Quotes & Sayings About The Heart Wants What It Can't Have

Believing, repenting, and the like, are the product of the new nature; and can never be produced by the old corrupt nature ... as the child cannot be active in his own generation, so a man cannot be active in his own regeneration. The heart is shut against Christ: man cannot open it, only God can do it by his grace. — Thomas Boston

You can't control everything, and matters of the heart are one of those things. The heart wants what the heart wants and you gotta let it have it. Everyone will get hurt at some point, but don't think about that. Think about now. — Emma Hart

Is it the gods who set this fire in our hearts, or do we each make our fierce desire into a god? — Ursula K. Le Guin

The goal was never dependent on the route that took me there. It was always dependent on the heart that got me through whatever route opened itself up to my efforts. — Daniel Pearce

When those eyes of fire discover a heart that is fully set to love Him through wholehearted obedience, no matter their station or ranking, He is moved. — Anna Blanc

Red, brown, yellow, green, black. Five colours to say everything that could be said. And what Cy suddenly wanted, more than anything in the world just then, what he wanted was that missing blue, primary and resistant to the trade. Blue that was unstable and misbehaved when left in skin. Blue like the sea that had taken his father. Blue, for his mother's sake, and for the true colour of every bereaved and bloodless heart when it is collapsing. — Sarah Hall

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity ... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough ... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes- dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery. — Raymond B. Fosdick

That's too bad, because you're going to get me," I say hoarsely, and her struggles abruptly cease. "You're going to get these rough hands that need to touch you. These eyes that will never tire of looking at you. These arms that will hold you steady or lift you up whenever you need their strength. This head that's crazy about every little thing you do." My voice deepens. "And you're going to get this heart that's already falling in love with you. — Kati Wilde

He always ran away from the battle with himself. Even in his own heart's privacy, he excused himself, saying, If she hadn't said so-and-so, it would never have happened. — D.H. Lawrence

Look at your life. Look at the ways in which you define who you are and what you're capable of achieving. Look at your goals. Look at the pressures applied by the people around you and the culture in which you were raised. Look again. And again. Keep looking until you realize, within your own experience, that you're so much more than who you believe you are. Keep looking until you discover the wondrous heart, the marvelous mind, that is the very basis of your being. — Tsoknyi Rinpoche

This is what I have.
The dull hangover of waiting,
the blush of my heart on the damp grass,
the flower-faced moon.
A gull broods on the shore
where a moment ago there were two.
Softly my right hand fondles my left hand
as though it were you. — Mary Oliver

It's your heart. No one else gets a say in that. — Jay Asher

Oh shit, i think. my cheeks are on fire; my heart starts to pound. — Jodi Picoult

What you call the psychic being is the mind of the vital. The heart is the seat of this mind. And this mind is the essence of the senses. It receives things from outside, acts upon things that are outside - knows, gives consent, takes interest in them. But this mind cannot be the Ishwara, but it is the knower, the giver of the consent. — Sri Aurobindo

FAIR river! in thy bright, clear flow Of crystal, wandering water, Thou art an emblem of the glow Of beauty - the unhidden heart - The playful maziness of art In old Alberto's daughter; But when within thy wave she looks - Which glistens then, and trembles - Why, then, the prettiest of brooks Her worshipper resembles; For in his heart, as in thy stream, Her image deeply lies - His heart which trembles at the beam Of her soul-searching eyes. — Edgar Allan Poe

What of us lies in the hearts of others is our truest and deepest self. — Johann Gottfried Herder

David tried to give a form to the beast at the heart of the poem but found that he could not. It was more difficult than it appeared, for nothing quite seemed to fit. Instead, he could only conjure up a half-formed being that crouched in the cobwebbed corners of his imagination where all the things that he feared curled and slithered upon one another in the darkness. — John Connolly

No matter how widely you have travelled, you haven't seen the world if you have failed to look into the human hearts that inhabit it. — Donald C. Peattie

Sometimes, in order to achieve our goals, we have to change ourselves. Sometimes we have to change ourselves just to survive. We might worry that we're becoming an entirely different person. But this is often what's required to move on to the place we want to be.

If the goal is passion, the kind of passion that leads to love, you can pretty much guarantee that the journey is going to change you. But the one thing that never changes is the heart. And since the heart wants what the damn heart wants, be prepared to probably get the shit kicked out of you for a while to make it happen.

But if you can hold tight and white-knuckle the turbulence, it's usually a worthwhile trip.

Because the destination is fucking fabulous. — Darien Cox

She didn't tell me that she found life to be so unbearably painful. I mean, I didn't even have a clue. A kind of laugh escapes, and I know that if I'm not very careful, what follows will be something I don't want to hear, that no one wants to hear. How can you not know that about your best friend? Even if she doesn't tell you, how can you not know? How can you believe someone to be beautiful and amazing and just about the most magical person you've ever known, when it turns out she was in such pain that she had to drink poison that robbed her cells of oxygen until her heart had no choice but to stop beating? So don't ask me about Meg. Because I don't know shit. — Gayle Forman

We all want to be in the center of God's will. That's why we shouldn't pursue a career, move to another place, or make any major life change without knowing that it is the will of God. The way we find out is to regularly ask God to show us what His will is and then ask Him to lead us in it. When you ask Him to speak to your heart, He will do that. He will give you peace about a certain thing and lack of peace about others. What joy to have peace that as we confidently set foot in a certain direction, God is leading us on that particular path. We can be confident that whatever happens along the way, we don't have to worry because we are right where God wants us to be. — Stormie O'martian

A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. We think we can have our emotions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for. Strangely enough, that is what makes them fine. The intellectual and emotional life of ordinary people is a very contemptible affair. Just as they borrow their ideas from a sort of circulating library of thought - -the Zeitgeist of an age that has no soul - -and send them back soiled at the end of each week, so they always try to get their emotions on credit, and refuse to pay the bill when it comes in. You should pass out of that conception of life. As soon as you have to pay for an emotion you will know its quality, and be the better for such knowledge. And remember that the sentimentalist is always a cynic at heart. Indeed, sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism. — Oscar Wilde

A woman or man of value doesn't love you because of what he or she wants you to be or do for them. He or she loves you because your combined souls understand one another, complements each other, and make sense above any other person in this world. You each share a part of their soul's mirror and see each other's light reflected in it clearly. You can easily speak from the heart and feel safe doing so. Both of you have been traveling a parallel road your entire life. Without each other's presence, you feel like an old friend or family member was lost. It bothers you, not because you have given it too much meaning, but because God did. This is the type of person you don't have to fight for because you can't get rid of them and your heart doesn't want them to leave anyways. — Shannon L. Alder

It's saying no. That's your first hint that something's alive. It says no. That's how you know a baby is starting to turn into a person. They run around saying no all day, throwing their aliveness at everything to see what it'll stick to. You can't say no if you don't have desires and opinions and wants of your own. You wouldn't even want to. No is the heart of thinking. — Catherynne M Valente

Her eyes heated with the anger and hurt that had been held inside her
for too long. "Your trips to the village have not gone unnoticed."
A look of confusion crossed his too-handsome face. "What does my
going to the village have to do with us?"
"I know there are women
"
He swore and gripped her arm, jerked her up against his chest. "Who
put such nonsense in your head?"
She didn't say anything, her throat hot and tight from the ball of tears
constricting it.
"Finlay," he said flatly. She looked at him in surprise. " 'Tis no secret
that he despises me, but I am surprised that you listened to his venom."
"It's not too difficult to believe. You are a man."
"Aye," he said softly. "But I've not had another woman, Elizabeth."
Her heart faltered. Her eyes shot to his, not daring to believe ... He
cradled her cheek tenderly in his big hand.
"How can I when I want someone else?"
He hasn't been with a woman ... he wants me. — Monica McCarty

Praying to God involves both us and God. God wants us to participate in what he is doing, and for sure one of the main ways we participate in what he is doing is by prayer. We can also participate in what he is doing by feeding the hungry and helping the poor and caring for the sick and giving of our resources to those who have little. God wants us to partner with him. So there is a paradox at work, and a mystery. On the one hand, the Bible says that apart from God we can do nothing. And yet, on the other hand, God invites us to do some things with him. This is at the heart of the mystery of prayer. God wants us to use our faith and to pray. But we can focus so much on the importance of our faith and our prayers that we forget about God and think it is our faith and our prayers that perform the miracle, rather than the God to whom we pray and in whom we have faith as we pray. — Eric Metaxas

To heal will require real effort, and a change of heart, from all of us. To heal means that we will begin to look upon one another with respect and tolerance instead of prejudice, distrust and hatred. We will have to teach our children-as well as ourselves-to love the diversity of humanity ... We can do it. Yes, you and I and all of us together. Now is the time. Now is the only possible time. Let the Great Healing begin. — Leonard Peltier

The sorrow of war inside a soldier's heart was in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love. It was a kind of nostalgia, like the immense sadness of a world at dusk. It was a daness, a missing, a pain which could send one soaring back into the past. The sorrow of the battlefield could not normally be pinpointed to one particular event, or even one person. If you focused on any one event it would soon become a tearing pain. — Bao Ninh

You don't have to place your hand on Mary's heart to get strength and consolation and rescue, and all the other things we need to get through life. You can place it right here on your own heart. Your own heart. — Sue Monk Kidd

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
this brokenness inside me might start healing.
Out here its like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself
if I could just come in I swear I'll leave.
Won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me. — Miranda Lambert

I wrote and wrote and poured out my twenty one year old heart into those pages. — Preeti Shenoy

Not everyone can feel things as deeply as you. Most people, their feelings are ... bland, tasteless. They'll never understand what it's like to read a poem and feel almost like they're flying, or to see a bleeding fish and feel grief that shatters their heart. It's not a weakness, Grey. It's what I love about you most. — Juliann Garey

An education, then, is a constellation of practices, rituals, and routines that inculcates a particular vision of the good life by inscribing or infusing that vision into the heart (the gut) by means of material, embodied practices. And this will be true even of the most instrumentalist, pragmatic programs of education (such as those that now tend to dominate public schools and universities bent on churning out "skilled workers") that see their task primarily as providing information, because behind this is a vision of the good life that understands human flourishing primarily in terms of production and consumption. Behind the veneer of a "value-free" education concerned with providing skills, knowledge, and information is an educational vision that remains formative. — James K.A. Smith

Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
Being openhearted you will act royally.
Being royal, you will attain the divine.
Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
Though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away. — Laozi

It was only a hopeless fantasy,
it passed like an april day,
but a look and a word and the dreams they stirred
they have stolen my heart away. — George Orwell

Like a butcher sharpening knife on knife
I sharpen heart on heart inside me. — Yehuda Amichai

What's happened to my life? These ten-year chunks that are doled out to you in passports are a cruel form of memento mori. How many more new passports will I have? One (1965)? Two (1975)? Such a long way off, 1975, yet your passport life seems all too brief. How long did he live? He managed to renew six passports. — William Boyd

True culture is in the mind, the mind," he said, and tapped his head, "the mind." "It's in the heart," she said, "and in how you do things and how you do things is because of who you are." "Nobody in the damn bus cares who you are." "I care who I am," she said icily. — Flannery O'Connor

Courage, Brave Heart — C.S. Lewis

Every time I set my face to seeking God in a fresh way, God begins to change my heart, my mind, my preaching, and my leadership skills. When any believer commits his or her heart to seeking the Lord, everything is going to change. — Daniel Henderson

She is so stubborn, her heart has an argument with her head every time it wants to beat. — Catherynne M Valente

I think the Dutch certainly get British comedy. And let's face it; a lot of it is pretty low-hanging fruit for the whole world now. There are probably tribes in the heart of the Papua New Guinean rainforest that know all the words to the Dead Parrot sketch. — Rhianna Pratchett

What fun it is to generalize in the privacy of a note book. It is as I imagine waltzing on ice might be. A great delicious sweep in one direction, taking you your full strength, and then with no trouble at all, an equally delicious sweep in the opposite direction. My note book does not help me think, but it eases my crabbed heart. — Florida Scott-Maxwell

Beyond the curve of the days he glimpsed neither superhuman happiness nor eternity - happiness was human, eternity ordinary. What mattered was to humble himself, to organize his heart to match the rhythm of the days instead of submitting their rhythm to the curve of human hopes. — Albert Camus

Infidelity is one of those coinages,-a mass of base money that won't pass current with any heart that loves truly, or any head that thinks correctly. And infidels are poor sad creatures; they carry about them a load of dejection and desolation, not the less heavy that it is invisible. It is the fearful blindness of the soul. — Thomas Chalmers

When the songs of your heart start singing, you should listen ... for its harmony will bring you happiness and the melody is the voice of your true spirit. — Paulo Coelho

We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart. — Jack Kornfield

So Captain Faith conducted the prince and his mighty captains and men of war into the castle in the very heart of Mansoul. Prince Emmanuel had come home. — Ethel Barrett