Heart Of Wood Quotes

She talked thus, bent double, shaken with sobs, blinded by tears, her neck bare, clenching her hands, coughing with a dry and short cough, stammering very feebly with an agonised voice. Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transfigures the wretched. At that moment Fantine had again become beautiful. At certain instants she stopped and tenderly kissed the policeman's coat. She would have softened a heart of granite; but you cannot soften a heart of wood ~ Victor Hugo

She might have melted a heart of stone, but nothing can melt a heart of wood. ~ Victor Hugo

It had the old double keyboard, an entirely different set of keys for capitals and figures, so that the paper seemed a long way off, and the machine was as big and solid as a battle cruiser. Typing was then a muscular activity. You could ache after it. If you were not familiar with those vast keyboards, your hand wandered over them like a child lost in a wood. The noise might have been that of a shipyard on the Clyde. You would no more have thought of carrying one of those grim structures as you would have thought of travelling with a piano. ~ J.B. Priestley

Do not convince yourself that your suffering was futile, that your scars are simply scars instead of stories. Do not keep your past suspended like an anchor in the back of your throat, for it is time to speak. I promise you - the voice you think is simply just a whisper, is actually made of brazen thunder. It will bellow through the bones of those who need it, it will clap within the veins of a seeking heart... ~ Bianca Sparacino

All great amusements are dangerous to the Christian life; but among all those which the world has invented there is none more to be feared than the theater. It is a representation of the passions so natural and so delicate that it excites them and gives birth to them in our hearts, and, above all, to that of love. ~ Blaise Pascal

Open your eyes to the beauty around you, open your mind to the wonders of life, open your heart to those who love you, and always be true to yourself. ~ Maya Angelou

A Permeable Life is about what presses out from the heart, what comes in at a slant and what shimmers below the surface of things. To live permeably is to be open-hearted and audacious, to risk showing up as our truest self, and embracing a willingness to be astonished. ~ Carrie Newcomer

She had, Emma decided, a very particular beauty about her, a quality that required more than the possession of conventionally attractive features. Good looks could be a cliché, which meant that those who satisfied the normal criteria of beauty could fail its more subtle tests. Thus it was that those with very regular features could just miss being beautiful because they lacked some tiny human imperfection, some irregularity that imparted to their appearance the poignancy, the reminder of ordinary humanity, on which real beauty depended. It was quite possible to be too perfect, and end up being plastic, as Hollywood stars so often were, with their well-placed curves or sculpted chins. The heart would not stop at such features, whereas it might well do so when a snub nose, or one not quite dead-center, or ears that were just slightly too large, were combined with eyes that seem to reflect and enhance the light, or with lips that formed a tantalizing bow, or with perfectly unblemished skin. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Sombre thoughts and fancies often require a little real soil or substance to flourish in; they are the dark pine-trees which take root in, and frown over the rifts of the scathed and petrified heart, and are chiefly nourished by the rain of unavailing tears, and the vapors of fancy. ~ John Frederick Boyes

You can't get rid of your heart
Just as you can't get rid of your head
So, you might as well get used to listening to it ~ Jose N Harris

Stand up for what you believe. Follow your gut, which most of the time is your heart talking. This has been my hardest lesson. I have given this advice and not always followed it myself. The truth is, there is no other way. ~ Faith Hill

If the ills of humanity were caused by culture, they could certainly be cured in no way other than by culture.4 But the ills we have in mind are native to the human heart, which always remains the same, and culture only brings them out. With all its wealth and power, it only shows that the human heart, in which God has put eternity [Eccles. 3:11], is so huge that all the world is too small to satisfy it. Human beings are in search of another and better redemption than culture can give them. They are looking for lasting happiness, an enduring eternal good. They are thirsting for a redemption that saves them physically as well as spiritually, for time but also for eternity. ~ Anonymous

There can be no Kingdom of God in the world without the Kingdom of God in our hearts. ~ Albert Schweitzer

You know, if we understand one question rightly, all questions are answered. But we don't know how to ask the right question. To ask the right question demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. Here is a question, a fundamental question: is life a torture? It is, as it is; and man has lived in this torture centuries upon centuries, from ancient history to the present day, in agony, in despair, in sorrow; and he doesn't find a way out of it. Therefore he invents gods, churches, all the rituals, and all that nonsense, or he escapes in different ways. What we are trying to do, during all these discussions and talks here, is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind, not accept things as they are, nor revolt against them. Revolt doesn't answer a thing. You must understand it, go into it, examine it, give your heart and your mind, with everything that you have, to find out a way of living differently. That depends on you, and not on someone else, because in this there is no teacher, no pupil; there is no leader; there is no guru; there is no Master, no Saviour. You yourself are the teacher and the pupil; you are the Master; you are the guru; you are the leader; you are everything. And to understand is to transform what is.

I think that will be enough, won't it? ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The longer I am in this work, the more I realize that intellectual struggles are merely the hazardous waste of life, blocking the heart from truth. The task of apologetics is to carefully remove that hazardous material and keep it from igniting into a destructive fire. Once that is done, the way to the heart is always through the way of the Cross, God's love for each and every one of us. ~ Ravi Zacharias

The God, when he draws near, will the heart stand fast.
But, oh my, shame! when of
My shame!
And let me say at once
That I approached to see the Heavenly,
And they cast me down, deep down
Below the living, into the dark cast down
The false priest that I am, to sing,
For those who have ears to hear, the warning song.
There ~ Friedrich Holderlin

Everything inside and around us wants to reflect itself in us. We don't have to go anywhere to obtain the truth. We only need to be still and things will reveal themselves in the still water of our heart. ~ Nhat Hanh

Kindness is the best key to open the locked door of every heart. ~ Debasish Mridha

I'd thought I had recovered for good from that sadness, but as I felt my marriage disintegrate, the memory of my raw yearning for babies and my husband's refusal to have them with me came back to me as part of the reason I was now leaving him. It felt like the heart of why I was so lonely with him. ~ Kate Christensen

I plunged eagerly and passionately into the wilderness, as if in the hope of thus penetrating into the very heart of this Nature, powerful and maternal, there to blend with her living elements. ~ Paul Gauguin

How most people carry on is a mystery. What they talk about at supper. How they can stand to sit in front of a TV from eight until Leno every night. How they can think bowling is fun. How they choose their neckties. How they bear the weight of everyday life without screaming. How a person can go through a whole life and never once contemplate suicide, like people who have never once wanted to be a movie star. How one young man can be handsome and strong and marry and heiress and work at Debevoise and Plimpton and retire to Nantucket to await the visits of his grandchildren, how they can be sailing in the bay while another young man, exactly like the first, can end up in a glass room in Lexington, Kentucky, on Haldol and Thorazine, without hope, without a girlfriend, without a future, and how easily the one can become the other. How one woman can take Gatorade to every one of her son's lacrosse games and another can lie in bed all day weeping, popping generic drugs, watching Oprah as though waiting for the Second Coming, and piling her dirty dishes in the laundry room. How life goes in bad directions when your heart is asleep. It's a mystery and there is no answer. (95) ~ Robert Goolrick

I couldn't find the words. Words to tell him how I had come to know a God as solid as this rock we stood upon. Unchanging, even after years of rain or snow or storm. Never swayed by even my own wavering heart. How He'd filled up a hole within me - a great need I hadn't even known existed until all I valued had been stripped bare. ~ Heidi Chiavaroli

Ah yes, now you're beginning to feel it. It's so satisfying to see my best efforts coming to fruition. Undoubtedly one of the most gratifying rewards of my profession. It would warm my heart - if I had one. ~ Jaye Frances

I don't care if I'm loved back, I still want to love someone.Someone, from the bottom of my heart ... Straightforward, unwavering ... It seems like such a simple thing, so then why ... Must it be so incredibly hard? ~ Ai Yazawa

What is this 'I'? If you analyse it closely you will, I think, find that it is just a little bit more than a collection of single data (experiences and memories), namely the canvas upon which they are collected. And you will, on close introspection, find that what you really mean by 'I' is that ground-stuff upon which they are collected. You may come to a distant country, lose sight of all your friends, may all but forget them; you acquire new friends, you share life with them as intensely as you ever did with your old ones. Less and less important will become the fact that, while living your new life, you still recollect the old one. 'The youth that was I', you may come to speak of him in the third person, indeed the protagonist of the novel you are reading is probably nearer to your heart, certainly more intensely alive and better known to you. Yet there has been no intermediate break, no death. And even if a skilled hypnotist succeeded in blotting out entirely all your earlier reminiscences, you would not find that he had killed you. In no case is there a loss of personal existence to deplore. Nor will there ever be. ~ Erwin Schrodinger

Don't worry about anything at all.
You are not here by accident.
This form is just a costume for a while.
But the one who is behind the costume,
this one is eternal. You must know this.
If you know this and trust this,
you don't have to worry about anything.
This world is so full of love.
And your heart, your being,
is so full of love, so full of peace.
You don't have to go
to some place else to find peace.
It is right where you are. ~ Mooji

Loving one another with the charity of Christ, let the love you have in your hearts be shown outwardly in your deeds so that compelled by such an example, the sisters may also grow in the love of God and charity for one another. ~ Clare Of Assisi

These aren't the kind of tears that give you a sense of relief or wash the pain away. These tears hurt. Each and every one has made the perilous journey from my heart to my eyes. I feel like with every tear I'm losing a little bit more of who I thought my brother was, but I can't stop them. I don't think I'll ever be able to stop. ~ Katherine Webber

The reader can test his own psychology by asking himself whether he would consider, in retrospect, the selling at 156 in 1925 and buying back at 109 in 1931 was a satisfactory operation. Some may think that an intelligent investor should have been able to sell out much closer to the high of 381 and to buy back nearer the low of 41. If that is your own view you are probably a speculator at heart and will have trouble keeping to true investment precepts while the market rushes up and down. ~ Benjamin Graham

You've got my heart in unfamiliar territory. It's never been out here on my sleeve. But here tonight with you it's quite a different story. You bring out a side of me no one has ever seen. ~ Toby Keith

Being scooped up by a huge, hairy, yellow hand was not as scary as Vieth might have imagined; being dumped on an unstable piece of wood held way high up, was. ~ Trevor Alan Foris

The true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. ~ Timothy J. Keller

It is our priority to win the hearts of people of Jammu and Kashmir. That could only be achieved through development and their welfare. We have a responsibility to see that people of the state are prosperous. We are not talking about Hindus or Muslims, but the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Development comes when there is integration. ~ Narendra Modi

I have no way to ask about that. I have no elegant way of stepping into your heart to ask about that without tracking in filth. So I will wait, someday, when you want to tell me.. tell me then. I'll wait until then. ~ Josef Kucera

Everyone has something wrong. And for a while, her heart just sort of flat lined. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

When an almond tree became covered with blossoms in the heart of winter, all the trees around it began to jeer. 'What vanity,' they screamed, 'what insolence! Just think, it believes it can bring spring in this way!' The flowers of the almond tree blushed for shame. 'Forgive me, my sisters,' said the tree. 'I swear I did not want to blossom, but suddenly I felt a warm springtime breeze in my heart. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

9 Rejoice, young man, while you are young, and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all of these things God will bring you to judgment. ~ Anonymous

The myth of redemptive violence is, in short, nationalism become absolute. This myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical judgment by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols, and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it embraces God in order to prevent change. Its God is not the impartial ruler of all nations but a tribal god worshiped as an idol. Its metaphor is not the journey but the fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but the crosshairs of a gun. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not the unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. Its usurps the revelation of God's purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous. ~ Walter Wink

Strange that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstandings of God's true nature. God's heart is more gentle than the Virgin's first kiss upon the Christ. And God's forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being. ~ St. Catherine Of Siena

It is the kind of stoicism which had been seen as characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry, perhaps nowhere better expressed than in 'The Battle of Maldon' where the most famous Saxon or English cry has been rendered - 'Courage must be the firmer, heart the bolder, spirit must be the greater, as our strength grows less'. That combination of bravery and fatalism, endurance and understatement, is the defining mood of Arhurian legend. ~ Peter Ackroyd

If there is something I will always carry in my heart it is this earnest unwillingness to be part of the bunch, ~ Eileen Myles

She had never heard the word 'intellectual' used as a noun before she went to Barnard, and she took it to heart. It was a brave noun, a proud noun, a noun suggesting lifelong dedication to lofty things and a cool disdain for the commonplace. An intellectual might lose her virginity to a soldier in the park, but she could learn to look back on it with wry, amused detachment. An intellectual might have a mother who showed her underpants when drunk, but she wouldn't let it bother her. And Emily Grimes might not be an intellectual yet, but if she took copious notes in even the dullest of her classes, and if she read every night until her eyes ached, it was only a question of time. ~ Richard Yates

His eyes met mine and the rest of the room faded away. ―I'm always going to keep your heart safe, even if mine has to stop beating for that to happen,‖ he told me softly. ~ P.C. Cast

The very best antidote for the New Age teachings is for Christians to enter into and live fully in the supernatural. This is certainly no time to draw back from supernatural living and retreat into a mere defense of orthodoxy. Because we have adopted this stance for the last half-century, we have opened the door for the New Age to fill the vacuum. There is a longing in the human heart for communication and a relationship with the Divine. Since the dawn of history, when God's people do not preach, proclaim, and model the genuine article, men and women will wander into whatever appears to offer the fulfillment of their spiritual quest. We need to cast aside our hesitation and proceed strongly forward, the Word and the Spirit as our unfailing guide. ~ Mark Virkler

Write your dreams in journal,note book, card or on a cork. When you pen down your dreams, an a inner strength and divine power is activated for your to work towards the fulfillment of your dreams. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita