Quotes about heart
page 2

Stephen King photo
Angelina Jolie photo
Matthew Henry photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in Who was Ronald Reagan? (2004), by Joyce Milton, p. 85
Post-presidency (1989–2004)
Context: I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.

Morrissey photo

“The brain speculates but the heart knows.”

Morrissey (1959) English singer

Autobiography

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart photo

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

John of the Cross photo

“Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it; reflect that all must come to an end.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

The Sayings of Light and Love

Sia (musician) photo

“I may cry, ruining my makeup
Wash away all the things you've taken
And I don't care if I don't look pretty
Big girls cry when their hearts are breaking”

Sia (musician) (1975) Australian singer

Big Girls Cry, 1000 Forms of Fear (2014). Cowritten with Christopher Braide
Songs

Tupac Shakur photo
Angelus Silesius photo
Brother Roger photo
Kuvempu photo

“When I hear Kannada, my heart leaps up and I am all ears.”

Kuvempu (1904–1994) Kannada novelist, poet, playwright, critic, and thinker

Quoted in A Few inches of Ivory, 24 November 2013, Jstor Organization http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/23001425?uid=3738256&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102981873241,

Rabindranath Tagore photo
Michael Jackson photo
Suman Pokhrel photo

“I wanted to paint a picture,
in indelible print, across
the canvass of my heart.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> The Tajmahal and my Love http://www.best-poems.net/love_poems/the_taj_mahal_amp_my_love.html/</span>
From Poetry

Michael Jackson photo
Jean Vanier photo

“The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they’re not people who discuss philosophy… What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

Paracelsus photo

“The art of medicine has its roots in the heart. If your heart is false, then also the doctor in you is false. If it is fair, then also the doctor is fair.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

Aung San Suu Kyi photo

“To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (2012)
Context: Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness. Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people.

Golda Meir photo
Friedrich Schiller photo

“There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Hope, Faith, and Love (c. 1786); also known as "The Words of Strength", as translated in The Common School Journal Vol. IX (1847) edited by Horace Mann, p. 386
Context: There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, —
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, —
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The habitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one,
But men, as man, thy brothers call;
And scatter, like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all. Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, —
Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.

Sophie Scholl photo

“The only remedy for a barren heart is prayer, however poor and inadequate.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

Letter to her boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel, as translated in At the Heart of the White Rose: Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl (1987), p. 256; edited by Inge Jens, translated by J. Maxwell Brownjohn; also in Voices of the Holocaust : Resistors, Liberation, Understanding (1997) by Lorie Jenkins McElroy
Context: The only remedy for a barren heart is prayer, however poor and inadequate. As I did that night at Blumberg, I'll keep on repeating it for us both: We must pray, and pray for each other, and if you were here, I'd fold hands with you, because we're poor, weak, sinful children. Oh, Fritz, if I can't write anything else just now, it's only because there's a terrible absurdity about a drowning man who, instead of calling for help, launches into a scientific, philosophical, or theological dissertation while the sinister tentacles of the creatures on the seabed are encircling his arms and legs, and the waves are breaking over him. It's only because I'm filled with fear, that and nothing else, and feel an undivided yearning for him who can relieve me of it.

Kobe Bryant photo
Teal Swan photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Markus Zusak photo
Marco Mengoni photo

“I'm so glad that you're in my life, you fill my heart, you fill my sky.”

Marco Mengoni (1988) Italian singer-songwriter

Solo 2.0
Source: da Tonight

Albert Einstein photo

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”

Variant: Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts
Source: "Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949), p. 66 of the edition at http://books.google.com/books?id=aNKOo94tO6cC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q&f=false

Rainer Maria Rilke photo

“Our heart always transcends us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
Khaled Hosseini photo

“A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you.”

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
Context: Nana (to Mariam) : A man's heart isn't like a woman's womb, Mariam! It won't bleed, it won't make room for you. A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. I'm all you have in this world, Mariam and when I'm gone, you'll have nothing. You are nothing!

Paulo Coelho photo

“Wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure.”

Compare to the Bible, Luke 12:34 (For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.)(NIV translation).
Variant: Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 128

Fulton J. Sheen photo

“I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2

Haruki Murakami photo
Corrie ten Boom photo
Jonathan Maberry photo
Mark Twain photo

“When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Notebook

Martin Luther photo

“I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520), translated by Charles M. Jacobs, reported in rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther’s Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207 (1966).
Context: I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God's word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.

Simone Weil photo
Diana Gabaldon photo

“But I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple.

"And, Sassenach," he whispered, "your face is my heart.”

Variant: I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple. "And Sassenach," he whispered, "Your face is my heart.
Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Thomas Hobbes photo
Anne Frank photo

“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

15 July 1944; Variant translations:
It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery, and death...and yet...I think...this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Context: It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them!

Francis of Assisi photo
Alejandro Jodorowsky photo
Carrie Fisher photo

“Take your broken heart, make it into art.”

Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) American actress, screenwriter and novelist
Martin Luther photo
Hans Christian Andersen photo
Leonard Cohen photo
Emily Brontë photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)
Context: And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.

Norman Vincent Peale photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?”

Pt. V, st. 14
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)

William Goldman photo

“My heart was now a secret garden and the walls were very high.”

Variant: Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high.
Source: The Princess Bride

Christopher Paolini photo

“Shall we dance, friend of my heart?”

Eragon
Source: Eldest (2005)

William Shakespeare photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
William Shakespeare photo
Jenny Han photo

“Maybe that was how it was with all first loves. They own a little piece of your heart, always.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Tennessee Williams photo
Ajahn Chah photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”

Letter One (17 February 1903)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
Context: No one can advise or help you — no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

Raymond Carver photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
William Shakespeare photo
Laurie Halse Anderson photo
Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Béla Lugosi photo
Hesiod photo
Suman Pokhrel photo

“I wanted my heart to bloom
and shelter a shadow of love”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> The Tajmahal and my Love http://www.best-poems.net/love_poems/the_taj_mahal_amp_my_love.html/</span>
From Poetry

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Francisco Palau photo
Shams-i Tabrizi photo

“Nothing kills the soul that commands to evil (Nafs al Ammarra) like seeing the beauty of the heart.”

Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.

Me & Rumi (2004)

“If your head tells you one thing and your heart tells you another, before you do anything, you should first decide whether you have a better head or a better heart.”

Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer

As quoted in Loose Cannons: Devastating Dish from the World's Wildest Women (1998) by Autumn Stephens, p. 270

Ali al-Hadi photo

“Wisdom doesn't affect corrupt hearts.”

Ali al-Hadi (829–868) imam

Misnad al-Imām al-Hādī, p. 304.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

Tupac Shakur photo
Suman Pokhrel photo

“Through years of my prime
I walked with a heart
crazy about love.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> The Tajmahal and my Love http://www.best-poems.net/love_poems/the_taj_mahal_amp_my_love.html/</span>
From Poetry

Hasan ibn Ali photo

“The heart that is empty of doubt is the cleanest of hearts.”

Hasan ibn Ali (624–669) Shia Imam

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 109
General Quotes

Frédéric Chopin photo
Eleanor H. Porter photo
Suleiman photo
Ferdowsi photo

“O my son, thy lips still smell of milk, and thy heart should go out to pleasure. But the days are grave, and Iran looketh unto thee in its danger.”

Translation of Helen Zimmern http://classics.mit.edu/Ferdowsi/kings.5.rustem.html
Shahnameh

Hasan al-Basri photo

“Lyin' to my face, tellin' me, "Really, Bae, I lur you," now, you breakin' my heart, you know how much e costs?”

E.M.S (1995) Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer

"iRONiC"

Sitting Bull photo

“Because I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary, that eagles should be crows.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Quoted in Vine Deloria, God Is Red: A Native View of Religion. Golden, Colo: Fulcrum Pub, 2003, cited to Virginia Armstrong, I have spoken; American history through the voices of the Indians. Chicago, Sage Books, 1971.

Alexander Pope photo

“They shift the moving toyshop of their heart.”

Canto I, line 100.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

Patañjali photo
Khalil Gibran photo

“When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Sand and Foam (1926)

Charles Spurgeon photo
Ghani Khan photo

“I do not need your red sculpted lips,
Nor hair in loops like a serpent’s coils,
Nor a nape as graceful as a swan’s,
Nor narcissus eyes full of drunkenness,
Nor teeth as perfect as pearls of heaven,
Nor cheeks ruddy and full as pomegranates,
Nor a voice mellifluous as a sarinda,
Nor a figure as elegant as a poplar,
But show me just this one thing, my love,
I seek a heart stained like a poppy flower – Pearls by millions I would gladly cede,
For the sake of tears borne of love and grief.”

Ghani Khan (1914–1996) Pakistani poet

na may sta da nari shundi dy pakar
na da zulfi wal pa wal laka khamar
na da bati pashan danga ghari ghwaram
nargasay stargy na daki da khumar
na ghakhuna dy laluna da adan
na nangy dak sara sara laka anar
na pasti da sarindy pa shan khabari
na wajood laka da saar way mazadar
khu bas yow shai rata ra ukhaya dilbara
da lala pashan zargy ghawaram daghdar
yow dawa ukhaqi chi da ghum ao muhabat way
lakuno laluna dy karam zaar
Entreaty (1929)