His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.
At 15 I set my heart on learning; At 30 I firmly took my stand; At 40 I had no delusions; At 50 I knew the Mandate of Heaven; At 60 my ear was attuned; At 70 I followed my heart's desire without overstepping the boundaries of right.
Peace in the world depends on peace in the hearts of individuals; this depends on each of us practising ethics by disciplining our negative thoughts and emotions, and developing basic spiritual qualities.
The heart is the perfection of the whole organism. Therefore the principles of the power of perception and the souls ability to nourish itself must lie in the heart.
Even if our every attempt is a failure, and we bleed and are torn asunder, yet, through all this, we have to preserve our heart - we must assert our Godhead in the midst of all these difficulties.
When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect - they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul - not of intellect, or of heart.
For years afterwards 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 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.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been - alone, As all must be, I said within my heart, Whether they work together or apart.
Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.
It is astonishing, how many difficulties clear up without any effort when the inner life gets straightened out. If half the time we spend trying to fix up outward things were spent in getting our hearts right, we would be delighted with the result. Strange as it may seem, harmony within our hearts depends mostly upon our getting into harmony with God.
When he takes the knife to the canvass the servants find him lying dead with a knife through is heart and "withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage." and the portrait "in all the wonders of his exquisite youth and beauty." p 349
The heart's affections are divided like the branches of the cedar tree; if the tree loses one strong branch; it will suffer but it does not die; it will pour all its vitality into the next branch so that it will grow and fill the empty place.