Olive Schreiner Quotes on Soul (5 Quotes)

Power! Did you ever hear of men being asked whether other souls should have power or not? It is born in them.

Finishing schools are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, Into how little space a human being can be crushed I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble, and found room to move . .

A little weeping, a little wheedling, a little self-degradation, a little careful use of our advantages, and then some man will say ''. Come, be my wife'' With good looks and youth marriage is easy to attain. There are men enough but a woman who has sold herself, even for a ring and a new name, need hold her skirt aside for no creature in the street. They both earn their bread in one way. Marriage for love is the most beautiful external symbol of the union of souls marriage without it is the least clean traffic that defiles the world.

I have no conscience, none, but I would not like to bring a soul into this world. When it sinned and when it suffered something like a dead hand would fall on me, -- ''You did it, you, for your own pleasure you created this thing See your work'' If it lived to be eighty it would always hang like a millstone round my neck, have the right to demand good from me, and curse me for its sorrow. A parent is only like to God if his work turns out bad so much the worse for him he dare not wash his hands of it. Time and years can never bring the day when you can say to your child, ''Soul, what have I to do with you''

Of all cursed places under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardly pick up a few grains of knowledge, a girls boarding-school is the worst. They are called finishing schools, and the name tells accurately what they are. They finish everything but imbecility and weakness, and that they cultivate. They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, ''Into how little space a human being can be crushed'' I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble, and found room to move there -- wide room. A woman who has been for many years at one of those places carries the mark of the beast on her till she dies.