Human spirit is a component of human philosophy, psychology and religion - the spiritual or mental part of humanity. While the term can be used with the same meaning as "human soul", human spirit is sometimes used to refer to the impersonal, universal or higher component of human nature in contrast to soul or psyche which can refer to the ego or lower element.
In the models of Daniel A. Helminiak and Bernard Lonergan, human spirit is considered to be the mental functions of awareness, insight, understanding, judgement and other reasoning powers. It is distinguished from the separate component of psyche which comprises the entities of emotion, images, memory and personality.
John Teske views human spirit as a social construct representing the qualities of purpose and meaning which transcend the individual human.
Read more about Human Spirit: Distinction Between The Human Spirit and Soul, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or spirit:
“The anthropologists are busy, indeed, and ready to transport us back into the savage forest where all human things ... have their beginnings; but the seed never explains the flower.”
—Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)
““To dine!” she shrieked in dragon-wrath.
“To swallow wines all foam and froth!
To simper at a table-cloth!”
Say, can thy noble spirit stoop
To join the gormandising troop
Who find solace in the soup?”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)