Quotes about tears (1446 quotes, page 10)

“Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power; that is all.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Laughter , Water

“Cold on Canadian hills or Minden’s plain,
Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew
Gave the sad presage of his future years,—
The child of misery, baptized in tears.”

John Langhorne (poet)

The Country Justice, Part i, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This allusion to the dead soldier and his widow on the field of battle was made the subject of a print by Bunbury, under which were engraved the pathos-laden lines of Langhorne. Sir Walter Scott mentioned that the only time he saw Burns this picture was in the room. Burns shed tears over it; and Scott, then a lad of fifteen, was the only person present who could tell him where the lines were to be found. In Lockhart, Life of Scott, vol. i. chap. iv.

Sadness , Parent , Future

“Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.”

James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet

What is Prayer?
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

God

“A man … found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner (2003)

Sadness , Way , Mountain , Learning

“I'm still here mon frere I know the cross I bear,
They like, that's why they call you Hov? I'm like yea
I'm like air, little shots go through me, won't tear
One tissue no tears, no tissue not an issue”

Jay-Z (1969) American rapper, businessman, entrepreneur, record executive, songwriter, record producer and investor

Dig a Hole
Kingdom Come (2006)

“No radiant pearl which crested Fortune wears,
No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty’s ears,
Not the bright stars which Night’s blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows
Down Virtue’s manly cheek for others’ woes.”

Erasmus Darwin book The Botanic Garden

The Botanic Garden (1791), Part ii, Canto iii, line 459.

Beauty , Star , Sun , Night

“We receive data through five portals, five windows; the house of human consciousness has but five windows. Do you imagine that we will ever perceive all through these five windows? Do you imagine that that which is most important can ever be seen? How do you describe the most important things that have ever happened to you? The moment you knew you loved her: Can you reassemble that magnetic pull with the Lego of light and language? The moment you heard he’d died—can you define it, calcify it, crystallize it, make it live again, or is it at best a kind of taxidermy that language can provide? A stuffed dead effigy with cold unseeing eyes. And Jupiter revolves. And the moon watches, the moon you saw as a child, the moon that hung in the sky when Christ was crucified, the crescent moon, like a tear in heaven as the Prophet heard Allah.”

Russell Brand book Revolution

Revolution (2014)

Love , Imagination , Light , Christ

“No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion. If we seek to force, we but tear apart that which united, is invincible. There is no way whereby our labor movement may be assured sustained progress in determining its policies and its plans other than sincere democratic deliberation until a unanimous decision is reached. This may seem a cumbrous, slow method to the impatient, but the impatient are more concerned for immediate triumph than for the education of constructive development.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Foner, Philip S. History of the Labor Movement in the United States: The T.U.E.L. to the End of the Gompers Era. New york: International Publishers Co, 1991, p. 361-362.

Education , Way , Decision , Sincerity

“Palestinians and Arabs were not the only ones cast as Nazis. Israel was also accused — by Israelis as well as by Palestinians — of Nazi-style crimes. In the context of Israeli massacres of Palestinians in 1948, a number of Israeli ministers referred to the actions of Israeli soldiers as "Nazi actions," prompting Benny Marshak, the education officer of the Palmach, to ask them to stop using the term. Indeed, after the massacre at al-Dawayima, Agriculture Minister Aharon Zisling asserted in a cabinet meeting that he "couldn't sleep all night… Jews too have committed Nazi acts." Similar language was used after the Israeli army gunned down forty-seven Israeli Palestinian men, women, and children at Kafr Qasim in 1956. While most Israeli newspapers at the time played down the massacre, a rabbi rote that "we must demand of the entire nation a sense of shame and humiliation… that soon we will be like Nazias and the perpetrators of pogroms." The Palestinians were soon to level the same accusation against the Israelis. Such accusations increased during the intifada. One of the communiqués issued by the Unified National Leadership of the Uprising defined the intifada as consisting of "the children and young men of the stones and Molotov cocktails, the thousands of women who miscarried as a result of poison gas and tear gas grenades, and those women whose sons and husbands were thrown in the Nazi prisons." The Israelis were always outraged by such accusations, even when the similarities were stark. When the board of Yad Vashem, for example, was asked to condemn the act of an Israeli army officer who instructed his soldiers to inscribe numbers on the arms of Palestinians, board chairman Gideon Hausner "squelched the initiative, ruling that it had no relevance to the Holocaust."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Massad, in Palestinian and Jewish History: Recognition or Submission? in the Autumn 2000 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies.
On Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany

Women , Men , Children , Education

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

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Earth Moving (1989)

Soul , Heart

“Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry,
And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky.
And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River.
Then I'm gonna sit right here until I die.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Big River
Song lyrics, Johnny Cash Sings the Songs That Made Him Famous (1958)

Cry

“One of the most powerful engines of development and prosperity is trade and investment, which create new opportunities for entrepreneurs, and help people rise out of poverty, and reinforce fundamental values like transparency and rule of law. For all these reasons, many in these chambers have conducted free trade agreements at bilateral and regional levels. The most effective step of all would be an agreement that tears down trade barriers at the global level. The recent impasse in the Doha round is disappointing, but that does not have to be the final word. I urge every nation to seize this opportunity to lift up economies around the world and reach a successful Doha agreement as soon as possible. Beyond Doha, our nations must renew our commitment to open economies, and stand firm against economic isolationism. These objectives are being tested by turbulence in the global financial markets. Our economies are more closely connected than ever before, and I know that many of you here are watching how the United States government will address the problems in our financial system.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2008, Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2008)

People , World , Law , Disappointment

“Tears, that could be the tone, if they weren't so easy, the true tone and tenor at last.”

Samuel Beckett book Texts for Nothing

Texts for Nothing (1955)

“I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith
but I received strength, it tears the world apart.
I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shores
and a young wave will cover my trace.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Hymn" (1935), trans. by Czesŀaw Miŀosz
Three Winters (1936)

Wisdom , World , Faith

“He had a way, that Hackmuth; he had a style; he had so much to give, even his commas and semi-colons had a way of dancing up and down. I used to tear the stamps off his envelopes, peel them off gently, to see what was under them.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Way , Dance

“Your Excellency, Mr President: I greet you, in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq. I greet you, too, in the name of the Palestinian people, amongst whom I've just spent two weeks in the occupied Palestinian territories. I can honestly tell you that there was not a single person to whom I told I was coming to Iraq and hoping to meet with yourself who did not wish me to convey their heartfelt, fraternal greetings and support. And this was true, especially at the base in the refugee camps of Jabaliyah and Beach Camp in Gaza, in the Balatah refugee camp in Nablus and on the streets of the towns and villages in the occupied lands.I thought the president would appreciate knowing that even today, three years after the war, I still met families who were calling their newborn sons Saddam; and that two weeks ago, when I was trapped inside the Orient House, which is the Palestinian headquarters in al-Quds [Jerusalem], with 5,000 armed mustwatinin [settlers] outside demonstrating, pledging to tear down the Palestinian flag from the flagpole, the hundreds of shabab [youths] inside the compound were chanting that they wish to be with a DSh K [machine gun] in Baghdad to avenge the eyes of Abu Jihad. And the Youth Club in Silwan, which is the one of the most resistant of all the villages around Jerusalem, asked me to ask the president's permission if they could enrol him as an honourary member of their club and to present him with this flag from holy Jerusalem.I wish to say, sir, that I believe that we are turning the tide in Europe, that the scale of the humanitarian disaster which has been imposed upon the Iraqi people is now becoming more and more widely known and accepted. Fifty-five British members of parliament opposed the war, but 125 are demanding the lifting of the embargo; and this does not include the invisible section of the Conservative Party who must also be moving in that direction, and Sir Edward Heath is being a very persuasive advocate inside the Conservative Party.It is my belief that we must convey the very clear picture that 1994 has to be the year of the ending of the embargo against Iraq. Otherwise, famine and all the awful consequences, including acts of despair by Iraqis, will be the result; and this is the message we must convey to civilized opinion in Europe.Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem
"'I greet you in the name of thousands of Britons'", The Times, January 20, 1994, citing BBC monitoring service at 9 PM on January 19 as its source.
Speech to Saddam Hussein, January 19, 1994.
Source: See also David Morley Gorgeous George: The Life and Adventures of George Galloway, London: Politicos, 2007, p. 210-11. Galloway disputes the reporting of this quote and has repeatedly stated that the conclusion was a salute to "the Iraqi people" rather than Saddam Hussein personally.

Life , War , People , Youth

“And then he lay there in his fever of sorry and repeated the now memorized note in his head and wanted to cry, but instead he only felt this aching behind his solar plexus. Crying adds something: crying is you, plus tears. But the feeling Colin had was some horrible opposite of crying. It was you, minus something.”

John Green book An Abundance of Katherines

Colin Singleton, p. 7
An Abundance of Katherines (2006)

Feeling , Cry

“!-- Recipe for greatness — --> To bear up under loss — to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief — to be victor over anger — to smile when tears are close — to resist evil men and base instincts — to hate hate and to love love — to go on when it would seem good to die — to seek ever after the glory and the dream — to look up with unquenchable faith in something evermore about to be — that is what any man can do, and so be great.”

Zane Grey (1872–1939) American novelist

As quoted in The North American Almanac (1931), p. 54, this sometimes published with a prefix "Recipe for greatness —" but this does not appear in the earliest versions of it yet located.

Love , Men , Hate , Faith

“If you want to argue with me, either you respect me, or hold your tears after I am done with you.”

Olavo de Carvalho (1947) Brazilian journalist, essayist and professor of philosophy

Against Right-Wing Bolshevism (or Leftist Traditionalism) https://debateolavodugin.blogspot.com/2011/05/r4-olavo-eng.html (23 May 2011)

“The man who wishes to bend me with his tale of woe must shed true tears – not tears that have been got ready overnight.”
Nec nocte paratum,<br/>plorabit qui me volet incurvasse querella.

Persius (34–62) ancient latin poet

Nec nocte paratum,
plorabit qui me volet incurvasse querella.
Satire I, line 90.
The Satires

“You, mad to expect repentance,
Tear your robe all you want;
I will never repent!”

Abu Nuwas (762–814) Arabic poet

Diwan, 11–12.

Madness

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

Bruce Springsteen (1949) American singer and songwriter

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

Angels , Learning , Time , Heart

“Listen to me, skull!
Under your thin brittle boneplates
what black memories haunt you?
What do you want? What do you dream of? …
Is it your soul you think of,
flickering through frightful nights? …
Skull, I must have been raving mad
to smash you with my bare fist.
Scarlet blood thickens on my fingers,
plagues me to spew these rhymes, and still
my teeth want to tear you to pieces!
Like a raven I'll swallow even the sucked-out bones
to get a fresh taste of the past,
a drop from the torrent of months and years.”

Chế Lan Viên (1920–1989) Vietnamese writer

"Skull", in A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry, ed. Nguyễn Ngọc Bích (Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), ISBN 978-0394494722, p. 166
Original in Vietnamese https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/che-lan-vien-to-a-skull/vietnamese/, and an English translation by Hai-Dang Phan https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/che-lan-vien-to-a-skull/, available at Asymptote.

Dreams , Soul , Thinking , Memory

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

Kim Wilde (1960) English pop singer

Schoolgirl
Another step (1986)

World , Sadness , Heart , Fight

“My tears are only triggered by kitsch.”

Cees Nooteboom book The Following Story

The Following Story (1991)

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

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

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

Love , Heart

“Here we’ll strip and cool our fire
In cream below, in milk-baths higher;
And when all wells are drawn dry,
I’ll drink a tear out of thine eye.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

To Amarantha, That She Would Dishevel Her Hair (l. 21–24).
Lucasta (1649)

Drink

“Avoid deceit, and do not be afraid to contradict all your environment and face the truth; cease seeking for pleasure and luxury, renounce your advantages, and live like the working people and among them; labor with all your being in the struggle for bread; sacrifice yourself consciously for the good of others, considering not rights but duties; do not have more than one coat, and do not possess land or money, but further the brotherly equalization of property; make the welfare of mankind your religion, professing Christ's true teaching and tearing down the superstitions of false Christianity; refuse to take part in any form of government activity; and through it all, everywhere and at all times, love your brother men.”

Sheldon Warren Cheney (1886–1980) American writer and art critic

"The Value of Tolstoy's What Is To Be Done? to the Present Re-building of the Social Structure" Tuxton Beale Prize Essay (1912)

Love , Men , Money , People

“I knew you wanted to tell me;
In your voice there was something wrong.
But if you would turn your face away from me,
You cannot tell me you're so strong.
Just let me ask of you one small thing.
As we have shared so many tears,
With fervor our dreams we planned a whole life long
Now are scattered on the wind…”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

The Path of Thorns
Song lyrics, Solace (1992)

Life , Dreams , Strong

“Helen whose face was fatal must have wept
Many salt tears to keep her eyes so bright
Many long nights alone: and every night
Men died, she cried, and happy Paris kept
Sweet Helen.”

T. H. White (1906–1964) author

"PARIS".

Men , Night , Happiness

“There is a shy client who uses invisible ink on Nagiko's body to hide his obvious talent. The woman attempts to develop the invisible ink by bathing in warm water, by standing as close as she dare to a hot fire, by washing her body in the juice of onion-skins until the onions make her weep and her tears prove to be the necessary solvent to reveal the writing.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Section J of 26 Facts About Flesh and Ink
The Pillow Book

Water

“Worst of all, it [speculation of notable figures] provides fodder for the special educators, special education attorneys, ABA therapists etc. to legitimize their profits and to encourage the false hope and tears for toasted snow that so many parents of these children have.”

Jonathan Mitchell (1955) American writer and activist

Undiagnosing Gates, Jefferson and Einstein

Children , Education , Hope , Parent

“Things started to go downhill. Instead of singing about taking tea with Mary Jane and boppin' your dingus on ol' Sweet Slit Annie it was Help me God I don't know the meaning of life or I believe that love is gonna cure the world of psoriasis and cancer both and I'm gonna tell the people all about it 285 different ways whether you like it or not. And Why is there war well go ask the children they know everything we need to know, and Gee I sure like black folks even if my own folks don't and endless vinyl floods of drivel in similar veins. At that point I started to pack in and resort back to my good old ' 66 goof squat rock. I got out records like 96 Tears by Question Mark and the Mysterians, who were mysterious indeed, and re-whooped to jungle juju cackles like "Wooly Bully," which is indescribable and was recorded by a bunch of guys who drove around in a hearse wearing turbans.”

Lester Bangs (1948–1982) American music critic and journalist

"Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: A Tales of These Times" (June 1971), p. 9
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

Love , Life , God , War

“His last word had been my name. He had called out to me and I had not answered.
I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!”

Elie Wiesel book Night

About the death of his father
Night (1960)

Pain , Search

“The shadow of a dove
Falls on the cote, the trees are filled with wings;
And down the valley through the crying trees
The body of the darker storm flies; brings
With its new air the breath of sunken seas
And slender tenuous thunder...
But I wait...
Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain —
Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate,
Happier winds that pile her hair;
Again
They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air
Upon me, winds that I know, and storm.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Quoted, This Side of Paradise (1920)

Fate , Tree , Waiting , Cry

“Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:
Yet, slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.
Droop herbs, and flowers,
Fall grief in showers,
Our beauties are not ours;
O, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature's pride is now, a withered daffodil.”

Ben Jonson Cynthia's Revels

Cynthia's Revels (1600), Act I, scene i

Beauty , Music , Spring , Flowers

“In the mean time I paid the strictest attention to my profession, and was so completely successful, that there was no patient of any consequence in Gottingen that I was not called in to; but as I was not allowed to make up prescriptions, not having taken my degree, and in order to avoid a heavy penalty, I was accompanied in my professional visits by Doctor Tolle, a man who knew the lectures of Schroder by heart, but did not understand them. I dictated to him what to prescribe, he took the fee, and was content. I had nothing but the honour, and plenty of good dinners. At last I took my degree as Doctor of Medicine, and resigned my patients to the care of Dr. Strohmeyer, which was the means of introducing him into practice. I left Gottingen full of honour, with tears in my eyes, at leaving behind me so many dear friends. Puffed up with pride, I arrived in Celle, but was received with coldness and pity. This was too much for mc; I could not brook the insult; but said to myself, "How can I expect to be otherwise received, when I consider my former conduct, and look back on the heedless manner in which I passed my boyish years?"”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

My consolation was, that "I should be soon as happy here as I was in Gottingen" in the choice of my friends.
My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786

Penalty , Understanding , Time , Success

“How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXII : Comparisons: Information Rejected; Helen

“I am secretly a costume drama queen. Oo, I love me some Merchant Ivory films! I do! If there is a petticoat and Helena Bonham Carter, already I can feel the tears well up in my eyes. I love me some period films! And I know that I will never be in them. I will never be in any of these movies, unless I am laying down on my side smoking some opium. And I get offered movie roles all the time, but I say, "No! No! I don't want to play a manicurist. I don't want to play a really pissed-off liquor store owner. I don't want to go nowhere with a chicken under my arm. I don't want to play an exceptionally good student, I do not want to get off a tour bus and take numerous photographs, I do not ever want to utter the phrase, 'Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond'! I don't want to write down all my memoirs about being a geisha!"”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

What it is, is that I cannot run up a wall!!
From Her Tours and CDs, Revolution Tour

Love , Feeling , Time

“Despite efforts to disguise his hatred of Israel in Islamic terms… Khamenei is more influenced by Western-style anti-Semitism than by classical Islam's checkered relations with Jews. His argument about territories becoming "irrevocably Islamic" does not wash, if only because of its inconsistency. He has nothing to say about vast chunks of former Islamic territory, including some that belonged to Iran for millennia, now under Russian rule. Nor is he ready to embark on Jihad to drive the Chinese out of Xinjiang, a Muslim khanate until the late 1940s. Israel, which in terms of territory accounts for one per cent of Saudi Arabia, is a very small fry. Khamenei's shedding of tears for "the sufferings of Palestinian Muslims" are also unconvincing. To start with, not all Palestinians are Muslims. And, if it were only Muslim sufferers who deserved sympathy, why doesn't the "Supreme Guide" beat his chest about the Burmese Rohingya and the Chechens massacred and enchained by Vladimir Putin, not to mention Muslims daily killed by fellow-Muslims across the globe?”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

The Ayatollah's Plan for Israel and Palestine http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6263/khamenei-israel-palestine, Gatestone Institute (July 31, 2015)

Effort , Suffering

“A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 2.
She Was a Phantom of Delight http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww259.html (1804)

Love , Food , Smile , Kiss

“Voluptuous habits speedily bind all the powers of the soul in loathsome vassalage, and exclude every thought except such as relate to the beastly pleasures of which it is the slave. Distracted by cravings as inexorable as they are base, and in their vileness perpetually reproduced, — tantalized by the impure fountains of a diseased imagination, and oppressed with its own effeminacy, — the mind loses its vigor and its productiveness. Every faculty rapidly deteriorates and decays; memory becomes extinguished, inanity destroys resolution, and the heart is as cold and callous as a cinder extinct. It ceases to love, to sympathize, and diffuse the delicious tears that sanctify friendship's shrine. The whole countenance assumes an expression of obdurateness and repugnance. The features, marked with premature decay, proclaim that the source of gentle sentiments, pure emotions, and innocent joys, is exhausted, like a limpid fountain invaded by the scoria and flame of a volcano. All the elements of life seem to have retreated into their abused organs only to perish there. Even the organs themselves are withered, and worse than dead; their infirmities, maladies, sufferings, rush in a multitude upon the degraded victim, and overwhelm him in awful retribution.”

Elias Lyman Magoon (1810–1886) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 354.

Love , Life , Friendship , Pleasure

“Love is the closest thing to laughter and the closest thing to tears. Love is the motive power of everything in the universe that has beauty in it. Love is the reason for everything and the reward for everything.
It’s always seemed strange to me that we have to use the word love for so many things. And yet when you come to think of it, that’s all right, too, because love is in everything in some form or another. Without it, I imagine the flowers would stop blooming and the sun would stop shining and people would stop laughing, and even the rain wouldn’t fall.
So love is always growth.
I think if I could have just one word for love—it would be understanding.
Love must always be unselfish, and strangely enough, love is the only thing in the world that ever is unselfish. And if it isn’t unselfish, it’s only a counterfeit of love.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"What is Love? Twelve Men of the Screen Give Their Ideas". Photoplay, February 1925, p. 36. (Photoplay Publishing Company). https://archive.org/stream/pho28chic#page/n163/mode/2up

Love , People , World , Beauty

“Open your heart.
Tear it apart.”

Becky Stark (1976) American singer

Open Your Heart
Imagine Our Love (2007)

Heart

“Louisiana rain now is falling just like tears.
Running down my face washing out the years.
Louisiana rain is soaking through my shoes.
I may never be the same when I reach Baton Rouge.”

Tom Petty (1950–2017) American musician

Louisiana Rain
Lyrics, Damn The Torpedoes (1979)

Shoe

“I felt as if I had at last returned home. The first few days I was there I couldn't stop the tears streaming from my eyes. It was not sadness, but some emotional impact from the past- a returning to a place once loved after too long a time.”

Natacha Rambova (1897–1966) American film personality and fashion designer

On visiting Egypt, p. 207
Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova (1991)

Love , Sadness , Home , Time

“Let's get this straight: he didn't really cry but his chin would begin to wobble all over the place and tears would fill his eyes and he'd have to hold himself rigid to make it all stop. But he couldn't always make it stop. Then the fight with Bobo Kelton happened and changed everything. That was when he vowed not to cry anymore. Not during the fight but afterward. And it wasn't even a fight but one sweet and beautiful blow that sent Bobo to the floor. The surprise and shock on Bobo's fight had been terrific to see.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 23

Beauty , Change , Fight , Cry

“I played him the Goldberg Variations. If one wishes to reduce a sensitive German to tears there is no surer lachrymatory.”

John Fowles book Daniel Martin

Daniel Martin (1977)

“I would not even have him weep
O'er his Italian love's last sleep.
Oh, tears are a most worthless token,
When hearts they would have soothed are broken.”

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

The Painter's Love from The London Literary Gazette (14th December 1822)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Love , Sleep , Heart

“He kissed his son, and a tear fell from his cheek on to the ground, for he had restrained all tears till now.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XVI. 190–191 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

Kiss

“When Andranik went away… I saw that tears were in his eyes and his mouth was twisting with agony like the mouth of a small boy who is in great pain but will not let himself cry.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Inhale and Exhale (1936), Antranik and the Spirit of Armenia

Pain , Boy , Cry

“I feel like this is the beginning,
Though I've loved you for a million years,
And if I thought our love was ending,
I'd find myself drowning in my own tears.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

You Are The Sunshine of My Life
Song lyrics, Talking Book (1972)

Love , Feeling

“Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him!
Not for him who, departing, leaves millions in tears!
Not for him who has died full of honor and years!
Not for him who ascended Fame’s ladder so high:
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky.”

Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867) American magazine writer, editor, and publisher

The Death of Harrison.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

“The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.”

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

The Great Infidels (1881)

Love , God , Pain , Hate

“Last year, initially The Scotsman newspaper — being Scottish and J. K. Rowling being Scottish — and because of the English tendency to try and tear down their idols, they kept trying to build stories which said J. K. Rowling ripped off Neil Gaiman. They kept getting in touch with me and I kept declining to play because I thought it was silly. And then The Daily Mirror in England ran an article about that mad woman who was trying to sue J. K. Rowling over having stolen muggles from her. And they finished off with a line saying [something like]: And Neil Gaiman has accused her of stealing.
Luckily I found this online and I found it the night it came out by pure coincidence and the reporter's e-mail address was at the bottom of the thing so I fired off an e-mail saying: "This is not true, I never said this. You are making this up." I got an apologetic e-mail back, but by the time I'd gotten the apologetic e-mail back it was already in The Daily Mail the following morning and it was very obvious that The Daily Mail‘s research [had] consisted of reading The Daily Mirror. And you're going: journalists are so lazy.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

On stories which implied that Harry Potter was merely a revised Timothy Hunter of Gaiman's The Books of Magic, in January magazine interview (2002) http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/gaiman.html

Time , Reading , Madness , Night

“Mourne not inevitable things; thy teares can spring no deeds
To helpe thee, nor recall thy sonne: impacience ever breeds
Ill upon ill, makes worst things worse.”

George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator

Book XXIV, line 494, p. 336
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

Spring , Help

“She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.”

William Wordsworth The Sparrow's Nest

The Sparrow's Nest, st. 2 (1801).

Love , Fear , Heart , Joy

“Under the dominion of the priests our earth became the ascetic planet; a squalid den careering through space, peopled by discontented and arrogant creatures, who were disgusted with life, abhorred their globe as a vale of tears, and who in their envy and hatred of beauty and joy did themselves as much harm as possible.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 41

Life , People , Beauty , Joy

“Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

L’amour est le plus joli larcin que la Société ait su faire à la Nature; mais la maternité, n’est-ce pas la Nature dans sa joie? Un sourire a séché mes larmes.
Part I, ch. XXVIII.
Letters of Two Brides (1841-1842)

Love , Smile , Mood , Nature

“I was TORTURED by teachers! You hear me, TORTURED!” I yelled, jerking the whole podium off the floor. “Hell, I flunked the third grade twice because—BECAUSE—” I was crying so hard that I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand, but this wasn’t going to stop me. I was all guts up front now. I was in that smooth-feeling, all-true place that I got into when I’d go to my room and start writing each morning before daybreak…with all my heart and soul.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Jerk , Feeling , Soul , Hell

“And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.”

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

The Rose.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Smile

“In our United Kingdom, the main terrorist threat has come from the IRA. Their minds twisted by hatred and fanaticism, they have tried to bomb and murder their way to their objective of tearing more than a million citizens out of the United Kingdom. The truth is that the whole IRA campaign is based on crushing democracy and smashing anyone who doesn't agree with them. To all those who have suffered so much at their hands—to the Northern Ireland policemen and prison officers and their families, to the soldiers, the judges, the civil servants and their families—we offer our deepest admiration and thanks for defending democracy and for facing danger while keeping within the rule of law—unlike the terrorist who skulks in the shadows and shoots to kill…we will never give up the search for more effective ways of defeating the IRA. If the IRA think they can weary us or frighten us, they have made a terrible miscalculation. People sometimes say that it is wrong to use the word never in politics, I disagree, some things are of such fundamental importance that no other word is appropriate. So I say once again today that this Government will never surrender to the IRA. Never.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352
Third term as Prime Minister

People , Truth , Family , Law

“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 , Heart

“I am not a reformer. I think there is entirely too much attempt at reforming in the world and that we pay too much attention to reformers. We have two kinds of reformers. Both are nuisances. The man who calls himself a reformer wants to smash things. He is the sort of man who would tear up a whole shirt because the collar button did not fit the buttonhole. It would never occur to him to enlarge the buttonhole. This sort of reformer never under any circumstances knows what he is doing. Experience and reform do not go together. A reformer cannot keep his zeal at white heat in the presence of a fact. He must discard all facts.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 2

World , Thinking

“Well! A general invasion: Hamlet rears his hideous head, Othello is preparing his dagger, that essentially murderous weapon, subversive of all good theatrical government. What more, who knows... King Lear is to tear his eyes before a French audience. It should be a point of dignity for the Academy to declare that all imports of this kind are incompatible with public morals. Farewell good taste! In any case, equip yourself with a stout coat of mail under your evening dress. Beware of the Classicist's daggers, or rather, sacrifice yourself valiantly for our barbarian pleasure..”

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) French painter

quote on Hamlet, in a letter to Victor Hugo, 1828; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock -, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 67
1815 - 1830

Pleasure

“They are kings and priests unto God. They wear crowns that flash in the everlasting light. They wear robes that are spotlessly white. They wave victorious palms. They sing anthems of such exceeding sweetness as no earthly choirs ever approach. They stand before the throne. They fly on ministries of love. They muse on the top of Mount Zion. They meditate on the banks of the river of life. They are rapturous with ecstasies of love. God wipes away all tears from their eyes.”

Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 306.

Love , Life , God , Light

“Just keep following my tears, and the brook will take you in.”

Elfriede Jelinek book The Piano Teacher

p 44
The Piano Teacher (1988)

“Now it was all behind him — but by God, he did not, he would not regret it. He had taken the only way, and if it had pleased Fate to sport cruelly with him, that was no fault of his. He had sacrificed one loyalty to a more urgent, and with the thought bitterness went out of his soul. […] Tragedy had ensued, but the endeavour had been honest. He saw the ironic pattern of life spread out beneath him, as a man views a campaign from a mountain, and he came near to laughter — laughter with an undertone of tears.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Source: Midwinter (1923), Ch. XVIII

Life , God , Fate , Way

“I sometimes wish that I were in the Labour Party. I would tear down all these institutions!”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speaking of landlords, quoted in Frances Stevenson's diary entry (17 December 1919), A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: A Diary (London: Hutchinson, 1971), p. 193
Prime Minister

“Clearer and nearer still,' cried the Rat joyously. 'Now you must surely hear it! Ah — at last — I see you do!'
Breathless and transfixed the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid run of that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed him utterly. He saw the tears on his comrade's cheeks, and bowed his head and understood.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 7

“Sometime 30 years ago I wrote a piece for the Stan Kenton Neophonic Band. The night of the concert at the Music Center Auditorium in Los Angeles Stan counted it off much too fast. When it came to the recapitulation at the end, the woodwind instrumentation had changed to mixtures of piccolos, flutes and saxes; and being too fast, it turned into a woodwind knuckle-buster. I was hiding on the floor between the seats. Later, when this was recorded, Stan counted too slowly. That recording was released without my piece. Years later when Stan created his "The Creative World of Stan Kenton" record company, Capitol was so angry that he had left them and released everything they had in the can to jeopardize his market. My piece was released with the first third cut off. I rewrote this for my present instrumentation and when we first went through it, while conducting, I was in tears to finally hear what I had written 30 years ago.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Discussing "Piece for Soft Brass, Woodwinds and Percussion"; from the liner notes for Jazz Corps

World , Music , Angels , Change

“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

“When the end comes, I hope it’s as strange as that. I hope that the sky tears open and the world is washed with colors that we’ve never seen before.”

Joey Comeau (1980) writer

Lockpick Pornography

World , Hope , Color

“In recollecting Schumpeter, it is hard to tear oneself away from the exotic manner, the dubious politics, the carefully crafted image, the hidden self-doubts, the convoluted life story, the complicated relations to three wives and several non-wives.”

Robert Solow (1924) American economist

"Heavy Thinker" (2007)

Life

“Somebody's got to cry some tears, I guess it must be up to me.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Biograph (1985), Up to Me (recorded 1974)

Cry

“Punk: Don't stop on account of me. [Starts singing "Happy Birthday" to Rey's daughter, who is scared]. Rey, you look scared, but I assure you I'm not out here to hurt you, and I'm not out here to hurt your family. In fact, I'm happy that we're all here – my family and yours. And today's a big day, we all need to celebrate the occasion, and it doesn't get any bigger that WrestleMania, Rey, so that's exactly why I wanna challenge you to a match at WrestleMania. I also wanna challenge you to a match tonight. And I don't mean later in the show, Rey. I mean now. I mean, as in, right now!
Rey: Come on Punk. This ain't the time
Punk: Don't be sad. Aaliyah, since it's your birthday, sweet, innocent little Aaliyah, I'll tell you what. As my birthday present to you, I'll let you shut your eyes while I reduce your daddy to tears and make him beg for my mercy. And Dominik. You're such… you're all grown up now, aren't you? We watched you grow up before our very eyes, but I don't think you ever heard your father squeal like a pig from somebody repeatedly stomping his surgically repaired knees, so it's okay if you plug your ears. And beautiful, voluptuous Angie. Now I'm sure you and your loving husband Rey have shared the best of times. But look at me. I promise you, after I do what I'm going to do to your husband, it will be the worst of times. So feel free to cup your hand over your mouth to muffle the screams. What's the matter, Rey? Don't you wanna fight me in front of your family? No? Are you afraid that your family's gonna watch you get hurt? You're a coward! I know it; deep down inside, Dominik knows it; your wife has always known; and now on her 9th birthday, your sweet innocent little Aaliyah knows it. All these people here know it, Rey, you're a coward! What's it gonna take? Huh, Rey? Where's Giant-Killer Rey Mysterio at? [Crowd chants "619"] Where's your 619, huh, Rey? Where's the ultimate underdog, Rey? Rey, where's your machismo? Where's your machismo, Rey?! I'll tell you where, Rey. Your machismo, your courage – you never had it. What's it gonna take, Rey? Huh? Rey, I'll even drop down to your level, Rey. [Gets down on his knees] Come on, Rey! So, you're turning me down? You won't fight me? What's it gonna take, Rey? [Gets up] What's it gonna take, Rey?! Not now?! Not now?! [Slaps Rey across the face] [Rey then walks away very frustrated with his family. ] Come on, Rey! Come on, now! There he is, ladies and gentlemen! There's your superhero!
Striker: He's got no alternative but to protect his family.
Punk: Watch him take his walk of shame! But one more thing, sweet little princess Aaliyah… [Sings "Happy Birthday" to her in a disturbing type way. ]”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

March 12, 2010
Friday Night SmackDown

Love , People , Sadness , Family

“let me
have a look inside these eyes while I'm learning
please don't hide them just because of tears”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Blind Man's Zoo (1989), Trouble Me

Learning

“To conceive a thought — just one, but one that would tear the universe to pieces.”

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

The New Gods (1969)

Universe

“Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy -- the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the Japanese-American internment camps -- to mention a few. I am confident that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.”

Chelsea Manning (1987) United States Army soldier and whistleblower

Letter to Barack Obama (2013)

Democracy , Confidence , Decision , Light

“There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

A Vision of Poets (1844)

World , Laughter , Time

“Unconscionable Love, bane and tormentor of mankind, parent of strife, fountain of tears, source of a thousand ills, rise, mighty Power, and fall upon the sons of our enemies with all the force you used upon Medea when you filled her with insensate fury.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book IV. Homeward Bound, Lines 445–449

Love , Parent

“Hard-hearted minds relent and rigor's tears abound,
And envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault was found.
Knowledge her light hath lost, valor hath slain her knight,
Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the world's delight.”

Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554–1628) English politician

"Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney" (1593).

World , Knowledge , Light , Heart

“I could almost shed a tear
but let’s shine in the time we have remaining
you’re a tough old gal
but a dog is just a pal
and believe me, my dear,
I’m not complaining”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"Labrador"
Song lyrics, Charmer (2012)

Dogs , Time

“He knelt him down on the new-raised mound,
His face was bowed on the cold damp ground,
He raised his head, his tears were done,
The father had prayed o'er his only son!”

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

The Soldier's Funeral from The London Literary Gazette (16th November 1822)
The Improvisatrice (1824)

“Prostrate on earth the bleeding warrior lies,
And Isr'el's beauty on the mountains dies.
How are the mighty fallen!
Hush'd be my sorrow, gently fall my tears,
Lest my sad tale should reach the alien's ears:
Bid Fame be dumb, and tremble to proclaim
In heathen Gath, or Ascalon, our shame
Lest proud Philistia, lest our haughty foe,
With impious scorn insult our solemn woe.”

William Somervile (1675–1742) English poet

The Lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan.

Sadness , Beauty , Mountain

“Years go by
Will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand
Years go by
If I'm stripped of my beauty
And the orange clouds
Raining in head
Years go by
Will I choke on my tears
Till finally there is nothing left
One more casualty
You know we're too easy Easy Easy”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

"Silent All These Years".
Songs

Beauty , Understanding , Waiting

“Listen to the rain
Here it comes again
Hear it in the rain
Feel the touch
of tears that fall
— they won't fall forever
In the way the day will flow
all things come,
all things go.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

Song lyrics, Amarantine (2005)

Way , Feeling

“We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

Lift Every Voice and Sing, st. 2.

Way , Water

“Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words will turn back into steam”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005)

Sleep , Cry

“The answer is what the answer always is, that we are animals, that at the end we turn on each other, tearing each other apart. To survive. Throw Lubov to the men in the guard shack like a scrap of meat to a pack of wolves… why not, it is for survival. Fight, kill each other, over the warmth of the stove? Of course - it is survival. I refuse to survive. But I will live.”

Arthur M. Jolly (1969) American writer

Anastasia, Act II, Scene 1
A Gulag Mouse (2010)

Men , Animals , Fight

“Earth, thou grain of sand on the shore of the Universe of God; thou Bethlehem, amongst the princely cities of the heavens; thou art, and remainest, the Loved One amongst ten thousand suns and worlds, the Chosen of God! Thee will He again visit, and then thou wilt prepare a throne for Him, as thou gavest Him a manger cradle; in His radiant glory wilt thou rejoice, as thou didst once drink His blood and tears, and mourn His death! On thee has the Lord a great work to complete.”

Wilhelm von Pressel (1821–1902) German official and railway engineer

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 102.

Love , Death , God , World

“This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—
There's nothing true but Heaven.”

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

This World is all a fleeting Show.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World , Smile , Joy

“The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.”

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

A Handful of Sand on the Shore

Laughter

“Close your eyes and listen. Listen to the silent screams of terrified mothers, the prayers of anguished old men and women. Listen to the tears of children. Jewish children, a beautiful little girl among them, with golden hair, whose vulnerable tenderness has never left me. Look and listen as they walk towards dark flames so gigantic that the planet itself seemed in danger.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

From an address given at Auschwitz in occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Holocaust (27 January 1995)

Women , Men , Children , Beauty

“Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die?
At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

The News.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

People , Reading , Cry

“Walking back to happiness with you,
Said farewell to lonliness I knew,
Laid aside foolish pride,
Learnt the truth from tears I cried.”

Mike Hawker (1956) American politician

Song Walking Back to Happiness

Truth , Happiness

“It is easier to tear down a code than to put a new one in its place.”

Frederick Lewis Allen (1890–1954) American historian and editor of Harper's Magazine

Only Yesterday http://books.google.com/books?id=cdmXVzZ5xOsC&q=%22It+is+easier+to+tear+down+a+code+than+to+put+a+new+one+in+its+place%22&pg=PA102#v=onepage, ch. 5, (1931)