Quotes about heart
page 57

“As I feel a need to speak out frankly, I cannot hide from you that I am overcome by a feeling of great care, depression, a "je ne sais quoi" of discouragement and despair more than I can tell.
I take it so much to heart that I do not get on better with people in general; it quite worries me because on it depends so much my success in carrying out my work.”

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

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Autumn 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 328) p. 21 1880s, 1883

People, Feeling, Success, Dependency

“I think your piety one of your greatest charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXIII : First weeks of Matrimony; Arthur to Helen

Religion, Soul, Thinking

“The materials of the first temple were made ready in solitude. Those of the last also must be shaped in retirement; in the silence of the heart; in the quietness of home; in the practice of unostentatious duty.”

Henry Giles (1809–1882) Irish minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 45.

Home, Solitude, Silence

“And thus the easy argument of exhibiting the least conditions sufficient for experience, so like a simpleton in its seeming clutch at the thin surface of things, carries in its subtle heart the proof of an imperishable persistence in all that gives life meaning and value.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Human Immortality: its Positive Argument, p.312

Life

“The problem of anachronism is a serious one when it comes to evaluating materials in the Bible because there is a widespread assumption in the conservative Christian community, ever since the Reformation, that God's Word requires only a good, clear mind, an open heart, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be understood.”

Ben Witherington III (1951) American religion academic

Prolegomenon
New Testament History : A Narrative Account (2001)

God, Communication, Problem

“Everyone's trusting in their hearts, like their heart don't lie”

Rob Thomas (1972) American singer

"All I Need" (from the Matchbox Twenty album More Than You You Think You Are)

Lie

“You're a hostage of the heart
Twisted 'round the smallest finger
Two burning eyes are tearing you apart
Turn your soul into a cinder!”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Earth Moving (1989)

Soul, Tear

“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find. If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whos hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes. The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

[Witnessing, 2007-01-03, 2012-08-16, http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/http://iq.org/#Witnessing]

Love, Men, Idea, Courage

“But my friends, my brothers and sisters of the Pacific, we know who we are. We carry in our hearts the knowledge that we are the bearers of a proud legacy that surely marks us as people of strength, and courage and will. We have survived in our aquatic continent through many centuries.”

Kamisese Mara (1920–2004) President of Fiji

Opening address, Pacific Vision festival, Auckland, New Zealand (26 July 1999) http://www.minpac.govt.nz/resources/reference/pvdocs/opening/mara.php.

People, Courage, Knowledge, Sister

“The soul that rides deep through our veins,
Our red rivers, and smiles.
This darling soul, as endearing
As dead poets and countries.
This restless soul that neighbors our hearts.
A perfect torch that guides our flames
To immortality.”

Masiela Lusha (1985) Albanian actress, writer, author

"Charity" http://www.masielalushafoundation.org/

Smile, Soul, Perfection, Dead

“What is the alternative to collective bargaining? There is none except anarchy, and there are rare elements in the country that would like to see anarchy in the trade unions—in my view the most dangerous thing for the country that could happen. Another alternative is force, but we may rule out force in this country, and I would lay it down that, so long as the industrial system remains as it is, collective bargaining is the right thing. I have no doubt about that. And yet we all know in our heart of hearts that it may be a clumsy method of settling disputes, and that the last word has not been spoken. Some day, when we are all fit for a democracy, we shall not need these aids, but certainly for my part, and as long as I can see ahead, unless there is that change in human nature which we are always hoping for, collective bargaining will be a necessity.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1937/may/05/supply in the House of Commons (5 May 1937). 1937

Hope, Democracy, Nature, Change

“Thou wilt draw nigh!
Father — it is no dream that Thou art near —
No dream that, in my sin and misery,
I may look up to Thee,—
May hide beneath the shadow of Thy wings,
From all the restlessness of outward things,
And from my own heart's self-accusing fears —
For Thou art nigh.”

Hetty Bowman (1838–1872)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 432.

Fear, Dreams, Art, Drawing

“When Freedom from her mountain-heights
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.

Flag of the free, heart’s hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe, but falls before us,
With Freedom’s soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom’s banner streaming over us?”

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820) Early American poet

"The American Flag", in The Culprit Fay and Other Poems (1835), published posthumously by Drake's daughter.

Hope, Angels, Home, Mountain

“I explained to the crowd that my voice was hoarse from a cold and that my physician had advised me not to attend. "I hope that you will not disclose to him that I have violated his instructions," I told them. I congratulated Mr. de Klerk for his strong showing. I thanked all those in the ANC and the democratic movement who had worked so hard for so long. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the wife of the great freedom fighter Martin Luther King Jr., was on the podium that night, and I looked over to her as I made reference to her husband's immortal words.
"This is one of the most important moments in the life of our country. I stand here before you filled with deep pride and joy--pride in the ordinary, humble people of this country. You have shown such a calm, patient determination to reclaim this country as your own, and now the joy that we can loudly proclaim from the rooftops — Free at last! Free at last! I stand before you humbled by your courage, with a heart full of love for all of you."”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)

Love, Life, People, Hope

“I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone;
And my breast, where everyone is bruised in his turn,
Has been made to awaken in poets a love
That is eternal and as silent as matter.I am throned in blue sky like a sphinx unbeknown;
My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans;
I detest any movement displacing still lines,
And never do I weep and never laugh.”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre, Et mon sein, où chacun s’est meurtri tour à tour, Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.Je trône dans l’azur comme un sphinx incompris; J’unis un cœur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes; Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes, Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris. "La Beauté" [Beauty] http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Beaut%C3%A9_%28Les_Fleurs_du_mal%29 Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Love, Dreams, Wedding

“I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Simon Lee, st. 12 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Men, Gratitude

“Whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart.”

James Branch Cabell book The Cream of the Jest

Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 14 : Peculiar Conduct of a Personage

People, Search, Nature

“The time comes in the life of each of us when we realize that death awaits us as it awaits others, that we will receive at the end neither preference nor exemption. It is then, in that disturbed moment, that we know life is an adventure with an ending, not a succession of bright days that go on forever. Sometimes the knowledge come with the repudiation and quick revolt that such injustice awaits us, sometimes with fear that dries the mouth and closes the eyes for an instant, sometimes with servile weariness, an acquiescence more dreadful than fear. The knowledge that my own end was near came with pain, and afterwards astonishment, with the conventional heart attack, from which, I've been told, I've made an excellent recovery.”

William March (1893–1954) United States Marine, novelist, short story writer

Entitled "Poor Pilgrim, Poor Stranger", Found in the typewriter the morning of his death.

Life, Death, Pain, Fear

“The saints are like the stars, who, in His providence, Christ hides under a seal, lest they appear whenever they wish. Instead, they are always ready to disembark from the quiet of contemplation into the works of mercy at the time decided upon by God, whenever their heart should hear the word of command.”
Stellae sunt sancti, quos Christus sub signaculo suae providentiae claudit, ne appareant quando velint, semper parati ad tempus a Deo statutum, ut, cum audierint aure cordis vocem iubentis, a secreto contemplationis egrediantur ad opera necessitatis.

Anthony of Padua (1195–1231) Franciscan

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Easter (Part III: De Christi omnium scientia, par. 10)
Sermons

God, Star, Appearance, Time

“A boy's hunched body loved out of a stalk
The first song of his happiness, and the song woke
His heart to the darkness and into the sadness of joy.”

Galway Kinnell (1927–2014) Poet

First Song (1983).

Love, Happiness, Sadness, Boy

“For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

St. 2.
So, We'll Go No More A-Roving (1817)

Love, Soul

“I did almost everything not to be a candidate for the leadership of this party. I was so very reluctant because I know my limitations. Whatever charisma is, I don't have it. Whatever glamour may be, I don't think anyone could ever associate me with it. I am standing for the leadership not as a result of calculation; I am standing with the burning desire to transform our country. Because my heart tells me that if we are bold, if we refuse to settle for business as usual, if we dare to dream and summon up all the qualities that have made this country the greatest in the world, then for Britain - and its people - our best days lie ahead.”

Michael Gove (1967) British politician

Announcing his candidacy to be Tory leader and Prime Minister http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36679741 (1 July 2016) 2016

People, Lie, World, Dreams

“Dances an endless illusion, A woman of desire endures in my heart, I wait, O! Almighty cut the net of passion, You are the ultimate Source of light. Gitamohanam,(spiritual Hymns)”

Manmohan Acharya (1967–2013) Poet, lyricist

Hymn-16, verse-2
Spiritual Hymns (2001)

Light, Passion, Waiting, Dance

“Her style looks absurdly simple — an effortless act of projection, a serpentine lasso whereby her voice casually winds itself around our most vulnerable fantasies. But it is not easy. It is what remains when ingratiation, sentimentality and the manifold devices of heart-warming crap have been ruthlessly pared away. Steel and silk are left, shining and durable.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

"Marlene Dietrich" (1967), p. 215
Profiles (1990)

“From one moment to another one can lose heart.”

Patrick Modiano (1945) French writer

Source: Honey Moon (1990), P. 89

“Tis not Wit merely, but a Temper which must form the Well-Bred Man. In the same manner, 'tis not a Head merely, but a Heart and Resolution which must compleat the real Philosopher.”

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713) English politician and Earl

Vol. 2, p. 206; "Miscellany III".
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711)

“Smith distinguishes with great sophistication the different kinds of reasons people have in taking an interest in the lives of others, separating out sympathy, generosity, public spirit and other motivations. Even though he acknowledged the role of mental attitudes and predispositions, he went on to discuss how reasoning, which is at the heart of rationality, must have a big role in preventing us from being – consciously or unconsciously – too self-centred, or thoughtlessly uncaring.”

Amartya Sen (1933) Indian economist

“Values and justice”, Journal of Economic Methodology, Vol. 19, No. 2, June 2012, 101–108
2010s, “Values and Justice”, 2012

People, Motivation

“The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.”

Willa Cather book The Professor's House

Book I, Ch. 8
The Professor's House (1925)

Relationship

“I should be inexcusable, considering the share I have formerly had in that unhappy business, if, upon this occasion, I should omit to mention the African slave-trade. I do not rank this amongst our national sins, because I hope, and believe, a very great majority of the nation earnestly long for its suppression. But, hitherto, petty and partial interest prevail against the voice of justice, humanity and truth. This enormity, however, is not sufficiently laid to heart. If you are justly shocked by what you hear of the cruelties practised in France, you would, perhaps, be shocked much more, if you could fully conceive of the evils and miseries inseparable from this traffic, which I apprehend, not from hearsay, but from my own observation, are equal in atrocity, and, perhaps superior in number, in the course of a single year, to any or all the worst actions which have been known in France since the commencement of their revolution. There is a cry of blood against us; a cry accumulated by the accession of fresh victims, of thousands, of scores of thousands, I had almost said of hundreds of thousands, from year to year.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

As quoted in The Works of the Rev. John Newton... to which are Prefixed Memoirs of His Life (1839), Vol. 2, U. Hunt, pages 429-230.

Truth, Justice, Hope, Business

“I thought I was in love
A couple of times before
With the girl next door.
But that was long before I met you.
Now I'm sure that I won't forget you.
And I thank my lucky stars
That you are who you are.
And not just another lovely lady
Sent down to break my heart.”

James Taylor (1948) American singer-songwriter and guitarist

"Your Smiling Face"
Song lyrics, JT (1977)

Love, Girl, Star, Time

“The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch. (You perceive I employ a capital initial in the pronoun referring to the Deity; don't you think there is a slight dash of flunkeyism in that usage?)”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (June 1, 1851).

Men, God, Fear, Thinking

“Our Country,—whether bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described, and be the measurements more or less,—still our Country, to be cherished in all our hearts, to be defended by all our hands.”

Robert Charles Winthrop (1809–1894) American politician

Toast at Faneuil Hall on the Fourth of July, 1845. Compare: "Our country! in her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong", Stephen Decatur (1779–1820), toast offered by at a public dinner at Norfolk, Va., April, 1816.

Country

“O poor heart, I was doomed from the start,
Doomed to play the villian's part,
I was the baddest Johnny in the apple cart,
My blood was blacker than the chambers of a dead nun's heart.”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), Up Jumped the Devil

Parting, Dead

“One relative felt that the story of my grandmother should not have been revealed. My grandmother was the woman (in The Kitchen God's Wife) who had been raped, forced to be a concubine, and finally killed herself. My mother, though, got equally angry at the relative and said, "For so many years, I carried this shame on my back, and my mother suffered, because she couldn't say anything to anybody." And she said, "It's not too late; tell the world, tell the world what happened to her."”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

And I take her mandate to be the one that is in my heart, the one that I should follow.
SALON Interview (1995)

God, World, Suffering

“Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the victims. This isn't something that we take lightly. My comments were not meant to be ones that were taken lightly. What I was saying in a humorous vein is there are things happening that politicians need to pay attention to. It isn't everyday we have an earthquake in the United States.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

Bachmann Plays Down Comments Linking Disasters and Deficits
The Caucus
The New York Times
2011-08-29
Sarah
Wheaton
Trip
Gabriel
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/bachmann-plays-down-comments-linking-disasters-and-deficits/
2011-09-03
asked about her "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians" remarks after her rally
2010s

Family

“Pain and penitence forsaking,
Hearts like cloisters dim and grey,
By your laughter lured, awaking
Join with you the dance of day.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

Pain, Laughter, Dance

“Must one have a heart of stone to read The Ballad of Reading Gaol without laughing? (In life, practically no one ever gets to kill the thing he hates, much less loves.) And did not De Profundis plumb for all time the shallows of the most reported love affair of the past hundred years, rivalling even that of Wallis and David, its every nuance (O Bosie!) known to all, while trembling rosy lips yet form, over and over again, those doom-laden syllables The Cadogan Hotel?”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Oscar Wilde. Yet again. Why?
Opening lines to "Oscar Wilde: On the Skids Again"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Love, Life, Hate, Time

“How is it possible for me to thank God in my heart for the food he gives me and for life, while every morsel I eat I earn with my toil and even suffering? There may be a Providence for the rich man, but every poor man must be his own Providence. As for the value of life, we poor folks don’t live for ourselves at all; we live for other people. I often wonder if the rich man who owns great blocks of stock in the road and reckons his wealth in the millions does not sometimes think, as he sits at his well-filled table and looks at the happy faces of his children, of the poor car driver who toils for his benefit for a dollar and ninety cents a day, and is lucky if he tastes meat twice a week and can give the little ones at home warm clothes and blankets for the winter.”

Jack Finney book Time and Again

Source: Time and Again (1970), Chapter 17 (p. 252)

Life, God, Happiness, Children

“The human heart is a wide moor under a dull sky, with voices of invisible birds calling in the distance.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 5 (1919), The Human Heart

Bird

“With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with which I recovered him might have been that of catching him in his fall. I caught him, yes, I held him—it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.”

Henry James book The Turn of the Screw

Source: The Turn of the Screw (1898), Ch. XXIV

Feeling, Imagination, Passion, Loss

“All day the heat had been barely supportable but at evening a breeze arose in the West, blowing from the heart of the setting sun and from the ocean, which lay unseen, unheard behind the scrubby foothills. It shook the rusty fringes of palm-leaf and swelled the dry sounds of summer, the frog-voices, the grating cicadas, and the ever present pulse of music from the neighbouring native huts.”

Evelyn Waugh book The Loved One

First lines
The Loved One (1948)

Music, Support, Sun, Summer

“The life-boat may have a tasteful bend and beautiful decoration, but these are not the qualities for which I prize it; it was my salvation from the howling sea! So the interest which a regenerate soul takes in the Bible, is founded on a personal application to the heart of the saving truth which it contains.”

James Waddel Alexander (1804–1859) American Presbyterian minister and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 30.

Life, Truth, Beauty, Soul

“When a woman's heart is flowing over for the first time with deep and passionate love, she is all love. Every faculty of her soul rushes together in the intensity of the one feeling; thought, reflection, conscience, duty, the past, the future, they are names to her light as the breath which speaks them; her soul is full.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

Arthur's commentary
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)

Love, Feeling, Soul, Light

“The constitution as agreed to till a fortnight before the convention rose was such a one as he could have set his hand and heart to.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Discussion with Jefferson (1792)

“My mother, my dad and I left Cuba when I was two [January, 1959]. Castro had taken control by then, and life for many ordinary people had become very difficult. My dad had worked [as a personal bodyguard for the wife of Cuban president Batista], so he was a marked man. We moved to Miami, which is about as close to Cuba as you can get without being there. It's a Cuba-centric society. I think a lot of Cubans moved to the US thinking everything would be perfect. Personally, I have to say that those early years were not particularly happy. A lot of people didn't want us around, and I can remember seeing signs that said: "No children. No pets. No Cubans." Things were not made easier by the fact that Dad had begun working for the US government. At the time he couldn't really tell us what he was doing, because it was some sort of top-secret operation. He just said he wanted to fight against what was happening back at home. [Estefan's father was one of the many Cuban exiles taking part in the ill-fated, anti-Castro Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow dictator Fidel Castro. ] One night, Dad disappered. I think he was so worried about telling my mother he was going that he just left her a note. There were rumours something was happening back home, but we didn't really know where Dad had gone. It was a scary time for many Cubans. A lot of men were involved -- lots of families were left without sons and fathers. By the time we found out what my dad had been doing, the attempted coup had taken place, on April 17, 1961. Intitially he'd been training in Central America, but after the coup attempt he was captured and spent the next wo years as a political prisoner in Cuba. That was probably the worst time for my mother and me. Not knowing what was going to happen to Dad. I was only a kid, but I had worked out where my dad was. My mother was trying to keep it a secret, so she used to tell me Dad was on a farm. Of course, I thought that she didn't know what had really happened to him, so I used to keep up the pretence that Dad really was working on a farm. We used to do this whole pretending thing every day, trying to protect each other. Those two years had a terrible effect on my mother. She was very nervous, just going from church to church. Always carrying her rosary beads, praying her little heart out. She had her religion, and I had my music. Music was in our family. My mother was a singer, and on my father's side there was a violinist and a pianist. My grandmother was a poet.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

The [London] Sunday Times (November 17, 2006)
2007, 2008

Life, Men, Fate, Happiness

“We talk about world peace. Peace needs to be in the heart of every human being because that is where it belongs. The world would not have half its problems if we understood what we need to understand within us. I come with no solution to the world's problems. I come with nothing new to tell you. Instead, I come to tell you one of the things you have known for the longest time. That which you are looking for, that which you love and admire, is within you.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Wembley Stadium, England, June 22, 1997
1990s

Love, World, Peace, Understanding

“So live, my boys, as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.”
Quocirca vivite fortes, fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus

Horace book Satires

Book II, Satire II, Line 135-136 (trans. E. C. Wickham)
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)

Men, Boy

“Rochester: Yes, that's the spot all right. You almost had a heart attack when they laughed at Bob Hope.”

Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor

The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)

Hope

“When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.”

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

10 December 1824
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)

“One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Columbus (1844)

Life, World, Time

“[re the human heart] That little electric twitch: without it we're so much rotting meat.”

John Updike book Rabbit at Rest

Rabbit at Rest (1990)

“I wrote it about a friend of mine who married his high school sweet heart. They had a baby together and one day, when the baby was about four months old, my friends wife was driving down the road by herself, pulled over to the side and she just died in her car.”

Tommy Lee (1962) American drummer

(About a track on his solo album) http://www.malibumag.com/onlinemagazine/junejuly05/tommylee.htm.

School, Cars, Baby

“I'm trying to go through moral crisis myself to the highest degree that I can, to remove moral crisis from the visual vocabulary of the viewer, so that when somebody sees my work, the only thing that they see is the Sacred Heart of Jesus”

Jeff Koons (1955) American artist

Jeff Koons, ‎San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, ‎Walker Art Center (1992). Jeff Koons. p. 103
1990s and later

“This is the last time I'm asking you this,
Put my name at the top of your lips.
This is the last time I'm asking you why
You break my heart in the blink of an eye, eye, eye.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

The Last Time, written by Taylor Swift, Gary Lightbody, and Jacknife Lee.
Song lyrics, Red (2012)

Time

“In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!" At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Autobiography (1873)

Life, Happiness, Question, Change

“Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Cecilia
Song lyrics, Bridge over Troubled Water (1970)

Home, Confidence

“Indeed, there is a moment on the first CD — the electrifying opening to "I Got Loaded," which sounds like an R&B standard but isn’t — when you might find yourself asking whether anyone who has ever been smitten by pop music can fail to have his heart stopped by the chords, the swing, and, once again, Steve Berlin’s wonderfully greasy sax.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

On the Los Lobos boxed set El Cancionero, from Songbook, published in England as 31 Songs (2003)

Music

“The plaintiff cannot dive into the secret recesses of his (the defendant's) heart.”

John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly (1802–1874) English Whig politician and judge

In Re Ward (1862), 31 Beav. 7.

Secret

“I know the basic facts cause they’ve been repeated again and again across various duty desk counters at police stations over the past months and years: I’m 6ft 2in, green-brown eyes. Distinguishing features: moles. Tattoos: loads. Got a wolf, a mermaid, a heart with a K in it. They don’t go through your personality traits.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

When asked how he sees himself, The Sunday Times, May 14, 2006
Definitions and objects

Wolf, Past, Tattoo, Personality

“I feel that these old Northmen wore looking into Nature with open eye and soul: most earnest, honest; childlike, and yet manlike; with a great-hearted simplicity and depth and freshness, in a true, loving, admiring, unfearing way.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Love, Way, Feeling, Soul

“Credomancy may seek to exploit the human desire for a tidy narrative where an unblemished romantic hero vanquishes all obstacles, but such ideals have very little to do with reality. Reality requires pragmatism and compromise. Men fail. Women fail. There are no heroes, only human beings who somehow find the strength to behave heroically, no matter how many times they have been unable to do so in the past. If you understand that, Miss Edwards—if you truly and deeply understand that, then you will understand the most powerful thing anyone with a heart can understand.”

M. K. Hobson (1969) American writer

“And what’s that?” Emily said softly.
“That love is not enough. But it’s a start.”
Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 19, “The Ruined Woman” (p. 291)

Love, Women, Men, Understanding

“Before we try to destroy someone else, we should first pass judgment on ourselves. Before finding fault with others, we must first pass judgment upon ourselves. Before we backbite others, we must first pass judgment upon our selves. Before we lie about others, we must first judge ourselves. Before we hurt the heart of another, we must first pass judgment on ourselves. Like that, we have to pass judgment on our thoughts and on all actions done by our eyes, ears, nose, hands, and mouth. The guilty ones are within our own body and mind. These are our qualities which exist in our actions. All these qualities exist within us, do they not? So we have to pass judgment on them. That is the state of Iman-Islam. That is what is called Islam. To first see the fault in yourself and then to pass judgment and correct yourself is true justice. Those who perform that justice are in the religion of truth. They are the leaders of the religion of truth. They are in the state of Iman-Islam. They are the true believers.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Benefit to All (undated)

Truth, Lie, Religion, Justice

“I had a very traditional background. My parents are neat people. I'm lucky to have been raised in the most beautiful place -- Amherst, Massachusetts, state of my heart. I'm more patriotic to Massachusetts than to almost any place.”

Uma Thurman (1970) American actress and model

Interview with Laura Yorke. Reader's Digest. July 2006

People, Beauty, Parent

“Christ declared. Sathya means Truth. 'He will wear a robe of red, a blood-red robe.' (Here the baba pointed to the red colored robe he happened to be wearing that day!). He will be short, with a crown (here he points to his hair). The lamb is the sign and symbol of love. Christ did not declare that he will come again, he said, 'He who made me will come again.' That ba ba (bleating of the sheep or lamb) is this Baba, and Sai, the short, curly-hair-crowned red-robed Baba, is come. He is not only this Form, but, he is every one of you, as the Dweller in the Heart.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 11, p. 346

Love, Truth, Color, Christ

“I do not understand these men who tell me that the prospect of the yonder side of death has never tormented them, that the thought of their own annihilation never disquiets them. For my part I do not wish to make peace between my heart and my head, between my faith and my reason — I wish rather that there should be war between them.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss

Death, Men, War, Peace

“Merciful God, thou dost not answer me!
I made my choice on earth, and now my heart
Has no asylum. Ye decide for me,
And such a destiny is best.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Last Song of Corinne
Translations, From the French

God

“It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in—glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a Revolution! And what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Volume iii, p. 331
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Love, Life, Men, Age

“Whatever it was that darkened the love between the uncle and his niece, their quarrels became more violent and at the end of the summer of 1931 Geli announced that she was returning to Vienna to resume her voice studies. Hitler forbade her to go. The next morning Geli Raubal was found shot dead in her room. The coroner reported that a bullet had gone through her chest below the left shoulder and penetrated the heart; it seemed beyond doubt that the shot was self-inflicted. Yet for years afterward in Munich there was murky gossip that Geli Raubal had been murdered -- by Hitler in a rage, by Himmler to eliminate a situation that had become embarrassing to the party. But no credible evidence ever turned up to substantiate such rumors.”

William L. Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Source: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), pp. 131,132

Love, Study, Rage, Summer

“Conservatives — Republicans — are socialists.
True, they may desire to hold you down atop the stone altar and cut your still-beating heart out with an obsidian knife for a set of entirely different reasons — national security, Judaeo-Christian traditions, 'common' decency — than the liberals or 'progressives' or Democrats do, but to you, the important part is cutting your heart out with an obsidian knife, not whatever excuse they may offer for doing it.
This is why, no matter which political party happens to be in power, ordinary people — whose thinking and hard work maintain this civilization each and every day — never seem to get an even break with regard to their individual liberty or holding onto the fruits of their labor. It's why the late philosopher Robert LeFevre referred to Democrats and Republicans as 'Socialist Party A' and 'Socialist Party B.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"To Reduce Them Under Absolute Despotism".

People, Thinking, Parting

“When the root of your wrong is not from the heart, your wrong will make you to run to God the more.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On the root of sin - "TB Joshua Defends Oyakhilome" http://www.herald.ng/tb-joshua-defends-oyakhilome-dont-disagree-peoples-understanding-differs/#rGUiGU1sJDEPXQC4.99 The Herald, Nigeria (March 23 2014)

God

“I marvel at the stars, and feel my heart overflow.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Morning View (2001)

Feeling, Star

“I sighed in and I groaned out, so as to melt a certain pain around my heart. A steel ring like arthritis, at my age.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist

"An Interest in Life" (1959)

Pain, Age

“Japan is at the heart of India’s Look East Policy. It is also a key partner in our economic development and in our quest for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Asia and the world. Anchored in our shared values and interests, the partnership between a strong and economically resurgent Japan and a transforming and rapidly growing India can be an effective force of good for the region.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

On Japan, as quoted in "Media Statements of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe at the press event held after the annual India-Japan summit level meeting" http://mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?22782/Media+Statements+of+Prime+Minister+Dr+Manmohan+Singh+and+Prime+Minister+of+Japan+Shinzo+Abe+at+the+press+event+held+after+the+annual+IndiaJapan+summit+level+meeting, Ministry of External Affairs (25 January 2014) 2011-present

World, Peace, Strong, Partnership

“He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth — they, and they only.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 563.

Life, Men, Peace

“You who hear in scattered rhymes the sound of those sighs with which I nourished my heart during my first youthful error, when I was in part another man from what I am now.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse il suono
di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core
in sul mio primo giovenile errore
quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono.
Canzone 1, opening lines
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

Youth, Error, Parting

“We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian.”

Lionel Trilling (1905–1975) American academic

Notebook entry (1948), published in Partisan Review: 50th Anniversary Edition, ed. William Philips (1985)

Imagination

“You've got your ball,
You've got your chain.
Tied to me tight, tie me up again.
Who's got their claws
In you my friend?
Into your heart, I'll beat again.
Sweet like candy to my soul,
Sweet you rock
And sweet you roll.
Lost for you, I'm so lost for you.”

Dave Matthews (1967) American singer-songwriter, musician and actor

Crash into Me
Crash (1996)

Soul

“Like a drum my heart was beating,
And your kiss was sweet as wine,
But the joys of love are fleeting
For Pierrot and Columbine.”

Tom Springfield (1934) English musician, songwriter and record producer

Song The Carnival Is Over.

Love, Kiss, Wine, Joy

“It is unjust and absurd of those advancing in years, to expect of the young that confidence should come all and only on their side: the human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return.”

Maria Edgeworth book Helen

Helen (1834), ch. 7; Tales and Novels, vol. 19, p. 62.

Age, Confidence

“There cannot be a greater error than to suppose that the poet does not feel what he writes. What an extraordinary, I might say, impossible view, is this to take of an art more connected with emotion than any of its sister sciences. What — the depths of the heart are to be sounded, its mysteries unveiled, and its beatings numbered by those whose own heart is made by this strange doctrine — a mere machine wound up by the clock-work of rhythm! No; poetry is even more a passion than a power, and nothing is so strongly impressed on composition as the character of the writer. I should almost define poetry to be the necessity of feeling strongly in the first instance, and the as strong necessity of confiding in the second.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Art, Error, Feeling, Confidence

“Capitalism cannot be reduced to one or a few features, but it does possess one relationship, central to its existence and operation, that constitutes the essence of inequality and ineradicable instability: the wage-labor-capital connection that dwells at the heart of the system.”

Herbert Schiller (1919–2000) American media critic

Source: Living In The Number One Country (2000), Chapter Five, Corporatizing Communication And Culture, p. 132

“Laying here in the dark you're like an angel on my chest,
Just another tramp of hearts crying tears of faithlessness.
Remember all the movies, Terry, we'd go see?
Trying to learn how to walk like heroes we thought we had to be.
And after all this time to find we're just like all the rest,
Stranded in the park and forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets.
We swore forever friends on the backstreets until the end,
Hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets.”

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

"Backstreets"
Song lyrics, Born to Run (1975)

Angels, Tear, Learning, Time

“Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Table-Talk (1857)

Men, Beauty, Passion

“So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars!”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

America for Me http://www.potw.org/archive/potw308.html, st. 2 (1909)

Youth, Home, Star, Freedom

“Lord Jesus, engrave Thou Thy name with Thine own finger upon my heart, that it may remain closed to wordly joy and worldly pleasure, self-interest, fading honor, and low revenge, and open only to Thee.”

Christian Scriver (1629–1693) German hymnwriter

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 94.

Pleasure, Revenge, Joy

“I woke up in the middle of the night with the sound of heavy explosion. It was deep at night. I do not remember what time it was. I just remember the sound was so heavy and so very shocking. Everything in my room was shaking -- my heart, my windows, my bed, everything. I looked out the windows and I saw a full half-circle of explosion. I thought it was just like the movies, but the movies had not conveyed them in the powerful image that I was seeing full of bright red and orange and gray, and a full circle of explosion. And I kept on staring at it until it disappeared. I went back to my bed, and I prayed, and I secretly thanked God that that missile did not land on my family's home, that it did not kill my family that night. Thirty years have passed, and I still feel guilty about that prayer, for the next day, I learned that that missile landed on my brother's friend's home and killed him and his father, but did not kill his mother or his sister. His mother showed up the next week at my brother's classroom and begged seven-year-old kids to share with her any picture they may have of her son, for she had lost everything.”

Zainab Salbi (1969) Iraqi American author, women's rights activist

Speech at TEDGlobal 2010

God, Family, Feeling, Home

“And second, medical space research may revolutionize the technology and the techniques of modern medicine. Whatever new devices are created, for example, to monitor our astronauts, to measure their heart activity, their breathing, their brain waves, their eye motion, at great distances and under difficult conditions, will also represent a major advance in general medical instrumentation. Heart patients may even be able to wear a light monitor which will sound a warning if their activity exceeds certain limits. An instrument recently developed to record automatically the impact of acceleration upon an astronaut's eyes will also be of help to small children who are suffering miserably from eye defects, but are unable to describe their impairment. And also by the use of instruments similar to those used in Project Mercury, this Nation's private as well as public nursing services are being improved, enabling one nurse now to give more critically ill patients greater attention than they ever could in the past.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, President John F. Kennedy's last formal speech and public words

Children, Light, Suffering, Past

“As water flows from high to low, knowledge has always flowed from where there is more to where there is less. Those countries that are better at absorbing the knowledge inflow have been more successful in catching up with the more economically advanced nations. On the other side of the fence, those advanced nations that are good at controlling the outflow of core technologies have retained their technological leadership for longer. The technological 'arms race', between backward countries trying to acquire advanced foreign knowledge and the advanced countries trying to prevent its outflow has always been at the heart of the game of economic development.”

Ha-Joon Chang book Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

Source: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (2008), Ch. 6: 'Windows 98 in 1997; Is it wrong to 'borrow' ideas?', John Law and the first technological arms race, p. 127

Game, Knowledge, Water, Success

“There is sadness and confusion in our hearts / And the world prepares to fight / as it tears itself apart, it isn't fair”

Kim Wilde (1960) English pop singer

Schoolgirl
Another step (1986)

World, Sadness, Tear, Fight

“Accept these images for what they are —
Out of the past a fragile element
Of substance into accident.
I would speak honestly and of a full heart;
I would speak surely for the tale is short,
And the soul's remorseless catalogue
Assumes its quick and piteous sum.”

Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989) American poet, novelist, and literary critic

"San Francisco Night Windows"

Soul, Past

“When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as “the journey homeward to habitual self.” You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can: “Nobody marks us.” A scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate, it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The Weight of Glory (1949)

God, Pain, Secret, World

“He don't love you like I love you
If he did, he wouldn't break your heart
He don't love you like I love you
He's try-in' to tear us apart.”

Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999) American singer, songwriter, and record producer

He Will Break Your Heart, written with Jerry Butler and Calvin Carter, originally performed by Jerry Butler (1960).
Song lyrics

Love, Tear

“Vainly you talk about voting it down. When you have cast your millions of ballots, you have not reached the evil. It has fastened its root deep into the heart of the nation, and nothing but God’s truth and love can cleanse the land. We must change the moral sentiment.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country (October 22, 1847), Delivered at Market Hall, New York City, New York.
1840s, Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country (1847)

Love, God, Truth, Evil

“The question poses itself whether we should look on with folded arms while those Germans of the Baltic countries who, despite all the persecution, all the misery and all the difficulties have stuck to the German language and German culture, are being slaughtered…It would be incomprehensible if we, who have exerted ourselves for the freedom of ethnically foreign nations, failed to let our hearts beat first of all for the Balts, who are our own flesh and blood…If to-day you go to Riga or Mitau, you will be confronted by such a pure, unadulterated Germanism that sometimes you would wish it could be united with Germany…When, in addition to Courland, we have also occupied Latvia and Estonia, then I hope that the day will also come when this old German soil will lie under the protection of the great Reich…This does not mean annexation of these territories. But it does mean a free Baltic in close dependence on Germany, under our military, moral, political, and cultural protection. I think it would be one of the finest aims of this world war if we could merge this piece of loyal Germanism with ourselves as intimately as it desires to be merged…The Baltic Germans have completely preserved their German culture: a shining example for the Americanized grandchildren of German grandfathers.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Speech in the Reichstag (19 February 1918), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), pp. 149-150.
1910s

War, Lie, World, Hope