Quotes about heart
page 5

Nicolas Chamfort photo

“And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Suicide note

Stefan Zweig photo
Matka Tereza photo

“Be kind to each other in your homes. Be kind to those who surround you. I prefer that you make mistakes in kindness rather than that you work miracles in unkindness. Often just for one word, one look, one quick action, and darkness fills the heart of the one we love.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Quoted in: Charlotte Gray. Mother Teresa: Her Mission to Serve God by Caring for the Poor. G. Stevens, (1988), p. 53
1980s

Thomas Paine photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo

“I eagerly await tomorrow's mail to have news of Russia and Poland. For now, I have to content myself with a few vague rumors which float around. I have heard about new, bloody skirmishes in Poland between the people and troops; I was told that, even in Russia, there was a conspiracy against the czar and the whole royal family.
I am equally passionate about the struggle between the North and the Southern American states. Of course, my heart goes out to the North. But alas! It is the South who acted with the most force, wisdom, and solidarity, which makes them worthy of the triumph they have received in every encounter so far. It is true that the South has been preparing for war for three years now, while the North has been forced to improvise. The surprising success of the ventures of the American people, for the most part happy; the banality of the material well being, where the heart is absent; and the national vanity, altogether infantile and sustained with very little cost; all seem to have helped deprave these people, and perhaps this stubborn struggle will be beneficial to them in so much as it helps the nation regain its lost soul. This is my first impression; but it could very well be that I will change my mind upon seeing things up close. The only thing is, I will not have enough time to examine really closely.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Letter http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/letters/toherzenandogareff.html to Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and Ogareff from San Francisco (3 October 1861); published in Correspondance de Michel Bakounine (1896) edited by Michel Dragmanov

Saint Peter photo
Charles Spurgeon photo
Nâzım Hikmet photo
Joan Baez photo

“Here's to you, Nicola and Bart
Rest forever here in our hearts
The last and final moment is yours
That agony is your triumph”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Here's to You
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

Dante Alighieri photo

“I am he who held both the keys of the heart of Frederick, and who turned them, locking and unlocking so softly.”

Canto XIII, lines 58–60 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Chuck Berry photo

“You know, my temperature's risin'
and the jukebox blows a fuse
My heart's beatin' rhythm
and my soul keeps on singin' the blues
Roll Over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Roll Over Beethoven" (1956) ·  Live performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT3kCVFFLNg
Song lyrics

George Orwell photo
Josiah Gilbert Holland photo
Prem Rawat photo

“This peace is not the absence of anything. Real peace is the presence of something beautiful. Both peace and the thirst for it have been in the heart of every human being in every century and every civilization.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Address to faculty, students and guests at Harvard University's Sanders Theater (August 2004)
2000s

Paracelsus photo

“What maintains the marriage and what is it? Only the knowledge of the hearts, that is its beginning and end.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

Mata Amritanandamayi photo
Justin Bieber photo

“And girl you're my one love, my one heart
My one life for sure
Let me tell you one time
(Girl, I love, girl I love you)
I'ma tell you one time”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

My World (2009 Album), One Time

Bernard of Clairvaux photo

“What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve.”
Vulgo dicitur: Quod non videt oculus, cor non dolet.

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian

In Festo Omnium Sanctorum, Sermo 5, sect. 5; translation from Scottish Notes and Queries, 1st series, vol. 7, p. 59
Context: It is commonly said: What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve.

Albert Schweitzer photo

“Don't let your hearts grow numb. Stay alert. It is your soul which matters.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Reverence for Life (1969)

Florence Nightingale photo

“The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her?”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Cassandra (1860)
Context: The great reformers of the world turn into the great misanthropists, if circumstances or organisation do not permit them to act. Christ, if He had been a woman, might have been nothing but a great complainer. Peace be with the misanthropists! They have made a step in progress; the next will make them great philanthropists; they are divided but by a line.
The next Christ will perhaps be a female Christ. But do we see one woman who looks like a female Christ? or even like "the messenger before" her "face", to go before her and prepare the hearts and minds for her?
To this will be answered that half the inmates of Bedlam begin in this way, by fancying that they are "the Christ."
People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned.

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“What is true is that I have at times earned my own crust of bread, and at other times a friend has given it to me out of the goodness of his heart. I have lived whatever way I could, for better or for worse, taking things just as they came.”

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

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Context: What is true is that I have at times earned my own crust of bread, and at other times a friend has given it to me out of the goodness of his heart. I have lived whatever way I could, for better or for worse, taking things just as they came. It is true that I have forfeited the trust of various people, it is true that my financial affairs are in a sorry state, it is true that the future looks rather bleak, it is true that I might have done better, it is true that I have wasted time when it comes to earning a living, it is true that my studies are in a fairly lamentable and appalling state, and that my needs are greater, infinitely greater than my resources. But does that mean going downhill and doing nothing?

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

85
The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)
Context: Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across a hundred years.

Thomas Aquinas photo

“Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover…Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.”

I-II, q. 28, art. 5
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Context: it is to be observed that four proximate effects may be ascribed to love: viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover... Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“Love children especially, for like the angels they too are sinless, and they live to soften and purify our hearts, and, as it were, to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Book VI, chapter 3: "Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima; Of Prayer, of Love, and of Contact with other Worlds" (translated by Constance Garnett)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and untroubled joy. So do not trouble it, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their joy, do not go against God's intent. Man, do not exhale yourself above the animals: they are without sin, while you in your majesty defile the earth by your appearance on it, and you leave the traces of your defilement behind you — alas, this is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for like the angels they too are sinless, and they live to soften and purify our hearts, and, as it were, to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child.
My young brother asked even the birds to forgive him. It may sound absurd, but it is right none the less, for everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact with everything else: touch one place, and you set up a movement at the other end of the world. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but, then, it would be easier for the birds, and for the child, and for every animal if you were yourself more pleasant than you are now. Everything is like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds, too, consumed by a universal love, as though in ecstasy, and ask that they, too, should forgive your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however absurd people may think it.

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Preface
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation. To me the verses of the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha have ever been things of the spirit, and therefore endowed with boundless vital growth; and I have used them, both in my own life and in my preaching, as being instinct with individual meaning for me, as for others, and awaiting for their confirmation, my own special testimony, which must have its value because of its individuality.

Caspar David Friedrich photo

“The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote in 'Culture: Caspar D. Friedrich and the Wasteland', by Gjermund E. Jansen in Bits of News (3 March 2005) http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/154/42/
Variant translation: The heart is the only true source of art, the language of a pure, child-like soul. Any creation not sprung from this origin can only be artifice. Every true work of art is conceived in a hallowed hour and born in a happy one, from an impulse in the artist's heart, often without his knowledge. (as quoted in the article 'Caspar David Friedrich's Medieval Burials', Karl Whittington - http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring12/whittington-on-caspar-david-friedrichs-medieval-burials)
undated
Context: The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art. A painting which does not take its inspiration from the heart is nothing more than futile juggling. All authentic art is conceived at a sacred moment and nourished in a blessed hour; an inner impulse creates it, often without the artist being aware of it.

Carl von Clausewitz photo

“Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war.”

Source: On War (1832), Book 1, Chapter 1, Section 3, Paragraph 1.
Context: Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst.

Honoré de Balzac photo

“Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.”

Part I.
Le Père Goriot (1835)
Context: Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt. We show no more mercy to the affection that reveals its utmost extent than we do to another kind of prodigal who has not a penny left.

Emily Brontë photo

“What use is it to slumber here:
Though the heart be sad and weary?”

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet

What Use Is It To Slumber Here?
Context: What use is it to slumber here:
Though the heart be sad and weary?
What use is it to slumber here
Though the day rise dark and dreary?

Howard Thurman photo

“The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

"The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations (1985)
Context: When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

“The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.”

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921) British poet

"Light" (popularly known as "The Night has a Thousand Eyes"), published in The Spectator (October 1873).
Context: p>The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.</p

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

“Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
Variant translation, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1974).
Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another

Anna Laetitia Barbauld photo
Tom Watson photo
Antoine François Prévost photo
Pelé photo

“The head talks to the heart and the heart talks to the feet.”

Pelé (1940–2022) Brazilian association football player
Andrew Biersack photo
Andrew Biersack photo
Muhammad photo
Edgar Allan Poe photo
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed photo
Premchand photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Gemma Galgani photo
William Blake photo

“Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secrecy the human dress.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

A Divine Image, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Sara Teasdale photo
Debby Ryan photo

“When you play a character, you learn the inner workings of someone's heart. I've learned something about myself through every character I've played!”

Debby Ryan (1993) American singer and actress

Debby Ryan's Winter Fashion And Beauty Tips https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/a19701/debby-ryan-fashion-interview/ (November 8, 2012)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
Charles Bukowski photo

“It all comes down to the last person you think of at night, that's where the heart is.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Original: Tutto si riduce all'ultima persona a cui pensi la notte, è lì che si trova il cuore.
Source: In Una sorcia bianca – nella raccolta Storie di ordinaria follia

Philipp Mainländer photo
Eminem photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
José Baroja photo

“The biggest mistake of the average wage earner is forgetting that no company has or will ever have a human heart.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Radiorama de Occidente. "La Otra Historia". Rock & Pop 1480 AM. Guadalajara, Mexico.

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Variant: The greatest test of courage is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Ronald Reagan photo

“I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.”

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

At the dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California http://www.planbproductions.com/postnobills/reagan1.html (4 November 1991), the inscription on Reagan's tomb
Post-presidency (1989&ndash;2004)

Jonathan Franzen photo
W.B. Yeats photo

“Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
Oh, when may it suffice?”

St. 4
Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), Easter, 1916 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1477/
Variant: Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
Source: Easter 1916 and Other Poems

Edna St. Vincent Millay photo

“I know I am but summer to your heart,
and not the full four seasons of the year.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII)

Orhan Pamuk photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“The heart is forever inexperienced.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Alfred Adler photo

“seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.”

Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist
Fernando Pessoa photo

“The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
Daisaku Ikeda photo
Susanna Tamaro photo
Kate DiCamillo photo

“Open your heart. Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.”

Variant: Someone will come for you, but first you must open your heart...
Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Robert Browning photo
Tariq Ramadan photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
C.G. Jung photo
William Shakespeare photo
Nora Roberts photo

“Remind me not to piss you off Red. You might aim for the heart and shoot me in the balls.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Morrigan's Cross

Alicia Keys photo

“He broke my heart, and now it's raining, just to rub it in…”

Alicia Keys (1981) American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress
Tennessee Williams photo
Stephen King photo

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Barack Obama photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Henry Miller photo

“It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another person, not with the mind, not even with the heart.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Variant: It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another human being, not with the mind, nor even with the heart.

William Shakespeare photo

“It is not, nor it cannot, come to good,
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”

Variant: But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
Source: Hamlet

Fernando Pessoa photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo
Washington Irving photo
Robert Fulghum photo

“Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.”

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)
Context: Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.

Stefan Zweig photo
Blaise Pascal photo

“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Variant: The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.
Source: The Mind on Fire: A Faith for the Skeptical and Indifferent