Quotes about heart
page 9

“Hans Castorp loved music from his heart; it worked upon him much the same way as did his breakfast porter, with deeply soothing, narcotic effect, tempting him to doze.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 3

Love, Music, Way

“The knowledge that unites love and wisdom, that uplifts the spirit is spirituality. The knowledge which gives you a broad vision and a big heart is spirituality.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Bang on the Door (2001)

Love, Wisdom, Knowledge

“Volunteering is good for our heart and soul.”

Roy E. Disney (1930–2009) longtime senior executive for The Walt Disney Company

Roy Edward Disney (2003) as quoted in Disney Stories: Getting to Digital (2012) by Newton Lee and Krystina Madej, p. 4

Soul

“Blessed are the persecuted
And blessed are the pure in heart
Blessed are the merciful
And blessed are the ones who mourn”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

"The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, Part One"
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

“He doesn't have to be the funniest guy in the room. Now, he's a guy who is much more secure. He's not afraid to look in the mirror anymore. Underneath all the (stuff) that used to get in his way was a heart of gold. He's really a super-compassionate human being. He's so smart. He's always got good advice. I've gotten free therapy from him for years. He's very intuitive.”

Matthew Perry (actor) (1969) American actor

Matt LeBlanc, interview in Donna Freydkin (April 1, 2004) "A brush with happiness", USA Today, Gannett Co., Inc., p. 01D.
About

Way, Guy

“My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

31 The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

Bird

“A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since.
Give it me back! The thing's restorative
I'the touch and sight.”

Robert Browning The Ring and the Book

Book I : The Ring and the Book.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)

Life, Secret, Books

“We began to stir against slavery. Hearts grew soft, here, there, and yonder. There was no place in the land where the seeker could not find some small budding sign of pity for the slave. No place in all the land but one—the pulpit. It yielded at last; it always does. It fought a strong and stubborn fight, and then did what it always does, joined the procession—at the tail end. Slavery fell. The slavery text remained; the practice changed, that was all.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Bible Teaching and Religious Practice http://books.google.com/books?id=sujuHO_fvJgC&pg=PA568&dq=twain+%22Bible+Teaching+and+Religious+Practice%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=twain%20%22Bible%20Teaching%20and%20Religious%20Practice%22&f=false. "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice" (1923)

Strong, Change, Fight

“I am a man with a heart that offends
with its lonely and greedy demands.”

Sufjan Stevens (1975) American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

"John My Beloved"
Lyrics, Carrie and Lowell (2015)

“As in poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject matter should be furnished by the heart, and the understanding should be allowed only to shape and arrange the effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to answer the end designed. From the fullness of a heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copious fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, humble, and ardently affectionate feelings; while our understandings only shape the channel and teach the gushing streams of devotion where to flow, and when to stop.”

Edward Payson (1783–1827) American religious leader

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 464.

Feeling, Understanding

“Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.”

W.B. Yeats book The Tower

St. 3 The Tower (1928), Sailing to Byzantium http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1575/

Animals

“You do not need to seek freedom in some distant land, for it exists within your own body, heart, mind, and soul. Illuminated emancipation, freedom, unalloyed and untainted bliss await you, but you must choose to embark on the Inward Journey to discover it.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p.22

Soul, Freedom, Distant

“The man who dares to live his life with death before his eyes, the man who receives life back bit by bit and lives as though it did not belong to him by right but has been bestowed on him as a gift, the man who has such freedom and peace of mind that he has overcome death in his thoughts — such man believes in eternal life because it is already his, it is a present experience, and he already benefits from its peace and joy. He cannot describe this experience in words. He may not be able to conform his view with the traditional picture of it. But one thing he knows for certain: Something within us does not pass away, something goes on living and working wherever the kingdom of the spirit is present. It is already working and living within us, because in our hearts we have been able to reach life by overcoming death.”

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

Reverence for Life (1969)

Life, Death, Peace, Freedom

“The whole world will smile at you when your heart is peaceful and your mind is clean. When you can smile at yourself, not a single trouble in the world will affect you. When you are sincere to yourself, no one in the world can deceive you.”

Jun Hong Lu (1959) Australian Buddhist leader

Malaysia, (28 August 2017)[citation needed].

World, Peace, Smile, Sincerity

“We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken.”

Oscar Wilde book De Profundis

De Profundis (1897)

“You can kill people with compassion. That's the Freudian Oedipal situation. Think about working in a nursing home. There's a rule of thumb that we can use as a guide when interacting with people in general. It is this: Do not do anything for anyone that they can do themselves. You just steal it from them. Imagine that you're working with elderly people. It might be easier to do something for them than to let them struggle through it. You just speed their demise by taking away their last vestiges of independence. People do the same thing with kids. The answer is: struggle through it. When people struggle through things on their own, using their own abilities - they learn how to live. You have to be one heard-hearted sonofabitch to allow this, but it's what's best for people. Think about that. What's the alternative? If we cater to people all the time, then we end up becoming a major cause of them becoming people who are always catered to. This is an incredibly important lesson in the triumph of fostering independence over casual compassion.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People, Home, Imagination, Thinking

“Just because our political heroes were murdered does not mean that the dream does not still live, buried deep in our broken hearts.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 141
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Dreams

“But, as it is, this pied collection
begs your indulgence — it's been spun
from threads both sad and humoristic,
themes popular or idealistic,
products of carefree hours, of fun,
of sleeplessness, faint inspirations,
of powers unripe, or on the wane,
of reason's icy intimations,
and records of a heart in pain.”

Aleksandr Pushkin book Eugene Onegin

Eugene Onegin (1823)
Original: (ru) Но так и быть — рукой пристрастной Прими собранье пестрых глав, Полусмешных, полупечальных, Простонародных, идеальных, Небрежный плод моих забав, Бессониц, легких вдохновений, Незрелых и увядших лет, Ума холодных наблюдений И сердца горестных замет.

Pain, Sadness

“There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch,
It’s bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go head and sell me out
And I'll lay your ship bare.

See how I leave with every piece of you[[
Don’t underestimate the things that I will do.”

Adele (singer) (1988) British singer-songwriter

Rolling in the Deep, written by Adele and Paul Epworth
Song lyrics, 21 (2011)

“Oh, happy kings,
Whose thrones are raised in their subjects' hearts.”

John Ford (dramatist) Perkin Warbeck

Perkin Warbeck, Act III, sc. i. (c. 1629-34)

Happiness

“That which God said to the rose,
and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty,
He said to my heart,
and made it a hundred times more beautiful.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

III, 4129
Jewels of Remembrance (1996)

God, Beauty, Time

“In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Autrefois on rêvait de posséder le cœur de la femme dont on était amoureux; plus tard sentir qu’on possède le cœur d’une femme peut suffire à vous en rendre amoureux.
"Swann in Love"
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol I: Swann's Way (1913)

Love, Dreams, Feeling

“Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others.
Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart.”

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

Tabulae Votivae (Votive Tablets) (1796), "The Key"; tr. Edgar Alfred Bowring, The Poems of Schiller, Complete (1851)
Variant translation:[citation needed]
If you want to know yourself,
Just look how others do it;
If you want to understand others,
Look into your own heart

Men

“We gather here in memory of 20 beautiful children and six remarkable adults. They lost their lives in a school that could have been any school in a quiet town full of good and decent people that could be any town in America.
Here in Newtown, I come to offer the love and prayers of a nation. I am very mindful that mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts.
I can only hope it helps for you to know that you’re not alone in your grief, that our world, too, has been torn apart, that all across this land of ours, we have wept with you. We’ve pulled our children tight.
And you must know that whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide. Whatever portion of sadness that we can share with you to ease this heavy load, we will gladly bear it. Newtown, you are not alone.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2012, Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil (December 2012)

Love, Children, People, World

“The vicious lover is the follower of earthly Love who desires the body rather than the soul; his heart is set on what is mutable and must therefore be inconstant. And as soon as the body he loves begins to pass the first flower of its beauty, he "spreads his wings and flies away," giving the lie to all his pretty speeches and dishonoring his vows, whereas the lover whose heart is touched by moral beauties is constant all his life, for he has become one with what will never fade.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

183e, M. Joyce, trans, Collected Dialogues of Plato (1961), p. 537
The Symposium

Love, Life, Lie, Beauty

“In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter xlvii…the pathetic story of the years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and how Joseph, with that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, and the crusts of the poor, and human liberty--a corner whereby he took a nation's money all away, to the last penny…then took the nation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by child, till all were slaves…and it was a disaster so crushing that its effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt to-day… Was Joseph establishing a character for his race which would survive long in Egypt? and in time would his name come to be familiarly used to express that character--like Shylock's? It is hardly to be doubted. Let us remember that this was centuries before the Crucifixion.”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

Money, Time

“Building worlds is not enough for the deeper urging mind; but a loving heart sates the striving spirit.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Fragment No. 91
Blüthenstaub (1798)

Love, World

“Me still alone, me sip on the rum
Me wonder when the boat she come
To bring me love, oh sweet little thing
She rock 'n' roll, she dance and sing
She hold me tight, she touch me lips
Me eyes they close, me heart she flip
Havana moon, Havana moon”

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

"Havana Moon" (1957)
Song lyrics

Love, Singing, Dance

“Exact words were of no consequence. At heart the squabble was as old as humanity itself, fug-headed antiques locking horns with omniscient youth.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 87, “Glittering Stone: Fortress with No Name” (p. 639)

Youth

“In my youth and comparative inexperience I had always regarded the yearning and pangs of love as the worst torture that could afflict the human heart. At this moment, however, I began to realize that there was another and perhaps grimmer torture than that of longing and desiring: that of being loved against one's will and of being unable to defend oneself against the urgency of another's passion; of seeing another human being seared by the flame of her desire and of having to look impotently, lacking the power, the capacity, the strength to pluck her from the flames. He who is himself crossed in love is able from time to time to master his passion, for he is not the creature but the creator of his own misery; and if a lover is unable to control his passim, he at least knows that he is himself to blame for his sufferings.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Love, Youth, Lovers, Affliction

“I wrote my name upon the sand;
I thought I wrote it on thine heart.
I had no touch of fear, that words,
Such words, so graven, could depart.”

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

Friendship's Offering, 1827 (1826) Song
Other Gift Books

Fear

“…richness of heart of the poor people [and to despise] the poverty of heart of the rich.”

Baba Amte (1914–2008) Indian freedom fighter, social worker

Baba Amte: A Vision of New India

People

“To live in a saint's heart? I'm afraid of setting the sky ablaze.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Tears and Saints (1937)

“To arms! to arms! ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheathe!
March on! march on! all hearts resolved
On victory or death!”

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760–1836) French army officer

La Marseillaise (1792)

Death, Victory

“Love is space and time made tender to the heart.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

L'amour, c'est l'espace et le temps rendus sensibles au coeur.
Variant translations:
Love is space and time made sensitive to the heart.
Love is space and time measured by the heart.
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. V: The Captive (1923)

Love, Time

“The dreary alternative of agnosticism, which the young students are taught to accept as the final word of science on the grave mysteries of life and thought, and man’s hopes of personal communion with God are laughed away to make room for an inane faith in evolution and the law of collective development and progress…. Hindu students especially need the strengthening influence which faith in God, and in Conscience as His voice in the human heart alone, can give. The national mind can not live in agnosticism. The experiment was tried once on a large scale by the greatest moral teacher of this or any other age. The failure of Buddhism is a warning that such teaching can have no hold on the national thought.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

Religion had important place in his life is indicated in his admonishing Professor Selby (also a professor in the Deccan College) notes on a published ”Notes of Lectures on Butelr’s Anaology and Sermons" quoted in pages=105-106

Life, God, Age, Faith

“Aren’t our eyes made to be torn out, and our hearts for the same purpose? At the same time it’s really not that bad; that’s an exaggeration and a lie, everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing, which cannot be exaggerated. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it’s really an expression of everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted, but it’s true.
Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most — you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Hat matt nicht die Augen, um sich sie auszureißen und das Herz zum gleichen Zweck? Dabei ist es ja nicht so schlimm, das ist Übertreibung und Lüge, alles ist Übertreibung, nur die Sehnsucht ist wahr, die kann man nicht übertreiben. Aber selbst die Wahrheit der Sehnsucht ist nicht so sehr ihre Wahrheit, als vielmehr der Ausdruck der Lüge alles übrigen sonst. Es klingt verdreht, aber es ist so. Auch ist es vielleicht nicht eigentlich Liebe wenn ich sage, daß Du mir das Liebste bist; Liebe ist, daß Du mir das Messer bist, mit dem ich in mir wühle. Letter to Milena Jesenská (14 September 1920) http://www.abyssal.de/zitate/liebe.htm Variant translations: In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself. Letters to Milena (1952)

Love, Truth, Lie, Time

“I'm known as a survivor now, I hope so, for the jail thing, bullets and everything, controversies and everything, I hope so. And I want to be in the future known as somebody. You know I want people to be talking about me like you know: "remember when he was real bad, remember when Tupac was real bad". You know what I mean, they do that about a lot of actors now, like John Travolta I read stories like "remember you were wild". And all these other people, and now they're like sweet hearts. We all should get that chance, I just want my chance.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, MTV interview with Tabitha Soren (1995)

People, Hope, Chance, Reading

“Before this there was one heart
but a thousand thoughts
Now all is reduced to
"There is no love but Love."”

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher

Lama’at (Divine Flashes)

Love

“However great a woman may be, she must place herself before her husband in this way; that is to say, she must be ready to carry out her husband’s orders and please him in all circumstances. Then her life will be successful. When the wife becomes as irritable as the husband, their life at home is sure to be disturbed or ultimately completely broken. In the modern day, the wife is never submissive, and therefore home life is broken even by slight incidents. Either the wife or the husband may take advantage of the divorce laws. According to the Vedic law, however, there is no such thing as divorce laws, and a woman must be trained to be submissive to the will of her husband. Westerners contend that this is a slave mentality for the wife, but factually it is not; it is the tactic by which a woman can conquer the heart of her husband, however irritable or cruel he may be. In this case we clearly see that although Cyavana Muni was not young but indeed old enough to be Sukanya’s grandfather and was also very irritable, Sukanya, the beautiful young daughter of a king, submitted herself to her old husband and tried to please him in all respects. Thus she was a faithful and chaste wife.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 9, Chapter 6, verse 53, purport. Vedabase http://www.vedabase.com/en/sb/9/6/53 Quotes from Books: Loving God, Quotes from Books: Regression of Women's Rights

Life, Faith, Law, Beauty

“You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The White Company

The White Company (1891)

Life, Relationship, Good Night, Romantic

“Let's not be dazzled by the sententious glitter with which error and lying often cover themselves. Society is not created by the crowd, and bodies come together in vain when hearts reject each other. The truly sociable man is more difficult in his relationships than others; those which consist only in false appearances cannot suit him. He prefers to live far from wicked men without thinking about them, than to see them and hate them. He prefers to flee his enemy rather than seek him out to harm him. A person who knows no other society than that of the heart will not seek his society in your circles. That is How J. J. must have thought and behaved before the conspiracy of which he is the object.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Second Dialogue; translated by Judith R. Bush, Christopher Kelly, Roger D. Masters
Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (published 1782)

Men, Hate, Error, Lying

“Seeing that your love's true.
Never I'll doubt you.
My heart belongs to you.
That's alright with me.
Worlds could end around me.
So in love that I can't see.
You and me were meant to be.
That's alright with me.”

Janet Jackson (1966) singer from the United States

Alright
Rhythm Nation (1989)

Love, World

“There are three forces on the side of life which require no exceptional mental endowment, which are not very rare at present, and might be very common under better social institutions. They are love, the instinct of constructiveness, and the joy of life. All three are checked and enfeebled at present by the conditions under which men live—not only the less outwardly fortunate, but also the majority of the well-to-do. Our institutions rest upon injustice and authority: it is only by closing our hearts against sympathy and our minds against truth that we can endure the oppressions and unfairnesses by which we profit. The conventional conception of what constitutes success leads most men to live a life in which their most vital impulses are sacrificed, and the joy of life is lost in listless weariness. Our economic system compels almost all men to carry out the purposes of others rather than their own, making them feel impotent in action and only able to secure a certain modicum of passive pleasure. All these things destroy the vigor of the community, the expansive affections of individuals, and the power of viewing the world generously. All these things are unnecessary and can be ended by wisdom and courage. If they were ended, the impulsive life of men would become wholly different, and the human race might travel towards a new happiness and a new vigor.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Why Men Fight https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_Men_Fight (1917), pp. 18-19

Love, Life, Wisdom, Men

“In politics, he has always been a republican with advanced Socialist sympathies, and internationalist at heart, and, as they said in the eighteenth century, a "citizen of the world." He has always fought social injustice. In art, he loves, above all, Beethoven, Shakespeare, and Goethe… Rembrandt is the painter dearest to him. But his chosen country is Italy.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

On himself, as quoted in World Authors 1900-1950 (1996)

Love, World, Art, Country

“The Commander in Chief earnestly recommends that the troops not on duty should universally attend with that seriousness of Deportment and gratitude of Heart which the recognition of such reiterated and astonishing interpositions of Providence demand of us.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Notes on general orders to the troops, (20 October 1781), as quoted in The Writings of George Washington (1835) edited by Jared Sparks, Vol. 8, p. 189
1780s

Universe, Gratitude

“Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live,
They lie in wait for you, chicken pox, whooping cough, smallpox,
Malaria, TB, heart disease, cancer, and so on.
Unemployment, hunger, and so on.
Train wrecks, bus accidents, plane crashes, work accidents,
Earthquakes, floods, droughts, and so on.
Heartbreak, alcoholism, and so on.
Nightsticks, prison doors, and so on.
They lie in wait for you, the atom bomb, and so on.
Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live.
They lie in wait for you, socialism, communism, and so on.”

Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963) Turkish poet

From Welcome (10 September 1961)

Hunger, Alcohol, Lie, Disease

“The human heart to youth is a fairy-land of adventure, to old age it is a sitting room where one knows his way in the dark.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

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

Youth, Age, Way

“Just heard Gen. White's proclamation that we "have Russia zeroed in from all directions." I am waiting now for Vannevar Bush and Ed Teller to announce that our new supersensitive radar picked up a rash of heart tremors from the direction of the USSR, immediately after White's remarkably insignificant statement, I could almost hear Karl Marx laughing in his tomb.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Letter to Lieutenant Colonel Frank Campbell (29 November 1957), p. 76
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)

Waiting

“Yeah I love my baby, heart and soul
Love like ours won't never grow old
She's my sweet little thang, she's my pride and joy
She's my sweet little baby, I'm her little lover boy”

Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954–1990) American guitarist, songwriter and recording artist

"Pride and Joy"
Song lyrics

Love, Soul, Boy, Lovers

“Many a one commits a reprehensible action, who is at bottom an honourable man, because man seldom acts upon natural impulse, but from some secret passion of the moment which lies hidden and concealed within the narrowest folds of his heart.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848)

Secret, Nature, Passion

“O tender yearning, sweet hoping!
The golden time of first love!
The eye sees the open heaven,
The heart is intoxicated with bliss;
O that the beautiful time of young love
Could remain green forever.”

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

The Song of the Bell (1799)

Love, Beauty, Hope, Time

“But what’s also true is that each of us have to cultivate an attitude of tolerance and mutual respect. And for young people, we have to try to encourage each other to be tolerant and respectful. So in the United States, obviously one of the biggest problems historically has been the issue of racial discrimination. And part of our efforts to overcome racial discrimination involve passing laws like the Civil Rights Law and the Voting Rights Law, and that required marches and protests and Dr. King. But part of the effort was also people changing the hearts and minds, and realizing that just because somebody doesn’t look like me doesn’t mean that they’re not worthy of respect. And when you’re growing up and you saw a friend of yours call somebody by a derogatory name, a rude name because they were different, it’s your job to say to that person, actually, that’s not the right way to think. If you are Christian and you have a friend who says I hate Muslims, then it’s up to you to say to that friend, you know what, I don’t believe in that; I think that’s the wrong attitude, I think we have to be respectful of the Muslim population. If you’re Buddhist and you say -- you hear somebody in your group say I want to treat a Hindu differently, it’s your job to speak out. So the most important thing I think is for you to, in whatever circle of influence you have, speak out on behalf of tolerance and diversity and respect. If you are quiet, then the people who are intolerant, they’ll own the stage and they’ll set the terms of the debate. And one of the things that leadership requires is saying things even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it’s unpopular -- especially when it’s unpopular. So I hope that as you get more influence, you’ll continue to speak out on behalf of these values.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

Hate, People, Law, Hope

“A King should sacrifice the best affections of his heart for the good of his country; no sacrifice should be above his determination.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848)

Country

“O woman-country! wooed not wed,
Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,
Laid to their hearts instead.”

Robert Browning By the Fireside

By the Fireside, vi.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Wedding, Country

“I may not have a country with boundaries, but my country is in me. My country is in my soul and in my heart. I am Assyria.”

Rosie Malek-Yonan (1965) Assyrian actress, author, director, public figure and human rights activist

As quoted in The Crimson Field.
The Crimson Field (2005)

Soul, Country

“18. The deeply learned ones know the mind as the directly expressed meaning of the supreme knowledge. The heart is the meaning aimed at. The Supreme is none other than the heart.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

The Science of the Heart

Knowledge, Learning

“Tis time, my friend, ‘tis time!
For rest the heart is aching;
Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking
Fragments of being, while together you and I
Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die.”

Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) Russian poet

Tis Time, My Friend, l. 1-5 (1834).

Time

“I — my heart — a gaping heart, enthroned in a radiance of blood. It is mine, it is ours. The heart — that wound which we have. I have compassion on myself.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XVI - De Profundis Clamavi

“Thou art like a philosopher of the heart.”

Thomas the Apostle Apostle of Jesus Christ

13, Matthew’s words to Yeshua
Gospel of Thomas (c. 50? — c. 140?)

Art

“In between these four whitewashed walls, on this tiled floor, notice the broken corners, how some tiles have been worn smooth, how many feet have passed this way, and look how interesting this trail of ants is, travelling along the joins as if they were valleys, while up above, projected against the white sky of the ceiling and the sun of the lamp, tall towers are moving, they are men, as the ants well know, having, for generations, experienced the weight of their feet and the long, hot spout of water that falls from a kind of pendulous external intestine, ants all over the world have been drowned or crushed by these, but it seems they will escape this fate now, for the men are occupied with other things. […]
Let's take this ant, or, rather, let's not, because that would involve picking it up, let us merely consider it, because it is one of the larger ones and because it raises its head like a dog, it's walking along very close to the wall, together with its fellow ants it will have time to complete its long journey ten times over between the ants' nest and whatever it is that it finds so interesting, curious or perhaps merely nourishing in this secret room […]. One of the men has fallen to the ground, he's on the same level as the ants now, we don't know if he can see them, but they see him, and he will fall so often that, in the end, they will know by heart his face, the color of his hair and eyes, the shape of his ear, the dark arc of his eyebrow, the faint shadow at the corner of his mouth, and later, back in the ants' nest, they will weave long stories for the enlightenment of future generations, because it is useful for the young to know what happens out there in the world. The man fell and the others dragged him to his feet again, shouting at him, asking two different questions at the same time, how could he possibly answer them even if he wanted to, which is not the case, because the man who fell and was dragged to his feet will die without saying a word. Only moans will issue from his mouth, and in the silence of his soul only deep sighs, and even when his teeth are broken and he has to spit them out, which will prompt the other two men to hit him again for soiling state property, even then the sound will be of spitting and nothing more, that unconscious reflex of the lips, and then the dribble of saliva thickened with blood that falls to the floor, thus stimulating the taste buds of the ants, who telegraph from one to the other news of this singularly red manna fallen from such a white heaven.
The man fell again. It's the same one, said the ants, the same ear shape, the same arc of eyebrow, the same shadow at the corner of the mouth, there's no mistaking him, why is it that it is always the same man who falls, why doesn't he defend himself, fight back. […] The ants are surprised, but only fleetingly. After all, they have their own duties, their own timetables to keep, it is quite enough that they raise their heads like dogs and fix their feeble vision on the fallen man to check that he is the same one and not some new variant in the story. The larger ant walked along the remaining stretch of wall, slipped under the door, and some time will pass before it reappears to find everything changed, well, that's just a manner of speaking, there are still three men there, but the two who do not fall never stop moving, it must be some kind of game, there's no other explanation […]. [T]hey grab him by the shoulders and propel him willy-nilly in the direction of the wall, so that sometimes he hits his back, sometimes his head, or else his poor bruised face smashes into the whitewash and leaves on it a trace of blood, not a lot, just whatever spurts forth from his mouth and right eyebrow. And if they leave him there, he, not his blood, slides down the wall and he ends up kneeling on the ground, beside the little trail of ants, who are startled by the sudden fall from on high of that great mass, which doesn't, in the end, even graze them. And when he stays there for some time, one ant attaches itself to his clothing, wanting to take a closer look, the fool, it will be the first ant to die, because the next blow falls on precisely that spot, the ant doesn't feel the second blow, but the man does.”

José Saramago book Raised from the Ground

Source: Raised from the Ground (1980), pp. 172–174

Men, Fate, Secret, World

“Truth, like a woman, must be wooed and won - and this only through the purity of mind and the heart’s deep love.”

David Zindell (1952) American writer

Source: The Wild (1995), p. 388

Love, Truth

“In the torments of the intellect, there is a certain bearing which is to be sought in vain among those of the heart. Skepticism is the elegance of anxiety.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

“Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Scorn Not the Sonnet, l. 1 (1827).

“The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God.”

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

Pearls of Wisdom

God, World, Religion, Feeling

“Mr. President, I am not undertaking to answer the charge that I am ignorant. It is true. I am an ignorant man. I have had no college education. I have not even had a high school education. But the things that takes me far in politics is that I do not have to color what comes into my mind and into my heart. I say it unvarnished. I say it without veneer. I have not the learning to do otherwise, and therefore my ignorance is often not detected.

I know the hearts of the People because I have not colored my own. I know when I am right in my own conscience. I do not talk one way in the cloakroom and another way out here. I do not talk one way back there in the hills of Louisiana and another way here in the Senate.

I have one language. Ignorant as it is, it is the universal language within the sphere in which I operate. Its simplicity gains pardon for my lack of letters and education.

Nonetheless my voice will be the same as it has been. Patronage will not change it. Fear will not change it. Persecution will not change it. It cannot be changed while people suffer. The only way it can be changed is to make the lives of these people decent and respectable. No one will ever hear political opposition out of me when that is done.”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Huey Long, U.S. Senate floor speech, March 5, 1935

People, Education, Fear, School

“When humanity will reach its goal, regarding the success of the bodies, namely they will reach the perfect level of love for one another, then all the bodies will unite to one body and one heart, and only then all the hoped for happiness at its highest peak, will be revealed to humanity.”

Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist

Assorted Themes, On Love for the Fellow Man

Love, Happiness, Hope, Success

“Everyday my heart falls deeper in the pain of your sorrow.
Your cruel heart is weary of me already.
You have left me alone, yet your sorrow remains.
Truly your sorrow is more faithful than you are”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (2000)

Pain, Faith

“We are commanded to have only one enemy, the devil. With him never be reconciled! But with a brother, never be at enmity in thy heart.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homilies on the Statues http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf109/Page_476.html, Homily XX

“17. The Jnanin present in the heart sees the mind merged in the light of the heart, like moonlight in the presence of the sun during the day.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

The Science of the Heart

Light, Sun

“For decades, this vision stood in sharp contrast to life on the other side of an Iron Curtain. For decades, a contest was waged, and ultimately that contest was won -- not by tanks or missiles, but because our ideals stirred the hearts of Hungarians who sparked a revolution; Poles in their shipyards who stood in Solidarity; Czechs who waged a Velvet Revolution without firing a shot; and East Berliners who marched past the guards and finally tore down that wall. Today, what would have seemed impossible in the trenches of Flanders, the rubble of Berlin, or a dissident’s prison cell -- that reality is taken for granted. A Germany unified. The nations of Central and Eastern Europe welcomed into the family of democracies. Here in this country, once the battleground of Europe, we meet in the hub of a Union that brings together age-old adversaries in peace and cooperation. The people of Europe, hundreds of millions of citizens -- east, west, north, south -- are more secure and more prosperous because we stood together for the ideals we share. And this story of human progress was by no means limited to Europe. Indeed, the ideals that came to define our alliance also inspired movements across the globe among those very people, ironically, who had too often been denied their full rights by Western powers. After the Second World War, people from Africa to India threw off the yoke of colonialism to secure their independence. In the United States, citizens took freedom rides and endured beatings to put an end to segregation and to secure their civil rights. As the Iron Curtain fell here in Europe, the iron fist of apartheid was unclenched, and Nelson Mandela emerged upright, proud, from prison to lead a multiracial democracy. Latin American nations rejected dictatorship and built new democracies, and Asian nations showed that development and democracy could go hand in hand.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to European Youth (March 2014)

Life, War, People, Age

“Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood -- one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror -- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”

Mark Twain book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Ch. 13 http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/connecticut/chapter-13.html A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

Death, Hunger, People, Hell

“Oh, the heart
Knows not the power of music till it loves!”

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

The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Love, Music

“The sun was in mind to come out but having a look at the weather it was in lost heart and went back again.”

Brendan Behan (1923–1964) Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright

Confessions of an Irish Rebel (1967 [1965])

Sun, Weather

“Many things have been said about me which are wrong, and which white and black persons here, who stood by me through the war, can contradict. I have been in the heat of battle when colored men, asked me to protect them. I have placed myself between them and the bullets of my men, and told them they should be kept unharmed. Go to work, be industrious, live honestly and act truly, and when you are oppressed I'll come to your relief. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for this opportunity you have afforded me to be with you, and to assure you that I am with you in heart and in hand.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)

Men, War, Color, Personality

“"But they deserve their wealth," he added, "nobody grudges it to them. I declare when I was eating that truffle, I felt a glow about my heart that, if it were not indigestion, I think must have been gratitude; though that is an article I had not believed in.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 23.

Thinking, Wealth, Gratitude

“Gratitude fills us with rejoicing, for it so rarely finds frank expression; delicacy of feeling warms our hearts.”

Stefan Zweig book Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman

Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman (1927)

Feeling, Gratitude

“The deep conviction... that nothing good for Germany or the world can come out of the present German regime, has made me avoid the country in whose spiritual tradition I am more deeply rooted than are those who for three years have been trying to find courage enough to declare before the world that I am not a German. And I feel to the bottom of my heart that I have done right in the eyes of my contemporaries and of posterity.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Responding to anti-semitic propaganda and to criticisms of German writers living in exile during the early years of the Nazi regime in Germany, as quoted in "Homage to Thomas Mann" in The New Republic (1 April 1936) http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114269/thomas-mann-stands-anti-semitism-stacks

World, Feeling, Courage, Country

“Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter, seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 3 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), Easter, 1916 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1477/

Winter, Summer

“I'm a pioneer, I'm an explorer, I'm a human, and I'm coming. I'm animated, I'm alive, my heart's big, it's got hot blood going through it fast. I like to fight, too! I like to eat! I like to have children! I'm here! I've got a life force: This is a human, this is what we look like, this is what we act like, this what everybody was like before us, this is what I am, I'm a throwback. I'm here! I've got the fire of human liberty! I'm setting fires everywhere, and humans are turning on everywhere.”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

The Alex Jones Show, "Alex Jones is a human" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na4GYyJwYjQ, July 22, 2016 2016

Life, Children, Animals, Fight

“God desires to indwell in my whole and total heart and cannot in any way tolerate my having an image in my mind's eye.”

Andreas Karlstadt (1486–1541) German theologian

Source: On the Removal of Images (1522), p. 117

God, Way

“And I said to myself: From now on help anyone and everyone so far as it lies within your power. Cease to be apathetic, indifferent! Exalt yourself by devoting yourself to others, enrich yourself by making everyone's destiny your own, by enduring and understanding every facet of human suffering through your pity. And my heart, astonished at its own workings, quivered with gratitude to the sick girl whom I had hurt unwittingly and who, through her suffering, had taught me the creative magic of pity.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Girl, Understanding, Suffering, Help

“Of the truths within our reach… the mind and the heart are as doors by which they are received into the soul, but… few enter by the mind, whilst they are brought in crowds by the rash caprices of the will, without the council of reason.”

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

The Art of Persuasion

Truth, Soul

“Know Thyself. All else will be known to thee of its own accord. Discriminate between the undying, unchanging, all-pervading, infinite Atma and the ever-changing, phenomenal and perishable universe and body. Enquire, "Who am I?" Make the mind calm. Free yourself from all thoughts other than the simple thought of the Self or Atma. Dive deep into the chambers of your heart. Find out the real, infinite "I". Rest there peacefully for ever and become identical with the Supreme Self.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

Universe, Change

“Those who know their minds do not know their hearts.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Tous ceux qui connaissent leur esprit ne connaissent pas leur coeur.
Maxim 103.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

“O brave flag, O bright flag, O flag to lead the free!
The glory of thy silver stars,
Engrailed in blue above the bars
Of red for courage, white for truth,
Has brought the world a second youth
And drawn a hundred million hearts to follow after thee.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

Who Follow the Flag, Phi Kappa Beta Ode, Harvard University (June 30, 1910).

Truth, Youth, World, Star

“I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul. I believe that the Progressive movement is making life a little easier for all our people; a movement to try to take the burdens off the men and especially the women and children of this country. I am absorbed in the success of that movement.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address at Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1912)

Life, Women, Men, Children

“The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, of which our hearts are distinctly conscious, though it remains hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world — to the deep-implanted longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity of the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as to the same source we are able to trace the most visionary and incoherent reveries. A constant endeavour to unite these two elements, so that each may rob as little as possible from the other, has always seemed to me the true end of wisdom.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 8

Wisdom, World, Feeling, Nature

“Jackson: Yeah, "Wacko Jacko". Where'd that come from? Some English tabloid. I have a heart and I have feelings, I feel that, when you do that to me. It's not nice. Don't do it. I'm not a wacko.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Referring to the media, tabloids, and his reputation
Televised Interview with Barbara Walters(1998)

Feeling

“My aim is to understand love. I know how alive I felt when I was in love, and I know that everything I have now, however interesting it might seem, doesn't really excited me.
But love is a terrible thing: I've seen my girlfriends suffer and I don't want the same thing to happen to me. … Although my aim is to understand love, and although I suffer to think of people to whom I gave my heart, I see that those who touched my heart failed to arouse my body, and that those who aroused my body failed to touch my heart.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Maria's diary entry at the age of 17, p. 16.
Eleven Minutes (2003)

Love, People, Understanding, Thinking

“I am frozen by a mass which supports me. My elbow sinks into it. It is the horse's belly; its rigid leg obliquely bars the narrow circle from which my eyes cannot escape. Ah, it is dead! It seems to me that my breast is empty, yet still there is an echo in my heart. What I am looking for is life.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XV - An Apparition

Life, Support, Horse, Dead

“One night as I walked in the desert the mountains rode on my shoulders
and the sky became my heart,
and the earth - my own body, I explored.
Every object began to wink at me, and Mira wisely calculated thinking,
My charms must be at their height
now would be a good time to rush into his arms,
maybe He won't drop me so quick.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Mira Bai, Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ENaRTjQRMaIC&pg=PT329

Mountain, Thinking, Time, Night

“Every form of catechesis would do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis). Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy, even in the midst of difficulties. Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus. This has nothing to do with fostering an aesthetic relativism which would downplay the inseparable bond between truth, goodness and beauty, but rather a renewed esteem for beauty as a means of touching the human heart and enabling the truth and goodness of the Risen Christ to radiate within it. If, as Saint Augustine says, we love only that which is beautiful, the incarnate Son, as the revelation of infinite beauty, is supremely lovable and draws us to himself with bonds of love. So a formation in the via pulchritudinis ought to be part of our effort to pass on the faith. Each particular Church should encourage the use of the arts in evangelization, building on the treasures of the past but also drawing upon the wide variety of contemporary expressions so as to transmit the faith in a new “language of parables”. We must be bold enough to discover new signs and new symbols, new flesh to embody and communicate the word, and different forms of beauty which are valued in different cultural settings, including those unconventional modes of beauty which may mean little to the evangelizers, yet prove particularly attractive for others.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 167
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Love, Life, Truth, Faith

“As you talk, so is your heart.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

Paracelsus - Doctor of our Time (1992)

“Two conflicting types of educational systems spring from these conflicting aims. One is public and common to many, the other private and domestic. If you wish to know what is meant by public education, read Plato's Republic. Those who merely judge books by their titles take this for a treatise on politics, but it is the finest treatise on education ever written. In popular estimation the Platonic Institute stands for all that is fanciful and unreal. For my own part I should have thought the system of Lycurgus far more impracticable had he merely committed it to writing. Plato only sought to purge man's heart; Lycurgus turned it from its natural course. The public institute does not and cannot exist, for there is neither country nor patriot. The very words should be struck out of our language. The reason does not concern us at present, so that though I know it I refrain from stating it.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Emile, or On Education

Emile, or On Education (1762), Book I

Books, Education, Spring, Nature

“The intellect and the heart are on good terms with one another. One often represents the other so perfectly, that it is hard to determine which of the two was at work.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Der Verstand und das Herz stehen auf sehr gutem Fuße. Eines vertritt oft die Stelle des andern so vollkommen, dass es schwer ist zu entscheiden, welches von beiden tätig war.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 42.

“Now, all State institutions, as I also before maintained, act solely on the substance of the doctrines in a greater or less degree; whilst as regards the form of their acceptance by the individual, the channels of influence are wholly closed to any political agency. The way in which religion springs up in the human heart, and the way in which it is received in each case, depend entirely on the whole manner of the man's existence--the whole system of his thoughts and sensations. But if the State were able to remodel these according to its views (a possibility which we can hardly conceive), I must have been very unfortunate in the exposition of my principles if it were necessary to re-establish the conclusion which meets this remote possibility, viz., that the State may not make man an instrument to subserve its arbitrary designs, and induce him to neglect for these his proper individual ends. And that there is no absolute necessity, such as would perhaps alone justify an exception in this instance, is apparent from that perfect independence of morality on religion which I have already sought to establish, but which will receive a stronger confirmation when I show that the preservation of a State's internal security, does not at all require that a proper and distinct direction should be given to the national morals in general.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 8

Religion, Way, Spring, Dependency