Hardened Hearts Quotes

Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say thanks. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

is satisfying, not frightening, not empty. It is an illusion of reality created by ignorance that is so unbearable. The illusion of separateness, the illusion of connectedness to disconnected hardened hearts and closed minds is the source of the suffering that we would all wish to be free of. ~ Mitch Halper

Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power. The only kind of God we can love by our sinful nature is an unholy god, an idol made by our own hands. Unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds His holy love in our hearts, unless He stoops in His grace to change our hearts, we will not love Him ... To love a holy God requires grace, grace strong enough to pierce our hardened hearts and awaken our moribund souls. ~ R.C. Sproul

Those who come close to people in need do so first of all in a generous desire to help them and bring them relief; they often feel like saviours and put themselves on a pedestal. But once in contact with them, once touching them, establishing a loving and trusting relationship with them, the mystery unveils itself. At the heart of the insecurity of people in distress there is a presence of Jesus. And so they may discover the sacrament of the poor and enter the mystery of compassion.

People who are poor seem to break down the barriers of powerfulness, of wealth, of ability and of pride; they pierce the armour the human heart builds to protect itself; they reveal Jesus Christ. They reveal to those who have come to 'help' them their own poverty and vulnerability. These people also show their 'helpers' their capacity for love, the forces of love in their hearts. A poor person has a mysterious power: in his weakness he is able to open hardened hearts and reveal the sources of living water within them. It is the tiny hand of the fearless child which can slip through the bars of the prison of egoism. He is the one who can open the lock and set free. And God hides himself in the child. ~ Jean Vanier

Be merciful until you can't be.
Until you feel your heart begin to harden into a bullet.
Then use that bullet. ~ Clementine Von Radics

For me the number one reason is that us people with autism love the greenness of nature.
... Our fondness for nature is, I think, a little bit different to everyone else's. I'm guessing that what touches you in nature is the beauty of the trees and the flowers and things. But to us people with special needs, nature is as important as our own lives. The reason is that when we look at nature, we receive a sort of permission to be alive in this world, and our entire bodies get recharged. However often, we're ignored and pushed away by other people, nature will always give us a good big hug, here inside our hearts.
The greenness of nature is the lives of plants and trees. Green is life. And that's the reason we love to go for walks. ~ Naoki Higashida

Live life with passion from our hearts and believe. Let love be the reason and purpose of life ~ Jerrycel Verlinden

Do you know, Michael, he was - he touched the hearts of many people around the world. That's important. That's why the world cried when he passed because they understood him. ~ Jermaine Jackson

Every marriage has two hearts, one light and one dark ~ Stephen King

O accursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not compel human hearts! ~ Virgil

I've been living in the shadow of empty people for far too long. Now I need to find chests full of wild lilies, minds full of wonder, hearts full of light. ~ Anita Krizzan

I get why you had to choose him," he says. "I don't like it, but I understand it. I also know that giving one night to me doesn't take away the fact that you might be giving him forever. But like I said ... I'm selfish. And if one night with you is all I can get, then I'll take it." He lifts my head off his shoulder and tilts my face up to his. "I'll take whatever you're willing to give me. Because I know that if you walk out that door, then ten years from now ... twenty years from now ... we'll wish we had listened to our hearts when we think back on tonight. ~ Colleen Hoover

Souls have deep connections and unique contracts that span centuries, exist back and forth in time, and bind us in ways we can't really understand.... These connections are ancient and everlasting, and they already exist in our hearts, even if we're not always aware of them. ~ Laura Lynne Jackson

These women are, quite simply, alive; they know that the source of true values is not in external things but in human hearts. This gives its charm to the world they live in: they banish ennui by the simple fact of their presence, with their dreams, their desires, their pleasures, their emotions, their ingenuities. The sanseverina, that 'active soul' dreads ennui more than death. To stagnate in ennui 'is to keep from dying, she said, not to live'; she is ' always impassioned over something, always in action and gay too '. Thoughtless, childish or profound, gay or grave, daring or secretive, they all reject the heavy sleep in which humanity is mired. And these women who have been able to maintain their liberty- empty as it has been- will rise through passion to heroism once they find an objective worthy of them; their spiritual power, their energy, suggest the fierce purity of total dedication ~ Simone De Beauvoir

If death is like a sonnet then life would be a haiku. The sonnet, a lyrical poem, the beauty and magic with the last breath~ love, words fading and floating off into the abyss that is space whilst our everyday lives or days more important than normal become just a mere whisper in only a few short syllables through which we convey with our hearts the truth of the universe in a single moment briefly. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

Our hearts are not black or white. Nor are they fat or thin. Our hearts are all the same. Our hearts only beat for love! ~ Avijeet Das

Those who are gone, you have. Those who departed loving you, love you still; and you love them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are only gone into the next room; and you will presently get up and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you, and you will be no more seen. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

It used to be that each time you fell in love, the effort of loving released in you the energy to hold everything together a little longer. Then, after several months or years, when things began to crack apart again, you would fall in love with someone else. New energy would be released, and for a time you and your world would be safe once more.

By now, however, you have exhausted that. There seems to be no energy left - if you had discovered alcohol earlier it might have saved a few broken hearts. For you, alcohol is not the problem - it's the solution: dissolving all the separate parts into one. A universal solvent. An ocean. ~ Ron Butlin

The years of imprisonment hardened me ... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn't be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life, I no longer have the emotion of fear.there is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn't any pain I haven't known. ~ Winnie Madikizela-Mandela

If you reflect often on how His Atonement has changed you, and if you give thanks often, you will find that your witness of Him gains power to touch the hearts of others. When those you invite out of your own testimony feel that witness, they will come to accept Him as their Lord and Savior. ~ Henry B. Eyring

People think the only time the earth is renewed is in spring. I find it's renewed around Christmastime when hard, old hearts are softened. When children's laughter drowns out anguish. When magic transforms the dull into something beautiful and sparkly. I find that Christmas time changes me ... from the inside out, and even for a moment fills me with youth and hope again. ~ Toni Sorenson

Christmas is about change. It's a time we open our hearts before we open our presents. ~ Toni Sorenson

We are not really surprised that God has redeemed us. Somewhere
deep inside, in the secret chambers of our hearts, we harbor the notion that God owes us His mercy. Heaven would not be quite the same if we were excluded from it. We know that we are sinners, but we are surely not as bad as we could be. There are enough redeeming features to our personalities that if God is really just, He will include us in salvation. What amazes us is justice, not Brice. ~ R.C. Sproul

About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough - and even miraculous enough if you insist - I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?

Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others - while in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity - so the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existential ~ Christopher Hitchens

We are not the names our realms bestow on us; rather we are what we are in our hearts. ~ Athan Fletcher

Francie said nothing more. Katie knew that she was letting them down. But she couldn't help it, she just couldn't help it. Yes, she should go with them to lend the comfort and authority of her presence but she knew she couldn't stand the ordeal. Yet, they had to be vaccinated. Her being with them or somewhere else couldn't take that fact away. So why shouldn't one of the three be spared? Besides, she said to her conscience, it's a hard and bitter world. They've got to live in it. Let them get hardened young to take care of themselves. ~ Betty Smith

Watch well each separate citizen, Lest having in his heart of hearts A secret spear, one still may come Saluting you with cheerful face, And utter with a double tongue The feigned good wishes of his wary mind. ~ Solon

Poetry without words, you are, the beat to my hearts rhythm. ~ N'Zuri Za Austin

Pomegranates you may cut deep down the middle and see into, but not hearts, - so why should I try and speak? ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

You were the First Brigade in the Army of the Shenandoah, the First Brigade in the Army of the Potomac, the First Brigade in the Second Corps, and are the First Brigade in the hearts of your generals. I hope that you will be the First Brigade in this, our second struggle for independence, and in the future, on the fields on which the Stonewall Brigade are engaged, I expect to hear of crowning deeds of valor and of victories gloriously achieved! May God bless you all! Farewell! ~ Stonewall Jackson

God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts into one. ~ William Shakespeare

There will always be romance in the world so long as there are young hearts in it. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

These were the things that the government supplied you with - in turn, of course, demanding obedience. But you must not imagine that it was a constant feeling of outrage that was in the minds of people and the hearts of people. ~ Stefan Heym

Life: composted lessons for our hearts to blossom into our souls. ~ Soul Dancer

Even today, after all that has happened, I keep this scarf wrapped around my hair because of men's interest in me. It is not because of faith any more; I still believe in Allah, don't misunderstand me, but I do not think Allah is a fashion designer. He observes people's hearts, not their clothes. ~ Tabish Khair

All the saddle horses, and even some of the pack animals, were affected by the scent of the wild herd. Freedom still lived deep down in their hearts. That was why a broken horse, no matter how gentle, became the wildest of the wild when he got free. ~ Zane Grey

We begin to understand that to coparent is to one day look up and notice that you are on a roller coaster with another human being. You are in the same car, strapped down side by side and you can never, ever get off. There will never be another moment in your lives when your hearts don't rise and fall together, when your minds don't race and panic together, when your stomachs don't churn in tandem, when you stop seeing huge hills emerge in the distance and simultaneously grab the side of the car and hold on tight. No one except for the one strapped down beside you will ever understand the particular thrills and terrors of your ride. ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

I know these are only dreams. I know these days are long past. I wake to a dream in which Hammer's breath has stopped, and mine with it, and hearts have gone to a quiet sunny meadow with the sweetest little cottage in the middle, with a millwheel and a stream. Our bodies will lie tangled until they become earth, like roses twining so closely there is no beginning and no end, and only the shades of beauty that were their growing.
Every dream I ever had as a child has come true, simply because Hammer loved me. Perhaps this one will too. ~ Amy Lane

Ugly, degrading, rather terrible half-truths ... It is bad for the soul to know itself a coward, it is apt to take refuge in mere wordy violence ... Their hearts ached while their lips formed recriminations. Their hearts burst into tears while their eyes remained dry and accusing, staring in hostility and anger ... They could not forgive and they could not sleep, for neither could sleep without the other's forgiveness, and the hatred that leapt out at moments between them would be drowned in the tears that their hearts were shedding. ~ Radclyffe Hall

Together, people with good hearts and fine minds can move the world. ~ William J. Clinton

When one is alone, imperfection must be endured every minute of the day; a couple, however, does not have to put up with it. Aren't our eyes made to be torn out, and our hearts for the same purpose? At the same time it's really not that bad; that's an exaggeration and a lie, everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it's really an expression for everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted, but it's true. Moreover, perhaps it isn't love when I say you are what I love the most - you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love. This, my dear, is love. ~ Franz Kafka

The wailing of broken hearts
is the doorway to God. ~ Rumi

In the twenty-first century, human minds, and to a lesser extent, human hearts can work like well calibrated precision instruments, but who can write the universal manual on imagination? ~ Martin Guevara Urbina

Don't worry about finding your bliss right now. Not even our President knew what his bliss was, nor did I. One of these days to your own surprise, your bliss will find you. But no matter what you do, participate, be there, full force, full heart, full steam ahead. ~ Barbara Walters

Their dad said, "Heaven is beautiful like your mother was beautiful, but like it beauty is fleeting and once beheld for years, for decades, gold that seemed precious and unique no longer holds the significance it once held to the one who has possessed it and been possessed by it. And heaven resides in God's breast, not the true god, for there is no true god, only many faces and many incarnations of want, of structure, of meaning. And his heart-tent is vast drawing to it those who swear allegiance to beauty and partial truth. Partial," their father said, stroking Maggie's arm, "because truth is independent of religion or creed or upbringing. It is a matter of the heart, separate from fact, without the limitations of doctrine. And what would heaven feel like? More of the same corrupt single-mindedness of a deity who abhors independence, who truly and fiercely fights the accumulation of knowledge in its worshipers. So the weak run to it, the road-weary, the undecided. Because God makes things easy, they do not have to make choices for themselves, they do not have to study the greater mysteries that echo like a clarion call in their souls and resonate in their hearts, seeds planted in the dark soil of their youth that are burned to chaff in the commonplace, never tilled or watered, hopeless due to acquiescence. ~ Lee Thompson

Whatever your grievances, I'm sure we can address them without resorting to war," persisted Argyle ...
Nonsense," said the alien. "Do you know how many laborers and industries we'd put out of work if we were to stop the war just because a few bleeding hearts think we can talk out our grievances? ~ Mike Resnick

No lies, remember? I'm dead fucking serious here. I am like, head over friggin' heels, butterflies and puppies, hearts and fucking kitty cats in love with you. ~ C.M. Stunich

Think what great love Christ has showed unto us, and how little we have deserved, and this will make our hearts to melt and be as pliable as wax before the sun. ~ Richard Sibbes

You see we do, yet see you but our hands
And this the bleeding business they have done:
Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful ~ William Shakespeare

Believe me, there is none fraught with such deep, such vital interest. If you talk, indeed, of the capricious inclination awakened by the mere charm of perishable beauty, I grant it to be idle in the extreme; but that love which springs from the concordant sympathies of virtuous hearts; that love which is awakened by the perception of moral excellence, and fed by meditation on intellectual as well as personal beauty; that is a passion which refines and ennobles the human heart. Oh, where is there a sight more nearly approaching to the intercourse of angels, than that of two young beings, free from the sins and follies of the world, mingling pure thoughts, and looks, and feelings, and becoming as it were soul of one soul and heart of one heart! How exquisite the silent converse that they hold; the soft devotion of the eye, that needs no words to make it eloquent! Yes, my friend, if there be anything in this weary world worthy of heaven, it is the pure bliss of such a mutual affection! ~ Washington Irving

I want girls to hear my music and want to play it again because it made their hearts feel good. ~ Justin Bieber