Pierced Heart Quotes & Sayings

They went forth to battle, but they always fell;
Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields;
Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,
And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell.
They knew not fear that to the foeman yields,
They were not weak, as one who vainly wields
A futile weapon; yet the sad scrolls tell
How on the hard-fought field they always fell.
It was a secret music that they heard,
A sad sweet plea for pity and for peace;
And that which pierced the heart was but a word,
Though the white breast was red-lipped where the sword
Pressed a fierce cruel kiss, to put surcease
On its hot thirst, but drank a hot increase.
Ah, they by some strange troubling doubt were stirred,
And died for hearing what no foeman heard. — Shaemus O'Sheel

I love you, your courage and your stubbornness and your fire and your utter ruthlessness. How much do I love you? So much that a moment ago I would have outraged the hospitality of the house which has sheltered me and my family, forgotten the best wife any man ever had - enough to take you here in the mud like a - "
She struggled with a chaos of thoughts and there was a cold pain in her heart as if an icicle had pierced it. She said haltingly: "If you felt like that - and didn't take me - then you don't love me."
"I can never make you understand. — Margaret Mitchell

The saints are sinners still. Our best tears need to be wept over, the strongest faith is mixed with unbelief, our most flaming love is cold compared with what Jesus deserves, and our intensest zeal still lacks the full fervor which the bleeding wounds and pierced heart of the crucified might claim at our hands. Our best things need a sin offering, or they would condemn us. — Charles Spurgeon

If I had a brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I ... daily consorted with the assassin who drove the dagger into my brother's heart; surely I too must be an accomplice in the crime. Sin murdered Christ; will you be a friend to it? Sin pierced the heart of the Incarnate God; can you love it? — Charles Spurgeon

He was a strong and noble lord with piercing eyes of grey.
He sat upon his noble throne shining like the dawn.
His sword flashed like the brightest star.
He led our people well.
Yet here and now he lays in blood pierced with arrows.
He was the friend of many knights.
He loved the warrior games.
His heart was won by a lady fair for marriage they did wait.
A kindly prince, his duty carried him to another's bed.
And on her death true love returned, finally they wed.
He felt the grief of children lost to murder and to pain.
I was the youngest of his blood.
I'll never be the same.
Here lays my father and my lord.
I know not what to say.
Except my father and my lord was slain here on this day.
Here lays my father and my lord.
I know not what to say.
Except my father and my lord was slain here on this day ... . — Laurel A. Rockefeller

When a jealous person sees signs of other people's success and good fortune, his heart is pierced with envy. But someone who has learned to rejoice in the good fortune of others experiences only happiness. Seeing another person's beautiful house or attractive partner immediately makes him happy - the fact that they are not his own is irrelevant. — Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

There is a quiet at the heart of love, And I have pierced the pain and come to peace. — Sara Teasdale

Again she did not seem to hear, still looking into Cale's eyes. Then slowly, hopelessly, she dropped her gaze.
"I understand," she said.
It was that, of course, that pierced him as if she had stabbed him through the heart. To him it was the sound of lost faith and it was unendurable. He felt he'd become a kind of god in her eyes, and it was simply impossible to give up her adoration. — Paul Hoffman

Daniel!" She waved the letter. "I have news," she called in the English she always used with him.
Her son straightened up from the horse. "What, Mama?"
Eager expectancy glowed in his blue eyes, and for a moment he looked so much like his father that a familiar pain pierced her heart and tempered her excitement. From long practice, she shoved her sadness aside. "I've inherited Uncle Ezra's ranch in Montana. — Debra Holland

I think Oscar Wilde wrote a poem about a robin who loved a white rose. He loved it so much that he pierced his breast and let his heart's blood turn the white rose red. Maybe this sounds very sentimental, but for anybody who has loved a career as much as I've loved mine, there can be no short cuts. — Mary Pickford

You are a most effective killer, Michel. Is it true you wept like a child when they killed your sister? That you cried out in agony as if the sword had pierced your own heart? Such compassion. Does your handiwork not bring you to tears as well? — P.A. Minyard

Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain. — Pope Francis

My heart's in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand's in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught. — Jean Genet

Its great thorns pierced the canvas, and its heavy fragrance rushed within, enveloping his sleep, becoming one with his breath, and penetrated the chambers of his exploding heart. — Patti Smith

There is strength deep bedded in our hearts, of which we reck but little till the shafts of heaven have pierced its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent before her gems are found? — Felicia Hemans

Lada made her face stone, her heart a mountain. A mountain that would never be pierced to let cold, clear water flow. "Nothing holds me here. — Kiersten White

I remember, on one occasion, her praying thus: "Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ." That thought of a mother's bearing swift witness against me, pierced my conscience, and stirred my heart. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

At that moment Marilla had a revelation. In the sudden stab of fear that pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her. She would have admitted that she liked Anne--nay, that she was very fond of Anne. But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne was dearer to her than anything else on earth — L.M. Montgomery

My love for you, Lord, is not an uncertain feeling, but a matter of concious certainty. With your word you pierced my heart, and I loved you. But heaven and earth and everything in them on all sides tell me to love you. — Saint Augustine

Why shouldn't we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours? — Oswald Chambers

All I cared about then was catching a glimpse of Chairman Mao. I turned my eyes quickly away from Liu to the front of the motorcade. I spotted Mao's stalwart back, his right arm steadily waving. In an instant, he had disappeared. My heart sank. Was that all I would see of Chairman Mao? Only a fleeting glimpse of his back? The sun seemed suddenly to have turned gray. All around me the Red Guards were making a huge din. The girl standing next to me had just pierced the index finger of her right hand and was squeezing blood out of it to write something on a neatly folded handkerchief. I knew exactly the words she was going to use. It had been done many times by other Red Guards and had been publicized ad nauseam: "I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our Great Leader Chairman Mao!" Watching her, my despair grew. Life seemed pointless. A thought flickered into my mind: perhaps I should commit suicide? — Jung Chang

As you know, there are several classes of truth. There are the truths that pour out on confessional blogs and YouTube channels. There are the supposed truths exposed in gossip magazines and on reality television, which everyone knows are just lies in truth clothing. Then there are the truths that show themselves only under ideal circumstances: like when you are talking deep into the night with a friend and you tell each other things you would never say if your defenses weren't broken down by salty snacks, sugary beverages, darkness, and a flood of words. There are the truths found in books or films when some writer puts exactly the right words together and it's like their pen turned sword and pierced you right through the heart. Truths like those are rare and getting rarer. — Susan Juby

Miss Finch said she meant to listen to new books as well as her old favorites, even the ones that pierced her heart, before she departed this world. — Jane Hamilton

I never yet did hear, That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear — William Shakespeare

And blessed be the first sweet suffering that I felt in being conjoined with love and the bow and the shafts with which I was pierced, and the wounds that run to the depths of my heart ... any man who loves this poem as I do, must be my master ... And any man who feels as I do about these words must be my drinking companion. — Salman Rushdie

She turned around to look at me with her enchanting gaze that further pierced my heart; a look I would never forget and I would retain till perpetuity and think of it always whenever she came to my mind. And that is not going to be a few times, if my heart is to have its way. — Faraaz Kazi

He would be of blood to us: not only come to the sick, and to our bed-side, but would lie down and be sick, taking on him sick clay, and be, in that condition of clay, a worm and not a man, that he might pay our debts; and would borrow a man's heart and bowels to sigh for us, man's eyes to weep for us, his spouse's body, legs, and arms, to be pierced for us; our earth, our breath, our life, and soul, that he might breathe out his life for us; a man's tongue and soul to pray for us: and yet, he would remain God, that he might perfume the obedience of a High Priest with heaven, and give to justice blood that chambered in the veins and body of God, in whom God had a personal lodging. — Samuel Rutherford

I heard the story of a man, a blasphemer ... an atheist, who was converted singularly by a sinful action of his. He had written on a piece of paper, "God is nowhere," and ordered his child to read it, for he would make him an atheist too. The child spelled it, "God is n-o-w h-e-r-e. God is now here." It was a truth instead of a lie, and the arrow pierced the man's own heart. — Charles Spurgeon

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was a light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep. — J.R.R. Tolkien

He was beautiful in a way that pierced the heart. He was beautiful in the way the universe had been made, from darkness and silence into light and song. — A.M. Daily

Affronts to her reputation pierced her to the heart, though I couldn't understand why, since she had very little character left to defend. — Melika Dannese Lux

Remorse is as the heart in which it grows; If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, It is the poison tree, that pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This first hour of arrival before one was again pierced by knives and arrows - this strange animal feeling, this breath reaching far and coming from afar, this breeze, without emotion yet, along the streets of the heart, past the dull fires of facts, past the nail-studded cross of bygone days and past the barbed hooks of the future, this caesura, the silence within oscillation, the moment of pause, most open and most secret form of being, the unemphatic beat of eternity in the very transitoriness of the world — Erich Maria Remarque

The wind sounds like a silver wire, And from beyond the noon a fire Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher The skies stoop down in their desire; And, isled in sudden seas of light, My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight, Bursts into blossom in his sight. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

My name might be Arrow, but it was Hopp who'd pierced my heart like one. I — Cambria Hebert

My bridled soul leaps under the pressure of desires,
Chained i am by this organic-societal form from galloping free
My mind heaves me to safety,but heart is ready for doom...
An all knowing glance pierced deep through my skin
Smiling at my ailing and confused form,
Invading my senses, feeding them to the eternal fires... — Gayathri Jayakumar

Strangely, what pierced his heart and mind most sharply was not the memory of her lips under his at the ball, but the way she had leaned into his neck, as if she trusted him utterly. He would have given everything he had in the world and everything he would ever have, just to lie beside her in the narrow infirmary bed and hold her while she slept. Pulling away from her had been like pulling his own skin off, but he'd had to do it. — Cassandra Clare

Fully revealed, the green eyes pierced her heart. In them, she sensed pain, loneliness and despair. Yet they weren't seeing her. Focused on the movement of the blade, the mesmerizing gaze seemed a world away. Stroke after stroke, the unmasked face appeared in the mirror. — Chris Lange

A sharp and familiar pang pierced his heart, rattled around his ribs, and then settled in his stomach like a rotting, dead weight. He took a swig of his Jack on the rocks, the burn not quite dulling the ache that had haunted him for two decades. God, he missed Anna. Enforcer's Redemption — Carrie Ann Ryan

Being without my dear one made my heart ache like it had been pierced with thousands of daggers that had been placed in ice and covered in salt. — Jillian Kleine Der Lowe

It is the heart that has been pierced that feels the most. — Jocelyn Murray

It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a man, I suppose it is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken-winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins, - all these are sad sights; but a backslider is a sadder sight still. That true grace shall never be extinguished, and true union with Christ never be broken off, I feel no doubt. But I do believe that a man may fall away so far that he shall lose sight of his own grace, and despair of his own salvation. And if this is not hell, it is certainly the next thing to it! A wounded conscience, a mind sick of itself, a memory full of self-reproach, a heart pierced through with the Lord's arrows, a spirit broken with a load of inward accusation, - all this is a taste of hell. It is a hell on earth. — J.C. Ryle

There are truths found in books or films when some writer puts exactly the right words together and it's like their pen turned sword and pierced you right through the heart. — Susan Juby

Eyes of steel gray pierced hers. "I'm right here if you need me, and I'm more than big enough to help you fight your demons. Just say the word." Her heart ached. She shifted closer to the reassuring bulk of him without a word. Expression softening, he cuddled her by curving his arm around her without blocking her in. — Nalini Singh

Another Weeping Woman
Pour the unhappiness out
From your too bitter heart,
Which grieving will not sweeten.
Poison grows in this dark.
It is in the water of tears
Its black blooms rise.
The magnificent cause of being,
The imagination, the one reality
In this imagined world
Leaves you
With him for whom no phantasy moves,
And you are pierced by a death. — Wallace Stevens

In the morning when he opened his eyes and when his glance fell upon the yellow linen of the curtain by the window, it seemed to him that its yellowness was suffused with the crimson of dark desire and that there was some strange and eerie tenseness in it. It seemed that the sun was insistently and fervently concentrating its burning and bitter rays towards this linen pierced by a golden color and summoning and demanding, and disturbing. And in reply to this fascinating external tension of gold and crimson the veins of the Youth were filled with a fiery agitation. His muscles were suffused with a resilient strength and his heart became like a spring of ardent fires. Sweetly pierced by millions of exciting, burning and arousing needles he leapt up from the bed and with a childlike gleeful laugh he began to leap and dance around the room without dressing.
("The Poison Garden") — Valery Bryusov

Your thoughts were deeper than your mind, your little eyes pierced through the heart of your nation. — Euginia Herlihy

She was the only person in the house, of either sex, who did not seem to have a heart pierced by the sorrow of thwarted love. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Aron said slowly. "I wouldn't want to know that. I'd like to know why you do it. You're always at something. I just wonder why you do it. I wonder what's it good for."
A pain pierced Cal's heart. His planning suddenly seemed mean and dirty to him. He knew that his brother had found him out. And he felt a longing for Aron to love him. He felt lost and hungry and he
didn't know what to do. — John Steinbeck

Who is this brave woman," he said softly between gasps, "who has pierced my heart?" Rivka smiled, at peace, and held him. She was still wearing her sword. — Shira Glassman

Sin pierced the very heart of God. God felt every piercing nail and spear thrust. God felt the burning sun. God felt the mocking derision and the body blows. — Billy Graham

Do you know what it's like to kill a man? You just pushed a knife into living, moving skin and you realize you pierced a heart that beats against your sharp knife.
-Lucas Tyrel — L'Poni Baldwin

This sound, which like all music--indeed, like all pleasure--I had been numbly unresponsive to for months, pierced my heart like a dagger, and in a flood of swift recollection I thought of all the joys the house had known: the children who had rushed through its rooms, the festivals, the love and work, the honestly earned slumber, the voices and the nimble commotion, the perennial tribe of cats and dogs and birds, "laughter and ability and Sighing, And Frocks and Curls." All this I realized was more than I could ever abandon, even as what I had set out so deliberately to do was more than I could inflict on those memories, and upon those, so close to me, with whom the memories were bound. And just as powerfully I realized I could not commit this desecration on myself. — William Styron

When the fight ends you can afford to relax. That's the worst part. Winner or loser you have again eyes to see around you. Blood, butchered bodies, bodies pierced by arrows. You stir inside, your heart tightens, the feeling of loss wells up. The sense of smell is the next thing to revive, adding a new dimension of pain. I closed the eyes of the last cadet, blue eyes, unseeing, his body, so small, almost a child, the youngest cadets were all gone, their faces surprised in death. Cold lips never able again to kiss a girl. It's then that the emptiness swallows you and you mourn inside. Damn you, Scharon. No! Damn you, Travellers. — Florian Armas

I don't know who-what-I am anymore."
"You're mine. That's all you need to understand." His grasp tightened around Gabriel like steel bands. "Mine to feed, mine to fuck. Mine to play with, punish, and protect. Say it." Gabriel's breath locked in his chest at his furious growl. The shifter snarled Gabriel's name against the tender skin of his throat in stark warning. Gabriel's heart thudded.
"I'm yours," he gasped, scrambling to remember it all. "Yours to feed, yours to fu-" Gabriel shouted when the sharp teeth pierced him. His dick happily stirred. — Kari Gregg

In the pierced heart of the Crucified, God's own heart is opened up - here we see who God is and what he is like. Heaven is no longer locked up. God has stepped out of his hiddenness — Pope Benedict XVI

When the heart is pierced, there is pain, yes, but also an invitation to a greater becoming. — Marianne Williamson

Christian, beware how thou thinkest lightly of sin. Take heed lest thou fall by little and little. Sin, a little thing? Is it not a poison? Who knows its deadliness? Sin, a little thing? Do not the little foxes spoil the grapes? Doth not the tiny coral insect build a rock which wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings wear away stones? Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer's head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be exceeding sinful. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The planet Venus, a circle of silver in a green sky, pierced the edge of the evening while the wintry woods darkened about me and in the stillness the regular sound of my footsteps striking the pavement was like a the rhythmic beating of a giant stone heart. — Gore Vidal

The word suffering is full and whole and perfect as a pierced heart, sweet, rushing and tender ... Suffering is the joy of someone about to be martyred, illumination of something given up as an offer. — Lydia Millet

It pierced the heart ... and there was blood all around ... soaking his hands in it, he tried wiping her tears ... — Anushka Bhartiya

This pen: this is nothing less than the driving of nails. Nails driving out my habits of discontent and driving in my habit of eucharisteo. I'm hammering in nails to pound out nails, ugly nails that Satan has pierced through the world, my heart. It starts to unfold, light in the dark, a door opening up, how all these years it's been utterly pointless to try to wrench out the spikes of discontent. Because that habit of discontentment can only be driven out by hammering in one iron sharper. The sleek pin of gratitude. I — Ann Voskamp

Whores, instead of claiming what's rightfully yours. Pierced a hole in my heart from all the pain you caused, with no direction you left your first born lost. — Ja Rule

Please, Orma, I've already gotten you in so much trouble - "
"That I can't possibly get into more. Take it." He wouldn't stop glaring at me until I'd put the earring back on its cord. "You are all that's left of Linn. Her own people won't even say her name. I - I value your continued existence."
I could not speak; he had pierced me to my very heart. — Rachel Hartman

Her tender feet felt as if cut with sharp knives, but she cared not for it; a sharper pang had pierced through her heart. — Hans Christian Andersen

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra
trafitto da un raggio di sole:
ed e subito sera
Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world,
pierced by a ray of sunlight,
and suddenly it's evening — Salvatore Quasimodo

She laughed, and the sound pierced his heart. — Carolyn Jewel

Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. 'If I understand aright all that I have heard,' he said, 'I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. — J.R.R. Tolkien

I went closer this time and touched him. He let out a deafening shriek, as if something had pierced into his heart. I held his hand and sat there, admiring the intricate network of life on them. The creases and folds in his body were testament to the cruelty that he had been subjected to in this world. The watery eyes screamed of the pain, the agonising wait to leave this godforsaken place forever, that had given him nothing but pleadings for mercy. — Ashay Abbhi

The concern and love I saw in her features pierced my heart, and like that, the anger went out of me. — Richelle Mead

The door opened. Avery stayed right there, keeping his back to the room, covering Kane. Kane's eyes darted up to Avery's, they connected and held. Avery only stopped kissing him. He continued the gentle massage on his cock, staying right there in Kane's face. Those eyes pierced his with an intensity that somehow matched the pounding of his heart. — Kindle Alexander

Ingredient 2: Sorrow for Sin "I will be sorry for my sin" (Psa 38:18). Ambrose calls sorrow the embittering of the soul. The Hebrew word "to be sorrowful" signifies "to have the soul, as it were, crucified." This must be in true repentance: "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn" (Zec 12:10), as if they did feel the nails of the cross sticking in their sides. A woman may as well expect to have a child without pangs as one can have repentance without sorrow. He that can believe without doubting, suspect his faith; and he that can repent without sorrowing, suspect his repentance. Martyrs shed blood for Christ, and penitents shed tears for sin: "she ... stood at his [Jesus'] feet ... weeping" (Luk 7:38). See how this limbeck[19] dropped. The sorrow of her heart ran out at her eye ... — Thomas Watson

Their love was equal; on the hills they roamed together, and together they would go back to their cave; and this time too they went into the Lapith's palace side by side and side by side were fighting in the fray. A javelin (no knowing from whose hand) came from the left and wounded Cyllarus, landing below the place where the chest joins neck
slight wound, but when the point was pulled away, cold grew his damaged heart and cold his limbs. Hylonome embraced him as he died, caressed the wound and, putting lips to lips, she tried to stay his spirit as it fled. And when she saw him lifeless, she moaned words that in that uproar failed to reach my ears; and fell upon the spear that pierced her love, and, dying, held her husband in her arms. — Ovid

Soon the child's clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions, and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, we become seekers. — Peter Matthiessen

It was cold. Really cold. And there was an awful scurrying noise that definitely belong to a small, four-legged creature.Or even worse, a large, four-legged creature. Or to be more precise, a large version of a small, four-legged creature.
Rats.
"Oh,God," Sophie moaned. She didn't often take the Lord's name in vain, but now seemed as good a time as any to start. Maybe He would hear, and maybe He would smite the rats. Yes, that would do very nicely.A big jolt of lightning. Huge. Of biblical proportions. It could hit the earth, spread little electrical tentacles around the globe, and sizzle all the rats dead.
It was a lovely dream. Right up there with the ones in which she found herself living happily ever after as Mrs. Benedict Bridgerton.
Sophie took a quick gasp as a sudden stab of pain pierced her heart. Of the two dreams, she feared that the genocide of the rats might be the more likely to come true. — Julia Quinn

The man in her dream would ride up and surprise her on his horse ... saying her beauty pierced such a great place in his heart. — Kaye Gibbons

I can't remember the poem
That pierced through my heart
It was the saddest I heard
Of all truths ever spoken
It left a scar in me
A wound that doesn't heal
But the words are forgotten
So is a big part of me — A.A. Patawaran