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 spirit, human and/or spirit:
“In philosophical inquiry, the human spirit, imitating the movement of the stars, must follow a curve which brings it back to its point of departure. To conclude is to close a circle.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“We can see nothing whatever of the soul unless it is visible in the expression of the countenance; one might call the faces at a large assembly of people a history of the human soul written in a kind of Chinese ideograms.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“There’s nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)