Mystery Of The Heart Quotes & Sayings

The hole where my heart had finally grown back after the loss of my parents was returning because of the very person who had filled the void — Cassandra Giovanni

My heart found its home long ago in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth. I wanted future generations to be able to savor what I had all my life. — Lady Bird Johnson

At the heart of nature's mystery lies another mystery. — Ransom Riggs

Abandoned.
The word alone sends shudders down a sensitive spine, troubling the thoughts of pained souls as their hurt swells in ripples. It is a sentence of undesired solitude often pronounced on the innocent, the trusting - administered without warning or satisfactory cause.
One day the moon is yours, or so you believe. The next, his countenance transforms from Jekyll to Hyde with no intention of ever turning back, and you are left trampled upon in a deserted street, concealed by dirty fog that squelches all illumination or any hope for future rays of light.
It is the worst of mysteries why a beast considered noble would forsake his duty, exhibiting a heart of stone. And all who once looked on him, now turn down their eyes and suffer, beguiled.
Some poisons have no antidote, but are slow, silent, torturous ends that curl up the broken body swept into a cold, dark corner. There she is left to drown in her tears - a dying heart.
Abandoned. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print - the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly. — John Edward Williams

In my more lucid moments I know that God is right here, right now; that God is the luminous mystery at the heart of creation and that God is here in the joys and sorrows of the world. And I try to see God in everything and treat all life with reverence. — Sy Safransky

I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart. — Mary Oliver

What a vast fraternity it is,
that of 'Hearts that Ache.' For the last three months it has seemed to me as though all society were coming to me, to drop its mask for a moment and initiate me into the mystery. How we do suffer! And we go on laughing; for, as a practical joke at our expense, life is a success. — Henry Adams

If we could push ajar the gates of life,
And stand within, and all God's workings see,
We could interpret all this doubt and strife,
And for each mystery could find a key.
But not today. Then be content, poor heart!
God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold:
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart--
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. — Mary Riley Smith

For me, the writing life doesn't just happen when I sit at the writing desk. It is a life lived with a centering principle, and mine is this: that I will pay close attention to this world I find myself in. 'My heart keeps open house,' was the way the poet Theodore Roethke put it in a poem. And rendering in language what one sees through the opened windows and doors of that house is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of what it is to be alive in this world. — Julia Alvarez

The intoxication of frenzy and, ultimately, some suitable crime reveal
in a moment the whole meaning of a life. Without exactly advocating crime, the romantics insist on
paying homage to a basic system of privileges which they illustrate with the conventional images of the
outlaw, the criminal with the heart of gold, and the kind brigand. Their works are bathed in blood and
shrouded in mystery. The soul is delivered, at a minimum expenditure, of its most hideous desires
desires that a later generation will assuage in extermination camps. Of course these works are also a
challenge to the society of the times. But romanticism, at the source of its inspiration, is chiefly concerned
with defying moral and divine law. That is why its most original creation is not, primarily, the
revolutionary, but, logically enough, the dandy. — Albert Camus

[...] sometimes mystery defies what our head knows and we feel God reach down into the ordinariness of nightly ritual and speak to our heart with a whisper. — Lindsey O'Connor

A black pendant in the shape of a heart lay in her hand. It was carved with roses and strung onto a velvet cord. — Teresa Flavin

WHATEVER TAKES US to our edge, to our outer limits, leads us to the heart of life's mystery, and there we find faith. — Sharon Salzberg

You heard me, only Friend whom I love. To ravish my heart, you became man. You shed your blood, what a supreme mystery! ... And you still live for me on the Altar. If I cannot see the brilliance of your Face Or hear your sweet voice, O my God, I can live by your grace, I can rest on your Sacred Heart! — Therese Of Lisieux

One of my basic feelings is that the mind, and the heart alike, of the photographer must be dedicated to the glory, the magic, and the mystery of light. The mystery of time, the magic of light, the enigma of reality - and their interrelationships - are my constant themes and preoccupations. — Clarence John Laughlin

At the heart of every established religion is one sacred mystery that supports belief and induces fidelity, even to the point of martyrdom. — Stephen King

For fairness and loyalty, however important to the head, were issues that could seldom be squared in the human heart, at the deepest depths of which lay the mystery of affection, of love, which you either felt or you didn't, pure as instinct, which seized you, not the other way around, making a mockery of words like "should" and "ought". The human heart, where compromise could not be struck, not ever. Where transgressions exacted a terrible price. Where tangled black limbs fell. Where the boom got lowered. — Richard Russo

... the work of the (Muslim Sufi) dervish community
was to open the heart,
explore the mystery of union,
to fiercely search for and try to say the truth,
and to celebrate the glory and difficulty
in being in human incarnation. — Coleman Barks

How can I describe Peter's face, the pieces of him that stick to my heart? Peter sometimes looked aloof and distant; sometimes his face was open and soft as a bruise. Sometimes he looked completely at Tiger Lily, as if she were the point on which all the universe revolved, as if she were the biggest mystery of life, or as if she were a flame and he couldn't not look even though he was scared. And sometimes it would all disappear into carelessness, confidence, amusement, as if he didn't need anyone or anything on this earth to feel happy and alive. — Jodi Lynn Anderson

D.H. Lawrence says that myths are "inexhaustible" because they are symbols of heart mysteries. That is, they can't be exhausted - they somehow have embodied some central human mystery (love, loss, being a body in time, who knows which or what?) and thus can be retold infinitely and still be rich. That's part of your saying: it's old, but it's also new. Or: there's nothing "new" in the human heart, but it still matters lots. — Gregory Orr

The irony of Christmas is always upon the poor in heart; the mystery of the solstice is always upon the rest of us. — John Cheever

Litanies of the Rose
Rose with dark eyes,
mirror of your nothingness,
rose with dark eyes,
make us believe in the mystery,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence.
Rose the colour of pure gold,
oh safe deposit of the ideal,
rose the colour of pure gold,
give us the key of your womb,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence.
Rose the colour of silver,
censer of our dreams,
rose the colour of silver,
take our heart and turn it into smoke,
hypocrite flower,
flower of silence. — Remy De Gourmont

I can find no words for what I feel. My consciousness is withdrawn into itself; I hear my heart beating, and my life passing. It seems to me that I have become a statue on the banks of the river of time, that I am the spectator of some mystery, and shall issue from it old, or no longer capable of age. — Henri Frederic Amiel

So here we go, you and me. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. This is America and I am allowed to have healthy self-esteem. This book comes straight from my feisty and freckled fingers. Know it was a battle. Blood was shed. A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I've grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let's peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write. — Amy Poehler

Shouldering the duffel bag with the Marine Corps bulldog, Old Man knocked Jan's photo off the bed table. He turned to stone staring down at the photo. His face then splintered into hurt. Tears seeped into his eyes. He grappled for the nearest bedpost and slumped forward on extended arms. His shoulders jerked and head sagged a little while his heart broke. Old Man cried the mute cry of men of his generation. — Ed Lynskey

The book that I shall make people read
is the book of the heart,
which holds the key
to the mystery of life — Meher Baba

Cloying tendrils of mist searched the city like skeletal fingers reaching deep into crevices, hoping to capture the elusive prey needed to satisfy gnawing hunger... — Jillian Kent

What did he say? He is in love? My brain stops, my heart stops, my blood ceases to flow. My appendages go weak and cold, and there is a suspension of all space and time as the universe comes into perfect alignment. — Julie Sarff

Kind messages, that pass from land to land; Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history, In which we feel the pressure of a hand,
One touch of fire,
and all the rest is mystery! — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The dell was to be left in solitude among its dark, old trees, which, with their multitudinous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there, and no mortal be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

CHRISTMAS DAY Jesus came! - and came for me. Simple words! and yet expressing Depths of holy mystery, Depths of wondrous love and blessing. Holy Spirit, make me see All His coming means for me; Take the things of Christ, I pray, Show them to my heart today. — Frances Ridley Havergal

I wanted to live, but whether I would or not was mystery, and in the midst of confronting that fact, even at that moment, I was beginning to sense that to stare into the heart of such a fearful mystery wasn't a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless education. P 99 — Lance Armstrong

Remember that in ascending to the Father You could not leave us orphans; And in making yourself a prisoner on earth You knew to veil all your divine rays. But the shadow of your veil is luminous and pure. Living Bread of faith, Celestial Food, O mystery of love! My daily Bread, Jesus, is You! ... Jesus, it is you who, despite the blasphemies Of the enemies of the Sacrament of love, It is you who want to show how much you love me, Since you make your dwelling in my heart. O Bread of the exiled! Holy and Divine Host, It is no longer I who live, but I live on your life — Therese Of Lisieux

The mystery of the Holy Night, which historically happened two thousand years ago, must be lived as a spiritual event in the 'today' of the Liturgy," the Pope clarified. "The Word who found a dwelling in Mary's womb comes to knock on the heart of every person with singular intensity this Christmas. — Pope John Paul II

Every word she uttered set fire in me, and I was falling for her. I started wanting her, and I didn't know what kind of sign it was. She was a secret covered with skin, and her eyes were flitting to and from my heart. She was the enigma whose beauty lay in the mystery, the one you would rather leave unsolved. — Kavipriya Moorthy

They inched through dense, heart-stopping darkness. In the distance was what looked like a bright white door cut out of a black wall. Sunni tiptoed towards it, puzzled by its brilliance. — Teresa Flavin

And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder. They are dangerous because they give you the feeling that you know, although you know not. They give you this misconception about yourself that now questions have been solved. "I know what The Bible says, I know what the Koran says, I know what the Gita says. I have arrived." You will become a parrot; you will repeat things but you will not know anything. This is not the way to know - knowledge is not the way to know. Then what is the way to know? Wonder. Let your heart dance with wonder. Be full of wonder: throb with it, breathe it in, breathe it out. Why be in such a hurry for the answer? Can't you allow a mystery to remain a mystery? I know there is a great temptation not to allow it to remain a mystery, to reduce it to knowledge. — Osho

Grady's a man of action who craves excitement and needs plenty of activity, and he's seen precious little of either in the ten or so years he's been our sheriff. Well, let's just say that since Candi Heart came to town, he's had plenty to keep him busy, what with the stream of crimes that follows her around. And then there's the mystery surrounding the woman herself. Suffice to say, Candi's not quite what she appears and leave it at that. — Deborah Grace Staley

In the depth of my soul there are songs unwilling to take the garb of words, songs living as seed in my heart. They will not flow with ink onto paper. Like a translucent veil, they are wrapped about emotions that can never flow sweetly on my tongue.
Yet how can I even whisper them when I fear what the particles of air may do to them? To whom shall I sing them when they have become accustomed to live in the house of my soul and fear the harshness of other ears?
Were you to look into my eyes, you would see the image of their image. Were you to touch my fingertips, you would feel their quick movements. The works of my hands reveal them as the lake reflects the twinkling of the stars.
My tears disclose them as the mystery of the rose petal is disclosed at the moment the heat dissolves the drops of dew when that rose withers.
... Who can combine the roaring of the sea and the warbling of the nightingale? Who can link the crashing thunder with the baby's sigh? — Kahlil Gibran

God wants you to understand the Word of God. The Bible is not a mystery book. It's not a book of philosophy. It's a book of truth that explains the attitude and heart of almighty God. — Charles Stanley

She had golden blazing sun kissed hair, which hung down in loose, lazy spirals, a heart shaped pouted mouth, which was pink tinged with violet blushing, wide, spangled blue eyes that glimmered sparks to flicker and ember in the vivid intelligence of the moon's love, and a yielding body, that seem to tangle in loose rhythm as I walked near to her. — Keira D. Skye

Every mystery of life has its origin in the heart. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

In the heart's deepest place, where the burden of ego is dropped and the mystery of soul is penetrated, a man finds the consciousness there not different in any way from what all other men may find. The mutuality of the human race is thus revealed as existing only on a plane where its humanness is transcended. This is why all attempts to express it in political and economic terms, no less than the theosophic attempts to form a universal brotherhood, being premature, must be also artificial. This is why they failed. — Paul Brunton

As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one that is molded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance. — Bryce Courtenay

Building a museum case and filling it with types of mussels is one way of knowing mussels; but on the shore, a mussel leads to a crab or a curious stone, which leads to another thing and eventually leads back to mussels, which is another and perhaps a more far-reaching way to know mussels. The sea that always seems like a metaphor, but one that is always moving, cannot be fixed, like a heart that is a like a tongue that is like a mystery that is like a story that is like a border that is like something altogether different and like everything at once. One thing leads to another, and this is the treasure that always runs through your fingers and never runs out. — Rebecca Solnit

Siddhartha had one single goal before him -- to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of desire, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. To die away from himself, no longer to be "I," to find the peace of an empty heart, to be open to wonder within an egoless mind -- that was his goal. When every bit of ego was overcome and dead, when in his heart all cravings and compulsions had been stilled, then the ultimate must awaken, that innermost essence in one's being that is no longer ego, the great mystery. — Hermann Hesse

If you don't look at me right this minute, Brody McTavish, I'm going to ---"
He swung on her. Had she not been standing flatfooted she would have stumbled back. Instead, she was rooted to the ground as suddenly he was in her face. "I've been listening to you and I've been looking at you for years," he said, his voice deep and thick with emotion. "I've been waiting for you to grow up." His voice faltered as he dropped his horse's reins. "Because I've been wanting to do this since you were sixteen."
Grabbing her, he pulled her against his rock-hard body. His mouth dropped to hers. Her lips parted of their own accord, just as her arms wrapped around his neck. Her heart hammered against her ribs as he deepened the kiss and she heard herself moan. — B. J. Daniels

Who are you? I am the whispering that allows you to know your Self. I am the ache to be free. I am the unforgettable and unwavering realization that you are already found. I am what you seek when you do not even know you are seeking. I am you at your most clear; you at your most comforted. I am what makes life worth living. I see the obstacles you face, and I know how to triumph against them. I am the yearning to open and relax. To come into sanity you must release everything. See with fresh eyes. Bow down. Speak directly to the mystery. Stop interpreting. Know through the Knowing and feel through the body. Fling yourself into your most vulnerable places. Welcome the heart-yearning to be unprotected and fierce in the nakedness of your deep Presence. Stop comparing. Stop complaining. Be. — Elisa Romeo

The West, for many centuries, has been dominated by a highly rationalistic mindset that presumes to express and explain the nature of God through words. The East has only recently begun to express its understanding of God in those ways. For the most part, Eastern Christianity has always recognized that it can only say so much about God in finite, human ways before it must go silent before the mystery of the Infinite and Unspeakable. Instead of defining ultimate reality in theological concepts, the East has relied upon its artists, musicians, and poets to proclaim what can only be understood in the heart. — Peter Pearson

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us - to know
Whence our lives come and where they go. — Matthew Arnold

In the isolation of his clear, cold intellect, the sceptic abides in a glacial and spectral universe. No glow from the affections lights up the frost and shadow of the grave. He feels no prophecy in the thrill of the human heart-in the incompleteness of nature. He believes merely in things tangible, and sees only in the daytime. He will not confess the authenticity of that paler light of faith which was meant to shine when the sunshine of reason falls short, and the firmament of mystery is over our heads. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

The sleep that flits on baby's eyes - does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes.
The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps - does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning - the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps.
The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs - does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love - the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs. — Rabindranath Tagore

A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I've grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. — Amy Poehler

Michael held out his hand, and Kaden squeezed tighter than a typical handshake. The other man wiggled his hand free and then shot him an irritated glare.
So, this was the human trying to steal his Annabelle? He didn't look like much - a bit too skinny. She needed a man who could put his arms around her and make her feel safe.
Annabelle's my friend. I have no right to think of her as mine.
His heart pulsed a second time, and he startled. This wasn't happening. Annabelle couldn't be his? A human mate? He didn't understand. Two heartbeats. It had to mean something. — Stacey O'Neale

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. - Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress. — Henry David Thoreau

For years afterward when Amory thought of Eleanor he seemed still to hear the wind sobbing around him and sending little chills into the places beside his heart. The night when they rode up the cold slope and watched the cold moon float through the clouds, he lost a further part of him that nothing could restore; and when he lost it he lost also the power of regretting it. Eleanor was, say, the last time that evil crept close to Amory under the mask of beauty, the last weird mystery that held him with wild fascination and pounded his soul to flakes. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Also, SKULLS. Gosh you love SKULLS. There is a good SKULL at the heart of any mystery, haunting its EVERY PAGE. That is what you always say. Or at least, it is what you always HOPE. — Andrew Hussie

Simon had been sent by Barabbas to find out if the Nazarene was a fellow revolutionary, a self-proclaimed messiah, or something else. Simon's heart had been strangely moved by this stranger and he was still trying to figure him out. But the Rabbi remained a mystery to him. The centurion had asked him to heal his servant and Jesus replied that he had not seen such great faith in all of Israel. That was shocking enough, to attribute such goodness to a filthy, unclean stranger to the covenant. But then he said that many such people would come to the feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom - in other words, Israelites - would be thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. As an Essene scribe at Qumran, Simon had spent his whole life in rituals of cleanness and separation. — Brian Godawa

Julia doesn't like James Gillen, but that's not the point, not out here. In the Court, back in the Court any eye you catch could be Love peal-of-bells-firework-burst Love, all among the sweet spray of the music and the rainbowing prisms of the lights, this could be the one huge mystery every book and film and song is sizzling with; could be your one-and-only shoulder to lean your head on, fingers woven with yours and lips gentle on your hair and Our Song pouring out of every speaker. This could be the one heart that will open to your touch and offer up its never-spoken secrets, that has spaces perfectly shaped to hold all of yours. — Tana French

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown God. Then if a bird sing among your branches, do not be too eager to tame it. If you are conscious of something new - thought or feeling, wakening in the depths of your being - do not be in a hurry to let in light upon it, to look at it; let the springing germ have the protection of being forgotten, hedge it round with quiet, and do not break in upon its darkness. — Henri Frederic Amiel

You can open to God through sex. By learning to open your heart and body while embracing and trusting all energies from rough ravishment to sublime gentleness, you can open to be lived by the mystery that lives the entire universe. You can open to be lived by love with no limits, so you are alive as love, offering the deepest gifts of your heart spontaneously and without hesitation, in every moment, at work, with your family and friends, as well as in bed with your lover. — David Deida

If you think about it, we get robbed of the mystery of being alive. I think we get robbed of the glory of it because we don't remember how we got here. When you get born, you wake up slowly to everything. From birth to 26, God is slowly turning on the lights, and you are groggy and pointing at things, and say "Circle," and, "Blue,", and, "Car," and, "Sex," and then, "Job," and, "Healthcare". The experience is so slow, you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. Life IS staggering, and we are just too used to it. — Donald Miller

The pope was lying fully stretched out on the floor, his body half-obscured by Cardinal Villot, who was leaning over him. Calvi's heart jumped into his throat. The pontiff 's eyes were shut, his face distorted in pain. He wasn't breathing. He was life-less, drained of color. — Peter J. Tanous

The mystery of the spiritual life is that Jesus desires to meet us in the seclusion of our own heart, to make his love known to us there, to free us from our fears, and to make our own deepest self known to us Each time you let the love of God penetrate deeper into your heart it leads to a love of ourselves that enables us to give whole-hearted love to our fellow human beings. In the seclusion of our hearts we learn to know the hidden presence of God; and with that spiritual knowledge we can lead a loving life. — Henri Nouwen

Kirtan is for all people. There are no experts, no beginners. The practice itself is the teacher, guiding us to ourselves. Kirtan allows us to enter into a mystery world-a world where all the logic of our minds, all the condition and learning are left outside. And in this mystery, we create a temple inside of our hearts, a place of refuge, a place of love, a place of just being. — Jai Uttal

The will, I believe, is the mystery of mysteries. Who can say beforehand that his will is strong? There are all kinds of indefinable currents moving to and fro between one's will and one's inclinations. People talk as if the two things were essentially distinct; on different sides of one's organism, like the heart and the liver. I believe there is a certain group of circumstances possible for every man, in which his will is destined to snap like a dry twig. — Henry James

In winter darkness, the Baghdad Arabian keen blue deepness of the piercing lovely January winter's dusk
it used to tear my heart out, one stabbing soft star was in the middle of the magicalest blue, throbbing like love
I saw Maggie's black hair in this night
In the shelves of Orion her eye shades, borrowed, gleamed a dark and proud vellum somber power brooding rich bracelets of the moon rose from our snow, and surrounded the mystery. — Jack Kerouac

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass..." Hamlet. — William Shakespeare

Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.
Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.
Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart. — Michael Ende

How do we receive the highest mystery of Divine love to us ? the mystery of the Christian faith? With our mind, heart and life; with our free will? Are all the three powers of our souls penetrated by holy faith, as were the souls of the saints? The kingdom of heaven 'is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened' (Lk. 13:21). The three measures are the three powers of the soul. — John Of Kronstadt

We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides: But tasks in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd. — Matthew Arnold

Pondering was the highest vocation ... Pondering was a special kind of thinking. It was not done in the mind, that chilly place, but in the heart, where the real mystery of intelligence - intuition - rather than thought lay catlike and feminine, ready to pounce. — Patricia Hampl

Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. — Joseph Conrad

All too often too often we try to push, pull, outline and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically. The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise. — Julia Cameron

Lord help her, but she was instantly drawn to his scent - a mixture of smoke and salt and mystery - as well as his strength. The pulse of his heart, the hum of blood through his veins, the aura of power and danger surrounding him. — Jo Grafford

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ.
Colossians 2 2 — Anonymous

Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades. — Diana Gabaldon

Worship," Tozer explained, "is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that majesty which philosophers call the First Cause but which we call Our Father Which Art in Heaven. — A.W. Tozer

As long as you have life and breath, believe. Believe for those who cannot. Believe even if you have stopped believing. Believe for the sake of the dead, for love, to keep your heart beating, believe. Never give up, never despair, let no mystery confound you into the conclusion that mystery cannot be yours. — Mark Helprin

Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made this organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or what
had befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home, but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the hands of his secret judges. A rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be of this terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that men went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of the wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Why am I telling you this?" he went on. "A secret's only a secret as long as you keep it. Once you tell someone it loses all its power--for good or for ill--like that, it's just another piece of information. But a real mystery can't be solved, not completely. It's always just out of reach, like a light around the corner; you might catch a glimpse of what it reveals, feel its warmth, but you can't know the heart of it, not really. That's what gives it value: It can't be cracked, it's bigger than you and me, bigger than everything we know. Those tight-ass suits can keep their secrets, they don't add up to anything. This deep in the game, pal, I'll take mystery every time. — Mark Frost

I am convinced now that the desert has no heart, that it presents a riddle which has no answer, and that the riddle itself is an illusion created by some limitation or exaggeration of the displaced human consciousness. — Edward Abbey

We kissed, then, and the ardour of her kiss stole my breath away. I returned her passion with all the fervor I possessed. A lifetime of vows and heart-felt disciplines had prepared me well, for in that kiss I sealed with all my soul the fate before me, embracing a mystery clothed in warm and yielding female flesh. Holding only the moment, with neither thought nor care for the future, I kissed her, and drank deep the strong wine of desire. — Stephen R. Lawhead

When a man grows old his joy
Grows more deep day after day,
His empty heart is full at length
But he has need of all that strength
Because of the increasing Night
That opens her mystery and fright. — William Butler Yeats

All theology is a doomed but necessary attempt to express the inexpressible. God is the elusive mystery we try to capture and convey in language, but how can that ever be done? If the word water is not itself drinkable, how can the words we use to express the mystery of God be themselves absolute? They are metaphors, analogies, figures of speech, yet religious people have slaughtered and condemned each other over these experimental uncertainties. Our glory and agony as humans is that we long to find words that will no longer be words, mere signifiers, but the very experience they are trying to signify; and our tragedy is that we never succeed. This is the anguish that lies at the heart of all religion, because, though our words can describe our thirst for the absolute, they can never satisfy it. — Richard Holloway

[People] might have a different word for the yearning of the heart and the yearning of the spirit that is looking for what I call "God," it still is the same thing. It is the heart's yearning to know the origin of its mystery. It's a heart's yearning to know the power of the divine in each of our lives. It's a heart's yearning to be connected to that. — Oprah Winfrey

Patti Callahan Henry seamlessly combines mystery, family love, and personal journey all in one engrossing tale. From the intriguing beginning to the touching ending, The Stories We Tell is filled with the warmth, heart and compassion that have become the trademark of her novels. — Diane Chamberlain

Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved. — Joseph Campbell

The artist, wrote Joseph Conrad, "speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives." That was the art that Scott Fitzgerald would find, reminding us that a mirage may be more marvelous in its way than an oasis in the desert. Gatsby's great error is his belief in the reality of the mirage; Fitzgerald's great gift was his belief in the mirage as a mirage. "Splendor," Fitzgerald came to understand, "was something in the heart. — Sarah Churchwell

The object of storytelling, like the object of magic, is not to explain or to resolve, but rather to create and to perform miracles of the imagination. To extend the boundaries of the mysterious. To push into the unknown in pursuit of still other unknowns. To reach into one's heart, down into that place where the stories are, bringing up the mystery of oneself. — Tim O'Brien

The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation. — Rabindranath Tagore

I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.
I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding you love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.
God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us. — Donald Miller

Abigail ... His heart ached for his little girl, and the loss of his family drove like a blade through his heart. His head jerked up as the creak of a timber echoed overhead. If only they hadn't come to this god-forsaken place. — Caroline Mitchell

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The Eucharistic mystery stands at the heart and center of the liturgy since it is the fount of life by which we are cleansed and strengthened to live not for ourselves but for God and to be united in love among ourselves. — Pope Paul VI

The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian. — Brennan Manning

Indeed, living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness. We realize that we are in the center, and that from there all that is and all that takes place can be seen and understood as part of the mystery of God's life with us. Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our activities and projects, our hopes and aspirations, no longer appear to us as a fatiguing variety of things which we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit in us. "All these other things," which so occupied and preoccupied us, now come as gifts or challenges that strengthen and deepen the new life which we have discovered. This does not mean that the spiritual life makes things easier or takes our struggles and pains away. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Now I say that a heart that has no grace, and is not instructed in this mystery of contentment, knows of no way to get contentment, but to have his possessions raised up to his desires; but the Christian has another way to contentment, that is, he can bring his desires down to his possessions, and so he attains his contentment ... The world is infinitely deceived in thinking that contentment lies in having more than we already have. Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment, when there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances. That is why many godly men who are in low position live more sweet and comfortable lives than those who are richer. — Jeremiah Burroughs

At the heart of the impulse to tell stories is a mystery so profound. — Dennis Covington