Great Heart

“ Genius, brains, brilliancy, strength, natural gifts do not save. The gospel flows through hearts. All the mightiest forces are heart forces. All the sweetest and loveliest graces are heart graces. Great hearts make great characters; great hearts make divine characters. God is love. There is nothing greater than love, nothing greater than God. ”

“ Whenever any one sighs towards me with love in meditating on my Passion, it is as though he gently touched my Wounds with a fresh-budding rose, and I wound his heart in return with the arrow of my love. ”

“ They flow from a pure heart, that knows no other wish than your happiness. When time shall have gone by, and you can look back in peace and quiet on the broken tie between us, you will then acknowledge that never was a truer heart than mine. Thanks, my dearest life, my never-to-be-forgotten love, for the many sweet flowers you have woven into the garland of my life, for all your love, for all your care. ”

“ The great lever by which the heart is moved is love; it is the basis of all true excellence, of all excellent thought. How pleasing the spectacle of that home circle which is governed by the spirit of love! Each one strives to avoid giving offense, and is studiously considerate of the others' happiness. Sweet, loving dispositions are cultivated by all, and each tries to surpass the other in his efforts for the common harmony. Each heart glows with love, and the benediction of heavenly peace seems to abide upon that dwelling with such power that no storm of passion is able to rise. ”

“ Thought is worried and weakened in its flight through the immensity of space; but love soars around the throne of the Highest, with added blessing and strength.
I know not how it may be with others, but with me the heart is a readier and quicker builder of those fabrics which strew the great country of the Future than the mind. ”

“ Is there a twisted and hardened heart in the community he beams upon it from his cheerful eye, he speaks out of his great charity, he gives the friendly pressure of his large hand, and that hardened heart dissolves and its frozen hopelessness loses itself in tears. ”

“ Well is it when our eyes are filled with His beauty and our hearts are occupied with Him. In the measure in which this is true of us we shall recognize the correlative truth that His great heart is occupied with us. ”

“ Respect, and admiration, and affection, our doors may always be left open for, but their great celestial master, in his royal progress, pays but one visit and departs. We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of—but we never love again. A man's heart is a firework that once in its time flashes heavenward. ”

“ And stout hearts failed for very fear,
Came a great throb the country through,—
The nation’s heart still beating true!
Ah, mother-land and mother-breast,
We still will trust you and will rest;
Although waves howl and tempests lower,
Your heart, our heart, is sound at core. ”

“ Great Heaven! what vain beliefs
Have stirred the pulse and led the hopes of man!
As if that honour could be bought by blood,
And that the fierce right hand was better worth
Than the fine mind, and high and generous heart!—
Blame not the lovers—'twas their age's fault; ”

“ The truth is he asks for your whole heart, which means your full and perfect love. He will hide you in his great heart of love. As you make this remark cause both hearts to approach each other. You will notice that the white [145] heart moves toward the red heart, this is to make clear the fact that God meets us always half way. ”

“ That rugged heart that had got like iron in its conflict with science, men and things, that had had to drink up all its tears again, and look on calmly at all kinds of wretchedness—that iron heart which had a great deal of coldness in its simplicity, which, as regards sentiment, was virginal, childishly pure, had opened out slowly, almost timidly, to love. ”

“ The Heart loves peace, and meditates up on righteousness, the clouds of perverted thought cannot arise if they would,—at least that is our thought,—all is placid, and still, and translucent as a well-cut diamond. But it is not long ere the serpent that lurks in the waters comes to trouble the quiet pool: clouds of perverse thought steal suddenly over the heart, till, one by one, they have covered it all, and the man's hand rising on the horizon has become a great overshadowing storm which blackens the whole heart till its beautiful nature is entirely lost to sight. ”

“ my heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope in life, beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind. ”

“ What your heart thinks great is great. The soul's emphasis is always right. ”

“ How many of our aspirations are never realized! How many of our plans fail! How scanty the perfectly matured fruit in our lives, when compared with the blossoms!” When we consider this, how barren our lives often seem! How little we seem to accomplish! How little our lives seem to amount to!
Every truly saved heart longs to serve. The redeemed heart loves, and love finds its joy in service. How much there is to be done all around us! ”

“ Cities of mortals woe-begone Fantastic care derides, But in the serious landscape lone Stern benefit abides. Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, And merry is only a mask of sad, But, sober on a fund of joy, The woods at heart are glad. There the great Planter plants Of fruitful worlds the grain, And with a million spells enchants The souls that walk in pain. Still on the seeds of all he made The rose of beauty burns; Through times that wear and forms that fade, Immortal youth returns. ”

“ Parting and forgetting! What faithful heart can do these? Our great thoughts, our great affections, the Truths of our life, never leave us. Surely, they cannot separate from our consciousness; shall follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of their nature divine and immortal. ”

“ In Thy Heart I Shall Find Peace. Thee, Thee alone, O Heart of my God, will I love! Heart most pure, Heart most holy, never tiring of my insults, ever forgiving and forgetting, and, if I do but love Thee sincerely, admitting me as a chosen friend to Thy sweet company. “Come unto Me, all you that labor, and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” Seek not elsewhere for relief in sorrow: come to the Heart of One Who loves you. ”

“ The cry of the hurt heart for solitude, seems to me the call of the heart of God—changed by the echo of the tiny hollows of the heart of his creature—“Come out from among them: come to me, and I will give you rest!” He alone can give us the repose of love, the peace after which our nature yearns. ”

“ If ye lay bound upon the wheel of change, And no way were of breaking from the chain, The Heart of boundless Being is a curse, The Soul of Things fell Pain. Ye are not bound! the Soul of Things is sweet, The Heart of Being is celestial rest; Stronger than woe is will: that which was Good Doth pass to Better—Best. I, Buddh, who wept with all my brothers' tears, Whose heart was broken by a whole world's woe, Laugh and am glad, for there is Liberty Ho! ”

“ No language can exaggerate the eloquence which there is in a human countenance, when a great and tortured spirit speaks out from it accusingly to a soul that comprehends. The crushed heart, the ravaged existence, were bared before her in that glance, as clearly as to a wanderer through the night are the rents of the precipice in the flash of the lightning. ”

“ Her large and sympathetic heart is attuned to such harmony with humanity, or rather she so expresses this beautiful harmony of her own soul with God, with nature, and with humanity, that the human heart that has suffered or enjoyed, vibrates and responds like a harp-string to the master-hand. ”

“ The heart is the most credulous of all fanatics, and its ruling passion the most enduring of all superstitions. Oh! what can tear from us, to the last, the hope, the desire, the yearning for some bosom which, while it mirrors our own, parts not with the reflection! ”

“ The fingers are thinner; the face has lines of care and sorrow crossing each other in a web-work that makes the golden tissue of humanity. But the heart is fond and steady; it is the same dear heart, the same self-sacrificing heart, warming, like a fire, all around it. Affliction has tempered joy ”

“ As it has lived, so there comes a time, sooner or later, when the heart's dream may safely float on the surface of the deep, honest eyes, and the heart's desire flow in fitting terms over the unsullied lips. ”

“ I know not why, but all my being longed
And leapt at that sweet call;
My heart outreached its arms, all passion thronged
And beat against Fate's wall,
Crying in utter homesickness to be
Near to a heart that loves and leans to me. ”

“ One by one the objects of our affection depart from us. But our affections remain, and like vines stretch forth their broken, wounded tendrils for support. The bleeding heart needs a balm to heal it; and there is none but the love of its kind,--none but the affection of a human heart! ”

“ Our hearts have been, should ever be.
"Let sharp steel cleave that circling rind,
No art its severed strength could bind;
Should anger part thy love from mine,
Holds earth another heart for thine?" ”

“ I do not know why touching the heart should always be connected only with the idea of touching it to compassion or a sense of distress. The heart can be touched to joy and triumph; the heart can be touched to amusement. ”

“ Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be,
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee. ”

“ The things of the heart—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and the Hke, are what the heart esteems worth while the world over. The way then for him who would enter the door is to bring of these gifts which the heart always craves. ”

“ Oh, to come home once more, and see the smiling faces, Dark head, bright head, clustered at the pane; Much the years have taken, when the heart its path retraces, But until time is not for me, the image will remain. Men and women now they are, standing straight and steady, Grave heart, gay heart, fit for life's emprise; Shoulder set to shoulder, how should they be but ready! The future shines before them with the light of their own eyes. ”

“ Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush, startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my first manhood. ”

“ Though thou hast surely strayed, Take heart of grace, Thy steps retrace, Poor wandering one! Poor wandering one! If such poor love as mine Can help thee find True peace of mind — Why, take it, it is thine! Take heart, fair days will shine ”

“ Nor bate one jot of heart or hope, And, least of all, the loyal tie Which holds to home 'neath every sky, The joy and pride the pilgrim feels In hearts which round the hearth at home Keep pulse for pulse with those who roam. What generous beliefs console The brave whom Fate denies the goal! If others reach it, is content; To Heaven's high will his will is bent. Firm on his heart relied, What lot soe'er betide, Work of his hand He nor repents nor grieves, Pleads for itself the fact, As unrepenting Nature leaves Her every act. Fell the bolt on the branching oak; The rainbow of his hope was broke ”

“ The heart that had striven to beat in the heart of the Mighty too soon
Shall still of that beating remember some errant and faltering tune.
For thou hast but fallen to gather the last of the secrets of power;
The beauty that breathes in thy spirit shall shape of thy sorrow a flower,
The pale bud of pity shall open the bloom of its tenderest rays,
The heart of whose shining is bright with the light of the Ancient of Days.
THE CROWN
I wore in joy a radiant star ”

“ But the heart its song desires;
God knows, it is the heart alone
That never, never tires.
Thought is by slumber overcome,
Night changes place with day;
The heart keeps watch, aye in the breast,
And there o'er love holds sway. ”

“ I will see you with joy, part from you with regret, grieve in your griefs, enter with zeal into your concerns, interest myself in your honour and welfare, and endeavour, with all my little power, to contribute to your comfort and satisfaction.—Is your heart so differently constituted from every other human heart, that an affection, thus ardent and sincere, excites in it no grateful, and soothing, emotions? ”

“ All the aspirations of the young heart were at an end, and though she might expect some pleasures of a certain kind--in the doing good to others, the wiping away some tears, the relief of sorrows, the comforting and the consoling of the poor and the distressed--she dreamt of nothing more. ”

“ It is very certain to me that my life is now as it never has been. It seems that I live, feel, and act from my heart. That reads, talks, hears, sees, smells, and all. All is unity with me, all love. Instead of exciting thoughts and ideas, as all things have done heretofore, they now excite love, cheerful emotion, and gladness of heart. ”

“ Every morning I rose with a light and happy heart, exulting in the sunbeam that awakened me with its smile, and blessing, in the gladfulness of youthful gratitude, the gracious Giver of light and life. My heart overflowed with love to all created beings. I could look back without regret, and the future was bright with hope. ”