“We are expanded by tears, we are told, not reduced by them.”

“Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.”

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

“As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.”

“Forgotten? No, we never do forget:
We let the years go; wash them clean with tears,
Leave them to bleach out in the open day,
Or lock them careful by, like dead friends' clothes,
Till we shall dare unfold them without pain, —
But we forget not, never can forget.”

“If from poetry we expect a succession of signals for the release of miscellaneous private emotion we are likely to find Tears, Idle Tears valuable.”

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

“They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.”

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

“The blood, sweat, tears, and suffering of Black people are the foundations of the wealth and power of the United States of America. We were forced to build America, and if forced to, we will tear it down.”