“Hearts are not to be had as a gift, hearts are to be earned.”

—  W.B. Yeats

Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Hearts are not to be had as a gift, hearts are to be earned." by W.B. Yeats?
W.B. Yeats photo
W.B. Yeats 255
Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939

Related quotes

W.B. Yeats photo

“In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

St. 5
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), A Prayer For My Daughter http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1421/
Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
Context: In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise.
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

Sarah Dessen photo

“The best gifts come from the heart, not the store.”

Source: Lock and Key

Cassandra Clare photo
Meister Eckhart photo

“God wants nothing of you but the gift of a peaceful heart.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

As translated in The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose (1991) edited by Stephen Mitchell, p. 115

Thomas Brooks photo

“Such as have made a considerable improvement of their gifts and graces, have hearts as large as their heads; whereas most men's heads have outgrown their hearts.”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Quotes from secondary sources, Smooth Stones Taken From Ancient Brooks, 1860

Stephen Vincent Benét photo

“For his voice could search the heart, and that was his gift and his strength.”

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1937)
Context: Then he turned to Jabez Stone and showed him as he was — an ordinary man who'd had hard luck and wanted to change it. And, because he'd wanted to change it, now he was going to be punished for all eternity. And yet there was good in Jabez Stone, and he showed that good. He was hard and mean, in some ways, but he was a man. There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing too. And he showed what the pride of it was till you couldn't help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it. And he wasn't pleading for any one person any more, though his voice rang like an organ. He was telling the story and the failures and the endless journey of mankind. They got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey. And no demon that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it — it took a man to do that.
The fire began to die on the hearth and the wind before morning to blow. The light was getting gray in the room when Dan'l Webster finished. And his words came back at the end to New Hampshire ground, and the one spot of land that each man loves and clings to. He painted a picture of that, and to each one of that jury he spoke of things long forgotten. For his voice could search the heart, and that was his gift and his strength. And to one, his voice was like the forest and its secrecy, and to another like the sea and the storms of the sea; and one heard the cry of his lost nation in it, and another saw a little harmless scene he hadn't remembered for years. But each saw something. And when Dan'l Webster finished he didn't know whether or not he'd saved Jabez Stone. But he knew he'd done a miracle. For the glitter was gone from the eyes of the judge and jury, and, for the moment, they were men again, and knew they were men.

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Born for success he seemed,
With grace to win, with heart to hold,
With shining gifts that took all eyes.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

In Memoriam
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Desmond Tutu photo

“Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

As quoted in "The Words of Desmond Tutu" (1984)

Related topics