Spirit

Spirit

The English word spirit (from Latin spiritus "breath") has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body. The word spirit is often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality. The notions of a person's spirit and soul often also overlap, as both contrast with body and both are understood as surviving the bodily death in religion and occultism, and "spirit" can also have the sense of "ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person.

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Famous quotes containing the word spirit:

    Spirit, spirit of gentleness,
    blow through the wilderness, calling and free,
    Spirit, spirit of restlessness,
    stir me from placidness, wind, wind on the sea.
    James K. Manley (20th century)

    All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
    All weakness that impairs, all griefs that bow,
    Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.
    Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

    Each class of society has its own requirements; but it may be said that every class teaches the one immediately below it; and if the highest class be ignorant, uneducated, loving display, luxuriousness, and idle, the same spirit will prevail in humbler life.
    —First published in Girls’ Home Companion (1895)