Broken heart

“ She loved her own sorrow too well: she cherished every sad remembrance: she became morose, absorbed, and irritated to frenzy, if intruded upon. All virtue is blighted in such a bosom—all principle gone. It feeds upon its own calamity. Hope nothing from the miserable: a broken heart is a sepulchre in which the ruin of every thing that is noble and fair is enshrined. ”

“ And gird your spirit up for slight and wound,
⁠Lest, like the sleeper's, your soul sink in gloom.
A broken heart! ah, 'tis a bitter thing
⁠To know the gentle in the world must die;
That man must steel his heart by force to wring
⁠From his unfeeling fellow equity,
Or perish, name and fame, in calumny.
Each blessing has its bane, and thy complaining
⁠Is that thy gifts are not unmixed with pain;
So finely strung thy heart-chords, some are straining,
⁠And if they be but touched will snap in twain. ”

“ They can realise the tragedy of a broken back, but they cannot realise the tragedy of a broken heart, still less of a broken spirit. And if that heart and that spirit struggle to hide their unshed tears behind a mask of cheerfulness, or bravado, or assumed—and sometimes very real—courage, they neither can perceive it nor realise it, and the well-spring of their sympathy, should it be pointed out to them, is a very faint and uncertain trickle indeed. ”

“ Another sign of a broken heart is a crying, a crying out. Pain, you know, will make one cry. Go to them that have upon them the anguish of broken bones, and see if they do not cry; anguish makes them cry. ”

“ When your mother, in the night she was taken ill, cried to you that her heart was almost broken, it was no mere phrase that she uttered--it was a cry from her soul, and the words exactly represented her condition. If she dies, it will be because her heart is broken. ”

“ A broken heart is such as God esteems, yea, as God counts better than all external service: a broken heart is that which is in order to salvation, in order to thy coming to Christ for life. The world know not what to make of it, nor what to say to one that has a broken heart, and therefore do despise it, and count that man that carries it in his bosom a moping fool, a miserable wretch, an undone soul: 'But a broken and a contrite spirit, O God, thou wilt not despise' ”

“ They were in no state of mind to enjoy burlesque or comedy, and, so far as tragedy was concerned, their own lives and their own creeds were tragic beyond anything that could by any possibility happen in this world. A broken heart was nothing to be compared with a damned soul; the afflictions of a few years, with the flames of eternity. ”

“ I have met with many wiseacre-sceptics who laugh at the idea of what is vulgarly called a "broken heart," as a direct consequence either of unrequited love or extraordinary grief—admitting, however, in their liberality, that death may ensue from great griefs operating merely as an inductive original cause, which destroying gradually the foundations of health, bring on a train of other ailments, that may, in the end, prove mortal. ”

“ I cannot bring myself to tell, much less to analyze the story of a broken heart, when that heart and story are those of a close and deeply admired intimate, a man who gave me genuine love and held my own. ”

“ May her sleep be calm and sweet, for she suffered much, and her sorrow was even greater than her beauty. The cause of her death was entered in the register as heart complaint, and truly so, for she died of a broken heart.
A most unusual thing to die of—far more unusual than any one thinks. Very few people die of it, and those who most loudly bewail their misery, and say that they are sure to die of a broken heart, generally live a long time, and at last die of old age or indigestion. ”

“ Others portray the grief of the sorely anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is unable to drown the profound woe of the heart. Others, again, show the tears, premonitions and struggles of a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over its loss, but repressing the curse. ”

“ I love you all the more because you are heart-broken and pale with grief. That is the reason I have spoken so earnestly to-night. You will grieve yourself to death if left alone; and what good would your death do any one? It would spoil my life. Believe me, I would welcome you to my home with all your sorrow—all the more because of your sorrow; and I'd be so kind and patient that you'd begin to smile again some day. ”

“ A broken heart is of great esteem with, or an excellent thing in, the sight of God, because it is a heart that desires now to become a receptacle or habitation for the spirit and graces of the Spirit of God. ”

“ If ever there was a broken heart—one crushed and blighted by the rude grasp of suffering and misfortune—it was Patsey's. ”

“ Say that, having a heart, a heart for husband or child, means certain grief,—well, does not riding, walking down your stairs, mean the chance of broken bones? Does not living mean old age, disease, possible blindness or paralysis, and quite inevitable aches? If, as you say, I must needs grow a heart, and if a heart must needs give agony, why, I shall live through heartbreak as through pain in any other limb.
DIEGO
Yes,—were your heart a limb like all the rest,—but 'tis the very centre and fountain of all life.
PRINCESS
You think so? 'Tis, methinks, pushing analogy too far, and metaphor. ”

“ It is said that sometimes, under the pressure of intense mental and physical agony, the heart bursts; there is a shriek, and of course death is instantaneous. We speak of people dying of a broken heart—using the phrase only figuratively—but sometimes it can be used literally: the heart is actually ruptured with grief. ”

“ Not only from the point of view of universal, but from that of individual life-enhancement, we ought not to give all our sympathy to the one who is called “heart-broken.” Why is the heart that is broken considered so much more valuable than the one or the two which must cause the pain lest they themselves perish? ”

“ FATAL EFFECTS.—Our cemeteries receive within the cold shadows of the grave thousands and thousands of victims that annually die from the results of "broken hearts." It is no doubt a fact that love troubles cause more disorders of the heart than everything else combined. ”

“ I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes—
It is strange how often a heart must be broken
Before the years can make it wise. ”

“ And for my part, with the sole exception of Georges Saint-Cyr, I never heard of any man who became rich over the tables of Monte Carlo.
V. Noemi; or, the Silver Ribbon
I. I have often heard practising physicians and students of pathology assert that no one ever died of "a broken heart,"—that is, of course, in the popular sense of the phrase. Rupture of the heart, such as that which killed the passionate tyrant John of Muscovy, is a rare accident, and has no connection with the mental trouble and strain implied in the common expression "heart-breaking." ”

“ Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
⁠Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
⁠Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
⁠My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
⁠But after one such love, can love no more. ”

“ Or—but this more rarely happened—she would be convulsed with a rage of grief, and sob out her love for her mother, in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart, by breaking it. ”

“ It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace. ”

“ What is meant is the cry out of the depth of a soul that despairs of itself. Such crying meets with a hearing with God, and in its realisation, an answer that bears its own credentials. “The broken in heart” are those in whom the egotistical, i.e., self-loving life, which encircles its own personality, is broken at the very root ”

“ The heart, when broken, is like sweet gums and spices when beaten; for as such cast their fragrant scent into the nostrils of men, so the heart when broken casts its sweet smells in the nostrils of God. ”

“ I have not broken your heart—you have broken it—and in breaking it, you have broken mine. ”

“ And though the ashes of the heart be very bitter, they are after all but dust, which cannot feel of itself any more. Yet there may be something left behind, in the place where it lived and was broken and died, which is not wholly bad, though there be little good in this earth where there is no heart. ”

“ “If I feel this way my heart must be broken.” ”

“ Thy young, sweet lip robbed of its loving breath,
Thy fairy form in a dishonored grave!
"And thou, proud, broken-hearted Isidore!
Thy wild reproach, thy scorn, and thy strange curse—
Away! away! this suffering is more
Than thy wild prayer invoked for me, far worse
Than any nature less than mine could brook,
Or even dream of in its maddest power!
Away! with that dark, scornful, fearful look,
And leave me to the anguish of this hour !
"Ye haunting spirits of the past, away!
Eyes once so soft now burn my very soul! ”

“ Who that truly entered into them could help being thrilled with the deepest grief? What a sacrifice, to make himself the bleeding example of his teachings! What a love, which devotes itself to secure the happiness of a world! When I read the history of the passion, it seems as if I had a thousand hearts, so keenly, so painfully, do I feel the death-agony of the One Heart that bore in itself the sorrows of all, suffered for all, bled for all, loved all,--even those who betrayed it,--and was understood and valued by so few. ”

“ The shadows darken and passion stirs up my sickness amain And
longing rouses within me the old desireful pain.
The anguish of parting hath taken its sojourn in my breast And
love and longing and sorrow have maddened heart and brain.
Passion hath made me restless and yearning consumes my soul And
tears discover my secret, that else concealed had lain.
I know of no way to ease me of sickness and care and woe; Nor
can my weak endeavour reknit Love's severed skein.
My heart is a raging furnace, because of the heat whereof My
entrails are racked with anguish, that nothing can assain. ”

“ No, there was no feeling there !
From that gloomy trance of sorrow When you woke to pangs unknown;
How unwelcome was the morrow, For it rose on you alone.
Sunk in self-consuming anguish Can the poor heart always ache 1
No, the tortur'd nerve will languish, Or the strings of life must break.
O'er the yielding brow of sadness, One faint smile of comfort stole,
One soft pang of tender gladness, Exquisitely thrill'd your soul.
While the wounds of woe are healing, While the heart is all resign'd,
'Tis the solemn feast of feeling, Tis the sabbath of the mind. ”

“ Then, also, the tears caused by this suffering flow abundantly, and without any trouble; the soul is disposed to the most touching emotions of pity, or is full of commiseration and of love; in a word, all misfortunes are the cherished and respected sisters of our misfortune.
On the contrary, if you suffer for an unworthy cause, your heart is drowned in hatred; your concentrated grief resembles dumb fury which shame bridles with a sharp bit that vanity conceals; envy and hatred gnaw you, but your eyes are dry, and the unhappiness of others can alone draw from you a sad and mournful smile. ”

“ Death came on rapidly in deep, resounding roars, and the misery of the cringing, suffering brute was unfolded—told in heart-rending intonations, until at last he gave up his breath in one terror-stricken cry. ”

“ Perhaps our sorrow may be of such a nature that we cannot reveal it even to our best-beloved. Our secret grief lies like ice upon our hearts, sending its chilling influences through every member. The hands hang down listlessly and the feeble knees smite together; the aching of the head is only exceeded by the aching of the heart. Yet no one knows the agony that paralyzes our life. Or, sadder still, the heart-friend may be snatched away, and while our hearts are breaking by reason of bereavement, we may have no one left to whom we may turn for comfort in our affliction. ”

“ What secret misery was thine, Which set a bar 'twixt thee and me? Alas, I suffer from it still; What was this grief, this unknown ill, Which I have wept so bitterly? POET. 'T was but a common grief, well known of men. But, look you, when our heavy heart is sore, Fond wretches that we are! we fancy then That sorrow never has been felt before. MUSE. There cannot be a common grief, Save that of common souls; my friend, Speak out, and give thy heart relief, Of this grim secret make an end. Confide in me, and have no fear. The God of silence, pale, austere, Is younger brother unto death. ”

“ And when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? ”

“ Within her narrow cell oppressed with dread, Bare of adornment and with grief-bowed head Lamenting, many a tear her sad eyes shed, She weeps with anguish in the gloomy night. For tears my burden seem to lighten best, Could I but weep my heart's blood, I might rest. My spirit bows with mighty grief oppressed, I utter forth my prayer within the night. Youth's charm has like a fleeting shadow gone, With eagle wings the hours of life have flown. ”