A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next to escape the censures of the world: if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected.
When love once pleas admission to our hearts, (In spite of all the virtue we can boast), The woman that deliberates is lost.
Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act IV, scene i; the last line has often been misreported as "He who hesitates is lost", a sentiment inspired by it but not penned by Addison, as reported in They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989) by Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George, p. 3.
O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.
Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act IV, scene iv
In the nine heavens are eight Paradises; Where is the ninth one? In the human breast. Only the blessed dwell in th' Paradises, But blessedness dwells in the human breast.
William R. Alger, "The Ninth Paradise", Poetry of the Orient (1865), p. 223.
For the lady who cares for all the countries, the queen, mother Nance, sees into their hearts. [...] Nance sees into the heart of the Land as if it were a split reed.
Treason is judged not by its causes but by its effects. Each one is free, but is judged by his deeds. Initiation is not found through heartless action. Happiness is gained through labor.
Agni Yoga, Leaves of Morya’s Garden I, The Call, 384. (1924)
To see with the eyes of the heart; to hear the roar of the world with the ears of the heart; to peer into the future with the understanding of the heart; to remember past accumulations through the heart—that is how the aspirant must boldly advance on the path of ascent.
Since the heart is an accumulator and transmuter of various energies, there must be more favorable conditions for arousing and attracting these energies. The most fundamental condition is work, mental as well as physical. In the motion of work, energies are gathered from space; but one must understand work as a natural process that enriches life. Thus, every kind of work is a blessing, while the vagaries of inaction are extremely harmful in a cosmic sense.
A person can think with the heart or think with the brain. There was perhaps a time when people forgot about the work of the heart, but now is the era of the heart, and we must focus our efforts in that direction. Thus, without freeing the brain of its work, we are ready to recognize the heart as a motive power. People have thought up a thousand ways to place limitations on the heart. The works of the heart are understood in a narrow sense, and not even always in a pure sense. We must bring the entire world into the sphere of the heart, because the heart is the microcosm of everything that exists. A person who is not inspired by the great concept of the heart will end up belittling his own significance. We tell people to give up getting irritated, but only greatness of heart will save a person from the poison of irritability. We speak about the ability to embrace, but where is there an all-embracing ocean outside of the heart? We remind people about the distant worlds, but it is the heart, not the brain, that can remember about Infinity. So let us not belittle the organ that has been bestowed upon us to be a receptacle of Grace.
HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments -- a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling -- tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility -- these things have been patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity.
Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
It is an affirmative command to give tzedaka to the poor of Israel. ... Anyone who sees a poor man begging alms and turns away his glance from him and does not give him tzedaka transgresses a negative command, as it is said, "You shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand to your needy brother" (Deuteronomy 15:7).
Shlomo Ganzfried as translated by George Horowith in The Spirit of the Jewish Law (New York: 1953)
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart. But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Greatliterature, past or present, is the expression of great knowledge of the human heart; great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within.
And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember - Without a hurt the heart is hollow ... - Deep in December, it's nice to remember - The fire of September that made us mellow ... our hearts should remember - And follow
Better to have the poet's heart than brain, Feeling than song.
George MacDonald, Within and Without, Part III, scene 9, line 30.
The heart is like an instrument whose strings Steal nobler music from Life's many frets: The golden threads are spun thro' Suffering's fire, Wherewith the marriage-robes for heaven are woven: And all the rarest hues of human life Take radiance, and are rainbow'd out in tears.
If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother.
I'm searching a heart inside me-- a heart that's ebullient by swallowing the entire pain of the creation, a heart jubilant by accepting the entire tears of the world, a heart aglow by merging the entire dark within itself a heart that's smooth, effervescent and clean.
O Prophet, say to whoever is in your hands of the captives, "If God knows (any) good in your hearts, He will give you (something) better than what was taken from you, and He will forgive you; and God is Forgiving and Merciful."
So have they not traveled through the earth and have hearts by which to reason and ears by which to hear? For indeed, it is not eyes that are blind, but the blind are the hearts which are within the breasts.
Variant: It is not the eyes that are blind but the hearts.
Have you listened to your heart? Does it beat in rhythm with the Perfect Heart which embraces all of you? Thus, I shall finish with the words about the heart. Let woman affirm this great symbol, which can transfigure the whole of life. Let her strive to transmute the spiritual life of mankind.
Helena RoerichLetters of Helena Roerich Volume I: 1929-1935, (1940)
My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me.
Listen to your heart when he's calling for you. Listen to your heart there's nothing else you can do. I don't know where you're going and I don't know why, but listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye.
Actions done against the will of the heart never bring good to anyone. Refusing may bring pain for a while, just for a moment, but agreeing to something merely to please someone aches forever and hurts everyone."
Perhaps it is the deprivation that keeps hearts connected. Once everything is fulfilled, wings sprout in everyone’s heart, and they fly off to different destinations. How can a relationship stay warm with just the body, when the heart is absent?"
May I meet you someday like this may there be no rush of saying goodbye may there be no fear of interruptions may all the emotions be poured out, and every nook and cranny of my heart be emptied. may I hold no regrets within may memories not haunt us later.
Allgreat and extraordinary actions come from the heart. There are seasons in human affairs, when qualities fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless; and when men must trust to emotion, for that safety which reason at such times can never give.
Sydney Smith, Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849), Lecture XXVIL: On Habit
Expectation postponed makes the heart sick, but a desire realized is a tree of life.
When people keep repeating That you'll never fall in love When everybody keeps retreating But you can't seem to get enough Let my love open the door Let my love open the door Let my love open the door To your heart.
He is the Answerer, What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd he shows how it cannot be answer'd.
A man is a summons and challenge, (It is vain to skulk — do you hear that mocking and laughter? do you hear the ironical echoes?)
Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down seeking to give satisfaction, He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.
Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely by day or by night, He has the pass-key of hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.
His welcome is universal, the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he is, The person he favors by day or sleeps with at night is blessed.
Anonymous proverb, as quoted in "The Mind of the African Negro as reflected in his Proverbs" in The Journal of Negro History, Volume 1 (1916), edited by Carter Godwin Woodson.