Wilhelm von Humboldt Quotes

Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness. They may not wear it on their sleeves, but it's there if you look deep.

That grief is the most durable which flows inward, and buries its streams with its fountain, in the depths of the heart.

There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts.

Like them you are tall and taciturn, and you are sad, all at once, like a voyage.

Lofty mountains are full of springs; great hearts are full of tears.

She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she could not talk of outside matters.

Amid my list of blessings infinite, stands this the foremost, "that my heart has bled."

Trifling trouble find utterance; deeply felt pangs are silent.

It is those who make the least display of their sorrow who mourn the deepest.

The only question that nobody ever asks is: What breaks your heart? I think that should be asked of all "artists."... So, what breaks your heart?

...the heart has no tears to give,--it drops only blood, bleeding itself away in silence.

I went inside my heart to see how it was. Something there makes me hear the whole world weeping.

It is not, nor it cannot, come to good, But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?

I learned that the world didn't see the inside of you, that it didn't care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.

The mind wants to forget because it weighs so much on the heart and soul. I am tired of crying and feeling so helpless. I want to breathe again -just for a little while.

Dona Crista laughed a bit. "Oh, Pip, I'd be glad for you to try. But do believe me, my dear friend, touching her heart is like bathing in ice." I imagine. I imagine it feels like bathing in ice to the person touching her. But how does it feel to her? Cold as she is, it must surely burn like fire.

Does the human heart know chasms so abysmal?

I can still see her face -- The sorrow in her eyes, her voice, as she condemns me. I didn't know it was possible to feel such shame. To feel so sick at heart. I'm lost inside, my soul -- all that I thought I was, and am, and ever will be -- shattered, cast to the winds. Compared to this, death is a mercy.

Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart.

Everyone understands the pain that accompanies death, but genuine pain doesn't live in the spirit, nor in the air, nor in our lives, nor on these terraces of billowing smoke. The genuine pain that keeps everything awake is a tiny, infinite burn on the innocent eyes of other systems.

May I strike my heart's keys clearly, and may none fail because of slack, uncertain, or fraying strings. May the tears that stream down my face make me more radiant: may my hidden weeping bloom.... How we waste our afflictions!... [T]hey're really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only a season—: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode.

He was healthier than the rest of us, but when you listened with the stethoscope you could hear the tears bubbling inside his heart.

My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.

We are the breakers of our own hearts