Heart (anatomy)

“ I conclude that in this formless mass there is a consciousness. In just such a way and none other, the starry-eyed heavens gaze down upon the believer, with a superhuman, a divine, gaze, a gaze that asks for supreme pity and supreme love, and in the serenity of the night he hears the breathing of God, and God touches him in his heart of hearts and reveals Himself to him. It is the Universe, living, suffering, loving, and asking for love. ”

“ Then from the lowest, weakest tone of suffering, up to the loftiest pitch, the divinest acme of pain, there is not one pang to which the sensorium of the universe does not respond; never an untuneful vibration of nerve or spirit but thrills beyond the brain or the heart of the sufferer to the brain, the heart of the universe ”

“ If the heart is enraged, the dark veins stand out on the forehead; if the heart is grieved, tears rise to the eyes; if the heart is joyous, dimples appear in the cheeks; if the heart is merry, the face smiles. Thus it is that the face reflects the emotions of the heart. It is not because the eyes are filled with tears that the heart is sad, nor that the veins stand out on the forehead that the heart is enraged. It is the heart which leads the way in every thing. All the important sensations of the heart are apparent in the outward appearance. ”

“ To veil my eyes and gently bar the light,
So I may fall asleep and by a touch
Of an angel’s cheek be carried to the sky.
One heart, one heart, so little though need I,
I see and know that I demand too much. ”

“ If you and I are in the condition of lust in our affections and perceptions, if we associate with others in the same condition, heart thrills to heart, just as in the moral or divine sphere heart answers to heart. Each in his own plane seeks that which is adapted to his own nature. ”

“ But the heart, as the central organ of the circulation, is so indissolubly connected with every manifestation of sensibility, and is so delicately susceptible to all emotional agitations, that we may not improperly regard it as the ancients regarded it, in the light of the chief centre of feeling; for the ancients had no conception of the heart as an organ specially endowed with sensibility—they only thought of it as the chief agent of the sensitive soul. ”

“ Ha! How my heart is riven now!
Each sense, with eager palpitation,
Is strain'd to catch some new sensation!
I feel my heart surrender'd unto thee!
Thou must! Thou must! Though life should be the fee!
[He seizes the book, and pronounces mysteriously the sign of the spirit. A ruddy flame flashes up; the spirit appears in the flame.]
SPIRIT Who calls me?
FAUST (turning aside)
Dreadful shape!
SPIRIT With might,
Thou hast compell'd me to appear,
Long hast been sucking at my sphere,
And now—
FAUST Woe's me! ”

“ Give me, O Lord God, an ever-watchful heart, which no subtle speculation may lure from thee; a noble heart, which no unworthy affection can draw downwards to the earth; an upright heart, which no insincere intention can warp aside; an unconquerable heart, which no tribulation can crush or quell; a free heart, which no perverted or impetuous affection can claim for its own. ”

“ Such knowledge we call the treasure of the heart. When the ancients located the first seat of consciousness in the heart, they were neither misguided nor playing with metaphor. For by consciousness they meant, as usual, objective consciousness only. And from the cardiac plexus goes forth that strange effluence of the self which seeks and dwells upon the beloved, lovingly roving like the fingers of an infant or a blind man over the face of the treasured object, gathering her mould into itself and transferring her mould forever into its own deep unconscious psyche. ”

“ Again, the heart is a burning flame, as well as all the objects perceived by it, and the sensations produced in it; the pleasure and pain caused by the heart are too a burning flame, kept up by the fire of concupiscence, anger, ignorance, birth, old age, death, disquietude, tears, affliction, and sorrow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As his sleep deepens, the heart slackens its speed, that his rest may be the more sound. He has slept for eight hours, and the time approaches for his awakening. But is the heart weary—that heart which has toiled through the long and sluggard night? ”

“ The heart, that obscure, celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. One would not exchange that shadow for all brightness! The angel soul is there, uninterruptedly there; if she departs, it is but to return again; she vanishes like a dream, and reappears like reality. One feels warmth approaching, and behold! ”

“ Does it not mean a deeper heart, the heart of your own self, not of your body? of the self that suffers, not pain, but misery? of the self whose end is not comfort, or enjoyment, but blessedness, yea, ecstasy? a heart which is the inmost chamber wherein springs the divine fountain of your being? a heart which God regards, though you may never have known its existence, not even when its writhings under the gnawing of the moth and the slow fire of the rust have communicated a dull pain to that outer heart which sends the blood to its appointed course through your body? ”

“ As the heart of a child naturally begins developing before the soul feelings, let us talk about that first. And when we speak about the "heart," it is, of course, understood that we are not referring to the physical organ which pumps blood, but to that part of human nature which responds to affection and sympathy. ”

“ A human heart that has at its centre a small spark—the spark expands and the heart disappears—while a deep pulsation seems to pass through me. At once identity is confused, I grasp at myself; and again the heart reappears with the spark increased to a large fiery space. ”

“ A heart from sin set free;
A heart that's sprinkled with the blood
So freely shed for me.
Oh! for a lowly contrite heart,
Believing, true, and clean,
Which neither life nor death can part
From Him who dwells therein. ”

“ I—my heart—a gaping heart, enthroned in a radiance of blood. It is mine, it is ours. The heart—that wound which we have. I have compassion on myself. ”

“ The heart has also its childish and cradle malady, which may be fatal, but which, if once surmounted, enables the patient to meet with becoming power all the real convulsions and fevers of passion that are the heirloom of our after-life. ”

“ When we have thus distinguished between what, because it is buried in and absorbed into the Thing or true object, is the unsophisticated heart, and the heart which in reflection is consciously occupied with itself, we find that the distinction constitutes the relation in which the heart stands to the substantial element. ”

“ For while the love of sin acts as an astringent—contracting the dimensions of the natural heart, shutting and shriveling it up—the love of God expands and enlarges its capacity. Piety quickens the pulse of love, warms and strengthens our heart, and sends forth fuller streams of natural affection toward all that have a claim on us, just as a strong and healthy heart sends tides of blood along the elastic arteries to every extremity of the body. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Truly a fit figure to set forth the hardness and obduracy of the natural unregenerate heart. It is altogether hopeless, and nothing can be done to improve or soften it; the only hope for men in such condition being in this stony heart being altogether taken away by the power and grace of God, and in the creation within them of " an heart of flesh," responsive and impressionable to the Spirit and Word of God. ”

“ When we tell a person that we love him “with all our heart,” this expression signifies, physiologically speaking, that his presence, or the recollection of him, awakens in us a nervous impression, which, transmitted to the heart by the pneumogastric nerve, causes in our heart a reaction of such a kind as to produce in the brain a sentiment or an emotion. In man, the brain, in order to express its feelings, is obliged to take the heart into its service. ”

“ There are no naturally perfect hearts. It must mean, then, a heart renewed by the Holy Ghost, put right with God, and then kept right. A heart cannot be kept right until it has been put right, and that is the secret of the failure with some of you. You are trying to bring forth fruits before the tree is planted. You are looking for the fruits of a perfect heart before you have got one. You may well be disappointed. You must get your heart renewed, and then kept right by the power of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ Return, return to thy heart, lift thyself away from the body: thy body is thy place of abode; thy heart perceives even by thy body. But thy body is not what thy heart is; leave even thy body, return to thy heart. ”

“ The Heart is a Respectable Organ. The choice of the heart as the organ of the emotions, in particular of the love emotion, is certainly due to the fact that it is such a faithful registering apparatus and also to a "displacement upward" frequently observed in modern civilised thought. ”

“ There is an inmost communication of the spirit with the breathing and with the beating of the heart, the spirit's thought communicating with the breathing, and its affection, which is of love, with the heart;{1} consequently when these two motions cease in the body there is at once a separation. These two motions, the respiration of the lungs and the beating of heart, are the very bond on the sundering of which the spirit is left to itself; and the body being then deprived of the life of its spirit grows cold and begins to decay. ”

“ When I have spent several hours in her company, till I feel completely absorbed by her figure, her grace, the divine expression of her thoughts, my mind becomes gradually excited to the highest excess, my sight grows dim, my hearing confused, my breathing oppressed as if by the hand of a murderer, and my beating heart seeks to obtain relief for my aching senses. ”

“ The text says, the fluctuations of the heart, cause the vicissitudes of the world. But how can the heart be subjective, and the world the objective? Is the heart author of its feelings without receiving them from without? ”

“ Because those quick spirits that issue from the eyes, being generated near the heart, enter again by the eyes (whither they are aimed like an arrow at the mark) , and naturally reach the heart as if it were their abode, and mingling with those other spirits there and with that subtle quality of blood which they have in them, they infect the blood near the heart to which they have come, and warm it, and make it like themselves and ready to receive the impression of that image which they have brought with them. ”

“ The vision seemed to enter the house with me—the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart—the heart of a conquering darkness. ”

“ A tender heart is a wakeful, watchful heart. It watches against sin in the soul, sin in the family, sin in the calling, sin in spiritual duties and performances, &c. It watches against Satan, against the world, against the flesh, &c. But now, when the heart is not tender, there is sleepiness, unwatchfulness, idleness, a suffering the heart, the family, and calling to be much defiled, spotted, and blemished with sin; for a hard heart departs from God, and turns aside in all these things. ”

“ O MOST loving Heart of my only beloved, unable to love and glorify thee according to the extent of the desire Thou hast given me, I invite all heaven and earth to assist me, and I unite myself to the burning seraphim, in order to love thee. O heart, burning with love, why dost thou not set heaven and earth on fire with thy pure flame, to consume whatever they contain, that all creatures may breathe only thy love. O make me suffer or die, or at least change my heart entirely, and consume me with thy most ardent fire, that I may love thee perfectly. ”

“ Therefore the heart, which signifies all the affections generally, comes to be concealed and open, held by zeal, raised by magnificent thoughts, sustained by hope, weakened by fear, and in this state and condition will it ever be seen and found. ”

“ We know that it can be blinded—put out; also we know that if anything stops the heart from beating, the eye, the brain and our other functions cease to operate and become transfixed in death. Why should this not apply as well to the soul, if there is a function in man which goes by that name?
Enough has been said to indicate a few of the difficulties which stand in the way, when we approach the consideration of man's spiritual nature. ”