Wise Words from the Heart

(if you have a "heart-y" quote that you would like to submit,
please email it to storycircle at storycircle dot org)
  
  • "Your heart often knows things before your mind does."
    —Paula Adler

  • "Our stories arise from our hearts and our souls. In this sense, telling our stories becomes a sacred gesture, opening a clear way to that deep, ecstatic center where we are most uniquely our selves, individual and unique, and yet are ourselves, joined together at the heart."
    —Susan Wittig Albert (Writing from Life)

  • "I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision."
    —Maya Angelou

  • "If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded."
    —Maya Angelou

  • "If a man be gracious to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island, cut off from other islands, but a continent that joins them."
    —Sir Francis Bacon

  • "A broken heart is what makes life so wonderful five years later, when you see the guy in an elevator and he is fat and smoking a cigar and saying long-time-no-see. If he hadn't broken your heart, you couldn't have that glorious feeling of relief!"
    —Phyllis Battelle

  • "Listen with the ear of your heart."
    —St. Benedict

  • "To know how to choose a path with heart is to learn how to follow intuitive feeling. Logic can tell you superficially where a path might lead to, but it cannot judge whether your heart will be in it."
    —Jean Shinoda Bolen

  • "A heart needs only its own voice to do what is right."
    —Vanna Bonta

  • "Purity of heart is blooming the same colors in the middle of the wilderness when no one sees you."
    —Vanna Bonta

  • "There are words which sever hearts more than sharp swords; there are words the point of which sting the heart through the course of a whole life. "
    —Frederika Bremer

  • "Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education, they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."
    —Emily Bronte

  • "There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories are full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream—whatever that dream might be."
    —Pearl S. Buck

  • "You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you."
    —Frederick Buechner (Telling the Truth)

  • "The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own."
    —Willa Cather

  • "If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing."
    —Marc Chagall

  • "If seed in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey towards the stars?"
    —G.K. Chesterton

  • "If you look into your own heart, you find nothing wrong there, what is there to fear?"
    — Confucius

  • "When you open your heart, you open your mind."
    —Beth Mende Conny

  • "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
    —Antoine De Saint-Exupery

  • "Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts."
    —Charles Dickens

  • "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain."
    —Emily Dickinson

  • "In your heart, keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go and sheltered so may thrive and grow."
    —Louise Driscoll

  • "The human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return."
    —Maria Edgeworth

  • "The state of love is simply a state of joining within with another, heart to heart. It does not require a movement toward that person for satisfaction, for there is already joining present. When I meet you in my own heart, there is nowhere else to go."
    —Paul Ferrini

  • "Nobody has ever measured, not even the poets, how much a heart can hold."
    —Zelda Fitzgerald

  • "I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried in my heart."
    —Anne Frank

  • "For twas not into my ear you whispered
    But into my heart
    Twas not my lips you kissed
    But my soul"
    —Judy Garland

  • "When you reach the heart of life, you shall find beauty in all things."
    —Kahlil Gibran

  • "It is easier to gnaw through bone
    Than the hide of the heart."
    —Diane Glancy

  • "The woman's vision is deep reaching...the heart is her world."
    —Betty Grable

  • "There is only unconditional love; all else is approval. I believe that the purest love happens between those who least try to change each other. Think of people and their pets, grandparents and grands, handicapped people and their caregivers. It is there that each finds total acceptance and unconditional love."
    —Peggy S. Grose

  • "There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity."
    —Elisabeth Guizot

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

  • "There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up."
    —John Andrew Holmes

  • "There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity."
    —Washington Irving

  • "I think my life has been a long, slow process of trying to move closer and closer to the spirit by moving closer and closer to the heart. The heart is what's important."
    —Burl Ives

  • "What we have most to fear is failure of the heart."
    —Sonia Johnson

  • "One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter."
    —James Earl Jones

  • "If one completes the journey to one's own heart, one will find oneself in the heart of everyone else."
    —Fr. Thomas Keating

  • "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."
    —Helen Keller

  • "Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart."
    —Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • "THE HEART REVEALED
    Choose
    This day
    Which master
    You will honor.
    You cannot serve both.
    What is your heart's desire?
    To love things and use people
    Or love people and use things;
    Will you find joy in love of power
    Or perfection through the power of love?"
    —Doris Lakey

  • "Fairy tales can come true,
    It can happen to you,
    If you're young at heart!"
    —Carolyn Leigh (featured in the 1955 film 'Young at Heart', music by Johnny Richards and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh)

  • "I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend against its force. My love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest day."
    —Og Mandingo

  • "It's the heart that's afraid of breaking that never learns to dance."
    —Amanda McBroom (in the song, 'The Rose', recorded by Bette Midler)

  • "Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
    Aimed with angry art,
    Words can sting like anything.
    But silence breaks the heart."
    —Phyllis McGinley

  • "Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either."
    —Golda Meir

  • "Pity me that the heart is slow to learn/What the swift mind beholds at every turn."
    —Edna St. Vincent Millay

  • "Keep a good heart. That's the most important thing in life. It's not how much money you make or what you can acquire. The art of it is to keep a good heart."
    —Joni Mitchell

  • "People have to learn sometimes not only how much the heart, but how much the head, can bear."
    —Maria Mitchell

  • "The heart that gives—gathers."
    —Marianne Moore

  • "A person's world is only as big as their heart."
    —Tanya A. Moore

  • "7 days without a laugh makes one heart weak."
    —Abigail November

  • "I am sure of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections."
    —John O'Donohue

  • "Being vulnerable doesn't have to be threatening. Just have the courage to be sincere, open and honest. This opens the door to deeper communication all around. It creates self-empowerment and the kind of connections with others we all want in life. Speaking from the heart frees us from the secrets that burden us. These secrets are what make us sick or fearful. Speaking truth helps you get clarity on your real heart directives."
    —Sara Paddison

  • "Deep listening from the heart is one half of true communication. Speaking from the heart is the other half."
    —Sara Paddison

  • "Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
    —Thomas Paine

  • "It is not the glittering weapon that fights the fight, but rather the brave heart."
    — Proverb

  • "If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come."
    —Chinese Proverb

  • "Gratitude is the heart's memory."
    —French Proverb

  • "The heart that loves is always young."
    —Greek Proverb

  • "The heart sees better than the eye."
    —Hebrew Proverb

  • "My heart laughs with joy, when I am in your presence."
    —Native American Proverb

  • "A heart in love with beauty never grows old."
    —Turkish Proverb

  • "A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones."
    — Proverbs 17:22

  • "When we are seen by the heart we are seen for who we are. We are valued in our uniqueness by those who are able to see us in this way and we become able to know and value ourselves."
    —Rachel Naomi Remen

  • "A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails."
    —Donna Roberts

  • "There is much satisfaction in work well done, but there can be no happiness equal to the joy of finding a heart that understands."
    —Victor Robinsoll

  • "We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic."
    —E. Merrill Root

  • "My heart is like a singing bird."
    —Christina Rosetti

  • "Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart."
    — Seneca

  • "The human heart does not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making."
    —Lillian Smith

  • "Making the decision to have a child—it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart walking around outside your body."
    —Elizabeth Stone

  • "My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!"
    —Anne Sullivan

  • "It is my heart that makes my songs, not I."
    —Sara Teasdale

  • "A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love."
    —Mother Teresa

  • "Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough; money can be got; but they need your hearts to love them."
    —Mother Teresa

  • "Always there remain portions of our heart into which no one is able to enter, invite them as we may."
    —Mary Dixon Thayer

  • "Draw a circle, not a heart, around the one you love because a heart can break but a circle goes on forever."
    — Unknown

  • "Homecoming means coming home to what is in your heart."
    — Unknown

  • "Out of all the treasures in the world there is nothing more precious than giving someone a piece of your heart."
    — Unknown

  • "Service is nothing but love in work clothes."
    — Unknown

  • "Sometimes someone says something really small, and it just fits right into this empty place in your heart."
    — Unknown

  • "The heart already knows what the mind can only dream of. Trust your heart."
    — Unknown

  • "The mind forgets but the heart always remembers."
    — Unknown

  • "When your heart speaks, take good notes."
    — Unknown

  • "If your head tells you one thing and your heart tells you another, before you do anything, you should first decide whether you have a better head or a better heart."
    —Marilyn Vos Savant

  • "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."
    —William Wadsworth

  • "I am all for people having their heart in the right place; but the right place for a heart is not inside the head."
    —Katharine Whitehorn

  • "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."
    —Thornton Wilder

  • "In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it."
    —Marianne Williamson

  • "Be kind to bad and good, for you don't know your own heart."
    —Sarah Winnemucca

  • "Lovin' might be a mistake
    But it's worth making
    Don't let some hell bent heart
    Leave you bitter."
    —Lee Ann Womack

  • "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."
    —William Wordsworth