Quotes about heart
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“Faeries believed in promises over fidelity of body or heart.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“It's the age-old battle between mind and heart, which seldom want the same thing.”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

Age

“We Shadowhunters, we put ourselves in danger, every hour, every day. I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Variant: I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece. And if we do not get what we so desperately need, how do we live?
Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Way, Thinking

“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 39 Catholic Spirit http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/39/ from the 1872 edition of Wesley's Complete Works - Thomas Jackson, editor <br class="br">Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)

Love, God, Children, Thinking

“Only by you my heart always moves.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

“As they grew sloppier and less alert, the twins argued too loudly about whether Tiger Lily was ugly or beautiful, and finally agreed that she was "ugly beautiful".
Tiger Lily pretended she hadn't heard, but her heart slowed to absorb the blow.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Beauty

“Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“He was alone. He was unheeded, happy, and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the seaharvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Life, Happiness, Water

“She looked so irresistibly beautiful as she said those brave words that no man alive could have steel his heart against her.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Beauty

“But those with an evil heart seem to have a talent for destroying anything beautiful which is about to bloom.”

Cynthia Rylant (1954) American author of children's books and librarian

Source: Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Beauty, Evil

“The whole horror of the situation is that he now has a human heart, not a dog's heart. And about the rottenest heart in all creation!”

Mikhail Bulgakov book Heart of a Dog

Source: Heart of a Dog

Dogs

“My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

A Birthday http://www.poetry-online.org/rossetti_christina_a_birthday.htm, st. 1 (1861).

Bird, Tree, Singing

“I don't have the heart to tell him that's the wrong way to think about the world. There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. The only way to survive is to let some of them go.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

World, Way, Question, Thinking

“Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Secret

“She felt a cage coming down around her; too late she realized that he had her trapped by the heart. And like any unwilling animal that was well and truly caught, she could escape only by leaving a piece of herself behind.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Animals

“My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

The monster to Robert Walton in Ch. 24
Frankenstein (1818)

Love, Imagination, Fashion, Change

“…I can't help seeing that you are very lonely, and sometimes there is a hungry look in your eyes that goes to my heart.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Help

“How glorious the splendor of a human heart that trusts that it is loved!”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Love

“A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.”

Rebecca Solnit book The Faraway Nearby

Source: The Faraway Nearby

Books

“They should tell you when you’re born: have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Variant: Have a suitcase heart, be ready to travel.
Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Travel, Hurtful

“Her bra was cotton and white and, bless its little frickin´ heart, had a front clasp.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

“When a person is going through a hard time, his mind wants to give up. Satan knows that if he can defeat us in our mind, he can defeat us in our experience. That’s why it is so important that we not lose heart, grow weary and faint.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Time, Personality

“I accept you as you are, and I will always hold you close in my heart. I will walk beside you forever. (Fang)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

“To whom shall I hire myself out? What beast should I adore? What holy image is attacked? What hearts shall I break? What lies shall I uphold? In what blood tread?”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Source: A Season in Hell/The Drunken Boat

“Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”

Jasper Fforde book First Among Sequels

Source: First Among Sequels

love

“I'll have to admit, he really does have quite a smile. Kind of heart-stopping, especially as it comes out of nowhere.
I mean… you know. If your heart was in the kind of place to be stopped.”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Smile

“A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.”

Keri Hulme book The Bone People

Source: The Bone People

Family

“You are my Marilyn. You are my lake full of fishes. You are my sky set, my 'Hollywood in Miniature,' my pink Cadillac, my highway, my martini, the stage for my heart to rock and roll on, the screen where my movies light up.”

Francesca Lia Block Weetzie Bat

Source: Weetzie Bat

Fish, Light

“She put one hand on mine. “When someone is in your heart, they’re never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Variant: When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.
Source: For One More Day

Time

“Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Night

“Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

1847
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s

Childhood

“But she woke up just then, and in the moonlight covered herself with a blanket. She smiled at him drowsily and called him "Yero, my hero," and that melted his heart.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Smile

“Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast." ~”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Life, Happiness, Thinking, Dependency

“The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,--
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Love, Death, Housing

“Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and its fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Source: Ode: Intimations Of Immortality From Recollections Of Early Childhood

Lie, Fear, Flowers, Tear

“The function of music is to liberate in the soul those feelings which normally we keep locked up in the heart.”

Sebastian Faulks book Birdsong

Source: Birdsong

Music, Feeling, Soul

“Regret, already sogging me down, burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

“I tried very hard. But I can't help it. The Fates are cruel. They sent you to me, my brave one, knowing that you would break my heart.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Fate, Help

“The fate of your heart is your choice and no one else gets a vote”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Fate

“But he was wrong. Because I had fought with my heart and defeated it long ago. I was certainly not going to become passionate about something that was impossible. I knew my limits; I knew how much suffering i could bear.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Suffering, Passion

“Some people have a love of their fellow man in their hearts, and others require a light anesthetic.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Life Among the Lutherans

Love, People, Light

“For the girls with messy hair and thirsty hearts.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Girl

“Your heart is a weapon the size of your fist. “God”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

God

“You haven't broken his heart yet, have you?"
"No," Tessa said."I haven't broken his heart at all.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart?
It is too heavy. It will always show.
Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Source: The Holy Terrors

Fashion

“It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Context: Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

Children, Understanding, Water

“This was freedom; to feel what the heart desired with no thought to the opinion of the rest… She was free, for love liberates.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Fifth Mountain Intl

Love, Feeling, Freedom

“The type of human being we prefer reveals the contours of our heart.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

“As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote from Vincent's letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 30 May 1877; Dear Theo: the Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh;, ed. Irving Stone and Jean Stone (1995), p. 26
1870s
Context: When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

Life, Fight

“Let me get this thing straight, Inigo--we had SCRAPS for dinner? I'M in YOUR fantasy and the best you can come up with is SCRAPS?" She turned toward the door then. "You have no chance of winning my heart.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Chance

“I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.”

Ford Madox Ford book The Good Soldier

Source: The Good Soldier

Men, World

“We have the idea that our hearts, once broken, scar over with an indestructible tissue that prevents their ever breaking again in quite the same place…”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Idea

“These men were like leeches; they sucked away at the goodness of a woman's heart until it was dry and all her love had been used up. That took a long time, he knew, because women seemed to have vast reservoirs of goodness in them”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Love, Women, Men, Time

“If you don't believe what I'm telling you, then ask yourself this: would any decent, kind-hearted individual become a writer? Of course not.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

“I am sorry for you with all my heart. But you cannot blame us, for you came to kill us if you could.”

Richard Adams book Watership Down

Source: Watership Down

“Follow your inner heart and the world moves in and helps.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

World, Help

“I am still on my zigzag way, pursuing the diagonal between reason and heart.”

Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer

Source: Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas

Way

“Curran grinned and my heart made a little jump. I didn’t expect that.
“That’s it? That’s your witty comeback?”
“Yep.” Eloquence ’R’ Us. When in trouble, keep it monosyllabic—safer that way.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Way

“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.”

Orson Scott Card book Children of the Mind

Source: Children of the Mind

Happiness, Books, World, Change

“The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis. A man grows what he can, and he tends it. 'Cause what you buy, is what you own. And what you own… always comes home to you.”

Stephen King book Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

Home

“If my mind can conceive it; and my heart can believe it — then I can achieve it.”

Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly

Similar to a quote by Jesse Jackson, which is in turn a modification of a quote by Napoleon Hill: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
Misattributed
Source: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey

Wise, Deep, Success, Inspirational