Choices Of The Heart Quotes

Our heart chooses for us, or a tiny whisper inside that is too faint for us to hear. ~ Laurie Viera Rigler

Lost in Venice
I found you the same way I found Venice,
Lost in the skein of her back alleys,
Secret gardens, shadowy passageways,
A pleasant discovery at every turn.
You too were a city of bridges,
Oflimitless connection to my heart,
Which floated like a palazzo on the Adriatic,
Kept afloat by the spells you cast in your sleep.
Yes, you were this mystical city in microcosm,
A serene Vitruvian woman,
Truest measure of man,
Sipping your espresso in Piazza San Marco
And slowly vanishing under the flood waters
Like Atlantis. ~ Beryl Dov

She devoutly put away in her drawers her beautiful dress, down to the satin shoes whose soles were yellowed with the slippery wax of the dancing floor. Her heart was like these. In its friction against wealth something had come over it that could not be effaced. ~ Gustave Flaubert

And then she realized that his presence was the wall, his presence was destroying her. Unless she could break out, she must die most fearfully, walled up in horror. And he was the wall. She must break down the wall. She must break him down before her, the awful obstruction of him who obstructed her life to the last. It must be done, or she must perish most horribly. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Love never lies and it never tries, it's unafraid and heaven made.

Keep the faith, surrender the time, just like a grape we need to ripen on the vine.

Be like a fairy, constantly glow, leave a trail of love wherever you go.

Do not try to make sense of this world. Do try to know yourself and to grow yourself while in it.

The more you are, the more you have.

Rather than make the best of a situation, make the best situation. Create, don't negate.

Keep the dream alive and the heart open.

Be your most glorious self, and even better, be indifferent to what anyone may think of it.

Don't fear the dark, it's helping you find the light. We wouldn't know morning, if we didn't see night.

Never give to say you've given, never shy away from a good cry, never stop a laugh from happening, and always wonder, why?

Don't get mad, get motivated! ~ Allyson Giles

I have many projects in various states of development. Some are on paper and some are in my head. But as I go on, I feel the need to be guided in my choices. ~ Abdellatif Kechiche

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a burst of light so warm and red it could have been the sun or someone's beating heart. I stared up at it, waiting for the room to come clear. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

In the weak light of the lonely lamp, he held onto her, for a solid minute, his head buried in her neck as if he needed her. Just like the night in the hotel room when he pressed his forehead to hers and damn near liquefied her heart. ~ Kendall Grey

Flesh and bone and blood no longer are my makeup. I'm stacks of naught, packed into my being at the molecular level. My skin, my muscles, my organs, my cunt - cells of non-existence, masquerading as bits of human. Touch me, I'll feel nothing. Bruise me, fuck me, love me - nothing, nothing, nothing.
Everything within me has been altered and adapted.
There's nothing real anymore. Nothing solid. Nothing worthy.
Only pieces of limbo. Only nihilism. Only nothing.
Nothing wrapped securely around my core, an impenetrable seal.
Nothing jammed in all my spaces, crammed in tight, protecting the last embers of a once-blazing heart. I'm barely aware of its beat anymorethrough the layers of vacuity, barely feel the steadiness of its pulse. ~ Laurelin Paige

A good book is an education of the heart. It enlarges your sense of human possibility what human nature is of what happens in the world. It's a creator of inwardness. ~ Susan Sontag

There is no tomorrow. Time cannot be saved and spent. There is only today and how we choose to live it. The future is unknowable and unpredictable; it offers no clear path to happiness. Science will not save us. Each of us, then, needs to cobble together a daily routine filled with basic human pleasures, wedded, to be sure, to the best that modernity has to offer. It is a life of compromise rather than extremes. It is a touch of the old and a taste of the new. And cooking, it seems to me, offers the most direct way back into the very heart of the good life. It is useful, it is necessary, it is social, and it offers immediate pleasure and satisfaction. It connects with the past and ensures the future. Standing in front of a hot oven, we remind ourselves of who we are, of what we are capable of and how we might stumble back to the center of happiness. Effort and pleasure go hand in hand. ~ Christopher Kimball

In winter darkness, the Baghdad Arabian keen blue deepness of the piercing lovely January winter's dusk
it used to tear my heart out, one stabbing soft star was in the middle of the magicalest blue, throbbing like love
I saw Maggie's black hair in this night
In the shelves of Orion her eye shades, borrowed, gleamed a dark and proud vellum somber power brooding rich bracelets of the moon rose from our snow, and surrounded the mystery. ~ Jack Kerouac

He was the hunter of my soul,
lying in wait - silently and motionless.
Coaxing me out of hiding,
Enticing me with love,
Dangling hope in my face.
Pulling me in, drawing me close.
I gave in and walked into his trap.
He did a good job too, tearing me apart and ripping my heart out.
He was the hunter and I, the game.
How could I forget that a hunter's job is to kill? ~ J.A. ANUM

We are accused here of polygamy, and actions the most indelicate, obscene, and disgusting, such that none but a corrupt and depraved heart could have contrived. These things are too outrageous to admit to belief ... ~ John Taylor

Ash didn't say anything, but I heard his faint sigh, as if he'd been holding his breath, and he drew me close, wrapping his around me. I lay my head on his chest and closed my eyes, shoving thoughts of Puck and my dad and the false king to the back of my mind. I would deal with them tomorrow. Right now, I just wanted to sleep, to sink into oblivion and forget everything for a little while. Ash was still quiet, thoughtful. His glamour aura glimmered once, then flickered out of sight again. But all I had to do was listen to his heart, thudding in his chest, to know what he was feeling. ~ Julie Kagawa

She'd heard my theory on funnel cake and celery stalker men before. Most men were either like funnel cake: delicious and interesting, but who at the end of the day just aren't good for the heart or complexion. Or they were celery: a sensible, healthy choice that didn't really bring much to the table but an occasional crunch. If you OD on celery, you end up bingeing on cake behind closed doors.

Funnel cake, while warm and delicious, is difficult to make. But you go there because you long for it like the double-twist stomach-dropping roller coaster as soon as you arrive at the amusement park. Wet ribbons of batter crackle and pop until golden and crisp, yielding in the center. The steamy swirls of tender yellow dough absorb confectioners' sugar like pores. When the luxurious fat melts on your tongue, you exhale. You've got sticky batter, dribbling down spouts, leaving rings on your clean countertops, splattering oil growing darker and beginning to smoke. Layers of paper towels and oil-draining weapons clutter your space. With funnel cake, you've got steps to follow. Procedures. Rules.

No one makes rules about celery. It's always around for the snacking. You choose it when you're dieting or trying not to consume too many wings over football. Come to think of it, you don't even bother eating it when you diet. Instead it's a conduit for blue cheese. You use it to make stocks and stuffing. It becomes filler, pantry almost. ~ Stephanie Klein

Forty feet long sixty feet high hotel
Covered with old gray for buzzing flies
Eye like mango flowing orange pus
Ears Durga people vomiting in their sleep
Got huge legs a dozen buses move inside Calcutta
Swallowing mouthfuls of dead rats
Mangy dogs bark out of a thousand breasts
Garbage pouring from its ass behind alleys
Always pissing yellow Hooghly water
Bellybutton melted Chinatown brown puddles
Coughing lungs Sound going down the sewer
Nose smell a big gray Bidi
Heart bumping and crashing over tramcar tracks
Covered with a hat of cloudy iron
Suffering water buffalo head lowered
To pull the huge cart of year uphill ~ Allen Ginsberg

In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing. ~ Antonio Porchia

My dear, dear girl [ ... ] we can't turn back the days that have gone. We can't turn life back to the hours when our lungs were sound, our blood hot, our bodies young. We are a flash of fire
a brain, a heart, a spirit. And we are three-cents-worth of lime and iron
which we cannot get back. ~ Thomas Wolfe

Reforming the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the poor first requires a conversion of mind and heart. ~ Pope Francis

Even though my fear was detonating over and over like bombs dropping, the fragile and fractured wings of my heart dared to beat as well, and alongside all that fear and all that gratitude, I felt the first precious rush of hope. ~ Shauna Niequist

Would you like to assist me with my choice of underwear as well?" My sarcasm whistled right over his head.
"I would be delighted. While I'd love to see you in a balconette bra, I'm afraid for this particular occasion I would have to go with a foam-lined seamless due to the tight fit of the garment across your breasts ... Perhaps I could come over and review what you have available ... ~ Ilona Andrews

Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first word of love; it is the home that God has given you that by striving to perfect yourselves therein you may prepare to ascend to him. ~ Giuseppe Mazzini

When I came to men for the first time, then did I commit the hermit's folly, the great folly: I appeared in the market-place.

And when I spoke to all, I spoke to none. In the evening, however, rope-dancers were my companions, and corpses; and I myself almost a corpse.

With the new morning, however, there came to me a new truth: Then did I learn to say 'Of what account to me are market-place and crowd and crowd-noise and long crowd-ears!'

You higher men, learn this from me: In the market-place no one believes in higher men. But if you will speak there, very well! The crowd, however, sputters 'We are all equal.'

'You higher men,' - so sputters the crowd - 'there are no higher men, we are all equal; man is man, before God - we are all equal!'

Before God! - Now, however, this God has died. Before the crowd, however, we will not be equal. You higher men, go away from the market-place!


Before God! - Now however this God has died! You higher men, this God was your greatest danger.

Only since he lay in the grave have you again arisen. Only now comes the great noontide, only now does the higher man become - master!

Have you understood this word, O my brothers? You are frightened: Do your hearts turn giddy? Does the abyss here yawn for you? Does the hell-hound here yelp at you?

Well! Take heart, you higher men! Only now does the mountain of the human future begin to work ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity ... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough ... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes- dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery. ~ Raymond B. Fosdick

I am here not to let you fall alone, suffocate alone, quit life easy. I'll fight the fate for you and with you. ~ Parul Wadhwa

I realize that idealism is out of sync with the cynicism of our age. Skepticism has come to be synonymous with sophistication, and glibness is mistaken for intelligence. In such an atmosphere, why bother aiming high? Far too many people don't. I just want to reassure people to have the courage to persevere, to keep following their hearts even when others scoff. Don't be beaten down by naysayers. Don't let the odds scare you from even trying. ~ Howard Schultz

As I passed through the gates, the blistered hands of nostalgia gave my heart a good squeeze and I realized you miss shit times as well as good times, because at the end of the day what you're really missing is just time itself. ~ Steve Toltz

These wrinkles are the hands of time,
The journeys I've been on
They've seen me through a thousand days,
And ev'ry victory won

These fragile hands, With exposed bones,
Are not a fearful sight
But rather, they, my faithful partners,
Rocked babies through the night

These eyes are weak, They see much less,
Than yours they've seen much more
They've guided me through birth, through death,
Through grief, through hurt, through war

These ears can hear so very little,
Yet they've learned to listen much
They perk up not for gossip now,
But for a heart to touch

Those younger often look my way,
With pity looks to give
Yet this old body doesn't mean I am dying,
But rather, that I have lived ~ Emily Nelson

Life's the sum total of all our small mistakes, little tragedies, bad choices. Addition on top of addition. They pile up and pile up until the cost of keeping up appearances is too high and the weight is just too much. Then: collapse. ~ Lauren Oliver

Time was a funny thing ... Instead of marching in at a measured pace, it seemed to flow like a river. Quiet days pooled together, languid with a sense of sameness, and events swirled and eddied, and time seemed to pick up its pace. Then there was the tumbling, dangerous rush of white water over the rocks, and the heart-stopping terror of relentless inevitability as the water fell over the edge, and you knew that no matter what you might do or wish, you could not stop that flow from falling.
All you could do was surrender to the experience and flow with it. ~ Thea Harrison

There will be those who love you for your hair and those who love the beauty of your mind and those who adore the warmth of your heart. but there will be those who will leave you for not conforming to their type of hair, mind and heart. And there will be those who will live/die to see your bad hair days, derailed mind, and broken heart. but what matters most is Who You Are ~ Goitsemang Mvula

When ambitious desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of extremity thou has passed through. ~ Ieyasu Tokugawa

I decline to accept the end of man ... I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail. ~ William Faulkner

The feathered arrow of satire has oft been wet with the heart's blood of its victims. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. ~ Blaise Pascal

In every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that's the way new leaves grow. ~ Amit Ray

Intimacy is at the heart of competence. It has to do with understanding, with believing, and with practice. It has to do with the relationship to one's work. ~ Max De Pree

Thou wouldst be loved? - then let thy heart From its present pathway part not; Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise. And love a simple duty. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

You have music in your heart; just listen in the deep silence to reveal it. ~ Debasish Mridha

Where my heart lies is in the real-life, but at the same time part of it lies in this creative realm where I need to go in and put out that fire, scratch that itch, in order to be all rounded. ~ Frank Iero

We don't care if you're wearing a suit or a T-shirt and jeans. What we care about is the condition of the heart." Gary Davis, Church in the Wind ~ David Putman

Though the birds sang gayly to him,
Though the wild-flowers of the meadow
Filled the air with odors for him,
Though the forests and the rivers
Sang and shouted at his coming,
Still his heart was sad within him,
For he was alone in heaven. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's caring in the intimate ways without a single touch that will break down my walls, my heart carries medals of war, it doesn't know how to love small.
Come with integrity, guts, strength or not at all. ~ Nikki Rowe

Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies
but not before they have been hanged. ~ Heinrich Heine

And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within ;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat ;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I like prostitution. My heart has never failed to pound at the sight of one of those provocatively dressed women walking in the rain under the gaslamps, just as the sight of monks in their robes and girdles touches some ascetic, hidden corner of my soul. ~ Gustave Flaubert

It hurts so much. I never knew a heart could hold the weight of the entire world. ~ Colleen Hoover