Quotes about heart
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“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Voices of the Night

St. 4.
Cf. Andrew Marvell, Upon the Death of Lord Hastings (1649): "Art indeed is long, but life is short".
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night

Art, Time

“Art's cruel. You can get away with murder with words. But a picture is like a window straight through to your inmost heart.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Art

“The human heart was undeniably the stupidest organ in the body.”

Francine Pascal (1938) American writer

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”

Anthony Bourdain book The Nasty Bits

The Nasty Bits (2006)

Life, World, Beauty, Travel

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

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

Source: 1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so.

“One of the troubles is this: the heart isn't heart-shaped.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

“I was no hero. The dearest wishes of my heart were for safety and tranquility. The world was a perilous place, wrong for the likes of me.”

Gail Carson Levine The Two Princesses of Bamarre

Source: The Two Princesses of Bamarre

World

“For if you feel for me as i do for you - then I am asking you to tear out your heart and live without it.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Feeling, Tear

“If you pluck out my heart
To find what makes it move,
You’ll halt the clock
That syncopates our love.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Selected Poems

Love

“anyone who has no feelings for animals has a dead heart.”

Raegan Butcher Rusty String Quartet

Source: Rusty String Quartet

Feeling, Animals, Dead

“Wisdom consists in doing the next thing you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Wisdom

“Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Sadness, Winter

“Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

“All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?”

Mitch Albom book The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

Source: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

Music

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”

Joanne Harris book Chocolat

Source: Chocolat

Happiness, Happy

“She spoke of evenings in the country making popcorn on the porch. Once this would have gladdened my heart but because her heart was not glad when she said it I knew there was nothing in it but the idea of what one should do.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Idea, Country

“My heart's with you, Bill, no matter how it turns out. My heart is with all of them, and I think that, even if we forget each other, we'll remember in our dreams.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Dreams, Thinking, Forgetting

“I hadn't even been looking, not for you, and now you were my heart's desire.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

“If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Love, Angels, Flowers, Friendship

“Enclose your heart in times of need with the steel of your determination and your strength. In doing this, all things will be bearable.”

Lora Leigh (1965) American writer

Source: Broken Wings

Time

“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Love, People, Light, Christ

“May my heart be your shelter, and my arms be your home.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Home, Wedding

“Since his mother died I have seen him steam a cucumber thinking it was zucchini. That's the kind of thing that turns my heart right over.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

Thinking

“Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled “enemy?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Men

“I had stepped into his arms, showing him my raw, broken heart.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“Somehow the bright beauty had gone from April afternoon and from her heart as well and the sad sweetness of remembering was as bitter as gall.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Sadness, Beauty

“…books are always good company if you have the right sort. Let me pick out some for you.' And Mrs. Jo made a bee-line to the well-laden shelves, which were the joy of her heart and the comfort of her life.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jo's Boys

Source: Jo's Boys

Life, Books, Bee, Joy

“Her best friend was gone and nobody understood that no amount of makeup, fresh air or shopping was going to fill the hole in her heart.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

“Because every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart. It contains what you do everything for, for, everything around you.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Box

“Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book Young Goodman Brown

Source: "Young Goodman Brown"
Context: "Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race."

Dreams, Hope, Nature, Evil

“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.”

Ben Okri (1959) Nigerian writer

Fear

“My heart only ever had one thought, one want. One need. Despite all, in spite of all… All my heart has ever wanted is you.”

Stephanie Laurens (1943) Australian writer

Source: The Edge of Desire

For Him, For Boyfriend

“A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying “Why?”

Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher

Source: Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ

God, Pain, Children

“I’m almost never serious, and I’m always too serious. Too deep, too shallow. Too sensitive, too cold hearted. I’m like a collection of paradoxes.”

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) Swiss linguist

“Just go out there and get your heart broken in, so it'll be ready when you really need it.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Y: The Last Man - The Deluxe Edition Book Five

“I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to man has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Source: The Seventh Seal

World, Dreams, Feeling, Indifference

“Just by gazing upon her face…
No matter how weary you are,
you will feel happy,
deep inside your heart,
you will feel a warmth
This is a "piece of joy"
This is all the happiness you need.
Normally, we call this "love"…”

Yoshiki Nakamura (1969) Artist

Source: Skip Beat!, Vol. 11

Love, Happiness, Feeling, Joy

“If only my heart were stone.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”

Emily Dickinson Life, and Death, and Giants —

Life, p. 6
Collected Poems (1993)

Life, Pain, Help

“It is said that the greatest cruelty is drawn from those with the kindest hearts.”

Terry Goodkind book Temple of the Winds

Source: Temple of the Winds

“You can't just turn your heart off like a faucet; you have to go to the source and dry it out, drop by drop.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Love, Life

“Despite his cynical exterior, he had a good heart-and Lissa owned most of it.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

“… and when he thought about the way she laughed, as though she owned the air around her, his heart thundered inside his chest, a lonely rada.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Way

“I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

God, People

“Why all these paintings of you? Because I'm an artist, Emma. These pictures are my heart. And if my heart was a canvas, every square inch of it would be painted over with you.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Painting

“…was designed to protect his heart, to bind me and bribe me to stay with him no matter what. He was giving everything he had.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

“I've always believed clear-eyed sobriety was for the harder hearted.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

“It's the endlessly thinking about yourself that causes such heart shame.”

Gregory Maguire book Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Source: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Thinking

“Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Books

“Psychologically, I will not have to seek far if I decide to kill myself, because in my mind and heart I am more ready for this than for the unplanned daily tribulations that mark off the mornings and afternoons.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Above all, in my anger, I was sad. Isn't that always the way, that at the heart of the fire is a frozen kernel of sorrow that the fire is trying -- valiantly, fruitlessly -- to eradicate.”

Claire Messud (1966) American writer

Source: The Woman Upstairs

Sadness, Way, Anger

“Fool that I am," said he,"that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself".”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Variant: What a fool I was, not to tear my heart out on the day when I resolved to avenge myself!
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Fools, Revenge, Tear

“The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 74, p. 232
Context: Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.

Love, God, Light

“In the kingdom of glass everything is transparent, and there is no place to hide a dark heart.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“I am only responsible for my own heart, you offered yours up for the smashing my darling. Only a fool would give out such a vital organ”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Fools

“How could you go about choosing something that would hold the half of your heart you had to bury?”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy

“Good humor and laughter are far too wonderful not to come straight from the heart of God.”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

God, Laughter

“An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

“I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever only rejoices me, and the heart appoints”

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

Sun

“Harden your heart.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Nevermore

“This hill though high I covent ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the way of life lies here.
Come, pluck up, heart; let's neither faint nor fear.”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Source: The Pilgrim's Progress

Life, Fear, Way

“The two of them looked so comfortable together it made Nico glad. But it also it caused an ache in his heart – a ghostly pain, like an old war wound throbbing in bad weather.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Pain, War, Weather

“I understood that as much as I had resisted the outside, as much as I had constricted my life, as much as I had closed and narrowed the channels into me, there were still many takers for the quiet heart.”

Steve Martin book The Pleasure of My Company

Source: The Pleasure of My Company

Life

“Did the destruction of one dream leave a vacuum that required filling with another? Is a broken heart more vulnerable?”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

Dreams

“What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

“Deep down inside, my heart knew the score.
And I know that Haven was wrong.
It's not always a case of one loving more than the other.
When two people are truly meant to be, they love equally.
Differently - but still equal.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Night Star

Love, People

“We're all one thing, like cells in a body. 'Cept we can't see the body. The way fish can't see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.”

Charlie Kaufman (1958) American screenwriter

Source: Adaptation.: The Shooting Script

Hate, Way, Fish, Envy

“Adversity in life does not rob your heart of beauty. It simply teaches it a new song to sing.”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Source: The Time Between

Life, Beauty, Singing

“3. You think that looks like a heart? If you do, that's only because you've never seen scrotum.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Thinking

“And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe — almost to remind my heart to beat!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XXXIII).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment, nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my hard constitution, and temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and probably shall remain above ground, till there is scarcely a black hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe — almost to remind my heart to beat! And it is like bending back a stiff spring — it is by compulsion that I do the slightest act, not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long and so unwaveringly, that I’m convinced it will be reached — and soon — because it has devoured my existence. I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its fulfilment. My confessions have not relieved me — but they may account for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humour which I show. Oh, God! It's a long fight, I wish it were over!

“Beware the viper in your closet. Isn’t that another thing you’re always saying, Father? Ambition and jealousy are at the heart of all betrayals. (Ryssa)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Jealousy, Betrayal

“There are very few who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Love

“I've never minded it," he went on. "Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not truly be lost if one knew one's own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Fear

“He has a song in his heart for me. I hope it is not "Shut Uppa You Face, Whatsa Matta You.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Stop in the Name of Pants!

Hope

“He treasured her, treasured her tears, treasured her love for others. Her heart might even be big enough to fill that empty space in his own chest. Perhaps she could be his heart as well.”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: Scandalous Desires

Love, Tear

“… my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

“She curled up and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her ear was right above his heart. She was listening to his thoughts. "I need to know this," Aomame said. "That we're in the same world, seeing the same things.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

World

“The heart knoweth its own sorrow and there are times when, like David, it is comforting to think that our tears are put in a bottle and not one of them forgotten by the one who leads us in paths of sorrow.”

Hannah Hurnard book Hinds' Feet on High Places

Source: Hinds' Feet on High Places

Thinking, Tear, Time

“You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so how could we take it back without asking?”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Time

“That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make you cry and break your heart, but in the end, when the chips were down, they were there, making you laugh even in your darkest hours.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

Sister, Cry, Friendship, For Mother

“You're going to break my heart, aren't you?”

Christopher Moore book Bloodsucking Fiends

Source: Bloodsucking Fiends

“It is when our hearts are stirred that we become most aware of what they contain.”

Andy Stanley (1958) American Christian minister

Source: It Came from Within!: The Shocking Truth of What Lurks in the Heart

“No rescue boat can save the touches I left bobbing in the wild ocean of your flesh, but if they cut open your heart, like the belly of a shark, dumped its contents on a table—would there be any trace of me?”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Source: The Splinter Factory

“It’s hard to understand other people, to know what’s hidden in their hearts, and without the assistance of alcohol it might never be done at all.”

Michel Houellebecq (1956) writer

Source: Submission

People, Alcohol, Understanding

“One can love two children. But your heart can be given romantic love to only a single other, said Woolsey.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love, Children

“That strange, twisted, torn love.

That conflict between what your heart knows is right and what your mind is told is right.”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Source: Boy Meets Boy

Love

“i wait. with all my dreams, i know her heart, and i know i'm almost there.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Dreams, Waiting

“Because your eyes are slant and slow,
Because your hair is sweet to touch,
My heart is high again; but oh,
I doubt if this will get me much.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

“Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being?”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

God

“Great poetry needs no interpreter other than a responsive heart.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Source: The Story of My Life: With Her Letters (1887 1901) and a Supplementary Account of Her Education Including Passages from the Reports and Letters of Her Teacher Anne Mansfield Sullivan by John Albert Macy