Quotes about tears (1446 quotes, page 15)

“I tell you again that the recollection of the manner in which I saw the Queen of France in the year 1774 and the contrast between that brilliancy, Splendour, and beauty, with the prostrate Homage of a Nation to her, compared with the abominable Scene of 1789 which I was describing did draw Tears from me and wetted my Paper. These Tears came again into my Eyes almost as often as I lookd at the description. They may again. You do not believe this fact, or that these are my real feelings, but that the whole is affected, or as you express it, 'downright Foppery.'”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

My friend, I tell you it is truth—and that it is true, and will be true, when you and I are no more, and will exist as long as men—with their Natural feelings exist.
Letter to Philip Francis (20 February 1790), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 91
1790s

Feeling , Beauty , Drawing

“It is most likely that the author was the only one who owed and paid a debt of tears. I know something about this but not all the details.”

Zhiyanzhai

Note in the first chapter of an 1814 version of The Story of the Stone, as quoted by Liu Zaifu in Reflections on "Dream of the Red Chamber", trans. Shu Yunzhong (Cambria Press, 2008), p. 197

“55 years ago today, we were beaten, tear gassed, and trampled by horses. I thought I saw death. I thought I was going to die. I don't know how I made it back, but I know we cannot rest. We cannot become weary. We must keep pushing and pulling and find a way to get in the way.”

John Lewis (civil rights leader) (1940) American politician and civil rights leader

Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1236392740717543424, (7 March 2020)

Way , Horse , Death

“We were beaten, we were tear-gassed. I thought I was going to die on this bridge. But somehow and some way, God almighty helped me here. We cannot give up now. We cannot give in. We must keep the faith, keep our eyes on the prize.”

John Lewis (civil rights leader) (1940) American politician and civil rights leader

Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/repjohnlewis/status/1234277472776183810, (1 March 2020)

God , Faith , Help , Way

“Following the stars through the honky-tonks and bars
Dream away on a country music pride
Start the evenin' by myself
You can bet by the hour of twelve
Gonna have a pretty painted lady by my side
Talkin' about a pretty pained lady by my side Painted lady, tell me of the past gone by
Hold me like the open range and ride me high
Listenin' to the days when your dress was made of calico or gingham
And a man was a manI can feel the pain, I can see the fears
On the painted cheeks that hide the tears
Of a lovely, lonesome cowgirl in disguise”

Willis Allan Ramsey (1951) American singer-songwriter

Painted Lady

Pain , Painting , Country , Past

“Too much you've view'd, too poignantly you've felt,
Too long on human sufferings we've dwelt;
These woful visions shift, but scenes appear,
Which tho' less painful, cause the conscious tear.”

Isaac Gompertz (1774–1856)

"Time", Part IV, pp. 199–200
Time, or Light and Shade (1815)

Suffering , Pain , Appearance

“With tears we sow seeds of prayer in the earth of the heart, hoping to reap the harvest in joy.”

Diadochos of Photiki (400–486) Byzantine saint

§ 73
On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination (480 AD)

Hope , Joy , Heart

“If the soul, through attentiveness, reduces the blindness caused by the love of this world, it will consider its slightest faults to be very grave and will continually shed tears. ... But if the soul persists in its worldly disposition, even though it commits a murder or some other act deserving severe punishment, it takes little notice; and it is quite unable to discern its other faults, often considering them to be signs of progress, and in its wretchedness it is not ashamed to defend them heatedly.”

Diadochos of Photiki (400–486) Byzantine saint

§ 27
On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination (480 AD)

Soul , World , Love , Making love

“Objects bring back their memories. You tear my heart!”

Zhiyanzhai

A commentary on an episode in Chapter 8 of the Dream of the Red Chamber, trans. David Hawkes in The Story of the Stone, Vol. I (Penguin, 1973), p. 34, quoted by Gideon Shelach-Lavi in "Memory, Amnesia and the Formation of Identity Symbols in China", published in Memory and Agency in Ancient China (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Memory , Heart

“And I
in terror
but not in doubt of
what I must do
in anguish, in haste,
wrenched from the earth root after root,
the soil heaving and cracking, the moss tearing asunder —
and behind me the others: my brothers
forgotten since dawn. In the forest
they too had heard,
and were pulling their roots in pain
out of a thousand years' layers of dead leaves,
rolling the rocks away,
breaking themselves
out of
their depths.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

A Tree Telling of Orpheus (1968)

Pain , Dead

“My son," said he, "if every one in your case should shed tears as abundantly as you have done, the world would have been drowned in salt water by this time.
As for your friend, think not ill of him; no man loveth another who is always giving.”

Howard Pyle (1853–1911) American illustrator and author

Twilight Land, "Not a Pin to Choose"

Water , Thinking , Time , World

“Dust to dust by the broken dreams of the humanity,
you ain't got a lot to say, the words are sad,
now, our companion, the pains of the heart
The indifference kills with no shame or concern, killing me,
killing you, watch the end of the blessing, for the blind in the heart war has taken its tax. He has wrapped us in black wings
and one day, the sun stopped, the rain stopped falling,
the flowers didn't look high,
the sky emptied of stars
then a tear dripped from the heart and became our breath
we need a sacred tear,
before the fall.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://allpoetry.com/alexis_karpouzos

Star , Flowers , Indifference , Pain

“The world is miserable because men live beneath themselves; the error of modern man is that he wants to reform the world without having either the will or the power to reform man, and this flagrant contradiction, this attempt to make a better world on the basis of a worsened humanity, can only end in the very abolition of what is human, and consequently in the abolition of happiness too. Reforming man means binding him again to Heaven, reestablishing the broken link; it means tearing him away from the reign of the passions, from the cult of matter, quantity and cunning, and reintegrating him into the world of the spirit and serenity, we would even say: into the world of sufficient reason.”

Frithjof Schuon book Understanding Islam

[1998, Understanding Islam, World Wisdom, 26, 0-941532-24-0]
Miscellaneous, Modernity

Men , Happiness , Passion , World

“A tear is a misfortune, a stain is a vice.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Part III. Des Choses qui procèdent immédiatement de la personne (Things That Immediately Proceed the Person), Chapter V. De la Toilette dans toutes ses parties (Of the Toilet in all its Parts).
Treatise on Elegant Life (1830)
Original: (fr) Une déchirure est un malheur, une tache est un vice.

“If one tear falls on account of fear of God, it is better then fasting throughout life.”

Sufyan al-Thawri (716–778) Muslim Scholar and founder of Thawri Madhhab

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 28

Life , God , Fear

“Of drying my tears, even while I weep,”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

“I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940) This has often been misquoted in the form: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears ..."
The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 13 May 1940, vol. 360, c. 1502. Audio records of the speech do spare out the "It is" before the in the beginning of the "Victory"-Part.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Housing

“I held out my hand to his face, wiping away the tears from his eyes, tears that I savored from my fingers, thus knowing the taste of my life.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Tesi la mano verso il suo volto asciugandole le lacrime dagli occhi, lacrime che assaporai dalle mie dita, conoscendo così, il sapore della mia vita.
Source: prevale.net

Life

“You don’t tear up the room because there’s a sweet spot for the microphones, and you can’t deviate very far from that or else the engineer gets mad. You have to act with your whole body, but keep it right in the zone.”

Dee Bradley Baker (1962) American voice actor

Denver’s “Clone Wars,” “Phineas and Ferb” voice actor on working (from home) through a pandemic https://theknow.denverpost.com/2020/08/21/dee-bradley-baker-interview/243747/ (August 21, 2020)

Madness

“It feels great to not be standing behind a bunch of men, but to actually be standing in front of it as women with something that we made, something that we’re proud of and something that we put our blood, sweat and tears into.”

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (1984) American actress and singer

Interview with the Hollywood Reporter (4 February 2020)

Men , Feeling , Women

“Do you not know that there is nothing the eye can see that can make it shed the tears of blood? Do you not know that there is no loss we cannot overcome”

Chigozie Obioma (1986) Nigerian writer

The fishermen (2015)

Loss

“Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root.”

Emma Goldman book Anarchism and Other Essays

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), Marriage and Love

Freedom , Universe , Law , Love

“Tonight I have no desire to sleep. / I want to remain here until morning / writing poetry. / The heart drowns less slowly / when the pen sheds tears / and the paper dries pain.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Source: The Poetry of Menotti Lerro, p. 55

Sleep , Pain , Heart

“It's almost impossible to resist the caress of the tears on your face.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears
Waste of youth's most precious years,
Waste of ways the saints have trod,
Waste of Glory, waste of God,
War!”

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (1883–1929) British saint

Source: from Waste, in More Rough Rhymes of a Padre (1919)

God , War , Youth , Way

“The pitchforks and torches can tear down and burn up but they can't build up the institutions and communities so necessary to a stable and prosperous country”

Bob Inglis (1959) Former U.S. congressman

Source: "Bob Inglis: How I changed my mind about climate change" https://www.npr.org/2021/12/03/1061214253/bob-inglis-how-i-changed-my-mind-about-climate-change, NPR (December 3, 2021)

Country , Communication

“The freedom is a tear digging into the flesh.”

Doina Ruști (1957) Romanian Writer

Source: The Phanariot Manuscript https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuscrisul_fanariot

Freedom

“Never fear to weep;
For tears are summer showers to the soul,
To keep it fresh and green.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Savonarola (1881), Candida to Valori in Act IV, sc. iv; p. 264.

Soul , Fear , Summer

“Seemed like I couldn't stand it any more,
The factory whistles blowin' day by day,
An' men an' children hurryin' by the door,
An' street cars clangin' on their busy way.
The faces of the people seemed to be
Washed pale by tears o' grief an' strife an' care,
Till everywhere I turned to I could see
The same old gloomy pictures of despair.The windows of the shops all looked the same,
Decked out with stuff their owners wished to sell;
When visitors across our doorway came
I could recite the tales they'd have to tell.
All things had lost their old-time power to please;
Dog-tired I was an' irritable, too,
An' so I traded chimney tops for trees,
An' shingled roof for open skies of blue.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: When Day is Done (1921), The Cure for Weariness, stanzas 1 and 2

Business , Men , Tree , Children

“There will always be something to do, my boy;
There will always be wrongs to right;
There will always be need for a manly breed
And men unafraid to fight.
There will always be honor to guard, my boy;
There will always be hills to climb,
And tasks to do, and battles new
From now to the end of time.There will always be dangers to face, my boy;
There will always be goals to take;
Men shall be tried, when the roads divide,
And proved by the choice they make.
There will always be burdens to bear, my boy;
There will always be need to pray;
There will always be tears through the future years,
As loved ones are borne away.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: The Path to Home (1919), p.119 - There Will Always Be Something To Do, stanzas 1 and 2.

Boy , Future , Fight , Love

“Are you a man? Then you should have an human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as Compassion there? Do you never feel another's pain? Have you no Sympathy? No sense of human woe? No pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the Great GOD deal with You, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Source: 1770s, Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774)

Sea , Sense , God , Pain

“But you can't just stand there and try to judge
It hurts but your jealousy probably tears you up inside as much
And it's such a pleasure every button that I touch
I treasure every glutton that I punish in my lust”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Stimulate" (from 8 Mile, 2002)
2000s

Hurt , Pleasure , Jealousy

“Don't look behind
'Cause a tear that never dries
Can only make you blind.”

Ronnie James Dio (1942–2010) American singer

"Like the Beat of a Heart" on Sacred Heart (1985)
Lyrics

“The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor; you could tear civilization down and rebuild it from scratch, and the same dualities would rise again. Yet to fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to transcend them.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Bittersweet Introduction at p. xxiii

Light , Way , Life

“Freedom of speech cannot be a reason to incite racial or cultural discrimination and tear society apart. We hope Sweden can earnestly respect the religious beliefs of minority groups, including Muslims.”

Wang Wenbin (1971) Chinese diplomat

Wang Wenbin (2022) cited in " Respect religious beliefs of Muslims, China tells Sweden https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220420-respect-religious-beliefs-of-muslims-china-tells-sweden/" on Middle East Monitor, 20 April 2022.

Freedom , Hope

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laugh comes the tears and in developing motion pictures or television shows, you must combine all the facts of life — drama, pathos and humor.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Source: Year unknown, published in 2004, How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 1 : It All Started with a Boy, p. 16

Life