity is the face of the soul, as dissimulation is the mask." - Joseph Sanial-Dubay
"Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new, sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!" - Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa
"The Indians were religious from the first moments of life. From the moment of the mother’s recognition that she had conceived to the end of the child’s second year of life, which was the ordinary duration of lactation, it was supposed by us that the mother’s spiritual influence was supremely important. Her attitude and secret meditations must be such to instill into the receptive soul of the unborn child the love of the Great Mystery and a sense of connectedness with all creation. Silence and isolation are the rule of life for the expectant mother... Silence, love, reverence - this is the trinity of first lessons, and to these she later adds generosity, courage and chastity." - Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa
"Duty performed gives clearness and firmness to faith, and faith thus strengthened through duty becomes the more assured and satisfying soul." - Tyron Edwards
"“Desiderata" Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 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 in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy." - Max Ehrmann
"A person’s soul has a spark of divinity. Forgetting one’s lofty identity, one might pick up major faults and bad habits. Therefore remember at all times that you are a child of the great King and it is not befitting to act in a lowly and degrading manner." - Y. Eibeschuetz
"It is only to the individual that a soul is given. And the high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule." - Albert Einstein
"Whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life." - Albert Einstein
"Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life - the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it - can understand the grief of one who falls from the serene activity into the absorbing soul wasting struggle." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
"The human soul is hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory opinions with much impartiality." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
"To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel that discernment is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of emotion: a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans
"The mixing bowl of friendship, the love of one for the other, must be tempered. Love must not touch the marrow of the soul. Our affections must be breakable chains that we can cast them off or tighten them." - Euripedes NULL
"When the soul grants what reason makes her see, that is true faith, what’s more’s credulity." - Francis Fane, fully Sir Francis Fane of Fulbeck
"Simplicity is that grace which frees the soul from all unnecessary reflections upon itself." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
"Simplicity is the straightforwardness of a soul which refuses itself any reaction with regard to itself or its deeds. This virtue differs from and surpasses sincerity. We see many people who are sincere without being simple. They do not wish to be taken for other than what they are; but they are always fearing lest they should be taken for what they are not." - François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
"What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it. A person indolent by nature or dulled and distorted by mental servitude, learned luxury, and vanity will never raise himself to the level of idealism." - J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte
"A strenuous soul hates cheap success." - Henry Fielding
"To be seeing the world made new every morning, as if it were the morning of the first day, and then to make the most of it for the individual soul, as if it were the last day - is the daily curriculum of the mind's desire." - John H. Finley
"Man is his own star, and that soul that can be honest, is the only perfect man." - Joseph Fletcher, fully Joseph Francis Fletcher
"Charity that is both the means and the end, the only way by which we can reach that perfection which is, after all, but Charity itself... Just as the soul is the life of the body, so charity is the life of the soul." - Bishop of Geneva NULL
"Grief is the culture of the soul, it is the true fertilizer." - Madame Émile de Girardin, Delphine de Girardin, née Gay
"I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Good nature is the very air of a good mind; the sign of a large and generous soul, and the peculiar soil in which virtue prospers." - Roy M. Goodman
"Pride is a deeply rooted ailment of the soul. The penalty is misery; the remedy lies in the sincere, life-long cultivation of humility, which means self-evaluation and a proper perspective toward past, present and future." - Robert Gordis
"Whatever can lead an intelligent being to the exercise or habit of mental enjoyment, contributes more to his happiness than the highest sensual or mere bodily pleasures. The one feeds the soul, while the other, for the most part, only exhausts the frame, and too often injures the immortal part... Let all seen enjoyments lead to the unseen fountain from whence they flow." - Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"
"It is not sin that kills the soul, but impenitence." - Robert Hall
"Some men have a Sunday soul, which they screw on in due time, and take off again every Monday morning." - Robert Hall
"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... 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." - William Henley, fully William Ernest Henley
"Holiness is the symmetry of the soul." - Philip Henry