Quotes about heart (8745 quotes, page 60)

“The denial of ourselves which Christ has so diligently commanded his disciples from the beginning will at last dominate all the desires of our heart.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 28.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Christ

“What every man who loves his country hopes for in his inmost heart: the suppression of half his compatriots.”

Emil M. Cioran book History and Utopia

History and Utopia (1960)

Love , Hope , Country

“We can now return to the NCERT guideline which proclaims that the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in medieval India shall be regarded as political rather than religious. There is no justification for such a characterisation of the conflict. The Muslims at least were convinced that they were waging a religious war against the Hindu infidels. The conflict can be regarded as political only if the NCERT accepts the very valid proposition that Islam has never been a religion, and that it started and has remained a political ideology of terrorism with unmistakable totalitarian trends and imperialist ambitions. The first premises as well as the procedures of Islam bear a very close resemblance to those of Communism and Nazism. Allah is only the predecessor of the Forces of Production invoked by the Communists, and of the Aryan Race invoked by the Nazis.
My heart sinks at the very idea of such a sinister scheme being sponsored by an educational agency set up by the government of a democratic country. It is an insidious attempt at thought-control and brainwashing. Having been a student of these processes in Communist countries, I have a strong suspicion that this document has also sprung from the same sort of mind. This mind has presided for long over the University Grants Commission and other educational institutions, and has been aided and abetted by the residues of Islamic imperialism masquerading as secularists.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

War , Education , Religion , Communication

“No more stress, now I'm straight
Now I get it, now I take time to think
Before I make mistakes just for my family's sake
part of me left yesterday
The heart of me is strong today
No regrets I'm blessed to say that old me dead and gone away”

T.I. (1980) American rapper, record producer, actor, and businessman from Georgia

"Dead and Gone".

Family , Thinking , Strong , Time

“I'll sing a song of love so sweet, so blessed
with harmonious sounds, so true to the name
of love (with two thousand examples), it will enflame
even those with dead hearts in their chest.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente,
Por uns termos em si tão concertados,
Que dois mil acidentes namorados
Faça sentir ao peito que não sente.
Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 128
Lyric poetry, Sonnets, Eu cantarei de amor tão docemente

Love , Singing , Dead

“This painting, this work you miss so much [the two sisters Morisot painted a lot together] is a cause of much trouble and concern, you know this as well as I do and yet, child that you are, you are already weeping for the loss of the very thing that darkened you mood only recently. Think of it, yours is not the very worst lot: you have a real affection, a devoted heart that is yours an yours alone, do not be ungrateful for the dealings of fate, think of the great sorrow that is solitude; whatever anyone says or does, womankind has immense need of affection; to want to retreat into yourself is to attempt the impossible.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

in Berthe's letter to her sister Edma, c. 1870; as cited in The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot, ed. Denis Rouart; Camden, London 1986 / Kinston, R. I. Moyer Bell, 1989, p. 29
1860 - 1870

Fate , Mood , Thinking , Solitude

“Sometimes it takes a decision, an act of the will, a step of faith, to be joyful—and then God can plant something real and abiding in our hearts.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 63.
On Choosing to be Joyful

God , Faith , Decision

“The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God and after conversion to keep it with Him.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

A Saint Indeed

God

“What has been called Christianity has been a disturber of the public peace in all countries and at all times. Nothing has so alienated nations, nothing has so destroyed the natural justice of mankind, as what has been known as religion. The idea that all men must worship the same God, believe the same dogmas, has for thousands of years plucked with bloody hands the flower of pity from the human heart.”

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

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

Men , God , Peace , Religion

“Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday / I've got a lot of things to learn
What's the matter with you? / Sing me something new
The cold and wind and rain don't know / They only seem to come, and go away
Stand by me / Nobody knows the way it's going to be
There is one thing I can never give you / My heart will never be your home”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Stand By Me
Be Here Now (1997)

Way , Home , Learning , Singing

“The figure [neo-roman writers] wish to hold out for our admiration is described again and again. He is plain and plain-hearted; he is upright and full of integrity; above all he is a man of true manliness, of dependable valour and fortitude. His virtues are repeatedly contrasted with the vices characteristic of the obnoxious lackeys and parasites who flourish at court. The courtier, instead of being plain and plain-hearted, is lewd, dissolute and debauched; instead of being upright, he is cringing, servile and base; instead of being brave, he is fawning, abject and lacking in manliness.”

Quentin Skinner (1940) British historian

Source: Liberty Before Liberalism (1998), pp. 95-96

Dependency

“And what is the point of this story?
What information pertains?
The thought that life could be better
Is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Train In The Distance
Song lyrics, Hearts and Bones (1983)

Life

“Better heresy of doctrine than heresy of heart.”

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery

Mary Garvin, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“He was magnificent, and I will never forget that in that moment, I first loved him. And I never stopped loving him. I do now and always will. No one ever brought me more sorrow or pain or joy than he did. No, nothing, not even my sons, has ever outweighed the love I feel and still feel for him. And I believe – had I known what the future held for us: all the trouble, torment, battle, and grief of our lives – I still believe that I would have yielded my heart into his keeping as I did then”

Alice Borchardt book The Dragon Queen

The Dragon Queen

Love , Pain , Feeling , Future

“Once upon a very long time ago, in the time of Glaux, there was an order of knightly owls, from a kingdom called Ga'Hoole, who would rise up each night and perform noble deeds. They spoke no words but true ones, their purpose was to right all wrongs, to make strong the weak, mend the broken, vanquish the proud, and make powerless those who abused the frail. With hearts sublime they would take flight…”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Noctus, Kludd's father, telling a legend of Ga'Hoole, repeated throughout the series; Chapter One: "A Nest Remembered", p. 14
The Capture (2003)

Strong , Time , Night

“Every one who has a heart and eyes sees that you, working men, are obliged to pass your lives in want and in hard labor, which is useless to you, while other men, who do not work, enjoy the fruits of your labor—that you are the slaves of these men, and that this ought not to exist.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

"To the Working People," Complete Works, trans. Leo Wiener, Vol 24, p. 129 (1905)

Men

“You can be excellent in every way. You can be first class. There is no need for you to be a scrub. Respect yourself. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Do not dwell on unkind things others may say about you. Polish and refine whatever talents the Lord has given you. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life and look for its opportunities.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

How Can I Become the Woman of Whom I Dream? Ensign, May 2001, 93.

Love , Life , Smile , Way

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”

Louis Nizer (1902–1994) American lawyer

Between You and Me, Beechurst Press, 1948.

“With that she dasht her on the lippes,
So dyed double red:
Hard was the heart that gave the blow,
Soft were those lips that bled.”

William Warner (1558–1609) English poet

Albion’s England (published 1612), Book viii. chap. xli. stanza 53.

“As Oliver Cromwell said to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken." Life and the affairs of the living are so tangled, the world not only stranger than we imagine but stranger than we can imagine, that all questions are conundrums, no answers "correct." Is it certain that parallel lines never meet? No. Does water freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit? Only probably. Shall I marry? Who can say? And yet the world's work must be done. One Oblomov is enough. Thus we learn a conventional certitude, acting as though all were light by blinking the shadow. A simple proof demonstrates that parallel lines do meet, but, on the assumption that they do not, the architect builds the skyscraper. Despite his knowledge of statistical mechanics, the engineer designs the refrigerator to maintain a constant temperature of 31 degrees. Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas [the heart has its reasons that reason does not know], and families are raised.”

Irving Younger (1932–1988) American lawyer

Some of My Life

Life , World , Family , Imagination

“In a paper belonging to the Spectator there is a short description of a country wake. "I found," says the author, "a ring of cudgel-players, who were breaking one another's heads in order to make some impression on their mistresses' hearts."…to this he adds another curious pastime, as a kind of Christmas gambol, which he had seen also; that is, a yawning match for a Cheshire cheese; the sport began about midnight, when the whole company were disposed to be drowsy; and he that yawned the widest, and at the same time most naturally, so as to produce the greatest number of yawns from the spectators, obtained the cheese.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 369
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Country wakes

Nature , Sport , Time , Christmas

“You ask a thing ill-suited to my years, to yours both offensive and disgusting. For how can it become me, who am near forty, to write of love, or you, that are in your fifties, to read of it That is a subject which delights young minds, and demands a tender heart. Old men are as fitted to tales of love as young men are to tales of prudence. Nor is there anything uglier than old age pursuing love, but lacking strength. Certainly you will sometimes find old men in love,—loved again, never; matrons and girls alike despise old age. No man’s love will hold a woman, but his whom she has seen in the flower of his youth. And if you hear aught to the contrary, there’s a lie behind it. Indeed I know, to write of love does not beseem me, who have already passed the noonday of life and am carried on towards evening; but it dishonours you who ask no less than me who write.”

Pope Pius II book The Tale of Two Lovers

Source: The Tale of Two Lovers, 1444, p. xvii, preface (in 1933 edition)

Love , Life , Men , Lie

“We have lost the old love of work, of work which kept itself company, which was fair weather and music in the heart, which found its reward in the doing, craving neither the flattery of vulgar eyes nor the gold of vulgar men.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 21

Love , Men , Music , Weather

“They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice.”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

46
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I

Justice , Help

“The human heart is a meadow full of fireflies, a summer western sky of shimmering distant lightnings, a shore set round with flashing lighthouses, far-away voices calling that we cannot understand.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

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

Understanding , Distant , Summer

“Orpheus melted the heart of Persephone, but I never had yours
I followed you back to the end of the path, but I never found the door”

Zooey Deschanel (1980) American actress, musician, and singer-songwriter

"Don't Look Back" - Video at Vimeo http://vimeo.com/18915786
Volume Two (2010)

“E'en here the tear of pity springs,
And hearts are touched by human things.”

John Conington (1825–1869) British classical scholar

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 23

Spring , Tear

“Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love,
And, when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between and bid us part?”

James Thomson (poet) (1700–1748) Scottish writer (1700-1748)

To Fortune; song reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love , Parting

“Bert Williams has done more for the race than I have. He has smiled his way into people's hearts. I have been obliged to fight my way.”

Bert Williams (1874–1922) American comedian and actor

Booker T. Washington http://www.duboislc.org/ShadesOfBlack/BertWms.html
About

People , Smile , Way , Fight

“What a man! I have lost my heart! … If I were Italian, I am sure I would have been with you entirely from the beginning of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passion of Leninism. … Your movement has rendered a service to the whole world. The greatest fear that ever tormented every Democratic or Socialist leader was that of being outbid or surpassed by some other leader more extreme than himself. It has been said that a continual movement to the Left, a kind of fatal landslide toward the abyss, has been the character of all revolutions. Italy has shown that there is a way to combat subversive forces.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Benito Mussolini and Italian Fascism, in a press statement from Rome (20 January 1927), quoted in Churchill by Himself : The Definitive Collection of Quotations (2011) by Richard Langworth, p. 169
Early career years (1898–1929)

World , Fear , Way , Passion

“Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily…”

Wilhelm Reich book Listen, Little Man!

Listen, Little Man! (1948)

Life , Soul , Time

“There is a grand fearlessness in faith. He who in his heart of hearts reverences the good, the true, the holy — that is, reverences God — does not tremble at the apparent success of attacks upon the outworks of faith. They may shake those who rest on those outworks — they do not move him whose soul reposes on the truth itself. He needs no prop or crutches to support his faith. Founded on a Rock, Faith can afford to gaze undismayed at the approaches of Infidelity.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 221.

God , Truth , Faith , Soul

“O world, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes,
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.
Columbus found a world, and had no chart,
Save one that faith deciphered in the skies;
To trust the soul’s invincible surmise
Was all his science and his only art.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

O World, Thou Choosest Not http://www.bartleby.com/236/270.html (1894)
Other works

Wisdom , World , Faith , Art

“Thus if just once you tasted
the thousandth part of joy's flavor,
savor from a loving and beloved heart,
repentently you'd say:
"Lost is all that time
I didn't spend in love!"”

Torquato Tasso Aminta

Forse, se tu gustassi anco una volta
La millesima parte de la gioie
Che gusta un cor amato riamando,
Diresti, ripentita, sospirando:
Perduto è tutto il tempo
Che in amar non si spende.
Act I, scene i, lines 26–31.
Variant translations:
All time is truly lost and gone
Which is not spent in serving love.
All time is lost that is not spent in love.
Lost is all the time that you don't spend in love.
Aminta (1573)

Love , Time , Joy , Parting

“And yet I will venture to believe that in no time, since the beginnings of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions of toilers so entirely unbearable as it is even in the days now passing over us. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men must die,—the last exit of us all is in a Fire-Chariot of Pain. But it is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt in with a cold universal Laissez-faire: it is to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, Infinite Injustice, as in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull! This is and remains forever intolerable to all men whom God has made. Do we wonder at French Revolutions, Chartisms, Revolts of Three Days? The times, if we will consider them, are really unexampled.”

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

1840s, Past and Present (1843)

Life , Men , Hunger , God

“More painful to me are the thoughts of annihilation than death. If I have no expectation of seeing my father, mother, brothers, sisters and friends again, my heart would burst in a moment, and I should go down to my grave. The expectation of seeing my friends in the morning of the resurrection cheers my soul and makes me bear up against the evils of life. It is like their taking a long journey, and on their return we meet them with increased joy.”

Joseph Smith, Jr. book History of the Church

History of the Church, 5:362 (16 April 1843)
1840s

Life , Death , Pain , Soul

“What does it matter if, by following my heart, I also fulfill someone else’s plan?”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 100
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), Teacher's Pest

“How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
When memory plays an old tune on the heart!”

Eliza Cook (1818–1889) British writer

Old Dobbin, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Memory

“I had a barbecue stain on my white T-shirt.
She was killin' me in that mini-skirt.
Skipping rocks on the river by the railroad tracks.
She had a suntan line and red lipstick.
I work so hard for that first kiss and a heart don't forget, something like that.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Something Like That
Song lyrics, A Place in the Sun (1999)

Kiss , Forgetting

“If mankind were all intellect, they would be continually changing, so that one age would be entirely unlike another. The great conservative is the heart, which remains the same in all ages; so that commonplaces of a thousand years' standing are as effective as ever.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

January 1854
Notebooks, The English Notebooks (1853 - 1858)

Age , Change

“Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no more
To thee, God's daughter, powerful as God,
It is that thou hast made my life too sweet
To hold the added sweetness of a song.
There is a quiet at the heart of love,
And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"Sappho"
Helen of Troy and Other Poems (1911)

Love , Life , God , Pain

“He is a cool cat. I was surprised when he had a heart problem…People think my film with Mani, ‘Nayakan’, is my best work. To an extent it's true. But I'd like to think my best is yet to come.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

About Mani Ratnam, his son-in-law
Aamir's choice of films makes Kamal Haasan happy

People , Cats , Problem , Thinking

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes.

Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet

II, xxxiii, 43.
Elegies

Missing You , Relationship

“Love Christ, and then the eternity in the heart will not be a great aching void, but will be filled with the everlasting life which Christ gives and is.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 397.

Love , Life , Christ

“Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Blood Meridian (1985)

World

“Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot.
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got.
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill.
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

I Go to Extremes.
Song lyrics, Storm Front (1989)

Feeling , Thinking

“Perhaps the heart of the American Dream was found in the search.”

William McKeen (1954) American academic

Source: Outlaw Journalist (2008), Chapter 11, Making A Beast Of Himself, p. 175

Dreams , Search

“And every word that you speak makes my heart sing when it's weak for often this outlook on life can be bleak.”

Ed Harcourt (1977) British musician

Bittersweetheart

Life , Singing

“Alas! alas! how plague-spot like will sin
Spread over the wrung heart it enters in!”

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

Title poem, section VIII.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“On thy wither’d lips and dry,
Which like barren furrows lie,
Brooding kisses I will pour,
Shall thy youthful heart restore.
(Such kind showers in autumn fall,
And a second spring recall);
Nor from thee will ever part,
Ancient Person of my Heart.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

A Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover, ll. 7-14.
Other

Lie , Youth , Spring , Autumn

“You always break the kindest heart
With a hasty word you can't recall,
So if I broke your heart last night
It's because I love you most of all.”

Doris Fisher (1915–2003) American musician

Song You Always Hurt the One You Love

Love , Night

“Yes I have spoken on Gandhi ji’s Vaishnav Jan bhajan at many places. In fact, I used to deliver hour-long speeches describing why Gandhi ji loved this bhajan. If we think carefully and dwell on each word of this song, composed 500 years ago, we will find that everything said in it is still relevant, especially for our public life. He speaks against corruption and importance of personal integrity. In short, it is a manifesto for public life and morality. So, I worked around the words and would say: … "A people’s representative is one who feels the pain of others; one who removes the sorrows of others and yet does not let a trace of pride or arrogance come into his heart."
This used to be part of my worker development programmes. I used to analyse each line of this bhajan and explain why Gandhi ji promoted these values in public life; it contains all the wisdom you need for public life. It is a great misfortune for our country that this bhajan is played only on October 2 at Rajghat. It should have become an instrument of inculcating moral values. Gandhi ji liked this bhajan because Gandhi’s DNA and the elements of this geet match each other. I hold it up as a model of conduct for our party and RSS workers. In the RSS, there is an old tradition of remembering this bhajan every morning. Their pratah smaran (morning remembrance) starts with Gandhi ji’s name.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

Narendra Modi quoted from Kishwar, Madhu (2014). Modi, Muslims and media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat. p.379-380
2013

Love , Life , Wisdom , Pain

“We must turn inwards to search deep within ourselves. “Is my heart still vibrant with life? Can I still experience the source of love and compassion within me? Does my heart still melt at the pain and sorrow of others? Have I cried along with those who are suffering? Have I really tried to wipe another’s tears to console them or given someone at least a single meal or a set of clothing?” Like this, we can honestly introspect. Then the soothing moonlight of compassion will spontaneously shine within our minds.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

Compassion: The Only Way to Peace (2007)

Love , Life , Pain , Search

“Do you solemnly swear to serve the Republic in thought, in word, and in deed; to defend its citizens, resist its enemies, and champion its justice with the whole of your heart, your strength, and your mind; to foreswear all other allegiances; to obey all lawful orders of your superior officers; to uphold the highest ideals of the Republic, and at all times to conduct yourself to the credit of the Republic as its commissioned officer, by witness of, aid from, and faith in the force?”

Matthew Stover book Shatterpoint

Mace Windu's Oath of Office, p. 213
Shatterpoint (2004)

Faith , Justice , Law , Time

“Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.”

Robert South (1634–1716) English theologian

"On the Danger of Presumptuous Sins", in Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions (1727), Vol. 3, p. 291.

“Life is a waste of wearisome hours
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

O! think not my spirits are always as light, st. 1
Irish Melodies http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html (1807–1834)

Life , Flowers

“King Aillas talks softly and with great politeness; he has the uncomfortable skill of calling one a false-hearted blackguard, a liar, a cheat and a villain, but making it seem a fulsome compliment.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 6, section 5 (p. 807)

Cheating , Falseness

“Acceptance is right. Kindness is right. Love is right. I pray, right now, that we're moving into a kinder time when prejudice is overcome by understanding; when narrow-mindedness, and narrow-minded bigotry is overwhelmed by open-hearted empathy; when the pain of judgmentalism is replaced by the purity of love.”

Janet Jackson (1966) singer from the United States

Acceptance speech of a humanitarian award from the Human Rights Campaign, as quoted in an [ AP report (19 June 2005), and "SHe said" Issue 1325 Between The Lines News (23 June 2005) http://www.pridesource.com/article.html?article=14760

Love , Pain , Understanding , Time

“As when around the clear bright moon, the stars
Shine in full splendor, and the winds are hush'd,
The groves, the mountain-tops, the headland-heights
Stand all apparent, not a vapor streaks
The boundless blue, but ether open'd wide
All glitters, and the shepherd's heart is cheer'd.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Book VIII, line 643.

Mountain , Star

“He ploughs the waves, sows the sand, and hopes to gather the wind in a net, who places his hopes on the heart of woman.”

Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530) Italian writer

Ne l'onde solca, e ne l'arena semina,
E'l vago vento spera in rete accogliere
Chi sue speranze fonda in cor di femina.
Ecloga Octava; "Plough the sands" found in Juvenal, Satires, VII. Jeremy Taylor, Discourse on Liberty of Prophesying (1647), Introduction.

Hope

“When I say that we owe nothing to England, I speak in regards of politics, for I am convinced, and I shall die with this conviction, that the Union of Upper and Lower Canada as well as Confederation were imposed to us with a purpose hostile to the French element and with the hope of making it disappear in a more or less distant future. I wanted to show you what our homeland could be. I have made my best to open yourselves up to new horizons and, as I let you glimpse at them, push your hearts towards the fulfilment of our national destinies. You have colonial dependence, I offer you independence; you have shame and misery, I offer you fortune and prosperity; you are but a colony ignored by the whole world, I offer you becoming a great people, respected and recognized amongst free nations. Men, women and children, the choice is yours; you can remain slaves in the state of colony, or become independent and free, amongst the other peoples that, with their powerful voices beckon you to the banquet of nations.”

Honoré Mercier (1840–1894) Canadian politician

Quand je dis que nous ne devons rien à l'Angleterre, je parle au point de vue politique car je suis convaincu, et je mourrai avec cette conviction, que l'union du Haut et du Bas Canada ainsi que la Confédération nous ont été imposées dans un but hostile à l'élément français et avec l'espérance de le faire disparaître dans un avenir plus ou moins éloigné. J'ai voulu vous démontrer ce que pouvait être notre patrie. J'ai fait mon possible pour vous ouvrir de nouveaux horizons et, en vous les faisant entrevoir, pousser vos coeurs vers la réalisation de nos destinées nationales. Vous avez la dépendance coloniale, je vous offre l'indépendance; vous avez la gêne et la misère, je vous offre la fortune et la prospérité; vous n'êtes qu'une colonie ignorée du monde entier, je vous offre de devenir un grand peuple, respecté et reconnu parmi les nations libres. Hommes, femmes et enfants, à vous de choisir; vous pouvez rester esclaves dans l'état de colonie, ou devenir indépendant et libre, au milieu des autres peuples qui, de leurs voix toutes puissantes vous convient au banquet des nations.
Speech of April 4, 1893.

Women , Men , Hostility , Children

“"May all unite to do Thy will with a perfect heart!"… Thus prays the Jew. Have you more beautiful prayers to offer?”

Isaac Leib Peretz (1852–1915) Yiddish language author and playwright

Advice to the Estranged, S. Liptzin. Peretz. Yivo, 1947, p. 348.

Beauty , Perfection

“All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

In the Cart or A Journey by Cart or The Schoolmistress (1897)

Life , Thinking

“As you know, very recently the secretary of state proclaimed his loyalty to a man guilty of what has always been considered as the most abominable of all crimes — of being a traitor to the people who gave him a position of great trust. The secretary of state, in attempting to justify his continued devotion to the man who sold out the Christian world to the atheistic world, referred to Christ's Sermon on the Mount as a justification and reason therefore, and the reaction of the American people to this would have made the heart of Abraham Lincoln happy. When this pompous diplomat in striped pants, with a phony British accent, proclaimed to the American people that Christ on the Mount endorsed communism, high treason, and betrayal of a sacred trust, the blasphemy was so great that it awakened the dormant indignation of the American people.
He has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted warped thinkers are swept from the national scene so that we may have a new birth of national honesty and decency in government.”

Joseph McCarthy (1908–1957) Wisconsin politician

Speech in Wheeling, West Virginia (9 February 1950), as quoted at Civics Online http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/texts/mccarthy.html

People , World , Communication , Birth

“There is nothing more profound than the strength and beauty of two hearts that love each other. Love has the mind-cooling freshness of the full moon and the scintillating brilliance of the sun’s rays. But love will not enter our hearts without permission. Women and men should be equally willing to invite within this love that is waiting. Only love can bring about a permanent change in the mind-sets and, therefore, the realities of women and men.”

Mata Amritanandamayi (1953) Hindu spiritual leader and guru

The Infinite Potential of Women (2008)

Love , Women , Men , Beauty

“On the question of Israel, I talk about what I saw during his trip to Israel, how I saw his (Barack Obama) understanding of the relationship with Israel - he would describe it as a commitment of the head and heart. He looks at Israel and sees us as being two countries with common values. But he also looks at Israel and sees that whatever threatens Israel also happens to threaten the United States. So we have a [common] interest, because we end up facing the same threats.”

Dennis Ross (1948) American diplomat

Understanding , Question , Country

“This great maxim of philosophy he had gathered by the teaching of nature alone — that man was created to work, not to speculate or feel or dream. Accordingly, he set his whole heart thitherwards. He did work wisely and unweariedly, and perhaps performed more with the tools he had than any man I now know.”

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

1880s, Reminiscences (1881)

Dreams , Feeling , Nature

“I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.”

W. Somerset Maugham book The Summing Up

Source: The Summing Up (1938), p. 206

“Snow is a strange white word.
No ice or frost
Has asked of bud or bird
For Winter's cost.
Yet ice and frost and snow
From earth to sky
This Summer land doth know.
No man knows why.
In all men's hearts it is.
Some spirit old
Hath turned with malign kiss
Our lives to mould.
Red fangs have torn His face.
God's blood is shed.
He mourns from His lone place
His children dead.
O! ancient crimson curse
Corrode, consume.
Give back this universe
Its pristine bloom.”

Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918) English poet

On Receiving News of the War (1914)

Men , God , Children , Kiss

“The reason I love 'Slumdog' is because the music is all world cultures, all celebrating. In India, I know people feel other film scores [of mine] are closer to their hearts. But when you are doing a film, it's very important to make the film look like one full piece of artwork. I think scoring 'Slumdog' with every kind of music possible, from Chinese to hip-hop to M. I. A.... was really fresh ground for me.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

Quoted in Slumdog' Composer Competes for Oscars, 19 February 2009, 16 December 2013, Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/18/AR2009021803790.html,

Love , People , World , Music

“Practise silence, for the voice of God can be heard in the region of your heart only when the tongue and the inner storm are stilled, and the waves (of the mind) are calmed. There will be no temptation for others to shout when you talk to them in whispers. Set the level of the tone yourself: as low as possible, as high as necessary to reach the outermost boundary of the circle you are addressing. Conserve sound, since it is the treasure of the element ether (Akasa), an emanation from God Himself. Reason can prevail only when the arguments are advanced without the whipping up of sound. Silence is the speech of the spiritual seeker. Soft speech is the expression of genuine love. Hate screeches; fear squeals; conceit trumpets; but love sings lullabies, it soothes, it applies balm. Practise the vocabulary of love; unlearn the language of hate and contempt.”

Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011) Indian guru

"Divine Discourse" (19 February 1970)

Love , God , Hate , Fear

“"But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart at all — without any place even for a heart to live in." "I cannot quite tell," she said; "but I am sure she would not look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before you saw her beauty … But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—with a self-destructive beauty…"”

George MacDonald book Phantastes

On the Alder Tree
Phantastes (1858)

Love , Beauty

“Glorious and beautiful
Were youth's feeling and youth's thought—
Would that we did not annul
All that in us then was wrought!
Would their influence could remain
When the hope and dream depart;
Would we might through life retain
Still some youth within the heart!”

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

(11th August 1832) Youth
The London Literary Gazette, 1832

Life , Youth , Beauty , Dreams

“To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child of his own. He teases it. He punishes it. He sends it up like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a sleeping monkey's tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna's smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory.
He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.
The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument. From the age of three he has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of story-telling. He has magic in him, this man within the painted mark and swirling skirts.
But these days he has become unviable. Unfeasible. Condemned goods. His children deride him. They long to be everything that he is not. He has watched them grow up to become clerks and bus conductors. Class IV non-gazetted officers. With unions of their own.
But he himself, left dangling somewhere between heaven and earth, cannot do what they do. He cannot slide down the aisles of buses, counting change and selling tickets. He cannot answer bells that summon him. He cannot stoop behind trays of tea and Marie biscuits.
In despair he turns to tourism. He enters the market. He hawks the only thing he owns. The stories that his body can tell.
He becomes a Regional Flavour.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

page 230-231.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love , Men , God , War

“The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children. Even insects play together, as has been described by that excellent observer, P. Huber, who saw ants chasing and pretending to bite each other, like so many puppies.
The fact that the lower animals are excited by the same emotions as ourselves is so well established, that it will not be necessary to weary the reader by many details. Terror acts in the same manner on them as on us, causing the muscles to tremble, the heart to palpitate, the sphincters to be relaxed, and the hair to stand on end. Suspicion, the offspring of fear, is eminently characteristic of most wild animals. Courage and timidity are extremely variable qualities in the individuals of the same species, as is plainly seen in our dogs. Some dogs and horses are ill-tempered and easily turn sulky; others are good-tempered; and these qualities are certainly inherited.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume I, chapter II: "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals", pages 39-40 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=52&itemID=F937.1&viewtype=image
The Descent of Man (1871)

Pain , Children , Pleasure , Fear