The James Brown we saw tended to be the James Brown we chose to see: as the caped crusader of funk and soul, adored by millions, or as the face in a seemingly endless series of mug shots. The ways in which he appealed to and appalled different audiences made Brown a kind of national Rorschach test.
I think that the firepower of the Civil War, the numbers of bodies that were left to rot, the numbers of amputations in the Civil War, all of this created threats to the understanding of the human being as an integral soul, as a body and soul that could be united.
As I look around, I get this sinking feeling that we're off track, that there's something sick in the soul of our country. I examine the fruit that's hanging on the tree of America, and I can see that it's rotting. And that concerns me deeply.
The white sail of his soul has rounded the promontory - death.
A soul without a high aim is like a ship without a rudder.
Someone like Russell Crowe is questioned for his passion for music, and whatever he does, music is just in his heart and soul. All he wants to do is music.
A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.
I think all animals have souls. I feel certain that if we have souls, octopuses have souls, too. If you grant something a soul, it demands a certain level of sacredness. Look around us. The world is holy. It is full of souls.
The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in God and woman.
I love Barbra Streisand and Sade who've both had careers in soul and I want my music to have that timeless quality that isn't necessarily now.
Above all else, deep in my soul, I'm a tough Irishwoman.
Whatever man uses without the fear of God, whatever he applies to the mere gratifying of his flesh, cannot fail to operate as a poison to the soul, however pleasant and salutary it may appear to be to the body.
I'm not a fighter, but in my mind I'm fighting every day. 'What's new? What am I doing?' I'm fighting myself. My soul is samurai. My roots aren't samurai, but my soul is.
Saturday morning, you knew what was cool by what was on 'Soul Train.'
At Union Securities, I threw myself into my work with the discipline and commitment that I had always demonstrated in employment and only rarely displayed in school. Years later, I would come to appreciate, abstractly, the importance of productive activity to the mind and soul of both an individual and a nation.
But it wasn't just a technical approach towards the piano, studying the music for this film was also a way of approaching the soul of the film, because the film is really about the soul of Schubert and the soul of Bach.
Either the soul survives death or it does not, and there is no scientific evidence that it does.
The records that I like, they have life and warmth and soul in them. Like the slap back on Scotty Moore's guitar on 'Mystery Train.' You're not gonna get that in a computer. You're gonna want a live room, you're gonna wanna bounce the tape, you're gonna want real musicians, in a room, vibin' off of each other.
Be bored and see where it takes you, because the imagination's dusty wilderness is worth crossing if you want to sculpt your soul.
It's an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.