Quotes about tears
page 2

“Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Literature, Nature

“Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Memory, Past, Cry

“And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
And only tears can heal”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“…(hot, opalescent, thick tears that poets and lovers shed)…”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Lovers

“I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Wedding, Love, Life, Death

“Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Art, Music, Memory

“The worst kind of pain is when you're smiling just to stop the tears from falling.”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Depressing, Pain, Smile

“True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.”

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

Source: On the Heights of Despair (1934)

World

“leave me in peace, let me sleep one night at least without my pillow being wet with tears, my eyes burning and my head throbbing”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Peace, Sleep, Night

“Fairy Song
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh, weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.
Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies,—
Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!
‘Mong the blossoms white and red—
Look up, look up! I flutter now
On this fresh pomegranate bough.
See me! ’tis this silvery bill
Ever cures the good man’s ill.
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Adieu, adieu—I fly—adieu!
I vanish in the heaven’s blue,—
Adieu, adieu!”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Flowers, Sleep, Flying

“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”

Hans Christian Andersen book The Little Mermaid

Source: The Little Mermaid

Suffering

“Light died in the west. Night and tears took the Nation. The star of Water drifted among the clouds like a murderer softly leaving the scene of the crime.”

Terry Pratchett book Nation

Source: Nation

Star, Light, Water, Night

“You walked in, laughing, tears welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Women, People, Girl

“Man cries, his tears dry up and run out. So he becomes a devil, reduced to a monster.”

Kohta Hirano (1973) Japanese manga artist

“Even when a river of tears courses through this body, the flame of love cannot be quenched.”

Izumi Shikibu (976–1033) Japanese poet

Love

“Not as in rest she bowed,
But large hot tears were coursing down her cheek.
And her low-panted sobs broke awefully
Upon the sleeping echoes of the night.”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

The Path of Roses (1856)
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Sleep, Night

“Haven't people learned yet that the time of superficial intellectual games is over, that agony is infinitely more important than syllogism, that a cry of despair is more revealing than the most subtle thought, and that tears always have deeper roots than smiles?”

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

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

People, Smile, Game, Learning

“Good friends we have had, oh good friends we've lost along the way
In this bright future you can't forget your past
So dry your tears I say
No woman, no cry
No woman, no cry
Little darlin' don't shed no tears
No woman, no cry”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Disputed, No Woman, No Cry, from the album Natty Dread (1974)

Way, Past, Future, Cry

“"In twenty years," I said, smiling at her tears, "a man grows humble, Mary. I have stored within me a great fund of affection, with nobody to give it to, and I swear to you, on the word of a soldier, that if there is one of those ladies who can be got to care for me I shall be very proud." Despite her semblance of delight I knew that she was wondering at me, and I wondered at myself, but it was true.”

J. M. Barrie book The Little White Bird

Source: The Little White Bird (1902), Ch. 26

Smile

“But, Madam, let your grief be laid aside,
And let the fountain of your tears be dry'd,
In vain they flow to wet the dusty plain,
Your sighs are wafted to the skies in vain,
Your pains they witness, but they can no more,
While Death reigns tyrant o'er this mortal shore.”

Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) American poet

"To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name of Avis, aged one Year." st. 2, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

Death, Pain

“I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it! If it is not true let us tear it out! Let us stick to it then, let us stand firmly by it then.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech at Chicago (1858)

Men, Truth, Books

“Those American comics themselves were heavily influenced by Keaton’s comedies, Mack Sennett, those sorts of films from the golden age of comedy. The gagmen that appeared there, for example Roscoe Arbuckle or Ben Turpin, there were lots of comics that used their style, their faces just as is. Especially Chaplin with his bowed legs and over-sized shoes. Those sorts of features were used directly in comics. In that era, all American cartoonists imitated the stars of comedy. That is what I worked so hard at copying, and so that’s why my comics are bowlegged and big-shoed. At the level of content too I was deeply influenced by the strong social caricatures of Chaplin’s comedies, the tears mixed with the laughter. The biggest influence of all was the rhythm.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

Source: http://www.tcj.com/tezuka-osamu-and-american-comics/ Tezuka Osamu and American Comics

Age, Shoe, Star, Laughter

“I do not take any credit to my better-balanced head because I never went crazy on Presbyterianism. We go too slow for that. You never see us ranting and shouting and tearing up the ground, You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion. Notice us, and you will see how we do. We get up of a Sunday morning and put on the best harness we have got and trip cheerfully down town; we subside into solemnity and enter the church; we stand up and duck our heads and bear down on a hymn book propped on the pew in front when the minister prays; we stand up again while our hired choir are singing, and look in the hymn book and check off the verses to see that they don't shirk any of the stanzas; we sit silent and grave while the minister is preaching, and count the waterfalls and bonnets furtively, and catch flies; we grab our hats and bonnets when the benediction is begun; when it is finished, we shove, so to speak. No frenzy, no fanaticism --no skirmishing; everything perfectly serene. You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors. Let us all be content with the tried and safe old regular religions, and take no chances on wildcat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"The New Wildcat Religion"

Books, Religion, Singing, Chance

“Without the meed of some melodious tear.”

John Milton Lycidas

Source: Lycidas (1637), Line 14

“Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, they approach their former altars all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking altars.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

As quoted in the Fourth Leaflet of the White Rose (1942)

Peace, Music, Madness

“If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable.

In this way, the story of the Baudelaire orphans is like an onion, and if you insist on reading each and every thin, papery layer in A Series of Unfortunate Events, your only reward will be 170 chapters of misery in your library and countless tears in your eyes. Even if you have read the first twelve volumes of the Baudelaires' story, it is not too late to stop peeling away the layers, and to put this book back on the shelf to wither away while you read something less complicated and overwhelming. The end of this unhappy chronicle is like its bad beginning, as each misfortune only reveals another, and another, and another, and only those with the stomach for this strange and bitter tale should venture any farther into the Baudelaire onion. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.”

Daniel Handler book The End

Source: The End (2006), Chapter 1

Life, Books, Way, Reading

“I think I always knew that I would have kids but I didn’t… understand… the… whooooo [brims with tears once again]. That I could love my kids the way that I love ‘em. I didn’t know there was… room for that. You love your wife, your family, but it’s different with your kids. I didn’t know I could be so selfless. I would do anything for my kids. Anything. I guess everybody goes through it.”

Brandon Flowers (1981) American indie rock singer

When asked what surprised him about being a husband and a father? <br class="br">" Brandon Flowers On His Sons http://www.ibabycouture.com/blog/?p=3729", BabyCouture (accessed December 20, 2010)

Love, Family, Way, Understanding

“More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”

Truman Capote (1924–1984) American author

Disputed

“There’s already an evolution taking place inside of Cuba, a generational change. Many suggested that I come here and ask the people of Cuba to tear something down -- but I’m appealing to the young people of Cuba who will lift something up, build something new.”

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

2016, Remarks to the People of Cuba (March 2016)

People, Change

“Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph.”

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

Speech before the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island (June 1897), reported in "Washington’s Forgotten Maxim", American Ideals (1926), vol. 13 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed., chapter 12, p. 198
1890s

Past

“All wars are civil ones; for it is still man spilling his own blood, tearing out his own bowels.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Toutes les guerres sont civiles; car c'est toujours l'homme contre l'homme qui répand son propre sang, qui déchire ses propres entrailles.
Dialogues des morts, ch. 17, cited from De l'éducation des filles, Dialogues des morts et opuscules divers (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1857) p. 149; translation from Mr. Elphingston (trans.) Dialogues of the Dead, Together with Some Fable Composed for the Education of a Prince (Glasgow: Robert and Andrew Foulis, 1754) vol. 1, p. 87. (1700).

War

“But this is past; and nought remains,
That raised thee o'er the brute.
Thy piercing shrieks, and soothing strains,
Are like, forever mute.

Now fare thee well — more thou the cause,
Than subject now of woe.
All mental pangs, by time's kind laws,
Hast lost the power to know.

O death! Thou awe-inspiring prince,
That keepst the world in fear;
Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,
And leave him ling'ring here?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Canto II
1840s, My Childhood's Home I See Again (1844 - 1846)

Death, World, Fear, Law

“This is the criminal left that belongs not in a dormitory, but in a penitentiary. The criminal left is not a problem to be solved by the Department of Philosophy or the Department of English—it is a problem for the Department of Justice…. Black or white, the criminal left is interested in power. It is not interested in promoting the renewal and reforms that make democracy work; it is interested in promoting those collisions and conflict that tear democracy apart.”

Spiro Agnew (1918–1996) 39th Vice President of the United States

Speech at a Florida Republican dinner, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (April 28, 1970); reported in Collected Speeches of Spiro Agnew (1971), p. 135.

Justice, Democracy, Problem

“The kids are starting to burn this place and to trash it. They're dragging a grand piano down the stairs. It's the destruction of high culture, about which they're nothing but cynical, because they don't believe that hard work and sacrifice can produce something of any value. They want to bring it down and destroy it. You can see it in the story of Cain and Abel. Abel is hard working and everyone likes him, and he makes the proper sacrifices, so his life goes really well. And that's part of the reason that Cain hates him. He's jealous and resentful, but worse than that – if you're not doing very well and you're around someone who is doing very well it's painful, because the mere fact of their Being judges you. And so it's very easy to want to destroy that ideal so that you don't have to live with the terrible consequences of seeing it embodied in front of you. And so part of the reason that people want to tear things down is so that they don't have anything to contrast themselves against and to feel bad. And that's exactly what's happening here. Kids are destroying all of this culture, because the fact that it exists judges them.”

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

2017 Maps of Meaning 4: Marionettes and Individuals (Part 3) [54:55-56:15]
Maps of Meaning

Life, Pain, Hate, People

“Let no one pay me honor with tears, nor celebrate my funeral rites with weeping. Why? I fly, living, through the mouths of men.”
Nemo me lacrumis decoret neque funera fletu faxit. Cur? volito vivos per ora virum.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

As quoted by Cicero in Tusculanae Disputationes, Book I, chapter XV, section 34

Men, Flying

“Beyond this vale of tears
There is a life above,
Unmeasured by the flight of years;
And all that life is love.”

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

The Issues of Life and Death.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Life

“He left no time to regret,
Kept his dick wet,
With his same old safe bet.
Me & my head high,
And my tears dry,
Get on without my guy.”

Amy Winehouse (1983–2011) English singer and songwriter

Back To Black
Song lyrics, Back To Black (2006)

Guy, Time

“Out of infinite longings rise
finite deeds like weak fountains,
falling back just in time and trembling.
And yet, what otherwise remains silent,
our happy energies—show themselves
in these dancing tears.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book The Book of Images

Aus unendlichen Sehnsüchten steigen
endliche Taten wie schwache Fontänen,
die sich zeitig und zitternd neigen.
Aber, die sich uns sonst verschweigen,
unsere fröhlichen Kräfte—zeigen
sich in diesen tanzenden Tränen.
Initiale (Initial) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images) (1902)

Time, Dance, Happiness

“And it is here under this oak where Evangeline waited for her lover, Gabriel, who never came. This oak is an immortal spot, made so by Longfellow's poem, but Evangeline is not the only one who has waited here in disappointment.
Where are the schools that you have waited for your children to have, that have never come? Where are the roads and the highways that you send your money to build, that are no nearer now than ever before? Where are the institutions to care for the sick and disabled? Evangeline wept bitter tears in her disappointment, but it lasted through only one lifetime. Your tears in this country, around this oak, have lasted for generations. Give me the chance to dry the eyes of those who still weep here!”

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

Speech given during the 1928 gubernatorial election; quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 40.

Money, Children, School, Disappointment

“He walks away,
The sun goes down,
He takes the day but I'm grown
And in your way,
In this blue shade
My tears dry on their own.”

Amy Winehouse (1983–2011) English singer and songwriter

Tears Dry On Their Own
Song lyrics, Back To Black (2006)

Way, Sun

“The stars are scattered all over the sky like shimmering tears, there must be great pain in the eye from which they trickled.”

Georg Büchner Danton's Death

Act IV.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)

Pain, Star

“Currency means nothing if you still ain't free. Money breeds jealousy. Take the game from me; I hope for better days. Trouble comes naturally. Running from authorities. 'Til they capture me, and my aim is to spread more smiles than tears. Utilize lessons learned from my childhood years.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

"Hold Ya Head" https://play.google.com/music/preview/Te5ppuyfquh4t6lnlla3zs6w33e?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics <br class="br">1990s, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996)

Money, Jealousy, Smile, Hope

“The truth, first of all, about Dreyfus' trial and conviction: At the root of it all is one evil man, Lt. Colonel du Paty de Clam, who was at the time a mere Major. He is the entire Dreyfus case, and the entirety of it will only come to light when an honest enquiry firmly establishes his actions and responsibilities. … Nobody would ever believe the experiments to which he subjected the unfortunate Dreyfus, the traps he set for him, the wild investigations, the monstrous fantasies, the whole demented torture.
Ah, that first trial! What a nightmare it is for all who know it in its true details. Major du Paty de Clam had Dreyfus arrested and placed in solitary confinement. He ran to Mme Dreyfus, terrorised her, telling her that, if she talked, that was it for her husband. Meanwhile, the unfortunate Dreyfus was tearing his hair out and proclaiming his innocence.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

Truth, Light, Evil, Time

“A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon, a magnificent tomb, and I gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as 'Napoleon the Great.”

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

Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
About

Love, Fate, Children, World

“Men who give way easily to tears are good. I have nothing to do with those who hearts are dry and who eyes are dry!”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe book Elective Affinities

Tränenreiche Männer sind gut. Verlasse mich jeder, der trocknen Herzens, trockner Augen ist!
Bk. I, Ch. 18, R. J. Hollingdale, trans. (1971), p. 147
Elective Affinities (1809)

Men, Way, Heart

“The conflicts that tear society apart resemble the distinction between the concept and the particular facts subordinated to it. … Whatever refuses to abide by the unity imposed by the principle of dominion manifests itself not as something indifferent to that principle, but as an infringement of logic: as a contradiction.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: Lectures on Negative Dialectics (1965-66), p. 169

Indifference

“As for my feelings toward "Over the Rainbow", it's become part of my life. It is so symbolic of all dreams and wishes that I'm sure that's why people sometimes get tears in their eyes when they hear it.”

Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States

Letter to Harold Arlen, as quoted in Over the Rainbow : The Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America (1991) by Paul Nathanson, p. 340

Life, People, Dreams, Feeling

“Hope had grown grey hairs,
Hope had mourning on,
Trenched with tears, carved with cares,
Hope was twelve hours gone.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins The Wreck of the Deutschland

"The Wreck of the Deutschland", lines 115-118
Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1918)

Hope

“Tonight my wife must watch alone
the full moon over Fu-zhou;
I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away,
too young to understand this separation
or remember our life in Chang'an.
In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp;
In clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold.
When will we lean at the open casement together
while the moonlight dries our shining tears?”

Du Fu (712–770) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"Moonlit Night" https://allpoetry.com/Moonlit-Night (trans. David Lunde)

Life, Understanding, Thinking, Daughters

“To be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there’s no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 7 <br class="br">Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), A Prayer For My Daughter http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1421/

Hate, Evil, Chance

“Leonid Brezhnev needed a haircut, so he went down to the ground floor of the Kremlin and plopped into the chair. It was understood that at such times the barber was to say not a word, just cut hair. But this morning, after a few snips he said: "Comrade Brezhnev what are you going to do about Poland?" No reply. Some minutes later: "Comrade Brezhnev, what about Poland?" Again no reply. Then, pretty soon: "Comrade Brezhnev, you've got to do something about Poland." At this Brezhnev jumps out of the chair and tears away the cloth: "What's all this about Poland?" and the barber says: "It makes my job so much easier," and Brezhnev screams: "What do you mean?" and the barber says: "Every time I mention Poland your hair stands straight up on end."”

James A. Michener book Poland

page 567
Poland (1983)

Time, Clothes

“Surely, I have never brought to mind the martyrdom of the children of Fātimah (A. S.) except that I have been choked with tears due to it.”

Ali Zayn al-Abidin (659–713) Great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.46, p. 109.

Children

“To the Gods we ne'er can render
Praise for every good they grant;
Let us, with devotion tender,
Minister to grief and want.
Quenched be hate and wrath forever,
Pardoned be our mortal foe—
May our tears upbraid him never,
No repentance bring him low!”

Friedrich Schiller Ode to Joy

Stanza 6
An die Freude (Ode to Joy; or Hymn to Joy) (1785)

God, Hate

“It's no credit to this enormously rich country that there are more oppressive, less decent governments elsewhere. We claim superiority of our institutions. We ought to live up to our own standards, not use misery elsewhere as an endless source of self-gratification and justification. Of course, people tell me all the time in the West that they are trying, they are trying hard. Some have tears in their eyes and let me know how awful they feel about the way our poor live, our blacks, or those in dozens of other countries. People can cry much easier than they can change, a rule of psychology people like me picked up as kids on the street.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

As quoted in "James Baldwin Back Home" http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-home.html by Robert Coles in The New York Times (31 July 1977)

People, Way, Feeling, Change

“The bourgeoisie today is a falling class. … By its imperialist methods of appropriation [it] is destroying the economic structure of the world and human culture generally. Nevertheless, the historical persistence of the bourgeoisie is colossal. It holds to power, and does not wish to abandon it. Thereby it threatens to drag after it into the abyss the whole of society. We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie.”

Leon Trotsky book Terrorism and Communism

Source: Terrorism and Communism (1920), p. 83

World

“When the loud day for men who sow and reap
Grows still, and on the silence of the town
The insubstantial veils of night and sleep,
The meed of the day's labour, settle down,
Then for me in the stillness of the night
The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course,
And in the idle darkness comes the bite
Of all the burning serpents of remorse;
Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities
Are swarming in my over-burdened soul,
And Memory before my wakeful eyes
With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll.
Then, as with loathing I peruse the years,
I tremble, and I curse my natal day,
Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears,
But cannot wash the woeful script away.”

Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) Russian poet

Remembrance.

Men, Dreams, Soul, Sleep

“Fumbling in total darkness, they reached out to each other, naked, he penetrated her with desire and she received him eagerly, and they exchanged eagerness and desire until their bodies were locked in embrace, their movements in harmony, her voice rising from the depth of her being, his totally submerged, the cry that is born, prolonged, truncated, that muffled sob, that unexpected tear, and the machine trembles and shudders, probably no longer even on the ground but, having rent the screen of brambles and undergrowth, is now hovering at dead of night amid the clouds, Blimunda, Baltasar, his body weighing on hers, and both weighing on the earth, for at last they are here, having gone and returned.”

José Saramago book Baltasar and Blimunda

Em profunda escuridão se procuraram, nus, sôfrego entrou nela, ela o recebeu ansiosa, depois a sofreguidão dela, a ânsia dele, enfim os corpos encontrados, os movimentos, a voz que vem do ser profundo, aquele que não tem voz, o grito nascido, prolongado, interrompido, o soluço seco, a lágrima inesperada, e a máquina a tremer, a vibrar, porventura não está já na terra, rasgou a cortina de silvas e enleios, pairou no alto da noite, entre as nuvens, pesa o corpo dele sobre o dela, e ambos pesam sobre a terra, afinal estão aqui, foram e voltaram.
Source: Baltasar and Blimunda (1982), pp. 255–256

Cry, Night, Dead

“America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

War, People, Revenge, Suffering

“And because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, a Civil Rights law was passed. Because they marched, a Voting Rights law was signed. Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed, and Congress changed, and, yes, eventually, the White House changed. Because they marched, America became more free and more fair -- not just for African Americans, but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans; for Catholics, Jews, and Muslims; for gays, for Americans with a disability. America changed for you and for me. and the entire world drew strength from that example, whether the young people who watched from the other side of an Iron Curtain and would eventually tear down that wall, or the young people inside South Africa who would eventually end the scourge of apartheid.”

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

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)

Life, Women, People, World

“What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? …I may and I must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that other world—may this, then, which is my prayer, be granted to me. [Then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control their sorrow; but now, when we saw him drinking, and saw too, that he had finished the draft, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I was not weeping over him, but at my own calamity at having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up, and moved away, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates alone retained his calmness:] What is this strange outcry? …I sent away the women mainly in order that they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Women, God, World, Peace

“So, then, Oxford Street, stonyhearted stepmother, thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee.”

Thomas De Quincey book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Pt. I.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Children

“When the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another
The gentle cup of mutually surrendered tears!”

Aaron Weiss

The Dryness and the Rain.
Brother, Sister (2006)

Drink

“I'll plead no more! I see now your spirit twists around the single error of my life, and I will never tear it free!”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)

Life, Error

“They ask you for facts, proofs, works, and all you can show them are transformed tears.”

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

The New Gods (1969)

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Intimations of Immortality Stanza 11.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Lie, Flowers

“Societies held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.”

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

Barack Obama: "Remarks at the Department of State," May 19, 2011. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=90397&st=&st1= <br class="br">2011

Fear, Time

“'O gin I find anither ladye,'
He said wi' sighs and tears,
'I wot my coortin' sall not be
Anither thirty years:

For gin I find a ladye gay,
Exactly to my taste,
I'll pop the question, aye or nay,
In twenty years at maist.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

The Lang Coortin, last two stanzas
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)

Question

“You can knock me down, but you better have a big rock to put me there… It's been tough, but that's alright. I am the oldest of ten kids and I am a survivor. I love this business so much, that there's no way I could think of retiring. When I'm 87, I'll still be walking on the Grand Ole Opry and singing "Here comes more tears to cry…". I still don't feel that I have the biggest record yet, or sang it the best. I think the best is yet to come, and that's the truth!”

Dottie West (1932–1991) American country music singer

From an interview with "The Nashville Network" in 1991, putting rumors aside that she might be retiring.

Love, Truth, Way, Feeling

“I come to make song, after the tears.
And even if a choir of men
sprayed my tongue with silence,
poetry will come, with liberating voice,
to make my song fall from the trees
and reach the most deeply buried abysses of those tears
that the child lent me when crying himself into life.Because my infant song
is stronger than man’s tears,
and it could even conquer me
robbing the need of tears from the sun and the wind.”

Juan Antonio Villacañas (1922–2001) Spanish poet, essayist and critic

"New Songs for After the Tears", from Revolt of a Newborn (1973)

Men, Tree, Silence, Sun

“The greater a man is, the more can his wrath be appeased; a noble spirit is capable of kindly impulses. For the noble lion 'tis enough to have overthrown his enemy; the fight is at an end when his foe is fallen. But the wolf, the ignoble bears harry the dying and so with every beast of less nobility. At Troy what have we mightier than brave Achilles? But the tears of the aged Dardanian he could not endure.”
Quo quisque est maior, magis est placabilis irae, et faciles motus mens generosa capit. corpora magnanimo satis est prostrasse leoni, pugna suum finem, cum iacet hostis, habet: at lupus et turpes instant morientibus ursi et quaecumque minor nobilitate fera. maius apud Troiam forti quid habemus Achille? Dardanii lacrimas non tulit ille senis.

Ovid book Tristia

III, v, 33; translation by Arthur Leslie Wheeler
"the aged Dardanian" here refers to Priam
Tristia (Sorrows)

Age, Wolf, Fight

“Poland reminds us that sometimes the smallest steps, however imperfect, can ultimately tear down walls, can ultimately transform the world.”

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

2014, 25th Anniversary of Polish Freedom Day Speech (June 2014)

World

“Out of the unconscious you get ritual, dreams, drama, story, art, music, and that sort of buffers us. We have our little domain of competence, and we're buffered by the domain of fantasy and culture. That's really what you learn about when you come to university if you're lucky and the professors are smart enough to actually teach you something about culture instead of constantly telling you that it's completely reprehensible and that it should be destroyed. Why you would prefer chaos to order is beyond me. The only possible reason is that you haven't read enough history to understand exactly what chaos means. And believe me, if you knew what chaos means, you'd be pretty goddamn careful about tearing down the temple that you live in, unless you want to be a denizen of chaos. And some people do. That's when the impulses you harbor can really come out and shine. And so a little gratitude is in order, and that makes you appreciative of the wise king while being smart enough to know that he's also an evil tyrant. That's a total conception of the world. It's balanced. Yah, we should preserve nature, but it IS trying to kill us. YES our culture is tyrannical and oppresses people, but it IS protecting us from dying. And YES we're reasonably good people, but don't take that theory too far until you've tested yourself. That's wisdom, at least in part, and that's what these stories try to teach you.”

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

Other

Wisdom, People, World, Dreams

“India, the ancient Mother, is indeed striving to be reborn, striving with agony and tears, but she strives in vain. What ails her, she who is after all so vast and might be so strong? There is surely some enormous defect, something vital is wanting in us, nor is it difficult to lay our finger on the spot. We have all things else, but we are empty of strength, void of energy. We have abandoned Shakti and are therefore abandoned by Shakti. The Mother is not in our hearts, in our brains, in our arms.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Bhawani Mandir, 1905
India's Rebirth

Strong, Heart

“I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)

Pleasure, Dogs, Thinking, Heart

“The love, the echoes of long ago
you needed the world to know
They are in Xanadu
The dream that came through a million years
That lived on through all the tears, it came to Xanadu”

Jeff Lynne (1947) British rock musician

"Xanadu"
Xanadu (1980)

Love, World, Dreams

“Circumstance is a factory of tears.”

P. L. Deshpande (1919–2000) Marathi writer, humourist, actor, dramatist

From his various literature
Source: These words are uttered by the lead character of his work with the same name - Sakharam Gatne.

“"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!"”

Edgar Allan Poe book The Tell-Tale Heart

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)

Heart

“Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.”

William Wordsworth Laodamia

Stanza 28.
Laodamia (1814)

Hope, Suffering

““In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.” That’s what President Lincoln once wrote. “Honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” Mr. Speaker, leaders and members of both parties, distinguished guests: We gather here to commemorate a century and a half of freedom -- not simply for former slaves, but for all of us. Today, the issue of chattel slavery seems so simple, so obvious -- it is wrong in every sense. Stealing men, women, and children from their homelands. Tearing husband from wife, parent from child; stripped and sold to the highest bidder; shackled in chains and bloodied with the whip. It’s antithetical not only to our conception of human rights and dignity, but to our conception of ourselves -- a people founded on the premise that all are created equal.”

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

2015, Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment (December 2015)

Women, Men, Children, People

“And she arose, and in that darkening room
Stood lonely as a spirit of the night —
Stood calm and fearless in the gathered night —
And raised her eyes to heaven. There were tears
Upon her face, but in her heart was peace.
Peace that the world nor gives nor takes away!”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

The Path of Roses (1856), concluding lines
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

World, Peace, Heart, Night

“And the sand all alive, all alive, as the hatched sea-turtles made their dash for the sea, while the birds hovered and swooped to attack and hovered and—swooped to attack! They were diving down on the hatched sea-turtles, turning them over to expose their soft undersides, tearing the undersides open and rending and eating their flesh.”

Tennessee Williams Suddenly Last Summer

Mrs. Venable, Scene One
Suddenly Last Summer (1958)

Bird, Sea

“What is a charitable heart? It is a heart which is burning with love for the whole creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts … for all creatures. He who has such a heart cannot see or call to mind a creature without his eyes being filled with tears by reason of the immense compassion which seizes his heart; a heart which is softened and can no longer bear to see or learn from others of any suffering, even the smallest pain being inflicted upon a creature. That is why such a man never ceases to pray for the animals … [He is] … moved by the infinite pity which reigns in the hearts of those who are becoming united with God.”

Isaac of Nineveh (640–700) Eastern Orthodox saint

Mystic Treatises, cited in Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1976), [//books.google.it/books?id=dxqvWwPSCSwC&pg=PA111 p. 111]; also cited and discussed in A. M. Allchin, The World is a Wedding (1978), p. 85. Quoted in Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology (1994), [//books.google.it/books?id=ESTjQYS_8hMC&pg=PA56 p. 56].

Love, Men, God, Pain

“Each country whose frontiers are consumed by carnage is seen tearing from its heart ever more warriors of full blood and force. One's eyes follow the flow of these living tributaries to the River of Death. To north and south and west ajar there are battles on every side. Turn where you will, there is war in every corner of that vastness.”

Henri Barbusse book Under Fire

Under Fire (1916), Ch. 1 - The Vision

Death, War, Heart, Country

“More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.
I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.”

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

2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)

War, Peace, Question, Suffering

“When we have chosen the vocation in which we can contribute most to humanity, burdens cannot bend us because they are only sacrifices for all. Then we experience no meager, limited, egotistic joy, but our happiness belongs to millions, our deeds live on quietly but eternally effective, and glowing tears of noble men will fall on our ashes.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 39
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

Men, Joy, Happiness

“Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Epitaph on a Jacobite (1845)

Heart, Forgetting

“It was a long season of mourning and there were times when I wondered if I should mourn all my life and never again be free of it; but at last I could remember without weeping, and recall the days of love without unending sorrow welling up like tears from the very depths of my being. There is no sorrow like the memory of love and the knowledge that it is gone forever; even in dreams, I never saw again his face, and though I longed for it, I came at last to see that it was just as well, lest I live all the rest of my life in dreams…but at last there came a day when I could look back and know that the time for mourning was ended.”

Marion Zimmer Bradley book The Mists of Avalon

Morgaine
The Mists of Avalon (1983)

Love, Life, Dreams, Knowledge

“There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Attributed to Teresa by Truman Capote in "An Interview with Truman Capote" by Don Lee Keith, in Contempora (October/November 1970), p. 40, as the source of the title of a work in progress which he intended as a novel, to be called Answered Prayers; no earlier publications of such an attribution has yet been located.
Variants:
There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.
Attributed in The Last Word: A Treasury of Women's Quotes (1992) by Carolyn Warner
Disputed

“I have given notice. I am going away to-morrow evening, I with my tremendous memory. Whatever may happen, whatever tragedies may be reserved for me in the future, my thought will not be graver or more important when I shall have lived my life with all its weight.
But my whole body is one pain. I cannot stand on my legs any more. I stagger. I fall back on my bed. My eyes close and fill with smarting tears. I want to be crucified on the wall, but I cannot. My body becomes heavier and heavier and filled with sharper pain. My flesh is enraged against me.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XVII

Life, Pain, Memory, Future