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The will to perform, and, in the special sense that concerns human beings, the goodwill to perform good, is in its nature and origin alone an attribute of life.

— Frederick Soddy Matter, Energy, Consciousness and Spirit (1919)

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Life

More quotes by Frederick Soddy

Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it.

The world that is dead vitally and spiritually is not dead physically.

Matter, Energy, Consciousness and Spirit (1919)

The path hewn by knowledge through ignorance points two ways in the direction of the absolute unattainable truth. Man has always tended to confound these two classes of the ultimately unknowable.

Matter, Energy, Consciousness and Spirit (1919)

There is no life—body, mind or soul...— no birth, growth or even existence, without a continuous supply and expenditure of energy.

Matter, Energy, Consciousness and Spirit (1919)

The self-contained organism is not comprehensible, but the combination of an inanimate mechanism and an external will is more intelligible.

Matter, Energy, Consciousness and Spirit (1919)

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

Richard Francis Burton The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Frederick Soddy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.