Spirit

Night -- midnight, is my season of delight. Nature is instinct then with secrets dark and dread; there is a language which he who sleepeth not, but will wake, and watch, may haply learn. Strange organs of speech hath the Invisible World -- strange language doth it talk -- strange communication hold with him who would pry into its mysteries.
~ William Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood, A Romance (1834). Book III: The Gypsy

The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger

What is right? Simply put, it is any assignment in which the photographer has a significant spiritual stake ... spiritually driven work constitutes the core of a photographer's contribution to culture.
~ William Albert Allard, The Photographic Essay (American Photographer Master Series, 1989).

Saw you not in the darkness a spectral glimmer of white
Flitting away? -- I saw it!?-- evil her message to-night.
~ William Allingham, from Irish Songs and Poems (1887). The Ban-Shee

The soul, a passenger on the treacherous sea of Time, needs an anchor; and an anchor "sure and steadfast" is provided for it.
~ William Arnot, Anchor of the Soul (1873).

Through the wood and o'er the meadow,
Flit I like a butterfly.
~ William Edmondstoune (W.E.) Aytoun, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (July 1844). Second Life

My soul's a heaven where They shine
A part of me -- I am so great.
~ Karle Wilson Baker, from Burning Bush (1922). Stars

It is futile and presumptuous for me to opine anything about the next world. But I hope for something much freer and more satisfying after death, for emancipation of the spirit and above all for the obliteration of this puny self, this little, skulking, sharp-witted ferret.
~ Wilhelm Nero Pilate (W.N.P.) Barbellion, in The Journal of a Disappointed Man (31 March 1919). March 2, 1917 entry

And they say the Great Spirit favours all good and brave men.
~ William Bartram, Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc. (1791). Part IV. Chapter V. Of Their Marriage And Funeral Ceremonies

There is an active principle in the human soul that will ever be exerting its faculties to the utmost stretch, in whatever employment, by the accidents of time and place, the general plan of education, or the customs and manners of the age and country, it may happen to find itself engaged.
~ William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69). Book IV, Chapter XXXIII: Of the Rise, Progress, and Gradual Improvements of the Laws of England

Damn braces. Bless relaxes.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

He feeds the Beggar and the Poor
And the wayfaring Traveller:
For ever open is his door.
~ William Blake, from The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). The Mental Traveller

Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). The Voice of the Devil

[T]he pure soul
Shall mount on wings, disdaining little sport,
And cut a path into the heaven of glory,
Leaving a track of light for men to wonder at.
~ William Blake, from Poetical Sketches (1783). King Edward the Third

What is the Divine Spirit? Is the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual fountain?
~ William Blake, from Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (1804).

I must assert in the most unqualified way that it is primarily and mainly for the sake of saving the soul that I seek the salvation of the body.
~ William Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out (October 1890). Part I. -- The Darkness. Chapter V. On the Verge of the Abyss

The fulness of the earth, it can never satisfy the better part of man, the soul.
~ William Bridge, in The Works of the Rev. William Bridge, M.A., Volume I (1845).

If that vital spark that we find in a grain of wheat can pass unchanged through countless deaths and resurrections, will the spirit of man be unable to pass from this body to another?
~ William Jennings Bryan, Elks Lodge annual memorial service, Lincoln, Nebraska (2 December 1906).

If this invisible germ of life in the grain of wheat can thus pass unimpaired through three thousand resurrections, I shall not doubt that my soul has power to clothe itself with a body suited to its new existence when this earthly frame has crumbled into dust.
~ William Jennings Bryan, Lecture delivered at Chautauquas (1904). The Prince of Peace

My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me ...
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1832 edition). Forest Hymn (written in 1825)

Black magic operates most effectively in preconscious, marginal areas. Casual curses are the most effective.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands (1987).

Can any soul survive the searing fireball of an atomic blast? If humans and animal souls are seen as electromagnetic force fields, such fields could be totally disrupted by a nuclear explosion. The mummy's "nightmare": disintegration of souls, and this is precisely the ultrasecret and supersensitive function of the atom bomb: a Soul Killer, to alleviate an escalating soul glut.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands (1987).

The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927). 5. Padre Martinez

A lovely spirit does spread.
~ William Ellery Channing, in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Influence

An intelligent and resolute spirit in a community perpetually extends its triumphs over matter.
~ William Ellery Channing, Annual Oration Delivered Before The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia PA (18 October 1823). The Importance and Means of A National Literature

It [the soul] is truly an image of the infinity of God, and no words can do justice to its grandeur.
~ William Ellery Channing, from The Works of William E. Channing, D.D., Volume I (1841). Introductory Remarks (April 18th, 1841)

Man's spiritual nature is no dream of theologians to vanish before the light of natural science. It is the grandest reality on earth.
~ William Ellery Channing, from The Complete Works of William Ellery Channing (1884). The True End of Life

A spiritual person tries less to be godly than to be deeply human.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

If your heart is full of fear, you won't seek truth; you'll seek security. If a heart is full of love, it will have a limbering effect on the mind.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (sermon at Memorial Church, Stanford Univ.), Stanford Report (14 March 2001). The Rev. William Sloane Coffin: 'Who tells you who you are?'

I consider it the duty of scientific men who have learnt exact modes of working to examine phenomena which attract the attention of the public, in order to confirm their genuineness or to explain, if possible, the delusions of the dishonest and to expose the tricks of deceivers.
~ William Crookes (on investigating Spiritualism)

Hidden down in every person is the Divine -- Real faith, dreams and visions. Lift your thoughts above the commonplace and live in the Presence of the Best. Spiritual investments are repaid a thousand fold.
~ William H. Danforth, I Dare You! (1931).

I felt that everything was good, that my spirit was wholly my own, and that though all was strange nothing was evil.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, Fifth Business (1970).

Now, in life's prime, my soul
Comes out in flower.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, from Foliage: Various Poems (1913). My Youth

Who is not aware that there are hours in which the soul sinks, as it were, beneath the threshold of its conscious and daily experiences, when its ties with the body are relaxed, when it stands at gaze within its spiritual environment? For we must admit the possibility of supersensible knowledge.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, The Human Situation (1937).

Two souls in one, two hearts into one heart.
~ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes (1578). First Week, Sixth Day

Black blood with us in America is a matter of spirit and not simply of flesh.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, Dark Princess: A Romance (1928). Part I: The Exile

My soul was filled with feelings vague
And dreams of joy beyond compare.
~ William E.S. Fales, in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (May 1891). A Blossom from the Hague

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust.
~ William Faulkner, Speech at the Nobel Banquet, Stockholm (10 December 1950).

Spiritual(or immaterial) inequity is now as great a problem as material inequity, perhaps even greater.
~ Robert William Fogel, The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism (May 2000).

Oh, for the soul to truth and freedom born,
What beauty and what glory hath the Morn!
~ William Davis Gallagher, from Selections from the Poetical Literature of the West (1841). The Mountain Paths

Splendor from within! It is the only thing which makes the real and lasting splendor without. Trust that inevitable law of self-expression. Be, not seem! Be, to seem!
~ William Channing Gannett, Of Making One's Self Beautiful (1899). Of Faces and Their Making

Yes, my -- soul says flesh should be a ladder up which soul climbs, wrong by wrong.
~ William Gibson, A Cry of Players (1969).

For there is such a thing as a broken spirit.
~ William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Essay XIX: Of Self-Complacency

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness. Consciously or unconsciously, his inner being longs for both.
~ Billy Graham, Unto the Hills (1986).

We take excellent care of our bodies which we have for only a lifetime; yet we let our souls shrivel which we will have for eternity.
~ Billy Graham

My soul her wings doth spread
And heavenward flies,
Th' Almighty's mysteries to read
In the large volumes of the skies.
~ William Habington, Castara, 3rd edn. (1640). Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam (night unto night sheweth knowledge)

Grace in women gains the affections sooner, and secure them longer, than any thing else -- it is an outward and visible sign of an inward harmony of soul.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-talk; Or, Original Essays, Volume II (1825 edition). On The Conduct Of Life; or, Advice to a School-Boy (1822 essay)

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the colour in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal sprits, and you will pass for a fine man.
~ William Hazlitt, in Literary Remains (1836). Essay XI. On The Conduct Of Life; or, Advice to a School-Boy

Spirit is the only Reality. It is the inner being of the world, that which essentially is, and is per se.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind (1807).

If we should venture to name this deep-set desire which we call religious it might be represented as an ultimate demand for self-preservation; it is man's leap for eternal life in some form, in presence of an awakened fear of fate.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking, The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912).

The material ... is inevitably the medium of expression of the life-force -- the fulcrum, as it were; lacking which it is unable to exert itself, or, indeed, to express itself in any form or fashion that would be intelligible or evident to us. So potent is the share of the material in the production of that thing which we name life, and so eager the life-force to express itself, that I am convinced it would, if given the right conditions, make itself manifest even through so hopeless seeming a medium as a simple block of saw wood.
~ William Hope Hodgson, in The Red Magazine (1 December 1912). The derelict

For here the religion that languishes in crowded cities or steals shamefaced to hide itself in dim churches flourishes greatly, filling the soul with a solemn joy. Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?
~ William Henry ("W.H.") Hudson, The Purple Land (1885).

The soul, or the principle that we call the soul, is the supernal criticism of the deeds done in the body, which goes perpetually on in the waking mind. While this watches, and warns or commands, we go right; but when it is off duty we go neither right nor wrong, but are as the beasts that perish.
~ William Dean Howells, from Impressions and Experiences (1896). I Talk of Dreams

A mystic is one who has been, or is being, initiated into some esoteric knowledge of Divine things, about which he must keep his mouth shut; or, possibly, he is one whose eyes are still shut.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Christian Mysticism, The Bampton Lectures (1899). I. General Characteristics of Mysticism

I have no fear that the candle lighted in Palestine years ago will ever be put out.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Christian Ethics and Modern Problems (1930).

Is there, as the medieval mystics taught, a "spark" at the core of the Soul, which never consents to evil, a Divine nucleus in the heart of the personality, which can take no stain?
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus (1918).

The most important element in any service is the spirit of the men doing it.
~ Will H. Hays, in Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, Volume IX, No. 1 (June 1920). The Value of Good Will in Government Employment

Apart from all religious considerations, there is actually and literally more life in our total soul than we are at any time aware of.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lecture XX: Conclusions

Design, free-will, the absolute mind, spirit instead of matter, have for their sole meaning a better promise as to this world's outcome.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). The One and the Many

Which kind of will, and how many kinds of will are most inherently probable? Who can say with certainty?
~ William James, in Memories and Studies (1911). Final Impressions of a Psychical Researcher (originally published in the American Magazine, October 1909; Confidences of a Psychical Researcher)

Mysticism does not mean that we learn new things but that we learn to know in a new way.
~ William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism and Religion (1978).

Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible.
~ William George Jordan, The Majesty of Calmness (1900). VII: The Royal Road to Happiness

Realizing possibilities is the soul of optimism, and optimism is the soul of living.
~ William George Jordan, The Power of Purpose (1910). II. The Inspiration of Possibilities

There is only one life, one consciousness. It masquerades under all the different forms of sentient beings, and these varying forms with their intelligences mirror a portion of the One Life, thus producing in each a false idea of egoism.
~ William Quan Judge, The Path, Volume II (February 1888). The Bhagavad-Gita

The essences of our soul were a breath in God before they became a living soul, they lived in God before they lived in the created soul, and therefore the soul is a partaker of the eternity of God and can never cease to be.
~ William Law, An Appeal To all that Doubt, or Disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel (1740).

[Y]ou are to honour, improve and perfect the spirit that is within you.
~ William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728). Chapter XIX

Every soul is as a world apart, independent of everything else except God.
~ Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics (1685).

The soul is the mirror of an indestructible universe.
~ Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Monadology (1714).

When time comes for us to again rejoin the infinite stream of water flowing to and from the great timeless ocean, our little droplet of soulful water will once again flow with the endless stream.
~ William E. Marks, The Holy Order of Water (2001).

It seems reasonable to believe that we are weaving our spiritual bodies as we go along.
~ William R. Matthews

The spiritual life of a human being means, in simple terms, life in the spiritual recognition of, and obedience to, Creation, its laws and commandments. This alone is the guideline that the Pleiadians adhere to regarding a philosophy of life and a lifestyle tuned in to Creation. This must be the final goal for humans on Earth as well. Creation means the same as love, life, spirit, truth, wisdom, logic, and intelligence, built upon the Creative laws and commandments, which are valid and absolutely unchangeable for all time and eternity.
~ ("Billy") Eduard Albert Meier, Free Community of Interests for the Fringe and Spiritual Sciences and Ufological Studies (FIGU) (An Interview from 1988). The Truth About Billy Meier - 'UFO Billy'

Ideals are eternal things, and the life that incarnates them attains an absolute value that time alone could not create and that their death is powerless to destroy.
~ William Pepperell (W.P.) Montague

It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself completely. ... Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872).

Lift up your hearts, you good dancers, high! higher! And do not forget the good laughter!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885). The Higher Man

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885). Reading and Writing

The most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies: but it is precisely for this reason that they honor life, because it brings against them its most formidable weapons.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1888). Expeditions of an Untimely Man

There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

When one rows, it is not the rowing which moves the ship: rowing is only a magical ceremony by means of which one compels a demon to move the ship.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

A person who is concerned about individual rights or about individual dignity makes his or her difference not because of any sweeping great statement or action, but because of the accretion of small, individually seemingly insignificant acts that spread that dignity and confirm those rights through every action they take. It matters because every action you take, and every action I take is an expression of the human spirit.
~ William Oliver

I know exactly what soul-destroying means. It's being treated as worthless day in and day out.
~ William Orbit, Saturday Times (Interview; 4 December 1999). Mixed-up kid

The more practically-minded the human being, the more inclined he or she is to avoid ... the irreducible fact of the presence in the human body of an element in addition to flesh, blood and electricity, and so not to think about such a fact. ... Such persons deliberately confine the rationalising of things experienced to a narrow range of fact, that is all. But the greater part of humanity is more open and willing to engage with the basic fact of an apparently "immortal" element in itself and to think about it. Its codified speculations constitute the scriptures and rituals of the world's religions.
~ William Oxley, Encounter 73, vii/viii (1989).

Know ye, beloved, that in the beginning man had no image by physical body. Intellect was. Men were created Spirit by Spirit. Know ye that intellect sought flesh for a purpose. Spirit as spirit hath no identity; only after long experience on planes of matter doth spirit feed its essence. Thus cometh identity: through trial and through error, through life as mortal being. Man was divine from the beginning, a thought-force of the Father, knowing good and evil, creating no material thing without a loving purpose.
~ William Dudley Pelley, The Golden Scripts (1941). Chapter 6

Liberty for the souls of men calls for freedom from bribery and corruption.
~ William Penn

The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), from The Four Million (1906). The Green Door

"Seek out the way." Seek it not by strenuous endeavor, but by opening up yourself to the promptings of the Spirit -- by recognizing the hunger of the soul for spiritual bread, the thirst for the draught from the spring of life. Draw knowledge by the law of Attraction. It will come to you in obedience to that law. It is yours for the asking, and nothing can keep it from you, or you from it.
~ Yogi Ramacharaka (William Walker Atkinson) (written in the early 1900's), in Advanced Course in Yoga Philosophy and Ancient Fundamentals (December 2000).

It is not by change of circumstances, but by fitting our spirits to the circumstances in which God has placed us, that we can be reconciled to life and duty.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

To recognize with delight all high and generous and beautiful actions; to find a joy even in seeing the good qualities of your bitterest opponents, and to admire those qualities even in those with whom you have least sympathy, this is the only spirit which can heal the love of slander and of calumny.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

Us ignorant people laugh at spiritualists, but when they die, they go mighty peaceful and happy.
~ Will Rogers, Daily Telegrams (7 July 1930).

We are in the calm and proud possession of eternal things.
~ George William (A.E.) Russell, Babylon

You can't evoke great spirits and eat plums at the same time.
~ George William (A.E.) Russell

Doctors don't know everything really. They understand matter, not spirit. And you and I live in spirit.
~ William Saroyan, The Human Comedy (1943).

The streets made me, and the streets stink, but I love them, for I was born in them out of flesh and I was born in them out of spirit.
~ William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952).

[T]he years between birth and twenty are the years in which the soul travels farthest and swiftest.
~ William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952).

If the heart of man be not now thawed, it may be forever frozen.
~ William Secker, from The Nonsuch Professor in His Meridian Splendor, or the Singular Actions of Sanctified Christians (1660).

A rarer spirit never did steer humanity.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV, scene i

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 38

Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost. Act I, scene ii

Every subject's duty is the king's: but every subject's soul is his own.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V

Fie, fie upon her!
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act IV, scene v

Ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards.
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.
~ William Shakespeare, Cymbeline. Act V, scene v

How now, spirit! whither wander you?
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II, scene i

I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I. Act III, scene i

[M]ay his pernicious soul
Rot half a grain a day!
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act V, scene ii

[M]y little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act III, scene v

My soul is in the sky.
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V, scene i

O thou invisible spirit of wine! if thou has no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act II, scene iii

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 146

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene v

'Tis good for men to love their present pains,
Upon example; so the spirit is eas'd.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act IV, scene i

The choice and master spirits of this age.
~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Act III, scene i

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 129

The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

There's a great spirit gone!
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra. Act I, scene ii

[T]his thing of darkness I
Acknowledge mine.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act V, scene i

Thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II. Act II, scene ii

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene i

Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;
But yet thou shalt have freedom.
So, so, so.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act V, scene i

Parental abuse, neglect and cruelty crippled me as I grew up. Prison was the only place left in which I could save my soul.
~ Billy Wayne Sinclair, in The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (2004). The Road to Redemption

The spirit does not lose by what it gives away.
~ William Wetmore Story, from Poems By William Wetmore Story (1856). Couplets. XI

Philosophy
Can scarce deny
Our souls consist of harmony.
~ William Strode, in The Poetical Works of William Strode (1907). In Commendation of Music

A man's spirit is not known by his opinion (creeds etc.), but by his action and general conduct.
~ William Temple (archbishop), in William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury: his life and letters (1948).

Certain opuscules, denominated "Christmas Books," with the ostensible intention of swelling the tide of exhilaration, or other expansive emotions, incident upon the exodus of the old and the inauguration of the new year.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Kickleburys on the Rhine. Preface to Second Edition

Every man is as holy as he really wants to be.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, Man: The Dwelling Place of God (1966).

Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days ...
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, The Pursuit of God (1948).

Education, like religion, offers a second birth to the soul.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Venable, Let Him First be a Man: And Other Essays Chiefly Relating to Education and Culture (1893). I: Let Him First be a Man

Being raised as a Baptist minister's son, I was introduced to the Spiritual at a very early age, and grew up with it, so my concept of the Spiritual is like a necessary thing that one does, like eating and sleeping.
~ William Caesar Warfield (in a roundtable discussion at Texas Southern University on Jan. 19), The American Almanac (March 2001). A Dialogue on the African-American Spiritual: With William Warfield and Sylvia Olden Lee

A man really and practically looking onwards to an immortal life, on whatever grounds, exhibits to us the human soul in an ennobled attitude.
~ William Whewell, Platonic Dialogues for English Readers, Vol. I (1859). Class II. Dialogues Referring to the Trail and Death of Socrates: The Phædo

In every man there is something of the Universal Spirit, strangely limited by that which is finite and personal, but still there. Occasionally it makes itself known in a word, look, or gesture, and then he becomes one with the stars and sea.
~ William Hale White (aka Mark Rutherford), More Pages from a Journal, With Other Papers (1910). Notes

[M]y soul, like yours, is open to the charms of praise.
~ William Whitehead, The Roman Father (1750). Act IV, scene ii

Let there be many windows to your soul,
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Poems of Passion (1883). Progress

Our souls should be vessels receiving
The waters of love for relieving
The sorrows of men.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Our Souls

So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Realisation

Take what pleasure you can find,
But where'er your paths may wind,
Keep the purpose well in mind,--
Getting back to God.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Poems of Power (1901). Song of the Spirit

[T]urning away from the confusion of external things, turning back to one's inner light. There, in the depths of the soul, one sees the Divine, the One. It is indeed only germinal, no more than a beginning, a potentiality, but as such clearly to be distinguished from all objects. To know this One means to know oneself in relation to the cosmic forces. For this One is the ascending force of life in nature and in man.
~ Richard Wilhelm, The I Ching OR Book of Changes (1967 translation).

Adam and Eve were born in a garden, and gardens are still where people go to renew themselves by meeting creation.
~ Carol Williams, Bringing a Garden to Life (1998).

If it's the Psychic Network, why do they need a phone number?
~ Robin Williams, Live On Broadway (25 July 2002).

But I think the spirit of man is a good adversary.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The New York Post (30 April 1958).

Dear God, Please send to me the spirit of Your peace. Then send, dear Lord, the spirit of peace from me to all the world. Amen.
~ Marianne Williamson

Lives with no more sense of spiritual meaning than that provided by shopping malls, ordinary television, and stagnant workplaces are barren lives indeed. Spirituality enriches culture.
~ Marianne Williamson, Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage (1994).

The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles (1992).

The spiritual path -- is simply the journey of living our lives. Everyone is on a spiritual path; most people just don't know it.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles (1992).

We want spiritual principles to be more than beautiful abstractions; we want them to actually transform our lives.
~ Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles (2002). Introduction: Reclaiming Our Magic

The true spirit of Christmas is love.
~ Linda Willis

The shadows lay along Broadway,
'Twas near the twilight tide.
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,
Walked spirits at her side.
~ Nathaniel Parker (N.P.) Willis, The Poems, Sacred, Passionate, And Humorous (1844 edition). Unseen Spirits. Stanza 1

In the wake of my spiritual experience there came a vision of a society of alcoholics, each identifying with and transmitting his experience to the next -- chain style. If each sufferer were to carry the news of the scientific hopelessness of alcoholism to each new prospect, he might be able to lay every newcomer wide open to a transforming spiritual experience. This concept proved to be the foundation of such success as Alcoholics Anonymous has since achieved.
~ Bill Wilson, Letter To Dr. Carl Jung (23 January 1961).

It seemed to me in my mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man.
~ Bill Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous Comes Of Age (1957).

I myself have always deprecated ... in crisis after crisis, apeals to the Dunkirk spirit as an answer to our problems.
~ Harold Wilson, House of Commons (26 July 1961).

The soul oft feels
Mysterious presence of realities.
~ John Wilson, from The City of the Plague: And Other Poems (1816). The City of the Plague. Act I, scene i

There is no such thing as chance in the spirit world.
~ John Wilson, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (September 1829). The Loves of the Poets

Be up for the sunrise ... it is no coincidence that serious meditators, yogis, ascetics, martial artists and many religious orders treat the moments before sunrise as the most precious of the day.
~ Paul Wilson, The Little Book of Calm (1996).

Everybody who gets into what's known as "higher consciousness" or "ways of liberation" or "mysticism" or whatever you want to call it -- they look here, they look there, they look everywhere and all the time what they're looking for is carrying them around. It is what creates the reality tunnel that you live in. It's what makes a sad world for the sad person, a happy world for the happy person, an angry world for the angry person, and a totally paranoid world for the DEA ...
~ Robert Anton Wilson

A gracious Spirit o'er this earth presides,
And o'er the heart of man: invisibly
It comes, directing those to works of love
Who care not, know not, think not what they do.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805). Book V: Books

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts;
a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the Mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

I would stand,
If the night blackened with a coming storm,
Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are
The ghostly language of the ancient earth,
Or make their dim abode in distant winds.
Thence did I drink the visionary power;
And deem not profitless those fleeting moods
Of shadowy exultation: not for this,
That they are kindred to our purer mind
And intellectual life; but that the soul,
Remembering how she felt, but what she felt
Remembering not, retains an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity ...
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1850 edition). Book II: School-Time (Continued)

In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand
Touch -- for there is a spirit in the woods.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads, Vol. II (1800 edition). Nutting

No chasm, no solitude; from link to link
It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds.
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book IX: Discourse of the Wanderer, and an Evening Visit to the Lake

Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes (1807). Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Tower (1928). Sailing to Byzantium

I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, and what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magic illusions in the visions of truth in the depths of the minds when the eyes are closed.
~ William Butler Yeats, Ideas of Good and Evil (1903). Magic

In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Crossways (1889). The Madness Of King Goll

One often hears of a horse that shivers with terror, or of a dog that howls at something a man's eyes cannot see, and men who live primitive lives where instinct does the work of reason are fully conscious of many things that we cannot perceive at all. As life becomes more orderly, more deliberate, the supernatural world sinks farther away.
~ William Butler Yeats, Preface to Lady Gregory's Complete Irish Mythology (1904).