About soul

"The soul, being eternal, after death is like a caged bird that has been released.

If it has been a long time in the body, and has become tame by many affairs and long habit, the soul will immediately take another body and once again become involved in the troubles of the world.

The worst thing about old age is that the soul's memory of the other world grows dim, while at the same time its attachment to things of this world becomes so strong that the soul tends to retain the form that it had in the body.

But that soul which remains only a short time within a body, until liberated by the higher powers, quickly recovers its fire and goes on to higher things."

-- Plutarch (The Consolation, Moralia)

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (AD 46 – 120) commonly known in English as Plutarch — was a Roman historian (of Greek ethnicity), biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist.

Source of information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch