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heart quotes

  • The Knight in the triumph of his heart made several 6 reflections on thegreatness of the British Nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of Popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that theThames was thenoblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the Seven Wonders of the World; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

    -Joseph Addison
      In The Spectator, no.383, 20 May.

  • She had a heart as big as Waterloo Station.

    -James Agate
    Of Marie Lloyd.  Attributed.

  • Thought shall be the harder, heart the keener, courage the greater, as our might lessens.

    -Anonymous
    c.1000  The Battle of Maldon (translated by R K Gordon).

  • In youth open your mind, And let all learning in; Words the head does not shape Are worthless, out and in. Words wit has not salted,No nearer the heart than the lip, Are nothing more than wind, A puppy's insolent yelp.

    -Anonymous
    c.1500  'To a Boy'. Translated from the Irish by Michael O'Donovan ('Frank O'Connor').

  • O he's a ranting roving blade! O he's a brisk and a bonnie lad! Betide what may, my heart isglad To see my lad wi' his white cockade.

    -Anonymous
    c 'The White Cockade'.

  • Et toi mon coeur pourquoi bats-tu Comme un guetteur me  lancolique J'observe la nuit et la mort. And you my heart why do you pound Like some melancholy watchman I watch the night and death.

    -Kostrowitzki
      Le Guetteur me l ancolique, pre  face.

  • Do n de esta   la patria, amigo? Ni en el corazo  n ni en la saliva. Whereisthe country, my friend? It isnot intheheart or in the saliva.

    -Jose   Mar|  a Arguedas
    El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo ('The Upper and the Lower Fox'), ch.3.

  • I believe every human has a finite number of heart- beats.I don't intend towasteanyof minerunning around doing exercises.

    - Neil A(lden) Armstrong
    Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  •    He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. He laid us as we lay at birth 31 On the cool flowery lap of earth.

    - Matthew Arnold
      Of  William Wordsworth. Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems,'Memorial Verses,  April1850', l.47^9.

  • Onlybut this is rare When a beloved hand is laid in ours, When, jaded with the rush and glare Of the interminable hours, Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear, When our world-deafened ear Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again. The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.

    - Matthew Arnold
      Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems,'The Buried Life', l.77^87.

  • What helps it now, that Byron bore, With haughty scorn which mocked the smart, Through Europe to the Aetolian shore The pageant of his bleeding heart? That thousands counted every groan, And Europe made his woe her own?

    - Matthew Arnold
      Poems: Second Series,'Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse', l.133^8.

  • The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crushed, less quick to spring again.

    - Matthew Arnold
      New Poems,'Thyrsis', l.138^40.

  • Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at New styles of architecture, a change of heart.

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      'Sir, No Man's Enemy'.

  • And none will hear the postman's knock Without a quickening of the heart. For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      'Night Mail', written to accompany a documentary by the Post Office Film Unit.

  • The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews, Not to be born is the best for man; The second-best is a formal order, The dance's pattern; dance while you can.

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      'Letter to William Coldstream, Esq', in Letter from Iceland (with Louis MacNeice).

  •    In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.

    -W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden
      'In Memory of  W.B.Yeats', pt.3.

  • No iron can stab the heart with such force as a full stop put just at the right place.

    - Isaac Babel
      Guy de Maupassant.

  • Dans ces grandes crises, le coeur se brise ou se bronze. In times of crisis, the heart either breaks or boldens.

    - Honore   de Balzac
      La Maison du chat-qui-pelote.

  • But had I wist, before I kiss'd, That love had been sae ill to win. I'd lock'd my heart in a case o'gowd, And pinn'd it wi'a siller pin.

    -Ballads
    pre-1566  'Waly, Waly', stanza 4.

  • L'amour a son instinct, il sait trouver le chemin du coeur comme le plus faible insecte marche a'   sa fleur avec une irre  sistible volonte   qui ne s'e  pouvante de rien. Love has its own instinct. It knows how to find the road to the heart just as the weakest insect moves towarditsflowerbyanirresistiblewillwhichfearsnothing.

    - Honore   de Balzac
      La Femme de trente ans.

  • Le coeur d'une me'  re est un ab|"me au fond duquel se trouve toujours un pardon. A mother'sheart isanabyss atthebottomof whichthere is always forgiveness.

    - Honore   de Balzac
      La Femme de trente ans.

  • Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.

    -Jacques Barzun
    Quoted in Michael Novak The Joy of Sport (1976), pt1.

  • Quand notre coeur a fait une fois sa vendange, Vivre est un mal. Once our heart has been harvested once, Life becomes miserable.

    - Charles Baudelaire
      Les Fleurs du mal,'Semper eadem'.

  • Ne cherchez plus mon coeur; les be"  tes l'ont mange  . Don't search any further for my heart; wild beasts ate it.

    - Charles Baudelaire
      Les Fleurs du mal,'Causerie'.

  • Ah! Seigneur! donnez-moi la force et le courage De contempler mon coeur et mon corps sans de  go u" t. Lord! give me the strength and the courage To see my heart and my body without disgust.

    - Charles Baudelaire
      Les Fleurs du mal,'Un Voyage   a' Cyth e' re'.

  • Well,I'm leaving thepoorold place, and itcuts as keenas a knife; The place that's broken my heartthe place where I've lived my life.

    - Blanche Edith Baughan
      Reuben and Other Poems,'The Old Place'.

  • When a public man lays his hand on his heart and declares that his conduct needs no apology, the audience hastens to put up its umbrellas against the particularly severe downpour of apologies in store for it. I won't give the customary warning. My conduct shrieks aloud for apology, and you are in for a thorough drenching.

    - Sir (Henry) Max(imilian) Beerbohm
      'A Straight Talk' (parody of George Bernard Shaw), in the Saturday Review, 22 Dec.

  • She was not really bad at heart, But only rather rude and wild; She was an aggravating child.

    - (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre Belloc
      Cautionary  Tales,'Rebecca'.

  • I said to Heart,'How goes it?' Heart replied: 'Right as a Ribstone Pippin!' But it lied.

    - (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre Belloc
      'The False Heart'.

  • I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse. I shall not lie easyat Winchelsea. You may bury my body in Sussex grass, You may bury my tongue at Champme  dy. I shall not be there, I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

    - StephenVincent Bene  t
      'American Names'. Bury My Heart  At Wounded Knee was used by Dee Brown as the title of a book on the Indian genocide (1971).

  • One cannot balance tragedy in the scales Unless one weighs it with the tragic heart.

    - StephenVincent Bene  t
      'John Brown's Body'.

  • You know my temperature's risin', The juke box's blowin'a fuse, My heart's beatin'rhythm, My soul keeps a singin'the blues Roll over Beethoven, Tell Tchaikovsky the news.

    - Chuck (Charles Edward Anderson) Berry
      'Roll over Beethoven'.

  • But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the L hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the L hath commanded him to be captain over his people.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORD1 Samuel13:14.

  • Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the L seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the L looketh on the heart.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORD1 Samuel16:7.

  • I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Samuel17:28.

  • For the eyes of the L run to and fro throughout the whole earth, toshew himself strong inthebehalfofthem whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. 1Kings

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORD2 Chronicles16:9.

  • Stand inawe, and sinnot: communewithyourownheart upon your bed, and be still.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 4:4.

  • I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 22:14.

  •    Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.One thing have I desired of the L, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the L all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the L, and to inquire in his temple.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDORDPsalms 27:3^4.

  • Delightthyself also inthe L, and heshall givetheethe desires of thine heart.Commit thy way unto the L; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDPsalms 37:4^5.

  • Create in me a clean heart,O God; and renew a right spirit within me.Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.Restore unto methe joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Thenwill Iteachtransgressorsthy ways; and sinnersshall be converted unto thee.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 51:10^13.

  • Deliver me from bloodguiltiness,O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.OLord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would Igive it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart,O God, thou wilt not despise.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 51:14^17.

  • Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 73:23^6.

  • How amiable are thy tabernacles,O L of hosts! 96 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the L: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Yea, thesparrow hath found anhouse, and theswallowa nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars,O L of hosts, my King, and my God.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDORDPsalms 84:1^3.

  • Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fatherstempted me, proved me, and saw my work.Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 95:8^11.

  • He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms104:14^15.

  • Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms119:11.

  •    Search me,O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms139:23^4.

  • Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs13:12.

  • A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs15:13.

  • A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs17:22.

  • The king's heart is in the hand of the L, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDProverbs 21:1.

  • Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty toutterany thing before God: for God isinheaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes 5:2.

  • Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes 9:7.

  • Rejoice,O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes11:9.

  • Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Isaiah 29:13.

  • But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; theyare revolted and gone.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Jeremiah 5:23.

  • The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the L search the heart, I try the reins.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDJeremiah17:9^10

  • And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ezekiel11:19.

  • Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of thegreat and dreadfuldayof the L: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth a curse.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDMalachi 4:5^6.

  • Open not thine heart to every man, lest he requite thee with a shrewd turn.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus 8:19.

  • Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time. Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you. That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 5:27^8.

  • Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 6:19^21.

  • Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and Iwill give you rest.Takemy yokeuponyou, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew11:28^30.

  • O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew12:34.

  • And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke 24:32.

  •    Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John14:1.

  •   Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John14:27.

  • Mi advise to them who are about tu begin, in arnest, the jurneyov life, istu take their harte in one hand and a club in the other.

    -Josh pseudonym of  Henry Wheeler Shaw Billings
      Josh Billings, His Sayings, ch.71.

  • And now he could only bar himself in and wait for the great flint to come singing into his heart.

    - Earle Birney
      'Bushed'.

  • For Mercy has a human heart Pity a human face: And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.

    -William Blake
      Songs of Innocence,'The Divine Image'.

  • Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache: Do be my enemyfor friendship's sake.

    -William Blake
    ^11 MS Notebooks,'To H[ayley]', p.37.

  • When you come to the end of a perfect day, And you sit alone with your thought, While the chimes ring out with a carol gay For the joy that the day has brought, Do you think what the end of a perfect day Can mean to a tired heart, When the sun goes down with a flaming ray, And the dear friends have to part?

    - CarrieJacobs Bond
      'A Perfect Day'.

  •    The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life: Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Holy Communion.

  • Have mercy upon all Jews,Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take fromthem all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Collects, Good Friday.

  • Thy rebukehath brokenmy heart;Iam full of heaviness: I looked for some to have pity on me, but there was no man, neither found I any to comfort me. They gave me gall to eat: and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Psalm 69:21^2.

  • The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies, With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies, When love is done. See Lyly 523:12.

    - F(rancis) W(illiam) Bourdillon
      Among the Flowers,'Light'.

  • All my hope on God is founded He does still my trust renew, Me through change and chance he guideth, Only good and only true. God unknown, He alone Calls my heart to be his own.

    - Robert Seymour Bridges
      Hymn.

  • To think a soul so near divine, Within a form, so angel fair, United to a heart like thine, Has gladdened once our humble sphere.

    - Anne Bronte« 
      'A Reminiscence', in Poems by Currer, Ellis and  Acton Bell.

  •    Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there But onlyagony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

    - Rupert Chawner Brooke
      'Peace'.

  • Open your heart and you will see graved inside of it,'Italy.' Such lovers old are I and she; So it always was, so it still shall be!

    - Robert Browning
      Men and Women,'De Gustibus'.

  • There they are, my fifty men and women Naming me the fifty poems finished! Take them, Love, the book and me together. Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

    - Robert Browning
      Men and Women,'One Word More. To E.B.B.', stanza1.

  • Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.

    - Pearl ne  e Sydenstricker Buck
      To My Daughters, With Love,'First Meeting'.

  • There is no event so commonplace but that God is present in it, alwayshiddenly, alwaysleaving you roomto recognize him or not to recognize him† Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the heavenlyand hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

    - (Carl) Frederick Buechner
      Now and Then.

  • Oh, the diligence of Satan! Oh, the desperateness of man's heart!

    -John Bunyan
      Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.

  •    My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, My heart's in the Highlands a chasing the deer; Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe; My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

    - Robert Burns
      'My heart's in the Highlands', chorus.

  • Neither have the heart to stay, Nor wit enough to run away.

    - Samuel Butler
      Hudibras, pt.3, canto 3, l.569^60.

  •    Then let Ausonia, skilled in every art To soften manners, but corrupt the heart, Pour her exotic follies o'er the town, To sanctionVice, and hunt Decorum down.

    -Rochdale
      Engish Bards and Scotch Reviewers, l.618^21.

  • Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells, Lonely and lost to light for evermore, Save when to thine my heart responsive swells, Then trembles into silence as before.

    -Rochdale
      The Corsair,'Medora's Song', canto1, stanza14.

  • His heart was one of those which most enamour us, Wax to receive, and marble to retain.

    -Rochdale
      Beppo, stanza 34.

  • As her lute doth live or die, Led by her passion, so must I: For when of pleasure she doth sing, My thoughts enjoy a sudden spring, But if she doth of sorrow speak, Ev'n from my heart the strings do break.

    -Thomas Campion
    A Book of  Airs, no.6,'When to Her Lute Corinna Sings'.

  • La lutte elle-me"  me vers les sommets suffit a'   remplir un coeur d'homme. Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a human heart.One must imagine that Sisyphus is happy.

    - Albert Camus
      Le Mythe de Sisyphe ( The Myth of Sisyphus,1955).

  • I haven't the heart to take a minute from the men. The poor dears love it so.

    - HattieWyatt Caraway
    Explaining why she never made a speech during13 years as the first woman in the US Senate. Quoted in David Brinkley Washington Goes to War (1988).

  • Men are grown mechanical in head and in the heart, as well as in the hand. They have lost faith in individual endeavour, and in natural force of any kind.

    -Thomas Carlyle
      Signs of the Times.

  •    Friends! trust not the heart of that man for whom Old Clothes are not venerable.

    -Thomas Carlyle
    ^4  Sartor Resartus, bk.3, ch.6.

  • The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

    -Willa Sibert Cather
      O Pioneers!, pt.1, ch.5.

  • Je vois l'Afrique multiple et une verticale dans la tumultueuse pe  ripe  tie avec ses bourrelets, ses nodules, un peu a'   part, mais a'   porte  e du sie'  cle, comme un coeur de re  serve. I see several Africas and one vertical in the tumultuous event with its screens and nodules, a little separated, but within the century, like a heart in reserve.

    - Aime   Fernand Ce  saire
      Ferrements,'Pour saluer le Tiers-Monde'.

  • Pitee renneth soone in gentil herte.

    - Geoffrey Chaucer
      Canterbury  Tales,'The Knight's Tale', l.1761.

  • When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.

    -JohnWilliam Cheever
      Collected in The Journals,'The Late Forties and Fifties'.

  • The folk that livein Liverpool, their heart isintheir boots; They go to hell like lambs, they do, because the hooter hoots.

    - G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton
      'Me Heart'.

  • A pert, prim Prater of the northern race, Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face.

    - Charles Churchill
      Of the Scottish-born judge  Alexander Wedderburn, later Lord Loughborough. The Rosciad, l.75^6.

  •    I have never accepted what many people have kindly saidthat I inspired the nation. It was the nation and the race living around theglobe that had the lion heart.I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

    - Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill
      Speech to both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall, Nov, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

  • Idonot likebeingmoved:for thewill isexcited;andaction Is a most dangerous thing: I tremble for something factitious, Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process; We are so proneto thesethings with our terrible notions of duty.

    - Arthur Hugh Clough
      Amours de Voyage, canto 2, pt.11.

  • A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware.

    - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
      'The Rime of the  Ancient Mariner', pt.4.

  • No voice, but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart.

    - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
      'The Rime of the  Ancient Mariner', pt.6.

  •    O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be! What, and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power.

    - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
      'Dejection:  An Ode', stanza 5.

  • Oh, to have a little house! To own the hearth and stool and all! The heaped-up sods upon the fire, The pile of turf against the wall! To have a clock with weights and chains And pendulum swinging up and down, A dresser filled with shining delph, Speckled and white and blue and brown!

    - Padraic Colum
    c.1907  'An Old Woman of the Roads'.

  • A fellow that lives ina windmill hasnot a more whimsical dwelling thantheheartof a manthat islodged inawoman.

    -William Congreve
      The Way of the World, act 2, sc.7.

  •    I remember my youth and the feeling that it will never come back any morethe feeling that I could last for ever, outlast thesea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effortto death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expiresand expires, too soon, too soonbefore life itself.

    - Sir William Neil pseudonym Cassandra Connor
      'Youth'.

  • In Claude's landscape all is lovelyall amiableall is amenity and repose;the calm sunshine of the heart.

    -John Constable
      Lecture, 2  Jun. Quoted in C R Leslie Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843).

  • My heart has made its mind up And I'm afraid it's you.

    -Wendy Cope
      Serious Concerns,'Valentine'.

  • O make this heart rejoice or ache; Decide this doubt for me; And if it be not broken, break And heal it if it be.

    -William Cowper
      Olney Hymns,'The Contrite Heart'.

  • 'It is bitterbitter,' he answered; 'But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.'

    - Stephen Crane
      The Black Riders,'The Heart'. The speaker is a'naked, bestial' creature which the narrator sees eating its heart in the desert.

  • What heaven-entreated heart is this, Stands trembling at the gate of bliss, Holds fast the door, yet dares not venture Fairly to open it, and enter?

    - Richard Crashaw
      'To the Noblest and Best of Ladies, the Countess of Denbigh'.

  • What yet fantastic bands Keep the free heart from its own hands!

    - Richard Crashaw
      'To the Noblest and Best of Ladies, the Countess of Denbigh'.

  • I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

    - Douglas Cross
      Title of song.

  • Ever at Thy glowing altar Must my heart grow sick and falter, Wishing He I served were black.

    - Countee Cullen
      On These I Stand,'Heritage'.

  • They fought as they revelled, fast, fiery, and true, And, though victors, they left on the field not a few; And they who survived fought and drank as of yore, But the land of their heart's hope they never saw more, For in far, foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade.

    -Thomas Osborne Davis
      The Spirit of the Nation,'The Battle-Eve of the Brigade'.

  • Do not expect again a phoenix hour, The triple-towered sky, the dove complaining, Sudden the rain of gold and heart's first ease Traced under trees by the eldritch light of sundown.

    - Cecil Day-Lewis
      'From Feathers to Iron'.

  • 'There are strings,'said MrTappertit†'in the human heart that had better not be wibrated.'

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
      Mr Tappertit. Barnaby Rudge, ch.22.

  • Features are an index to the heart.

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
    ^4  Martin Chuzzlewit, ch.24.

  •    L'homme est ne   pour la socie  te  ; se  parez-le, isolez-le, ses ide  es se de  suniront, son caracte'  re se tournera, mille affections ridicules s'e  le'  veront dans son coeur; des 274 pense  es extravagantes germeront dans son esprit, comme les ronces dans une terre sauvage. Man is born to live in society: separate him, isolate him, and his ideas disintegrate, his character changes, a thousand ridiculous affectations rise up in his heart; extreme thoughts take hold in his mind, like the brambles in a wild field.

    - Denis Diderot
      La Religieuse.

  •    Hark, the glad sound! The Saviour comes, The Saviour promised long; Let every heart exult with joy, And every voice be song!

    - Philip Doddridge
    Hymns,'Hark,  the Glad Sound' (published1755).

  • Filled with her love, may I be rather grown Mad with much heart than idiot with none.

    -John Donne
    c.1595  Elegies, no.10,'The Bracelet'.

  • Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.

    -John Donne
    c.1610^1615  Holy Sonnets, no.14.

  • For here the lover and killer are mingled who had one body and one heart. And death, who had the soldier singled has done the lover mortal hurt.

    - Gavin Douglas
      'Vergissmeinnicht'.

  •    That shire which we the Heart of England well may call.

    - Michael Drayton
    ^22  Of  Warwickshire. Polyolbion, song13, l.2.

  •    Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part; Nay, I have done, you get no more of me, And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart That thus so cleanly I myself can free; Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain.

    - Michael Drayton
      Idea, sonnet 61.

  • My heart's so full of joy, That I shall do some wild extravagance Of love in public; and the foolish world, Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad.

    -John Dryden
      All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 2.

  • What I have left is from my native spring; I've still a heart that swells, in scorn of fate, And lifts me to my banks.

    -John Dryden
      All for Love, or The World Well Lost, act 3.

  • Then Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scattered his Maker's image through the land.

    -John Dryden
    Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.7^10.  An oblique reference to Charles II, who had no legitimate, but many illegitimate, children.

  • The court he practised, not the courtier's art: Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart.

    -John Dryden
      Of the loyalist  James Butler, Duke of Ormond.  Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.825^6.

  • I know that Ihavethe bodyof a weak and feeble woman, but I havetheheart and stomach of a kingand a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

    -Elizabeth I
       Address at Tilbury on the approach of the Spanish Armada.

  • But as to risings, I can tell you why. It is on contradiction that they grow. It seemed the best thing to be up and go. Up was the heartening and the strong reply. The heart of standing is we cannot fly.

    - Sir William Empson
      'Aubade'.

  • I must confess I am a fop in my heart; ill customs influence my very senses, and I have been so used to affectation that without the help of the air of the court what is natural cannot touch me.

    - Sir George Etherege
      Letter to Mr Poley,12  Jan.

  • He must teach himself that the basest of all things isto be afraid and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop foranything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomedlove and honour and pityand compassion and sacrifice.

    -William Harrison Faulkner
      Nobel prize acceptance speech.

  • Well, it is a humiliating reflection, that the straightest road to a man's heart is through his palate.

    - Fanny ne  e Willis Fern
      Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, Second Series,'Hungry Husbands'. Often quoted as'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.'

  • Your mania for sentences has dried up your heart.

    - AnneJustine Caroline Flaubert
    To her son. Quoted in D  J Enright  A Mania for Sentences (1983), p.101.

  • Are you at ease now? Is your heart at rest? Now you have got a shadow, an umbrella To keep the scorching world's opinion From your fair credit. 328

    - Dario Fo
      Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, act 3, sc.1. Italian      playwright       and       actor-manager,       whose often

  • Here is the heart of our island: the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South Downs radiate hence. The fibres of England unite in Wiltshire, and did we condescend to worship her, here should we erect our national shrine.

    - E(dward) M(organ) Forster
      The Longest  Journey, ch.13.

  • Way down upon the Swanee River, Far, far away, There's where my heart is turning ever; There's where the old folks stay.

    - Stephen Collins Foster
      'The Old Folks at Home'.

  • One morning, as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me, and I sate still† And as I sate still under it and let it alone, a living hope rose in me, and a true voice arose in me which cried:There is a living God who made all things. And immediately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and the life rose over it all, and my heart was glad, and I praised the living God.

    - George Fox
      Journal of George Fox.

  • They listened at his heart. Littlelessnothing!and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

    - Robert Lee Frost
      'Out, Out'.

  • Even the human heart is slightly left of centre.

    - Northrop Frye
    Quoted by Paul Wilson in'Growing Up with Orwell', in The Idler, Jul^ Aug1989.

  • From the lone shieling of the misty island Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, And we in dreams behold the Hebrides! Fair these broad meads, these hoary woods are grand; But we are exiles from our fathers' land.

    -John Galt
      'Canadian Boat Song', a translation from the Gaelic attributed to Galt, published in Blackwood's Magazine, Sep. It has also been attributed to Walter Scott.

  • Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being.

    -[great soul]
      War or Peace,'Young India'.

  • L'orgueil sort du coeur le jour o  u' l'amour y entre. Pride leaves the heart the moment love enters it.

    -The  ophile Gautier
      Mademoiselle de Maupin.

  • The heart never knows the colour of the skin.

    - Chief Dan George
      My Heart Soars.

  • I span and Eve span A thread to bind the heart of man!

    - Dame MaryJean ne  e Mary Jean Cameron Gilmore
      The Passionate Heart and Other Poems,'Eve-song'.

  • Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.

    - Sir William (Gerald) Golding
      Lord of the Flies, ch.12.

  • Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

    - Oliver Goldsmith
      The Traveller, l.7^10.

  • And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.

    - Oliver Goldsmith
      The Deserted Village, l.263^4.

  • In your heart, you know I'm right.

    - Barry M(orris) Goldwater
      Presidential campaign slogan.

  • Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.

    - Harry Graham
      Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes,'Tender- Heartedness'.

  • What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?

    -Thomas Gray
      Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, l.23^4.

  • Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, Ye died amidst your dying country's cries.

    -Thomas Gray
      The Bard.  A Pindaric Ode, l.40^2.

  • Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies! No pitying heart, no eye, afford A tear to grace his obsequies.

    -Thomas Gray
      The Bard.  A Pindaric Ode, l.63^6.

  • I put the muzzle of the revolver into my right ear and pulled the trigger† I was out by one. I remember an extraordinary sense of jubilation, as if carnival lights had been switched on in a drab street. My heart knocked in its cage, and life contained an infinite number of possibilities.

    - (Henry) Graham Greene
    Recalling a game of Russian roulette with his brother's revolver in1923.  A Sort of Life, ch.6, pt.2.

  • For there isanupstartcrow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.

    - Robert Greene
      Of Shakespeare. The Groatsworth of  Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance. Iohannes fac totum = 'Jack-of-all-trades'.

  • The Dead Heart of Australia.

    -JohnWalter Gregory
       Title of book, dealing with the centraldeserts of  Australia.

  • When I grow too old to dream Your love will live in my heart.

    - Oscar, II Hammerstein
      Song from The Night isYoung (music by Sigmund Romberg).

  • As a boy I genuinely believed in the man who never ate bacon because its red and white stripesreminded himof Sheffield Unitedindeed in my blue and white Wednesday heart I applauded and supported his loyalty.

    - Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley
      Goodbye toYorkshire.

  • Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!

    - Nathaniel Hawthorne
      The Scarlet Letter, ch.15.

  • In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide.

    - Nathaniel Hawthorne
    Twice-Told Tales,'The Haunted Mind'.

  • Best thing in eird,I say for me, Is merry hart with small possessioun.

    - Robert Henryson
    c.1470  Moral Fables,'The Two Mice', l.387^8.

  • A broken Altar, Lord, thy servant rears, Made of a heart, and cemented with tears.

    - George Herbert
    'The  Altar', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

  • On the summit of the precipice and in the deep green woods emotions as palpable and as true have agitated me as if I were surveying them with the blessing of sight. There was an intelligence in the winds of the hills and in the solemn stillness of the buried foliage that could not be misleading. It entered into my heart and I could have wept, notthat Ididnot see, butthat Icould not portrayall I felt.

    -James Holman
      A Voyage round the World.

  • Lord of all being, throned afar, Thy glory flames from sun and star; Centre and soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving heart how near!

    - Oliver Wendell Holmes
    ^9  The Professor at the Breakfast  Table,'A Sun-Day Hymn'.

  • My heart in hiding Stirred for a bird,the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

    -Gerard Manley Hopkins
      'The Windhover'.

  • Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, not spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why.

    -Gerard Manley Hopkins
      'Spring and Fall: to a young child'.

  • I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman's mind to be more like my own than any other man's living.

    -Gerard Manley Hopkins
    Quoted in Denis Donoghue England, Their England (1988).

  • When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, 'Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.' But I was one-and-twenty No use to talk to me.

    - A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
      A Shropshire Lad, no.13.

  • Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?

    - A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
      A Shropshire Lad, no.40.

  • With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For manya rose-lipt maiden And many a lightfoot lad.

    - A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
      A Shropshire Lad, no.54.

  • To think that two and two are four And neither five nor three The heart of man has long been sore And long 'tis like to be.

    - A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
      Last Poems, no.35.

  •    The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind, his heart blackening: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey peace in old poems.

    - (John) Robinson Jeffers
      Tamar and Other Poems,'To  the Stone-Cutters'.

  • I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.

    -Jerome K(lapka) Jerome
      Three Men in a Boat, ch.15.

  • Religion's in the heart, not in the knees.

    - Douglas William Jerrold
      The Devil's Ducat, act1, sc.2.

  • The notion of libertyamuses the people of England, and helps to keep off the taedium vitae.When a butcher tells you that his heart bleeds for his country he has, in fact, no uneasy feeling.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Remark,16 May. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

  • There is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all TomJones.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      Remark, 6  Apr. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.

  • Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powdered, still perfumed, Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

    - Ben Jonson
    ^10  Epicoene, act1, sc.1.

  • Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart; liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

    -James Augustine Aloysius Joyce
      Ulysses.

  • I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of the imaginationwhat the imagination seizes as beauty must be truthwhether it existed before or not.

    -John Keats
      Letter to Benjamin Bailey, 22 Nov.

  • Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose, Flushing his brow, and in his painted heart Made purple riot.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'The Eve of St.  Agnes', stanza16.

  • My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'Ode to a Nightingale', stanza1.

  • The tumult and the shouting dies The captains and the kings depart Still standsThine ancient Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forgetlest we forget! See Bible 95:31.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'Recessional'.

  • God gives all men all earth to love, But since man's heart is small, Ordains for each one spot shall prove Belove'  d over all.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'Sussex'.

  • There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; But when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'The Power of the Dog'.

  • No foreign policy, no matter how ingenious, has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a fewand carried in the heart of none.

    - HenryAlfred Kissinger
      Speech to International Platform  Association, 2  Aug.

  • If there be not in her, a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an indurate heart against God and his truth, my judgment faileth me.

    -John Knox
      After his first meeting with Mary, Queen of Scots. History of the Reformation in Scotland, vol.2.

  • Quelque rigueur qui loge en votre coeur, Amour s'en peut un jour rendre vainqueur. That little harshness which resides in your heart, Love will vanquish someday.

    - Louise Labe 
      Ele g ies, no.1.

  • Quand une femme frappe dans le coeur d'une autre, elle manque rarement de trouver l'endroit sensible, et la blessure est incurable. When one woman touches another's heart, she rarely has trouble finding the sensitive spot and the wound is incurable.

    - Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos
      Les Liaisons dangereuses, letter145.

  • Nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smokewhat have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?

    - Charles Lamb
      Of London. Letter to Thomas Manning,15 Feb. Collected in E  W Marrs Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, vol.2 (1975).

  • L'accent du pays o  u' l'on est ne   demeure dans l'esprit et dans le c½ur comme dans le langage. The accent of the place in which one was born lingers in the mind and in the heart as it does in one's speech.

    - Fran c° ois, 6th Duc de La Rochefoucauld
      Maximes, no.342.

  • Keep right on to the end of the road, Keep right on to the end. Tho'the way be long let your heart be strong, Keep right on round the bend. Tho' you're tired and weary Still journey on, till you come to your happy abode, Where all you love you've been dreaming of Will be there, at the end of the road.

    - Sir Harry (Hugh MacLennan) Lauder
      'The End of the Road', chorus.

  • Oui, quel est le plus profond, le plus impe  ne  trable des deux: l'oce  an ou le c½ur humain? What is deeper, more impenetrable: the ocean or the human heart?

    - Comte de properly Isidore Ducasse Lautre  amont
      Les Chants de Maldoror, pt.1.

  •    What do the facts we know about a man amount to? Only two things we can know of him, and this by pure soul-intuition: we can know if he is true to the flame of life and love which is inside his heart, or if he is false to it.

    - D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence
      Kangaroo, ch.7.

  • I want to go south, where there is no autumn, where the cold doesn't crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting to pounce. The heart of the North is dead, and the fingers of cold are corpse fingers.

    - D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence
      Letter to  J Middleton Murry, 3 Oct.

  • JohnThomas says goodnight to Lady Jane, a little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart.

    - D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence
      Lady Chatterley's Lover, ch.19.

  • To be in love with a country or a political regime is a tricky business.You get your heart broken even more surely than by being in love with a person.

    - Doris May ne  e Tayler Lessing
      African Laughter,'Next Time1988'.

  • What they call 'heart' lies much lower than the fourth waistcoat button.

    - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
    c.1776^1779  Aphorisms, Notebook F (translated by R  J Hollingdale,1990).

  • The mere animal pleasure of travelling in a wild unexplored country is also great† The effect of travel ona manwhoseheart isintheright place isthatthemind is made more self-reliant: it becomes more confident of its own resourcesthere isgreater presence of mind† The sweat of one's brow is no longer a curse when one works for God: it proves a tonic to the system, and actually a blessing. No one can trulyappreciate the charm of repose unless he has undergone severe exertion.

    - Dr David Livingstone
    Collected in H  Waller (ed)  The Last  Journals of David Livingstone in Central  Africa; continued by a narrative of his last moments and sufferings, obtained from his faithful servants, Chuma and Susi (1874).

  • For books are more than books, they are the life The very heart and core of ages past, The reason why men lived and worked and died, The essence and quintessence of their lives.

    - Amy Lowell
      'The Boston  Atheneum'.

  • My Darling, prickly hedgehog of the heart, chocolates, cherries, hairshirts, pinks and glass when we joined in the sublime blindness of courtship loving lost all its vice with half its virtue.

    - RobertTraill Spence,Jr Lowell
      'NewYear's Eve'.

  • Wo rauff du nu†dein Hertz engest und verlessest, das ist eygentlich dein Gott. Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.

    - Martin Luther
      Large Catechism,'The First Commandment'.

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

    -1st Baron
      'A  Jacobite's Epitaph', closing lines.

  • The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.

    - (Lula) Carson ne  e Smith McCullers
       Title of novel.

  • Lourd on my hert as winter lies The state that Scotland's in the day. Spring to the North has aye come slow But noo dour winter's like to stay For guid, And no'for guid!

    -Grieve
      To Circumjack Cencrastus, or The Curly Snake.

  • The rose of all the world is not for me. I want for my part Only the little white rose of Scotland That smells sharp and sweetand breaks the heart.

    -Grieve
      Stony Limits and other poems,'The Little White Rose'.

  • And thushit passes onfrome Candylmasuntyll Ester, that the moneth of May was com, whan every lusty harte begynnith to blossom and to burgyne. For, lyke as trees and erbys burgenyth and florysshyth in May, lyke wyse every lusty harte that is ony maner of lover spryngith, burgenyth, buddyth, and florysshyth in lusty dedis.

    - SirThomas   d.1471 Malory
    c.1470  Morte d'Arthur, bk.18, ch.25.

  • Yo soy un hombre sincero De donde crece la palma, Yantes de morirme quiero Echar mis versos del alma. I am a sincere man from where the palm tree grows; and before I die I want to loose my verses from my heart.

    -Jose Mart| 
    Versos sencillos ('Simple Verses'), no.1.

  • My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow, An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze. Two hundred to adore each breast: But thirty thousand to the rest. An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For Lady you deserve this state; Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near: And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.

    - Andrew Marvell
    c.1650^1652  'To His Coy Mistress' (published1681).

  • When I am dead and opened, you shall find 'Calais' lying in my heart.

    -MaryTudor also known as Mary I
    Quoted in Holinshed Chronicles (1808), vol.4.

  • To us love says humming that the heart's stalled motor has begun working again.

    -Vladimir Mayakovsky
      'Letter from Paris to Comrade Kostorov on the Nature of Love' (translated by Samuel Charteris).

  • If you wish to understand me at all (and to write an autobiography is only to open a window into one's heart) you must understand first and foremost, that I am an Australian† I shall always come back to rest in the shadow of the blue mountains, in the heart of this vast, deserted continent which gave me birth.

    - Dame Nellie real name Helen Mitchell Melba
      Melodies and Memories, ch.1.

  • Spare me! You forget nothin'and forgive nothin'. Learn charity, woman. I have gonetiptoe in this house all seven month since she isgone. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches around your heart.

    - Arthur Miller
      Proctor to Elizabeth. The Crucible, act 2.

  • And chiefly thou O spirit, that does prefer Before all temples th'upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great argument I mayassert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 580

    -John Milton
      Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.16^25.

  •    Love refines The thoughts, and heart enlarges, hath his seat In reason, and is judicious, is the scale By which to heav'nly love thou may'st ascend, Not sunk in carnal pleasure, for which cause Among the beasts no mate for thee was found.

    -John Milton
      Raphael to  Adam. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.8, l.589^94.

  •    Dear husband! I take shame to myself that my purpose was less firm, that my heart lingered so far behind yours in preparing for this great epoch in our lives; that like Lot's wife, I still turned and looked back, and clung with all my strength to the land I was leaving. It was not the hardships of an emigrant's life I dreaded. I could bear mere physical privations philosophically enough; it was the loss of society in which I had moved, the want of congenial minds, of persons engaged in congenial pursuits, that made me so reluctant to respond to my husband's call.

    - Susanna ne  e Strickland Moodie
      Roughing It in the Bush; or,  A Life in Canada, vol.1, ch.11, 'The Charivari'.

  • There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet; Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

    -Thomas Moore
      Irish Melodies,'The Meeting of the Waters'.

  •   Alas! My dear sir, the very name of pictures produces a sadness of heart I cannot describe.Painting has been a smiling mistresstomany, but shehasbeenacrueljilttome.

    -Morrissey full name Steven Patrick Morrissey
      Letter to his friend the writer  James Fenimore Cooper, 20 Nov.

  • We've come full circle but the best remains the heart of the city, the greatest center of the greatest city, our Acropolis, where our Christmas tree is lighted.

    - Daniel Patrick Moynihan
      On NewYork's Rockefeller Centre. In the NewYork Times, 15 Mar.

  • Bonnie Charlie's now awa, Safely owre the friendly main; Monya heart will break in twa, Should he ne'er come back again. Will ye no come back again? Will ye no come back again? Better lo'ed ye canna be, Will ye no come back again?

    - Caroline, Lady Nairne
    'WillYe No Come Back  Again?', stanza1and chorus.

  • Jerusalem the golden, With milk and honey blessed, Beneath thy contemplation Sink heart and voice oppressed. I know not,O I know not What joys await us there, What radiancy of glory, What light beyond compare.

    -J(ames) M(ason) Neale
      'Jerusalem the Golden', translated from the original Latin of St Bernard of Cluny.

  • A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep†and reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.

    - Peggy Noonan
      What I Saw at the Revolution.

  • Because It Is Bitter, And Because It Is My Heart.

    -Myles na Gopaleen
       Title of novel.

  • Sacred Heart o' Jesus, take away our hearts o' stone, and give us hearts o'flesh! Take away this murdherin' hate, an'give usThine own eternal love!

    - Da i bh|  dh OŁ    Bruadair
      JUNO:1924  Juno and the Paycock, act 3.

  • That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom, That foreign devils have made our land a tomb, That the sun that was Munster's glory has gone down Has made me a beggar before you,Valentine Brown.

    - Egan Gaelic name  Aodhaga  n OŁ   Rathaille O'Rahilly
    'Valentine Brown', translated from the Irish by Michael O'Donovan (pseudonym Frank O'Connor).

  • Where's the man could ease a heart Like a satin gown?

    - Dorothy ne  e Rothschild Parker
      Enough Rope,'The Satin Dress', stanza1.

  • The camera can be the most deadly weapon since the assassin's bullet.Or it can be the lotion of the heart.

    -Smith
      In the NewYorker,10 Dec.

  • Le c½ur a ses raisons, que la raison ne conna|"t point. The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

    - Blaise Pascal
    c.1654^1662  Pense  es, no.277 (translated byA Krailsheimer).

  • For greatness is only the drayhorse that coaxes The built cart out; and where we go is reason. But genius is an enormous littleness, a trickling Of heart that covers alike the hare and the hunter.

    - Kenneth Patchen
      FirstWill andTestament,'The Character of Love Seen as a Search for the Lost'.

  • With all my will, but much against my heart, We two now part.

    - Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
      To the Unknown Eros, bk.1, no.16,'A Farewell'.

  • Christ for myguardianship today: against poison, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, that there may come to me a multitude of rewards; Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ over me, Christ to right of me, Christ to left of me, Christ in lying down, Christ in sitting, Christ in rising up, Christ in the heart of every person who may thinkof me, Christ in the mouth of every person who may speak of me, Christ in every eye, which may look on me! Christ in every ear, which may hear me!

    -St Patrick   5c
    St Patrick's Breastplate, traditionally attributed to the saint.

  • Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you.

    - Sylvia Plath
      'Daddy', published posthumously byTed Hughes (Ariel, 1965).

  • I know not how it wasbut, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit† There was aniciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heartan unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.

    - EdgarAllan Poe
      'The Fall of the House of Usher', in the Gentleman's Magazine, Sep.

  • There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

    - EdgarAllan Poe
      'The Black Cat', in the United States Saturday Post,19 Aug.

  • 'Takethy beak fromout my heart, and takethy formfrom off my door!' Quoth the raven,'Nevermore.'

    - EdgarAllan Poe
      'The Raven', stanza17. In American Review, Feb1845.

  • To be thoroughly conversant with a Man'sheart istotake our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.

    - EdgarAllan Poe
      'Marginalia', in the Southern Literary Messenger, Jun.

  • They shift the movingToyshop of their heart.

    - Alexander Pope
      The Rape of the Lock, canto1, l.100.

  • Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art, No language, but the language of the heart.

    - Alexander Pope
      Of Pope's father.'An Epistle to DrArbuthnot', l.398^9.

  • Avery heathen in the carnal part, Yet still a sad, good Christian at her heart.

    - Alexander Pope
      Epistles to Several Persons,'To a Lady', l.67^8.

  • 'With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what can Cloe want?'She wants a heart.

    - Alexander Pope
      Epistles to Several Persons,'To a Lady', l.159^60.

  • A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

    - Alexander Pope
      The Dunciad, bk.2, l.44.

  • What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write shows The difference there is betwixt Nature and Art: I court others in verse: but I love thee in prose: And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.

    - Matthew Prior
      'A BetterAnswer', stanza 4.

  • L'amour, c'est l'espace et le temps rendus sensibles au c½ur. Love is space and time made tender to the heart.

    - Marcel Proust
    ' 1923  A la recherche du temps perdu,'La Prisonni e' re'.

  • Moscow†what surge that sound can start In every Russian's inmost heart!

    - Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin
      EugeneOnegin, ch.7, stanza 36 (translatedbyAdrian Room, 1995).

  • La famille des Bourbons est un poignard que l'e  tranger en1814 a laisse   dans le c½ur de la France: changez le manche comme il vous plaira, dorez la lame si vous voulez, le poignard reste poignard. The Bourbon family is a dagger whichthe foreigner left in the heart of France in1814: changethe haft if you please, gild the blade if you will, the dagger remains a dagger.

    - Edgar Quinet
      ¼uvres, vol.3, p.267.

  • Se comprende muy bien que el advenimiento del cinemato  grafo haya sido para m | el comienzo de un nueva era, por la cual cuento las noches sucesivas en que he salido mareado y pa  lido del cine, porque he dejado mi corazo  n†en la pantalla que impregno   por tres cuartos de hora el encanto de BrownieVernon. It is easy to understand that, for me, cinema was the beginning of a newera which marked my nights, oneafter the other, as I left the theatre, dizzyand pale after leaving my heart on thescreen†on that screen that for forty-five minutes was impregnated by BrownieVernon's charm.

    - Horacio Quiroga
    Anaconda,'Miss Dorothy Phillips, mi esposa' ('Miss Dorothy Phillips, MyWife').

  • Good travel books are novels at heart.

    -Jonathan Raban
    Recalled by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in the NewYorkTimes, 26 Jan1987, reviewing Raban's novel Coasting (1986).

  • The curse of hell upon the sleek upstart That got the Captain finally on his back And took the red red vitals of his heart And made the kites to whet their beaks clack clack.

    -John Crowe Ransom
      Chills and Fever,'Captain Carpenter'.

  • Two evils, monstrous either one apart, Possessed me, and were long and loath at going: A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart, And in the wood the furious winter blowing.

    -John Crowe Ransom
      Chills and Fever,'Winter Remembered'.

  • Old Hodge stays not his hand, but whips to kennel The renegade.God's peace betide the souls Of the pure in heart. But in the box that fennel Grows around, are two red eyes that stare like coals.

    -John Crowe Ransom
      Two Gentlemen in Bonds,'Dog'.

  • Most artists try to break your heart, or they accidentally break their own hearts.But I find the quietness in the ordinary much more satisfying.

    - Robert Rauschenberg
      In the NewYorkTimes,15 Feb.

  • Weather abroad And weather in the heart alike come on Regardless of prediction.

    - Adrienne Cecile Rich
    A Change ofWorld,'StormWarnings'.

  •    Antes que me hubiera apasionado por mujer alguna, jugue   mi corazo n  al azar y me lo gano   la violencia. Before I felt passion for any woman, I gambled my heart and lost it to violence.

    -Jose   Eustasio Rivera
      La vora  gine, pt.1 (translated asTheVortex,1935).

  • I hold you six to four I love you with all my heart, if I would bet with other people I'm sure I could get ten to one.

    -JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
    c.1667  Letter from Newmarket to his wife. In The Letters ofJohn Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, edited byJeremyTreglown (1980).

  • Ancient Person, for whom I All the flattering youth defy; Long be it ere thou grow old, Aching, shaking, crazy, cold; But still continue as thou art, Ancient person of my heart.

    -JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
    'A Song of aYoung Lady to HerAncient Lover', stanza1 (published1691).

  •    I was born for opera buffa, as well Thou knowest. Little skill, a little heart, and that is all. So beThou blessed and admit me to Paradise.

    - Gioacchino Antonio Rossini
     Manuscript inscription on the score of his 'Petite Messe Solennelle'.

  • Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent And round his heart one strangling golden hair. 698

    - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
    The House of Life,'Body's Beauty', pt.2.

  • C'est dans le c½ur de l'homme qu'est la vie du spectacle de la nature; pour le voir, il faut le sentir. The spectacle of nature is in the heart of a man; to see it, he must feel it.

    -JeanJacques Rousseau
      EŁ  mile ou de l'e  ducation, pt.3.

  • Fineart isthat inwhichthe hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

    -John Ruskin
      TheTwo Paths, lecture 2.

  • On ne voit bien qu'avec le c½ur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. Only with the heart can a person see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

    - Antoine de Saint-Exupe  ry
      Le Petit Prince.

  • He looks to me to be in heaven, that manwho sits across from you and listensnear you toyour soft speaking, your laughing lovely: that, I vow, makes the heart leap in my breast; for watching you a moment, speech fails me, my tongue is paralysed, at once a light fire runs beneath my skin, my eyes are blinded, and my ears drumming, the sweat pours down me, and Ishake all over, sallower than grass: I feel as if I'm not far off dying.

    -Sappho   7c
    D L Page (ed) Lyrica Graeca Selecta (1968), no.199 (translated by M L West).

  • From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, The substance of my dreams took fire. You built cathedrals in my heart, And lit my pinnacled desire.

    - Siegfried Louvain Sassoon
      'Dead Musicians'.

  • At last America is in my view; a dreary waste of white barren sand, and melancholy, nodding pines. In the course of many miles, no cheerful cottage has blest my eyes. All seems dreary, savage and desert; and was it for this such sums of money, such streams of British blood have been lavished away? Oh, thou dear land, how dearly hast thou purchased this habitation for bears and wolves. Dearly has it been purchased, and at a price far dearer still it will be kept. My heart dies within me, while I view it.

    -Janet   b.c.1730 Schaw
    c.1776  On her first sight of the country around Cape Fear. Journal of a Lady of Quality; BeingtheNarrative of aJourney from Scotland to theWest Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years1774 to1776.

  • And said I that my limbs were old, And said I that my blood was cold, And that my kindly fire was fled, And my poor withered heart was dead, And that I might not sing of Love?

    - Sir Walter Scott
      The Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto1, stanza1.

  • Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand!

    - Sir Walter Scott
      The Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto 6, stanza1.

  • Look not thou on beauty's charming, Sit thou still when kings are arming. Taste not when the wine-cup glistens, Speak not when the people listens, Stop thine ear against the singer, From the red gold keep thy finger, Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, Easy live and quiet die.

    - Sir Walter Scott
      The Bride of Lammermoor, ch.3 (LucyAshton's song).

  • My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

    -William pseudonym Fiona Macleod Sharp
      'The Lonely Hunter', stanza 6. Carson McCullers adapted the phrase as the title of a1940 novel,The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

  • An Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Larry Doyle toTom Broadbent. John Bull's Other Island, act1.

  • The discussion of any subject is a right that you have brought into the world with your heart and tongue. Resign your heart's blood before you part with this inestimable privilege of man.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      An Address to the Irish People.

  • Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'To a Skylark', stanza1.

  •    He has out-soared the shadow of our night; Envyand calumnyand hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Adonais, stanza 40.

  •    My true love hath my heart and I have his, By just exchange one for the other giv'n; I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driv'n.

    - Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway Shute
    The Old Arcadia,'Third Eclogues'.

  •    But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay; Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows† Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 'Fool,'said my muse to me; 'look in thy heart, and write.'

    - Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway Shute
    Astrophel and Stella, sonnet1.

  • Be funny on a golf course? Do I kid my best friend's mother about her heart condition?

    - Phil originally Philip Silver Silvers
    Quoted in Michael HobbsThe Golf Quotation Book (1992).

  • This rortie wretched city Sair come down frae its auld hiechts The hauf o't smug, complacent, Lost til all pride of race or spirit, The tither wild and rouch as ever In its secret hairt But lost alsweill, the smeddum tane, The man o'independent mind has cap in hand the day Sits on its craggy spine And drees the wind and rain That nourished all its genius Weary wi centuries This empty capital snorts like a great beast Caged in its sleep, dreaming of freedom.

    - Sydney Goodsir Smith
      Of Edinburgh.'Kynd Kittock's Land' (Kynd Kittock is a character in the poetry of the16c Scottish poetWilliam Dunbar.) rortie=splendid, smeddum=spirit, drees=endures.

  • What worlds delight, or joy of living speech Can heart, so plunged in sea of sorrows deep, And heape'  d with so huge misfortunes, reach? The careful cold beginneth for to creep, And in my heart his iron arrow steep, Soon as I think upon my bitter bale.

    - Edmund Spenser
      The Faerie Queen, bk.1, canto 7, stanza 39.

  • I came to the conclusion that some more ascetic reason than mere enjoyment should be found if one wishes to travel in peace: to do things for fun smacks of levity, immoralityalmost, in our utilitarian world. And though personally I think the world is wrong, and I know in my heart of hearts that it is a most excellent reason to do things merely because one likes the doing of them, I would advise all those who wish to see unwrinkled brows in passport offices to start out ready labelled as entomologists, anthropologists, or whatever other - ology they think suitable and propitious.

    - Dame Freya Madeleine Stark
      TheValleys of theAssassins and other PersianTravels.

  •    A political animal can be defined as a body that will go on circulating a petition even with its heart cut out.

    -Wallace Earle Stegner
      Beyond the Hundredth Meridian.

  • True Shandeism, think what you will against it, opensthe heart and lungs, and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely through its channels, and makes the wheel of life run long and cheerfully round.

    - Laurence Sterne
    ^67  Tristram Shandy, bk.4, ch.32.

  •    Think of the heroism of Johnson, think of that superb indifference to mortal limitation that set him upon his dictionary, and carried him through triumphantly until the end! Who, if he were wisely considerate of things at large, would ever embark upon any work much more considerable than a halfpenny post-card? Who would project a serial novel, afterThackeray and Dickens had each fallen in mid-course? Who would find heart enough to begin to live, if he dallied with the consideration of death?

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
    Virginibus Puerisque,'AesTriplex'.

  • Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying, Blows the wind on the moors to-dayand now, Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, My heart remembers how!

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
      Songs ofTravel (published1896), no.45,'To S.R. Crockett (in reply to a dedication)', stanza1.

  • I would desire that every man would lay his hand on his heart, and consider seriously whether the beginnings of the people's happiness should be written in letters of blood.

    -Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
      At his execution onTower Hill,12 May.

  • Love is the fart Of every heart: It pains a man when 'tis kept close, And others doth offend, when 'tis let loose.

    - SirJohn Suckling
      'Love's Offence'.

  • These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favourites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities and eminent services; of instructing princes to know their true interest by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people: of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive, and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth.

    -Jonathan Swift
      Gulliver'sTravels,'A Voyage to Laputa, etc.'ch.6.

  • Swallow, my sister,O sister swallow, How can thine heart be full of the spring? A thousand summers are over and dead. What hast thou found in the spring to follow? What hast thou found in thine heart to sing? What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?

    - Algernon Charles Swinburne
      'Itylus'.

  • Ah beautiful passionate body That never has ached with a heart!

    - Algernon Charles Swinburne
      Poems and Ballads,'Dolores', stanza11.

  •    I've heard the wolves scuffle, and said: So this Is man; sowhat better conclusion is there The day will not follow night, and the heart Of man has a little dignity, but less patience Than a wolf's, and a duller sense that cannot Smell its own mortality.

    - (John Orley) Allen Tate
      Poems1922^1947,'TheWolves'.

  • I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, council, governments, Myself not least, but honoured of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windyTroy. I am part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life.

    -Tennyson
      Poems,'Ulysses' (published1842), l.6^24.

  •    Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happyautumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

    -Tennyson
      The Princess, pt.4, added song, stanza1.

  • Come not, when I am dead, To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave, To trample round my fallen head, And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save. There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou, go by. Child, if it were thine error or thy crime I care no longer, being all unblest; Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time, And I desire to rest. Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie: Go by, go by.

    -Tennyson
      'Come not, when I am dead', complete poem.

  • I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; The Princess For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 5, l.1^8.

  • Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 6, l.7^8.

  • Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 7, l.1^4.

  • Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow. Be near me when the sensuous frame Is racked with pains that conquer trust; And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 50, l.1^8.

  • Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land; 844 Ring in the Christ that is to be.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto106, l.17^32.

  • The passionate heart of the poet is whirled into folly and vice.

    -Tennyson
      Maud, pt.1, sect.4, stanza 7, l.139.

  • Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, Like some of the simple great ones gone For ever and ever by, One still strong man in a blatant land, Whatever they call him, what care I, Aristocrat, democrat, autocratone Who can rule and dare not lie.

    -Tennyson
      Maud, pt.1, sect.10, stanza 5, l.389^95.

  • There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries,'She is near, she is near;' And the white rose weeps,'She is late;' The larkspur listens,'I hear, I hear;' And the lily whispers,'I wait.' She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airya tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat; Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.

    -Tennyson
      Maud, pt.1, sect.22, stanzas10^11, l. 908^23.

  • Dead, long dead, Long dead! And my heart is a handful of dust, And the wheels go over my head.

    -Tennyson
      Maud, pt.2, sect.5, stanza1, l.239^42.

  • And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.

    -Tennyson
      Maud, pt.3, sect.6, stanza 4, l.51^3.

  •    He lifted up his head a little, and quickly said,'Adsum!' and fell back† He, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of The Master.

    -William Makepeace Thackeray
    ^5  The Newcomes, vol.1, ch.80.

  • Darkness came down on the field and city: and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.

    -William Makepeace Thackeray
    ^8  Vanity Fair, ch.32.

  • To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan. You should wear it inside, where it functions best.

    - Margaret HildaThatcher, Baroness Thatcher
      Interview, ABC TV,18 Mar.

  • For me, exploration was a personal venture. I did not go to the Arabian desert to collect plants nor to make a map; such things were incidental. At heart I knew that to write or even to talk of my travels was to tarnish the achievement. I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert people. I set myself a goal on these journeys, and, although the goal itself was unimportant, its attainment had to be worth every effort and sacrifice.

    - Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger
      Arabian Sands.

  • Light breaks where no sun shines; Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      'Light BreaksWhere No Sun Shines'.

  • The sun hums down through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of her heart and buzzes in the honey there and couches and kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      Under MilkWood.

  • Whenpeopledonot respect uswearesharplyoffended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

    - Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens Twain
      Following the Equator, ch.29.

  • It takes yourenemyand your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

    - Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens Twain
      Following the Equator, ch.45.

  • Les sanglots longs Des violons De l'automne Blessent mon c½ur D'une langueur Monotone. Slow sobs Of the violins Of autumn Wound my heart With a monotonous languor.

    - Paul Verlaine
      Poe'  mes saturniens, Paysages tristes,V:'Chansons d'Automne'.

  • Il pleure dans mon c½ur Comme il pleut sur la ville. The tears fall in my heart As the rain over the town.

    - Paul Verlaine
      Romances sans paroles,'Ariettes oublie  es, no.3'.

  • Voici des fruits, des fleurs, des feuilles et des branches Et puis voici mon c½ur qui ne bat que pour vous. Here are fruits, flowers, leaves and branches And here also is my heart which beats only for you.

    - Paul Verlaine
      Romances sans paroles,'Aquarelles, Green'.

  • Ja"   leider desn mac nicht ges|"n, Das guot und wertlich e"  re Und gotes hulde me"  re Zesamene in ein herze komen. It is sadly impossible For wealth and a good name, along with God's favour, to be united in one heart.

    -Walther Von derVogelweide
    c.1195  'Ich sass u"   f eime steine', l.16^19.

  • Sum up my faults, I pray, and you shall find, That beauty, and gay clothes, a merry heart, And a good stomach to a feast, are all, All the poor crimes that you can charge me with.

    -John Webster
      TheWhite Devil, act 3, sc.2.

  • You must not wear your heart on your sleeve for daws to pick at. See Shakespeare 758:50.

    - Margaret Webster
    c.1940  ToTennesseeWilliams on the out-of-town closing of his first professionally produced play Battle of Angels. Recalled by Williams in the NewYorkTimes,17 Mar1957. Chinese   dissident,    considered   one   of    the   fathers   of    the Chinese  dissident  movement,  released  in 1993  after  serving  a 14-year   jail   sentence   for   his   role   in   the   Democracy   Wall Movement.   He   was   arrested   again   in   April  1994   and   was released in1997.

  • Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

    - (George) Orson Welles
    Attributed.

  •    Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature's night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray I woke, the dungeon flamed with light, My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

    - Charles Wesley
      Hymn.'And Can it Be'.

  • I have been told, both in approval and accusation, that I seemto loveall mycharacters.What Idoinwriting of any character istotry toenter intothemind, heart and skinof a human being who is not myself.Whether this happens to be a man ora woman, old or young, with skin blackor white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump itself. It is the act of a writer's imagination that I set most high.

    - Eudora Welty
    The Collected Stories of EudoraWelty, preface.

  • Rejoice, the Lord is King! Your Lord and King adore; Mortals, give thanks and sing, And triumph evermore: Lift up your heart, lift up your voice; Rejoice, again, I say rejoice.

    - Charles Wesley
      'Rejoice, the Lord is King'. In Hymns for our Lord's Resurrection.

  • Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heav'n, to earth come down, Fix in us thy humble dwelling, All thy faithful mercies crown. Jesu, thou art all compassion, Pure unbounded love thou art; Visit us with thy salvation, Enter every trembling heart.

    - Charles Wesley
      'Love Divine', collected in Hymns for those that seek†Redemption.

  • Ifelt my heart strangely warmed.I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given methat hehad taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

    -John Wesley
      Journal entry, 24 May.

  • Blessedarethe pure inheart for they haveso muchmore to talk about.

    - Edith Newbold ne  e Jones Wharton
      In John O'London'sWeekly,10 Apr.

  • In this broad earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Enclosed and safe within its central heart, Nestles the seed perfection.

    -Walt(er) Whitman
      Leaves of Grass,'Birds of Passage','Song of the Universal', section1.

  • How else but through a broken heart May Lord Christ enter in?

    - Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills Wilde
      The Ballad of Reading Gaol, pt.5, stanza14.

  • People are able to live with only half a heart, to live without real compassion, because they are able to use words that are only forms.

    - SirAngus FrankJohnstone Wilson
      Interview in Iowa Review, no.3, Fall.

  • These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.

    -William Wordsworth
      'Lines composed a few miles aboveTintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of theWye',1.22^8.

  • One impulse from a vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things: We murder to dissect. Enough of science and of art; Close up those barren leaves; Come forth and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.

    -William Wordsworth
      'TheTablesTurned', stanzas 6^8.

  • To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man.

    -William Wordsworth
      'LinesWritten in Early Spring', stanza 2.

  • In common truths that round us lie Some random truths he can impart, The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

    -William Wordsworth
      'A Poet's Epitaph', stanza13 (published1800).

  • Then, the calm And dead still water lay upon my mind Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky, Never before so beautiful, sankdown Into my heart, and held me like a dream.

    -William Wordsworth
    ^1805  The Prelude, bk.2, l.70^4 (published1850).

  • A babe, by intercourse of touch I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart.

    -William Wordsworth
    ^1805  The Prelude, bk.2, l.267^8 (published1850).

  • My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

    -William Wordsworth
      'My heart leaps up when I behold', complete poem (published1807).

  • Earth hath not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

    -William Wordsworth
      Of London.'Composed uponWestminster Bridge', complete poem. (Published1807).

  • Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

    -William Wordsworth
    c.1802^1803  'Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood', stanza11 (published1807).

  • Let beeves and home-bred kine partake The sweets of Burn-mill meadow; The swan on still St Mary's Lake Float double, swan and shadow! We will not see them; will not go, To-day, nor yet to-morrow; Enough if in our hearts we know There's such a place asYarrow. BeYarrow stream unseen, unknown; It must, or we shall rue it: We have a vision of our own, Ah! why should we undo it? The treasured dreams of times long past, We'll keep them, winsome Marrow! For when we're there, although 'tis fair, 'Twill be another Yarrow!

    -William Wordsworth
      'Yarrow Unvisited', stanzas 6^7 (published1807).

  • For thou wert still the poor man's stay, The poor man's heart, the poor man's hand; And all the oppressed, who wanted strength, Had thine at their command.

    -William Wordsworth
      'Rob Roy's Grave', l.109^12 (published1807).

  • Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?

    -William Wordsworth
      'To a Skylark', l.1^4 (published1827).

  • Out-worn heart, in a time out-worn, Come clear of the nets of wrong and right; Laugh, heart, again in the grey twilight, Sigh, heart, again in the dew of the morn.

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
      'Into theTwilight', stanza1. Collected inTheWind Amongthe Reeds (1899).

  • Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
      'Easter1916', l.57^8. Collected in Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921).

  • Now that my ladder's gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start, In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
    ^8  'The Circus Animals' Desertion', part 3, l.6^8. Collected in Last Poems (1939).

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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